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Thiel shows why tech billionaires are the new robber barons

reuters.com

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Re: Thiel shows why tech billionaires are the new robber barons

#291

Post by nostrademons »

davesque wrote: post #261
internaut wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point was that, given the average person's (not tech nerds, mind you) understanding of silicon valley's utopian dreams, the revelation of Thiel's secrecy is not going to look good. Believe me, the average person doesn't know jack shit about our utopian ideals. The idea they have even heard of them in passing is probably a Silicon Valley conceit. Do a vox pop on the streets of a city that is not San Francisco. D…

You'd better hope this is true/continues to be true. If there's anything the latest election season has shown us, it's that a lot of people resent big, secret money.

Like Trump's fortune?

I think a better lesson would be that a lot of people are angry, and all too happy to follow anyone who gives them a target for that anger. Both this case and the press cycle following it are examples of that.

Re: Thiel shows why tech billionaires are the new robber barons

#292

Post by BurningFrog »

nohat wrote: post #272
csallen wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Thiel was out for blood, but so what? There's nothing inherently wrong or illegal about feeling vengeful. It's a natural human emotion experienced and indulged by pretty much everyone at some point in time. It's not like we can eradicate it or make it illegal, so complaining about Thiel's goals or feelings seems like a waste of time to me. The issue, as usual, should be with the system itself. Is what happened h…

I think Gawker was wrong, and deserved to be seriously damaged by this (and many other things), but lets not pretend that this wouldn't have hurt them if they weren't wrong. Defending yourself takes an enormous amount of energy, time, and money. If a billionaire hates you they can fund lots of lawsuits against you that would have otherwise never materialized. This would constantly drain you, even if you win, even if…

So your complaint is that Thiel could have done something else than what he did, and that would have been bad?

In reality Thiel didn't abuse the court system with meritless cases. Had he done that, I would also have been disturbed. But since he didn't, it's hard for me to get upset about it.

Re: Thiel shows why tech billionaires are the new robber barons

#293

Post by mukmuk »

camperman wrote: post #189
mukmuk wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you point me to some examples where an individual financed litigation against a media outlet or journalist? I don't doubt they exist, but I can't think of any specifically.

When quite a few individuals took News International to court between 2009 and 2011 for illegally eavesdropping on their mobile phones in the UK, a number of them had their legal costs underwritten by Max Mosely. This is just the same thing: a wealthy individual making sure that legal costs do not preclude action against Gawker.

Thank you. I disagree that it's "just the same thing", but it is an interesting precedent to consider and one that I was not familiar with.

Re: Thiel shows why tech billionaires are the new robber barons

#294

Post by bduerst »

leereeves wrote: post #284
xenadu02 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, that's depressingly naive. If journalists call out Billionaire X for some bad behavior... Just buy the paper and fire those people. Or fund an endless stream of lawsuits to silence them. That's the bigger picture here: Theil is trying to put a news outlet he doesn't like out of business. Even if he's totally justified the next 10 cases may not be but you can bet people will get the picture: don't piss off the…

You know that calling a different opinion naive isn't actually an argument, right? The mere possibility of a slippery slope doesn't show that Peter Thiel did anything wrong here. I hope other websites should learn not to publish something they don't have the legal right to publish.

The argument behind why it's a naive perspective was made in the parent comment.

Re: Thiel shows why tech billionaires are the new robber barons

#295

Post by SilasX »

csallen wrote: post #206
bduerst wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The subject of the case is a red herring. Typically in these situations, a settlement is reached or insurance covers the damages. That didn't happen. Thiel had an axe to grind against Gawker, invested $10m in the litigation, and pushed the case past settlement offers - even removing a claim that allowed insurance to cover damages. It focused on maximizing the damage to Gawker, which isn't what civil court is typicall…

Yes, Thiel was out for blood, but so what? There's nothing inherently wrong or illegal about feeling vengeful. It's a natural human emotion experienced and indulged by pretty much everyone at some point in time. It's not like we can eradicate it or make it illegal, so complaining about Thiel's goals or feelings seems like a waste of time to me. The issue, as usual, should be with the system itself. Is what happened h…

Wow, were you really down 6? Per my other comment[1], I couldn't upvote you enough: the problem is that our truth-finding method in the justice system is vulnerable and open to manipulation. It should be robust against investments like Thiel's: roughly, an exponential investment of resources should only have a linear impact on the verdict.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11824193

Re: Thiel shows why tech billionaires are the new robber barons

#296

Post by mahyarm »

The media industry sees this as a threat to their industry/tribe and does a circle the bandwagons reaction using their convenient tool at hand. Writing articles in widely published publications. On top of it, these people are probably friends-of-friends publishing these articles.

That is why it gets more attention than many other instances of similar behavior in similar situations.

Re: Thiel shows why tech billionaires are the new robber barons

#297

Post by pyoung »

What Gawker did was disgusting, but what irks me about Thiel's actions is the fact that most of his wealth was created by investing in businesses that have significantly reduced consumer privacy (i.e. Facebook, Palantir, etc..). How many people have been accidentally outed due to Facebook's poor privacy practices?

Gawker is a by-product of the current ecosystem that Silicon Valley has created. The rise of click bait journalism was a by product of incentives created by social media companies like Facebook. And Thiel sits in the center of this universe. If he really wants to be 'philanthropic' he should focus his efforts at the root causes of these issues. But he won't, because that is where his net worth comes from.

Re: Thiel shows why tech billionaires are the new robber barons

#298

Post by lowbloodsugar »

The conclusion of the article (I think) we are (still) discussing here, however, appears to be "Thiel is a robber baron and we the poor public should be wary of these new rich", when in fact the conclusion should be "Our system of justice is broken because rich people can get different outcomes than poor people."

Clearly, the author of the article does not want the poor people to come to the conclusion that the justice system is broken, presumably, because then the rich and powerful establishment, would not be able to use it themselves. Instead, they want to put upstart newcomers like Thiel in their place.

Are there any other areas where the establishment may need public backing to take down the "robber barons of silicon valley"? Anyone having the nerve to fight back on issues of privacy, national security, encryption, copyright, basic human rights in general? No?

Re: Thiel shows why tech billionaires are the new robber barons

#299

Post by st3v3r »

further_tech wrote: post #256
st3v3r wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not the one that gets to decide if that was offensive. If he was not comfortable enough to be out at the time that was written, then yes, that could be completely offensive to him.

I'm not deciding for him. I'm being commonsensical by saying his "punishment" was not justifiable because of this article. For 99.9% of human beings, such article would never make someone spend enough money to put this newspaper out of business.

Sounds like you are deciding for him.

And 99.9% of human beings wouldn't have that kind of money to spend in the first place. Now, if you were to adjust the amount of money as a % of wealth down to the average income, would they spend that much, if that's all it took?

Re: Thiel shows why tech billionaires are the new robber barons

#300

Post by wyclif »

grellas wrote: post #219

Extremely wealthy people are just like any other group of people in that they come in all shapes and sizes. Here, one very wealthy individual used his money to fund someone else's lawsuit. He did so secretly. He did so against an organization that had harmed him and against which he presumably wanted payback but that also had done a gratuitously damaging and sleazy act as part of a pattern of sleazy acts upon which i…

Extremely wealthy people are also just like any other group of people in that they act in their own self-interest.
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