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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

#311

Post by bduerst »

csallen wrote: post #306
bduerst wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're outlining is what people are worried about here - that uninvolved third parties with means can influence civil court cases they are biased against. You could argue that this has always been the case, where the U.S. justice system has always been biased in favor of those with the wealth or the means, but does that really justify not pushing back against it? Keep in mind that I'm not defending Gawker or sex…

There's nothing inherently wrong with third parties helping each other out. I can't understand why anyone would be worried about that. In fact, a lawyer is an uninvolved third party. What is wrong is the degree to which wealth influences the outcome of a case. That's the real problem. In an ideal world, a person's case could be presented with equal strength regardless of the money spent for or against them. Obviously…

It may reach the point of fixing the court process eventually, but understanding why it's an issue is also an important first step.

The how this issue is going to be fixed will probably be a long time coming, unfortunately. Give it time.

An interesting first step would be to include more transparent disclosure of the third parties who speculate on these court cases. Thiel very obviously knew this would backfire if it became public, which is why they kept it secret for so long.

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

#312

Post by leereeves »

bduerst wrote: post #309
leereeves wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I alone in thinking insults like naive don't belong in discussions on Hacker News? No one's denying that wealthy people are powerful, but that's so well known that it's hardly worth discussing. Not all power is equal. Thiel is powerful; Gawker was powerful; neither comes close to the power of the government, or the established media, or the old money that quietly dominates most everything outside SV.

Ad hom attacks aren't fallacious when relating to the credibility of statements and when they are backed up by reasoning. Blatant name calling isn't welcome, but saying something is naive and then taking the time to explain why and without malice shouldn't be censored.

The reasoning is valuable, the ad hom attack is not.

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

#313

Post by rpgmaker »

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…

> I don't know Mr. Thiel and don't know any more about him than what the headlines say. He may be fully justified in taking this action (it is a perfectly legal thing to do) or he may be displaying traits deserving our opprobrium.

Had I not known who Thiel is (or read the subject of this submission), is sentences like this that would give away that the article is about an influential Silicon Valley player. The lawsuit has been throughly reported but if you don't want to comment on it for professional reasons that's fine. No one is questioning the legality of the lawsuit.

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

#314

Post by CPLX »

leereeves wrote: post #312
bduerst wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ad hom attacks aren't fallacious when relating to the credibility of statements and when they are backed up by reasoning. Blatant name calling isn't welcome, but saying something is naive and then taking the time to explain why and without malice shouldn't be censored.

The reasoning is valuable, the ad hom attack is not.

I wrote the post you are criticizing as ad hominem. It is not that, because it doesn't have any hominem in it.

My post leads with "The problem with this line of reasoning is that it's hopelessly naive."

The problem with [THE ARGUED POINT] is that [CRITICISM], because of [SUPPORTING ARGUMENTS AND ILLUSTRATIVE METAPHOR] is the opposite of an ad hom attack.

Ad hom attacks say the problem with [PERSON] is [INSULT] or similar.

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

#315

Post by zem »

leereeves wrote: post #287
zem wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

except that having effectively unlimited amounts of money to keep throwing at a lawsuit is a depressingly good predictor of success.

And publishing sex tapes is an encouragingly good predictor of failure. The system isn't perfect but I think it worked this time.

the question wasn't whether he used his powers for good this time, but whether it's good that he has those powers at all

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

#316

Post by csallen »

bduerst wrote: post #311
csallen wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing inherently wrong with third parties helping each other out. I can't understand why anyone would be worried about that. In fact, a lawyer is an uninvolved third party. What is wrong is the degree to which wealth influences the outcome of a case. That's the real problem. In an ideal world, a person's case could be presented with equal strength regardless of the money spent for or against them. Obviously…

It may reach the point of fixing the court process eventually, but understanding why it's an issue is also an important first step. The how this issue is going to be fixed will probably be a long time coming, unfortunately. Give it time. An interesting first step would be to include more transparent disclosure of the third parties who speculate on these court cases. Thiel very obviously knew this would backfire if it…

I hope you're right, but I'm not so confident. People as a whole are not systems thinkers. We tend to take systems for granted, and assume they are eternal and unchangeable. I think this case is a perfect example. It's hard to mobilize the masses behind something boring and complex like court reform. It's easy, however, to incite them to hate an individual person, especially if he's a billionaire. Even on HN, it's mostly people attacking/defending Thiel himself.

Also, for what it's worth, the fact that something backfires in the court of public opinion doesn't mean that it's bad. It could just mean the public is under-informed or easily deceived.

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

#317

Post by internaut »

CPLX wrote: post #216
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…

Precisely. The legal system has certain informal but crucial checks and balances in it. One of them is that the cost and uncertainty of litigation make it in everyone's interest to settle, and in addition insurance creates incentives to settle. A third party purposely removing those incentives distorts the process. Also to this general point, another check and balance for civil litigation are the reputational and dis…

> The legal system has certain informal but crucial checks and balances in it. One of them is that the cost and uncertainty of litigation make it in everyone's interest to settle, and in addition insurance creates incentives to settle. A third party purposely removing those incentives distorts the process.

Seems like distortion in the same way paying a friend's bail is corruption. Not at all!

> Both of these are disincentives to filing a revenge based lawsuit -- as opposed to an action primarily to recover monetary damages -- and these were perverted as well by having a hidden third party who managed to evade that scrutiny during the proceeding.

It is honestly news to me that the purpose of lawsuits is not to be revenge based but to be based on recovering the highest amount of monetary damages. Can you explain in more detail why you believe this to be so?

You're aware that some people view settlements to be a form of corruption? i.e. Big Guy pays off little guy, continues to screw little guys using the superpower of inordinate amounts of money. It is a complaint I've heard many times before.

> As an aside, if I were in Peter Thiel's camp right now I would hope to God he's all paid up with his taxes, doesn't have any angry lovers or ex-employees out there, and isn't engaged in any unethical or embarrassing activities, given that he now almost certainly has a lot of investigative journalism firepower pointed at him.

Amen, I've been saying the same thing. I'd be advising Thiel to carry full body hidden camera/audio recording devices in future, as well as examining all my personal and financial affairs with a fine toothcomb before the enemy gets to them.

It should not have to be this way, but you know, it is.

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

#318

Post by internaut »

TheCondor wrote: post #234
Eric_WVGG wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because then we would be more ignorant of how the world was operating. (Clearly you care or you wouldn't have wound up in this thread.)

That's not the ignorance that interests me here. There have been gag rules and confidentiality clauses in settlements forever. Secrecy in lawsuits isn't super unusual. You have any idea how many deals are made before a lawsuit is even filed? it's all secret... The EFF, ACLU, ADL, and other organizations fund legal defense and law suits and even use it as a fund raiser sometimes and we don't comb through the donation…

> Since Thiel revealed his involvement, that has been the story which makes me think maybe he was right to conceal it. his name and money had nothing to do with this crime.

Same here. I'd have also continued to make it secret. I expect the media to carry out a series of character assassinations on Peter Thiel on baseless grounds, and then self referentially refer to their campaigns of the past as evidence for campaigns of the present. "Oh Thiel? That guy who was constantly being sued by [media ally] before, he's being sued again [different media ally] to nobody's [the media] surprise. Ha ha, what a bunch these crazy Silicon Valley tycoons are, I bet Joe Public is tired [opinion forming] of their petty games".

The main threat to Thiel is probably the opportunity cost of fending off the media all the time. The only solution I can think of is a diversion.

I am pretty sure that if Thiel funds private investigators into Denton's crew and the Devil himself, he'll find plenty of distraction material for the media to devour their own. After all, Nick Denton has likely already unleashed the hounds and this would merely be returning the favour.

It is dirty but that is how this is played I'm afraid. It gets worse from here!

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

#319

Post by leereeves »

CPLX wrote: post #314
leereeves wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasoning is valuable, the ad hom attack is not.

I wrote the post you are criticizing as ad hominem . It is not that, because it doesn't have any hominem in it. My post leads with "The problem with this line of reasoning is that it's hopelessly naive." The problem with [THE ARGUED POINT] is that [CRITICISM], because of [SUPPORTING ARGUMENTS AND ILLUSTRATIVE METAPHOR] is the opposite of an ad hom attack. Ad hom attacks say the problem with [PERSON] is [INSULT] or si…

Naive means:

> (of a person or action) showing a lack of experience, wisdom, or judgment.

Perhaps you didn't mean to, but you implied that grellas lacked experience or wisdom. It could reasonably be taken as ad hom.

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

#320

Post by internaut »

lhnz wrote: post #230
ThomPete wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a difference between winning a lawsuit to right a wrong and then to go further and actually try to take down a paper. Whatever Gawker did to Theil it's not worth doing what he is doing but thats up to him. The problem though is that as extreme wealth gets put into fewer hands it allow them to basically bleed anything skeptical to this out. Furthermore and as a sidenote. I find it ironic that Theil of all peo…

He's a smart man, so it is quite possible he has some nuanced opinion that is not exactly cookie-cutter libertarian from a textbook. And this should be allowed. Siding a certain way on some political issues shouldn't require you to be absolutely dogmatic to all of the relating principles and perspectives in all contexts. I mean, I wouldn't expect this from myself, so I wouldn't expect it from others.

I gave a small explanation concerning Thiel's ideas and the intelligence agencies last week:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11782998

I don't deny this whole area is troubled and troubling, when national security is concerned it seems every path is taking you to some kind of hell. The world is a Big Place and common sense often falls short of being an ethical guide. I'm sure joining forces with Joseph Stalin produced mixed feelings. If courage is what is required to deal with that kind of thing then I'll be pleased to be called a coward.

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