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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

#141

Post by gallonofmilk »

lisper wrote: post #62
tstactplsignore wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>He may agree with more non-interventionist/isolationist foreign policy of Trump There's really not any good evidence that Trump would do anything of the sort. He was for the wars in Iraq and Libya at the time, and is only against them now (and pretends he always was) because he's the ultimate political opportunist. Considering that right now he's said that he will "bomb the shit" out of ISIS and "send a few troops",…

> it's pretty clear that a Trump presidency would be anything but isolationist The only thing that is clear about a Trump presidency is that nothing is clear about a Trump presidency.

winning... winning is clear.

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

#142

Post by gallonofmilk »

TorKlingberg wrote: post #53

Some portion of libertarians have become so blinded by their hate of leftists that they have dropped the whole "freedom" thing, and cheer for anything they see as anti-left - even if it is blatantly authoritarian.

fear mongering much? "blatant authoritarian"

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

#143

Post by gallonofmilk »

jedberg wrote: post #72

My favorite quote from this article (and slightly off topic): "On July 14 a group of 140 or so tech industry figures including Slack’s Stewart Butterfield, EBay founder Pierre Omidyar, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, and, for some reason, the Reverend Jesse Jackson , released an open letter decrying Trump’s candidacy." Does anyone know why Jesse Jackson was included in that open letter?

To hide the fact that they're nothing more than a bunch of privileged straight white males?

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

#144

Post by gallonofmilk »

nolepointer wrote: post #43
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…

Wanting to halt immigration from countries with radical Islamic ties != deporting Muslims

ssh logic not welcome here... move along

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

#145

Post by boona »

metheus wrote: post #127
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.

Shall we extend the same curtesy to those who oppose other forms of universal suffrage? > I'm sure he's heard all the traditional arguments like we have, which means he has additional information that I don't. It means nothing of the kind. Occam's razor suggests, rather, that he reasons differently than you (or at least me). > Don't you think it's more intellectually honest to question and hear what others have to sa…

>we have an arrogant economic royalist lamenting the consequences of women having a political voice ... but equally clear that he has no novel, reasonable justification for disenfranchising women.

Hilarious! This is exactly what I'm talking about! You have no idea how he got to his position, but you've already made up your mind as to how he got there. And to top it off, you go on this big rant that places you above him in terms of virtue because obviously he's "an arrogant economic royalist" and you're not therefore you're better.

It's fine with me if you want to behave that way. All I'm suggesting is that if you want to be intellectually honest, then you need to explore the 'why' of a person's viewpoint, rather than commit the fundamental attribution error and simply make up the 'why'.

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

#146

Post by gallonofmilk »

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'…

Maybe this will help https://i.sli.mg/TIAoq1.png

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

#147

Post by exstudent2 »

metheus wrote: post #138
exstudent2 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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?

A small slice of a giant pie is bigger than a large slice of a tiny pie?

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

#148

Post by xorcist »

Houshalter wrote: post #123
xorcist wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested in what that would be. From a northern European perspective, we have strong cultural ties to the US (given that we were part of the whole colonization thing). Yet there are politicians there that question women's rights to abortions quite seriously, argue from the basis of religious rather than scientific conviction, oppose music and art and vaccinations and climate science on the same grounds that I f…

Those are political values not cultural ones. And surely conservatives exist in Europe to? Perhaps there are fewer of them and they don't have the political power they do here, but conservatives exist in every country.

Of course, but that's neither here nor there. Those are not classical conservative views. The point is that you would be hard pressed to find a definition of Western culture that excludes hard line Islamism unless you also include important parts of the contemporary western political discourse.

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

#149

Post by techer »

gallonofmilk wrote: post #143
jedberg wrote: post #72

My favorite quote from this article (and slightly off topic): "On July 14 a group of 140 or so tech industry figures including Slack’s Stewart Butterfield, EBay founder Pierre Omidyar, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, and, for some reason, the Reverend Jesse Jackson , released an open letter decrying Trump’s candidacy." Does anyone know why Jesse Jackson was included in that open letter?

To hide the fact that they're nothing more than a bunch of privileged straight white males?

Pierre is Persian

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

#150

Post by EC1 »

nolepointer wrote: post #43
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…

Wanting to halt immigration from countries with radical Islamic ties != deporting Muslims

Halt. You are going against the leftist narrative. Please put your hands behind your back.
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