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The Strange Politics of Peter Thiel, Trump’s Most Unlikely Supporter

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Re: The Strange Politics of Peter Thiel, Trump’s Most Unlikely Supporter

#131

Post by choko »

somebehemoth wrote: post #124
choko wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(disclaimer: also not a Trump supporter) I don't think Trump's opponents assume that his supporters are against all immigration at all. I think his opponents deliberately misinterpret Trumps' message to paint his supporters as ignorant racists. That's not to say that there aren't Trump supporters who are actually racist, but I see little actual evidence that it's the norm. Throwing the racist card has been a pretty e…

"Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on..." How does one misinterpret this message to be racist when it is so blatantly racist in and of itself? "Throwing the racist card has been a pretty effective tactic for the left over the past 8 years..." With all of the dark skinned people getting kil…

>How does one misinterpret this message to be racist when it is so blatantly racist in and of itself?

While I do agree that banning Muslims from entering the country is a horrible idea, Muslim is a religion (and a choice), not a race. For what it's worth, Mexican is also not a race.

>With all of the dark skinned people getting killed by police lately it seems more likely that the US has a huge problem with racism.

I think it seems this way due to increased media coverage and the impact of social media. Undoubtedly there are some racist officers, but I am skeptical that the problem is as large as some would lead us to believe. As of the last count of which I am aware, 130 black people have been killed by police so far this year. It seems likely that the vast majority of these were justified (according to police procedure, which may be flawed but not inherently racist). Don't get me wrong, it's a huge tragedy whenever any innocent person is killed, but being a skeptic, I need some hard evidence to convince me that the US has a "huge" problem with racism. By hard evidence, I mean stats or studies that have NO other plausible explanation other than racism.

Re: The Strange Politics of Peter Thiel, Trump’s Most Unlikely Supporter

#132

Post by mturmon »

defen wrote: post #74
mturmon wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or that "Western culture" is so fragile that it needs work to "defend" it -- against something so bland as multiculturalism? My culture is already an amalgam of many components, as you point out. Surely, whatever it is, it can expand or adapt to reckon with other cultures.

There are different levels of culture. The "happy nice version" of multiculturalism involves surface-displays of culture - different groups of people have different kinds of food, different styles of dress, different accents/languages, different skin tones, but are otherwise nice friendly liberal people who believe in the core values of Western culture, such as the rule of law, equality before the law, relatively hig…

"teaching the youngest generation that white people are responsible for all the evils of the world"

That's a strawman. We had been talking about basic multiculturalism.

What you're talking about is the most unhinged versions of ethnocentric bigotry; say, the kind of thing Eldridge Cleaver had been associated with. These views were not widely proclaimed at the time and they are not widely followed now.

Even revisionist history (say, Howard Zinn's US history) that places significant blame at the foot of the U.S. and U.S. leadership for historical tragedies does not come close to what you're talking about above.

Re: The Strange Politics of Peter Thiel, Trump’s Most Unlikely Supporter

#133

Post by vixen99 »

vixen99 wrote: post #31
kenko wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing admirable about "going against the grain" in itself. Probably most people in the upper echelons of tech wealth don't think it's a great idea to deport Muslims, and don't support Trump. I see no reason to admire someone for having a different opinion on that matter just because it's different . There are lots of ways to "go against the grain" in the way you point out. You could be an unthinking dogmati…

Link for Trump statement saying he wants to deport Muslims?

None forthcoming!!

Re: The Strange Politics of Peter Thiel, Trump’s Most Unlikely Supporter

#134

Post by splintercell »

maxxxxx wrote: post #77
toss1941 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll be honest I haven't been following a lot of his positions on things other than what spills over into the tech/security folks I follow on twitter and various other sites. I didn't know about the NATO comments but here's what I learned about him just today [0]: (edit: talking about whether Trump would defend Turkey if Russia invaded unprovoked): Trump said he would have to think about whether those countries “have…

This is not some business deal where you can change terms later on and let the courts decide. Turkey needs to know if NATO will be there for them or not. He can call for larger contributions of course and tell them upfront that NATO won't help them until conditions are met. But he can't decide at the time Russia invades. Then he may as well leave NATO. Trump was also a "birther". That alone shows to me that he doesn'…

> Turkey needs to know if NATO will be there for them or not. He can call for larger contributions of course and tell them upfront that NATO won't help them until conditions are met.

Question, have you heard or read Trump's foreign policy speech?

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-...

He lays out many criticism of our current foreign policy, including that we don't negotiate our deals properly, and this results in us not being reliable among our friends, and respected among our enemies. I recommend reading it.

Re: The Strange Politics of Peter Thiel, Trump’s Most Unlikely Supporter

#135

Post by davidivadavid »

maxxxxx wrote: post #5
exstudent2 wrote: post #2

While I don't agree with everything Thiel believes, it's really, really refreshing to get a different take from the upper echelons of the tech industry. If you follow a lot of VCs and CEOs on Twitter you'll find that they have a nearly homogenous political groupthink. This industry needs more diversity of thought and Thiel stands alone in his strength to go against the grain and stand by his philosophy. Love his idea…

I don't understand how somebody who claims to be fact-driven and rational like Thiel can end up supporting Trump. If anything, he should be disgusted with the whole system and try to change it.

I can't see what those things have to do with one another.

Thiel can take perfectly rational, fact-driven decisions based on Trump's behavior, regardless of what it is. Indeed, it's completely possible that to achieve his goals, he must leverage Trump's misuse of "facts" and, erm, "creativity" with respect to truth.

Re: The Strange Politics of Peter Thiel, Trump’s Most Unlikely Supporter

#136

Post by somebehemoth »

oldmanjay wrote: post #128
somebehemoth wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on..." How does one misinterpret this message to be racist when it is so blatantly racist in and of itself? "Throwing the racist card has been a pretty effective tactic for the left over the past 8 years..." With all of the dark skinned people getting kil…

Since there isn't even a Muslim race, all these claims of racism just seem to me like desperate heavings from people who hate dictionaries and love manipulating emotions. Also, your last sentence effectively means "since racism is a thing, all accusations of racism are valid" which is almost offensively wrong.

You are being pedantic. Most Muslim's are non-white. It is implicitly racist to suggest we ban all Muslim's from the US.

My last sentence suggests we have a major problem with race relations in the US. You can twist my words however you want but it doesn't change that fact. The entire concept of a "race card" was manufactured to belittle legitimate claims of racism. Creating a term to discredit legitimate questions of racism is offensively wrong.

Re: The Strange Politics of Peter Thiel, Trump’s Most Unlikely Supporter

#137

Post by somebehemoth »

choko wrote: post #131
somebehemoth wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on..." How does one misinterpret this message to be racist when it is so blatantly racist in and of itself? "Throwing the racist card has been a pretty effective tactic for the left over the past 8 years..." With all of the dark skinned people getting kil…

>How does one misinterpret this message to be racist when it is so blatantly racist in and of itself? While I do agree that banning Muslims from entering the country is a horrible idea, Muslim is a religion (and a choice), not a race. For what it's worth, Mexican is also not a race. >With all of the dark skinned people getting killed by police lately it seems more likely that the US has a huge problem with racism. I…

I am fully aware of the definition of race. The vast majority of Muslim's are non-white. To ban all Muslim's is to ban hundreds of millions of non-white's from the US. Banning hundreds of millions of non-whites from entering the US sounds pretty racist to me.

In regards to your comments on policing. I guess the black man who was shot today, unarmed, with his hands in the air and fully complying with police orders was just another outlier? How many black people need to be killed by police officers before you would consider race to be an issue? 130? 140? The prevalence of cell phone video has exposed an issue that has been present for a long time in the US.

Whether are not you think there is a "huge" problem with racism in the US, at least there is no doubt that there is a problem. Argue over the size of that problem if you'd like, but realize that openly racist groups have uniformly endorsed Trump for a reason.

edit: deleted reference to "white" officers because I don't think it is relevant.

Re: The Strange Politics of Peter Thiel, Trump’s Most Unlikely Supporter

#138

Post by metheus »

exstudent2 wrote: post #36
kenko wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is if you think the grain is a corrupt and unfair system that needs dismantling. The enemy of my enemy is my friend thing. No, there still isn't, because you seem to have missed the "in itself" part. Even in the case you identify, what is admirable is going against a corrupt grain (and presumably, we'd want to actually make it "going against a corrupt grain in a way likely to improve matters"; corruption is m…

I mention it in another comment but the consolidation of power is a problem. It doesn't matter if I agree with those consolidating or not. I don't think Trump has a lot of support from the upper classes in the US. If he were to be elected he would be a weaker form of power than say Clinton being elected. That is a desirable outcome even if his policies are bad since he wouldn't be effective in rolling them out wherea…

Under what rubric is the more effective rollout of less objectionable policies a greater loss to society than the less effective rollout of more objectionable policies?

This dogma holds consolidation of power to be bad /in and of itself/, rather than because of a consequence, such as "consolidated power leads to suffering." If that's your opinion, fine, but it's no different than any other religion.

Re: The Strange Politics of Peter Thiel, Trump’s Most Unlikely Supporter

#139

Post by metheus »

GuiA wrote: post #45
fundameen wrote: post #33

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.

Most Silicon Valley magnates are not geniuses. They're average to above-average smart, with other traits (grit, luck, the right connections, etc) that put them in their situation. Once you have a few dozen million dollars, it's not so hard to maintain and grow that (unless you go on idiotic spending sprees) because you start getting access to the kind of investments that have much higher expected returns than the kin…

> Once you have a few dozen million dollars, it's not so hard to maintain and grow that (unless you go on idiotic spending sprees)

Or unless you're Trump! rimshot

http://fortune.com/2015/08/20/donald-trump-index-funds/

http://www.moneytalksnews.com/why-youre-probably-better-inve...

Re: The Strange Politics of Peter Thiel, Trump’s Most Unlikely Supporter

#140

Post by boona »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #114
boona wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to hear WHY he's skeptical. I'm sure he's heard all the traditional arguments like we have, which means he has additional information that I don't. Don't you think it's more intellectually honest to question and hear what others have to say rather than just paint them as idiots because they don't believe what you believe.

I am not painting anyone as anything. It is mathematically and logically correct to assume that there is substantial likelihood that when you hear someone say something idiotic, then that person saying that idiotic thing is in fact an idiot. If I hear additional information, I am happy to revise my opinion if necessary. But innocent until proven guilty is not necessary, this is not a criminal court

>mathematically and logically correct

There is nothing mathematical or logical about value judgements. Those are two fields that pride themselves in that. You are deciding that the opinion is idiotic because it's not your own opinion.

>If I hear additional information, I am happy to revise my opinion if necessary.

But for the time being you're willing to paint someone as an idiot without knowing why they've developed certain opinions. It's a classic case of the fundamental attribution error.

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