7 ms·

Peter Thiel on the future of Libertarianism, politics, and technology

37 points by sama 18y ago

biohacker42 18y ago
A sad yet realistic summary of representative democracy. Also his cyberspace and seasteading ideas are far too optimistic. High tax governments are currently going after tax heavens, even as old and diplomatic strong ones as Switzerland. What changes does your sea outpost have against the world? But he's missed out on two important things. First democracies tend to follow a long term cycle of government boom and bust. See Sweden and Great Britain. The general patter is the government grows until it's too big to be effective and then it collapses. The other example is direct democracy like Switzerland, that's also worth examining.
- trickjarrett 18y ago
  The direct democracy is something I've toying around with. The Republic arose because it was not feasible to have thousands of people vote on every decision a government needed to make, obviously. However as technology advances there is a very real possibility that we'll see more direct democracies arise as technology simplifies those voting procedures (assuming we ever reach a satisfactory security level on digital voting.)
  - jacoblyles 18y ago
    I don't see what's so beneficial about direct democracy. Sure, it whets our 21st century egalitarian appetite. However, while populist sentiment is sometimes correct and sometimes disastrous, it is never created by any sort of rational decision-making process. I have a hard time thinking of reasons why direct democracy is an optimal government structure.
    - biohacker42 18y ago
      I have an easy time thinking of examples of why direct democracy is an optimal government structure. Switzerland. It has a long history of direct democracy, compare how it has been governed with how the other democracies have been governed. There's no need to get all abstract when there are real world examples.
      - jacoblyles 18y ago
        It's also a federalist system with unique geography and a smaller population than New York City. Their example might not be portable. It's worth thinking of different alternatives, rather than generalizing from a sample size of one. Hong Kong and Singapore are also good examples of well-run states that are completely different. Hong Kong has the same population as Switzerland.
        biohacker42 18y ago
        That's a good point, all of those places are tiny places. Still, I'd like to think that Switzerland can be scaled up. As well functioning as Singapore is, I don't want to see that scaled up.
    - zzzmarcus 18y ago
      In any democracy, direct or representative, the majority has the power to take from the minority. If there's something the majority wants that the minority has, they can just vote it away from them. Conversely, if there's something the minority has, but wants to keep from the majority, again, they just vote to keep it from them. It's an inherently unequal, unsustainable and unfair system. I don't see how either form of it is optimal, ever.
  - SamAtt 18y ago
    At least in the United States that isn't true. In the U.S. the republic was constructed as a way for the well educated to trump the masses if need be. That's the original reason for the Electoral College and that's why the U.S. Senate was originally filled with people appointed by state governments. I'm not saying our Government wasn't built around a populist ideal and in the end I think the Framers trusted the public to appoint worthwhile people. But the republic our system is based around was created specifically to shield government against the knee jerk reactions of the masses
- jacoblyles 18y ago
  The strongest point in favor of seasteading is that, if successful, it will allow people to experiment with many forms of government, including variants of democracy. Currently, the government industry has an extremely high barrier to entry, which has resulted in stagnation and inefficiency.
- tc 18y ago
  (replying to this thread because the parent was killed) I object to this submission being killed. I understand the desire to keep HN 'pure,' but Peter Thiel is interesting to hackers and founders in the same way that a PG essay is interesting even if it is not a direct dissertation on Lisp or startups.
xenophanes 18y ago
I agree with a lot of what he says, but not with his extremely pessimistic conclusion. It's not time to just give up on all existing countries! Separate issue: Karl Popper (a friend of freedom) argued that democracy is good because it allows for non-violent changes in Government. I think Thiel should be careful in attacking democracy itself: what non-violent alternatives are there? Suppose we form a libertarian sea steading or outer space colony. What system of Government does Thiel imagine libertarians would use if not democracy?
- byrneseyeview 18y ago
  They could use overlapping corporate jurisdictions. If you don't like how things are being run, you pay someone else to enforce your contracts. You might have different service providers for, say, IP versus personal safety versus family law. And since they'd compete, it would allow people to coexist with wildly different legal regimes. You could have a drug-prohibiting regime (or even one that fines you for alcohol consumption) -- but your neighbors might not.
  - mindslight 18y ago
    Few would sign up for a regime that prevented only their use of drugs. One would either sign up for a regime that didn't care about drugs, or one that punished others for using drugs, as a moral crusade.
    - byrneseyeview 18y ago
      A regime that punished people outside of its jurisdiction would not last very long. It would be the equivalent to what a war is today. I suspect that people would join such a regime for religious reasons. If you're the only member of your congregation who chooses not to be punished for having a beer, not having a kid, flipping a light switch on the Sabbath, etc., your peers may take note and decide you're not really serious.
      - mindslight 18y ago
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
- jacoblyles 18y ago
  That's exactly what he's doing. You do know about the Seasteading Institute, right?
- asciilifeform 18y ago
  > Buy a cruise ship or rent land from a country somewhere. Obtaining land is not the most difficult or expensive part of the proposition. Rather, finding modern weaponry (and people willing to man it, to the death if need be) is the real deal-killer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_minerva http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_minerva One could even argue that nuclear weapons (and strategic missiles) are necessary for true sovereignty. Without them, any "real" country is free to "spread democracy" to your shores.
- mindslight 18y ago
  It sounds like you're missing the point. It's not about creating a top-down libertopia to prove that a "libertarian society" can work. It's a matter of facilitating technology such that many such little jurisdictions can spring up, and individuals can easily move between them.
  - asciilifeform 18y ago
    > such little jurisdictions can spring up, and individuals can easily move between them Unless you are capable of defending your country from a serious (read: US or NATO) invasion force, you are merely playing at sovereignty. You will be free to do what you like as long as it does not seriously upset established regimes. In that case, what is the point of starting a new country?
    - lionheart 18y ago
      Short of the few countries in the world who have nukes, I would say that nobody can defend themselves from a US or NATO invasion.
smanek 18y ago
H.L. Mencken: Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
asciilifeform 18y ago
A must-read for would-be seasteaders: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3328/floating_utopias/ http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3328/floating_utopias/ "Big capital will support tax-lowering measures, of course, but it does not need to piss and moan about taxes with the tedious relentlessness of the libertarian. Big capital, with its ranks of accountant-Houdinis, just gets on with not paying it."
jfarmer 18y ago
I'm sorry, but this paragraph: "Indeed, even more pessimistically, the trend has been going the wrong way for a long time. To return to finance, the last economic depression in the United States that did not result in massive government intervention was the collapse of 1920–21. It was sharp but short, and entailed the sort of Schumpeterian “creative destruction” that could lead to a real boom. The decade that followed — the roaring 1920s — was so strong that historians have forgotten the depression that started it. The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron." is just terrible. "[T]he extension of the franchise to women ... [has] rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron." Even the most generous interpretation of that sentence is very illiberal. Well, if they don't agree with us and we're right, maybe they just shouldn't be allowed vote. They obviously don't know what's best for themselves, those women and welfare beneficiaries. Really? And also is the 1920s really the decade we want to hold up as the last great decade in America? The whole article swings violently between utopianism and nihilism. I find it very depressing.
- jdminhbg 18y ago
  Women's suffrage is generally acknowledged to have resulted in the passage of Prohibition, and Prohibition is generally acknowledged to be a mistake. Why couldn't other mistakes have their roots in suffrage? That doesn't mean that suffrage was itself a mistake or should be repealed, just that there could be bad effects as well as good. I'm generally libertarian, and regard the extension of the welfare state as bad, but I'd regard the political inequality of half the populace as far worse.
  - jfarmer 18y ago
    The contrapositive of his statement is: IF you believe in capitalist democracy THEN you cannot have universal suffrage. Since he believes in capitalist democracy, presumably he also believes you cannot have universal suffrage. Actually, he's more explicit than that. He doesn't believe you can have democracy at all if you're a capitalist: "I no longer believe that freedom [read: capitalism] and democracy are compatible." So, sounds like that's exactly what he's saying.
daniel-cussen 18y ago
What about Chile? We have a real democracy, when we bailed out the banks in 1982 the bank boards got thrown out on the street and the taxpayers got all the shares and made a profit, and there is still rule of law. Entrepreneurs effectively pay no taxes. We have a democracy and have our shit together.
- jfarmer 17y ago
  He's not arguing for "real democracy" -- he's arguing against democracy altogether. He believes that capitalism and democracy are mutually incompatible. Maybe Chile is a counterexample, I don't know, but I don't think he's looking to salvage democracy. He's looking to jettison it.
MaysonL 17y ago
See: http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/05/cato-institute-crashed-burned-and-smoking-watch.html http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/05/cato-institute-crashed...

37 points by sama 18y ago

A sad yet realistic summary of representative democracy. Also his cyberspace and seasteading ideas are far too optimistic. High tax governments are currently going after tax heavens, even as old and diplomatic strong ones as Switzerland. What changes does your sea outpost have against the world? But he's missed out on two important things. First democracies tend to follow a long term cycle of government boom and bust. See Sweden and Great Britain. The general patter is the government grows until it's too big to be effective and then it collapses. The other example is direct democracy like Switzerland, that's also worth examining.

trickjarrett 18y ago
The direct democracy is something I've toying around with. The Republic arose because it was not feasible to have thousands of people vote on every decision a government needed to make, obviously. However as technology advances there is a very real possibility that we'll see more direct democracies arise as technology simplifies those voting procedures (assuming we ever reach a satisfactory security level on digital voting.)
- jacoblyles 18y ago
  I don't see what's so beneficial about direct democracy. Sure, it whets our 21st century egalitarian appetite. However, while populist sentiment is sometimes correct and sometimes disastrous, it is never created by any sort of rational decision-making process. I have a hard time thinking of reasons why direct democracy is an optimal government structure.
  - biohacker42 18y ago
    I have an easy time thinking of examples of why direct democracy is an optimal government structure. Switzerland. It has a long history of direct democracy, compare how it has been governed with how the other democracies have been governed. There's no need to get all abstract when there are real world examples.
    - jacoblyles 18y ago
      It's also a federalist system with unique geography and a smaller population than New York City. Their example might not be portable. It's worth thinking of different alternatives, rather than generalizing from a sample size of one. Hong Kong and Singapore are also good examples of well-run states that are completely different. Hong Kong has the same population as Switzerland.
      - biohacker42 18y ago
        That's a good point, all of those places are tiny places. Still, I'd like to think that Switzerland can be scaled up. As well functioning as Singapore is, I don't want to see that scaled up.
  - zzzmarcus 18y ago
    In any democracy, direct or representative, the majority has the power to take from the minority. If there's something the majority wants that the minority has, they can just vote it away from them. Conversely, if there's something the minority has, but wants to keep from the majority, again, they just vote to keep it from them. It's an inherently unequal, unsustainable and unfair system. I don't see how either form of it is optimal, ever.
- SamAtt 18y ago
  At least in the United States that isn't true. In the U.S. the republic was constructed as a way for the well educated to trump the masses if need be. That's the original reason for the Electoral College and that's why the U.S. Senate was originally filled with people appointed by state governments. I'm not saying our Government wasn't built around a populist ideal and in the end I think the Framers trusted the public to appoint worthwhile people. But the republic our system is based around was created specifically to shield government against the knee jerk reactions of the masses
jacoblyles 18y ago
The strongest point in favor of seasteading is that, if successful, it will allow people to experiment with many forms of government, including variants of democracy. Currently, the government industry has an extremely high barrier to entry, which has resulted in stagnation and inefficiency.
tc 18y ago
(replying to this thread because the parent was killed) I object to this submission being killed. I understand the desire to keep HN 'pure,' but Peter Thiel is interesting to hackers and founders in the same way that a PG essay is interesting even if it is not a direct dissertation on Lisp or startups.

xenophanes 18y ago

I agree with a lot of what he says, but not with his extremely pessimistic conclusion. It's not time to just give up on all existing countries! Separate issue: Karl Popper (a friend of freedom) argued that democracy is good because it allows for non-violent changes in Government. I think Thiel should be careful in attacking democracy itself: what non-violent alternatives are there? Suppose we form a libertarian sea steading or outer space colony. What system of Government does Thiel imagine libertarians would use if not democracy?

byrneseyeview 18y ago
They could use overlapping corporate jurisdictions. If you don't like how things are being run, you pay someone else to enforce your contracts. You might have different service providers for, say, IP versus personal safety versus family law. And since they'd compete, it would allow people to coexist with wildly different legal regimes. You could have a drug-prohibiting regime (or even one that fines you for alcohol consumption) -- but your neighbors might not.
- mindslight 18y ago
  Few would sign up for a regime that prevented only their use of drugs. One would either sign up for a regime that didn't care about drugs, or one that punished others for using drugs, as a moral crusade.
  - byrneseyeview 18y ago
    A regime that punished people outside of its jurisdiction would not last very long. It would be the equivalent to what a war is today. I suspect that people would join such a regime for religious reasons. If you're the only member of your congregation who chooses not to be punished for having a beer, not having a kid, flipping a light switch on the Sabbath, etc., your peers may take note and decide you're not really serious.
    - mindslight 18y ago

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

jacoblyles 18y ago
That's exactly what he's doing. You do know about the Seasteading Institute, right?
asciilifeform 18y ago
> Buy a cruise ship or rent land from a country somewhere. Obtaining land is not the most difficult or expensive part of the proposition. Rather, finding modern weaponry (and people willing to man it, to the death if need be) is the real deal-killer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_minerva http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_minerva One could even argue that nuclear weapons (and strategic missiles) are necessary for true sovereignty. Without them, any "real" country is free to "spread democracy" to your shores.
mindslight 18y ago
It sounds like you're missing the point. It's not about creating a top-down libertopia to prove that a "libertarian society" can work. It's a matter of facilitating technology such that many such little jurisdictions can spring up, and individuals can easily move between them.
- asciilifeform 18y ago
  > such little jurisdictions can spring up, and individuals can easily move between them Unless you are capable of defending your country from a serious (read: US or NATO) invasion force, you are merely playing at sovereignty. You will be free to do what you like as long as it does not seriously upset established regimes. In that case, what is the point of starting a new country?
  - lionheart 18y ago
    Short of the few countries in the world who have nukes, I would say that nobody can defend themselves from a US or NATO invasion.

smanek 18y ago

H.L. Mencken: Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.

asciilifeform 18y ago

A must-read for would-be seasteaders: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3328/floating_utopias/ http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3328/floating_utopias/ "Big capital will support tax-lowering measures, of course, but it does not need to piss and moan about taxes with the tedious relentlessness of the libertarian. Big capital, with its ranks of accountant-Houdinis, just gets on with not paying it."

jfarmer 18y ago

I'm sorry, but this paragraph: "Indeed, even more pessimistically, the trend has been going the wrong way for a long time. To return to finance, the last economic depression in the United States that did not result in massive government intervention was the collapse of 1920–21. It was sharp but short, and entailed the sort of Schumpeterian “creative destruction” that could lead to a real boom. The decade that followed — the roaring 1920s — was so strong that historians have forgotten the depression that started it. The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron." is just terrible. "[T]he extension of the franchise to women ... [has] rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron." Even the most generous interpretation of that sentence is very illiberal. Well, if they don't agree with us and we're right, maybe they just shouldn't be allowed vote. They obviously don't know what's best for themselves, those women and welfare beneficiaries. Really? And also is the 1920s really the decade we want to hold up as the last great decade in America? The whole article swings violently between utopianism and nihilism. I find it very depressing.

jdminhbg 18y ago
Women's suffrage is generally acknowledged to have resulted in the passage of Prohibition, and Prohibition is generally acknowledged to be a mistake. Why couldn't other mistakes have their roots in suffrage? That doesn't mean that suffrage was itself a mistake or should be repealed, just that there could be bad effects as well as good. I'm generally libertarian, and regard the extension of the welfare state as bad, but I'd regard the political inequality of half the populace as far worse.
- jfarmer 18y ago
  The contrapositive of his statement is: IF you believe in capitalist democracy THEN you cannot have universal suffrage. Since he believes in capitalist democracy, presumably he also believes you cannot have universal suffrage. Actually, he's more explicit than that. He doesn't believe you can have democracy at all if you're a capitalist: "I no longer believe that freedom [read: capitalism] and democracy are compatible." So, sounds like that's exactly what he's saying.

daniel-cussen 18y ago

What about Chile? We have a real democracy, when we bailed out the banks in 1982 the bank boards got thrown out on the street and the taxpayers got all the shares and made a profit, and there is still rule of law. Entrepreneurs effectively pay no taxes. We have a democracy and have our shit together.

jfarmer 17y ago
He's not arguing for "real democracy" -- he's arguing against democracy altogether. He believes that capitalism and democracy are mutually incompatible. Maybe Chile is a counterexample, I don't know, but I don't think he's looking to salvage democracy. He's looking to jettison it.

MaysonL 17y ago

See: http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/05/cato-institute-crashed-burned-and-smoking-watch.html http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/05/cato-institute-crashed...