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Don't get me wrong, I really like Peter Thiel, but it's hard to consider him 'Libertarian', whilst selling advanced snooping software to the U.S. government.
by vegancap 11y ago
Don't get me wrong, I really like Peter Thiel, but it's hard to consider him 'Libertarian', whilst selling advanced snooping software to the U.S. government.
- stillsut 11y agoWhy? Libertarians think gov't is needed for certain institutions like an army, or a justice system.
- jMyles 11y agoSome do; some don't. But that's not the point: most "libertarians" seem to believe that the ostensible usefulness of the nanny state can be eliminated by people choosing to do good and engaging in market activity with others who do good. So profiting from something that's so evil is, to this way of thinking, counter-libertarian.
- DickingAround 11y agoNecessary, but to be kept at a minimum. Especially when there's no pressing need; no active invasion of the US or imminent risk of one.
- praxeologist 11y agoLogically consistent libertarianism requires anarchy. More here if you like to know why: http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/block_radical-libertarianism-rp.pdf http://www.walterblock.com/wp-content/uploads/publications/b...
- baldfat 11y agoI get the funniest looks when someone says that they are a Libertarian. My response is oh your an anarchist, but at what level? EDIT: The libertarian looks at me funny. Seriously, libertarians have no idea of the history of the political movement they are involved in.
- praxeologist 11y agoYou get or give funny looks when some one says they are a libertarian? Your post doesn't make sense to me at all. What is this about levels of being an anarchist? I'm an anarcho-capitalist, basically, which is quite different than the typical leftist "anarchists". >Seriously libertarians have no idea of the history of the political movement they are involved in. Kind of a pointless remark don't you think? I'm pretty well-versed in the history of libertarian anarchism and lest-"anarchism".
- s73v3r 11y agoSo you believe might makes right?
- praxeologist 11y agoNo, and I am not sure why you would say that. Totally irrelevant to what was said.
- vegancap 11y agoI consider myself both, I wouldn't give you any funny looks :)
- baldfat 11y agoYou sir than understand what you believe :) Now if only my In-Laws that just spout out whatever Glen Beck says with mixed in "small governemnt" people say gets them to believe liberty is best experienced in Anarchy :)
- nsxwolf 11y agoWhy are libertarians the only group held to a pure ideological standard? No one blinks when they meet a conservative or liberal with a few positions that go the other way. For example, I frequently hear liberals say that if libertarianism were pushed to its logical extreme, you'd end up with Somalia. For some reason, liberals are insulated from the question on what happens when leftist ideology it pushed to its extreme.
- jgmmo 11y agoHear hear, another Mises fan. *fixed, thank you kind sir
- enraged_camel 11y agoBtw, it's "hear hear", as in "hear him out, everyone!" I'll crawl back into my hole now. :)
- vegancap 11y agoGood find!
- vegancap 11y agoI don't think they've ever made the case for large scale snooping software. Though you're correct that some Libertarians still want state military and justice system etc.
- notahacker 11y agoThere are a wide variety of libertarian views on the suitable reach of government, but few of them involve the idea that liberty would be enhanced if intelligence officers were provided with an "intuitive way to extract insight from massive-scale data of disparate types" including "enterprise data sources, unstructured cable traffic, structured identity data, email, telephone records, spreadsheets, network traffic", which according to their website is what Palantir Intelligence offers.
- melling 11y ago"We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters." The HN version of this is "we wanted a thoughtful discussion about his ideas, instead we discussed the finer points of being a libertarian."
- vegancap 11y agoJust a passing remark. Wasn't trying to start a political discussion.
- whybroke 11y agoSo Thiel is is uncertain about Darwinian evolution and believes Global warming is too clouded by political correctness to be properly assessed. Discuss. And I would extrapolate a third "disruptive" belief: that a quick discussion on a web forum by persons with a vague layman's understanding and absolutely no data beyond links to popular science articles (perhaps some of whom skipped college at Thiel's instigation) believe they can bring insight to these topics. I would imagine anyone knowledgeable enough to discus these issues has left the building, likely to watch the Fonz jump the shark.
- eli_gottlieb 11y agoIt is precisely because I don't possess domain expertise about Darwinian evolution and global warming that I take my advice from the people who do have domain expertise, and thus believe in both.
- dnautics 11y agoHow do you decide what expertise is? This sounds suspiciously like, "I'm not going to vote for candidate X because they don't have political experience" where political experience for the other candidate is basically lower-level government riddled with corruption, horse-chasing, and cronyism, because voters don't give a damn about who their votes go to in lower-level elections. In other words, if you aren't thinking about it, then you shouldn't abdicate your moral responsibility so facilely like that.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- digitalzombie 11y agoMaybe he's just a fiscal libertarian? Bernie Sanders is a civil libertarian.
- vegancap 11y agoVery fair point!
- vinhboy 11y agoHe also bankrolls candidates like Ted Cruz who is anti-gay, anti-choice etc... I am not trying to start a political argument here. I am only adding to the OP's statement.