81–90 of 186 posts
Why is everyone surprised that Peter Thiel said this or said that? Is that because we expect Peter Thiel to be a genius, when he is just a person with probably a boatload of baggage, some brilliance and plenty of idiocy - similar to anybody else ?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>They are total hypocrites Maybe they are angry because people are coming illegally.
You're right - a descendant of French immigrants has quite the leg to stand on. After all, his great-grandparents legally entered the country... At the time when undesirables, like Chinese, Indians, and the Polish were barred from entry. But at least the Frenchmen came legally! Sure, entry was granted under an extremely racist immigration law, but the legality is what gives him the moral high ground to stand on.
Build the wall and regulate immigration so more Indians and Chinese come relative to their world population.
There is no evidence that Thiel is a genius. There's a large amount of evidence that he is not. And yet people still think that because one of his hundreds of investments made a lot of money that he must be a genius. He's just not who people want him to be. He's not another Musk.
Can you please elaborate on the large amount of evidence that he is not a genius? If you are going to cite some of his investment failures, then you also have to consider his successes, and the fact that he has, overall, been very, very successful. He did not just have one good investment. He has had many, in addition to founding PayPal and Palantir.
Probably the most damning evidence of his lack of genius is when he pushed Zuckerberg very hard to sell Facebook at like $1 billion.
He also sold PayPal early in a similar situation and has pushed other founders to sell early, though I forget the specific examples.
This is very clearly not genius levels of vision. Thiel wouldn't be a famous billionaire today if Zuckerberg had listened to his advice.
There's also the fact that Elon Musk showed us exactly what a real genius could do with his incredibly privileged position in the world.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The billionaire tech investor has been a staunch opponent of immigration. Back in 2008, Gawker found that Thiel had donated $1 million to NumbersUSA, an anti-immigration group that has consistently been labelled racist and a firm fan of active population control. ... > He then invested in the SeaSteading Institute which wanted to turn Thiel’s dream into a reality. The reason? He felt the government wasn’t doing eno…
It isn't you are just changing the mix of who is coming. One could argue that decrease low skilled immigration and upping higher skilled immigration would boost those at the bottom. Raising wages at the bottom while reducing the price of some more complex services.
So the many get lower prices, and pay taxes that compensate the concentrated few that are affected by the job losses or lower wages.
The Diversity Myth, a 1995 book [Thiel] co-wrote with David O. Sacks, railed against multiculturalism, which, they wrote, “exists to destroy Western culture.” What is up with all these people lately thinking that Western culture is some form of homogeneous block that's been unadultered for millennia and has recently come under "multiculturalist" attack? Especially coming from the US, a country that didn't exist when…
And let's of course not forget the hard-core Islamists obsessed with the idea that Western music, Western culture, Western everything are intrinsic threats to the sacrosanct purity of "Islamic values".
Funny how it all comes full circle.
The Diversity Myth, a 1995 book [Thiel] co-wrote with David O. Sacks, railed against multiculturalism, which, they wrote, “exists to destroy Western culture.” What is up with all these people lately thinking that Western culture is some form of homogeneous block that's been unadultered for millennia and has recently come under "multiculturalist" attack? Especially coming from the US, a country that didn't exist when…
The Diversity Myth, a 1995 book [Thiel] co-wrote with David O. Sacks, railed against multiculturalism, which, they wrote, “exists to destroy Western culture.” What is up with all these people lately thinking that Western culture is some form of homogeneous block that's been unadultered for millennia and has recently come under "multiculturalist" attack? Especially coming from the US, a country that didn't exist when…
The Diversity Myth, a 1995 book [Thiel] co-wrote with David O. Sacks, railed against multiculturalism, which, they wrote, “exists to destroy Western culture.” What is up with all these people lately thinking that Western culture is some form of homogeneous block that's been unadultered for millennia and has recently come under "multiculturalist" attack? Especially coming from the US, a country that didn't exist when…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>They are total hypocrites Maybe they are angry because people are coming illegally.
You are being dishonest if you think it's about legality. It's not about that. It's about the race of the immigrants. If all our illegal immigrants were from Germany and Ireland, I am certain that there would be far less complaining. In fact most of the angry people today would not be fighting to keep them out -- they'd be fighting for visas for them.