The Strange Politics of Peter Thiel, Trump’s Most Unlikely Supporter • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by choko » Thu, Jul 21, 2016, 11:44 PM UTC

somebehemoth wrote: post #137

choko wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Isn't it also possible that the fact that most Muslims aren't white circumstantial? If not, then why not? Isn't it possible that another explanation is that these people are scared of Muslim terrorists, and they are having a knee-jerk reaction (as humans are prone to do)? Why have so many immediately jumped to race as the only probable explanation with such shaky evidence?

As far as police debate goes, yes, that single person could also be an outlier, considering that there are somewhere around 13 million black Americans. If the police were truly "hunting black people", as the media and BLM would have us believe, I would think the number of black Americans killed by police would be far, far higher. As it stands, the odds of a black person being shot by police is extremely remote.

I would argue that the scope of the problem is very much important, given that racism will probably never truly disappear. Humans are inherently tribalistic. We find ways to divide ourselves by color, social status, political views, and which sports teams we support (sidenote: my dad was nearly killed by a Steelers fan for being a Bengals fan). It seems that it would take a major evolutionary shift for this to change.

As to the final comment, I would argue that Trump isn't fully responsible for the groups that choose to support him. For example, Hillary Clinton has received donations (via the Clinton foundation) from countries such as Algeria, where homosexual acts are punished by large fines and imprisonment. That does not mean Hillary Clinton is anti-gay.

I'll level with you. I think a Trump presidency would be a total disaster. I also think the police are far too quick to resort to violence and lack the training to properly defuse a situation or handle firearms. But I don't think the accusations of racism are entirely fair, and I believe in being fair, even to an enemy.

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

#152

Post by diyorgasms » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 1:49 AM UTC

gallonofmilk wrote: post #144

nolepointer wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

ssh logic not welcome here... move along

I would assume ssh and its underlying logic are welcome here. What I assume is unwelcome is advocating religious tests in a secular state.

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

#153

Post by mistersquid » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 2:04 AM UTC

boona wrote: post #145

metheus wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

Your description of "intellectually honest" is actually intellectually dishonest.

In the United States, we generally understand the right to political autonomy, and the right to vote in particular, to come from a citizen's existence as a citizen (which itself is derived from Enlightenment principles of inalienable human rights). There are nearly no philosophical exceptions to this and only a few pragmatic ones (e.g. age of majority).

The question of women's suffrage is by itself a reasonable litmus test of whether someone is politically sensible and, by this measure, Mr. Thiel can be judged insensible.

To judge Mr. Thiel as politically insensible on the basis of his opposition to women's suffrage is by definition intellectual honesty. Given the long history of philosophical, political, and jurisprudential consensus that produced the 19th Amendment, it is in fact intellectually dishonest to entertain the possibility that Mr. Thiel has a novel set of arguments that could justify the disenfranchisement of women as a class.

People are justified in being skeptical of Thiel based on his radical assertion that women's suffrage is a mistake and they are behaving sensibly when they express wariness about other claims he might make based on his established predilection for asserting dangerous claims against the political autonomy of others.

EDIT: grammar, readability.

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

#154

Post by patrickburke » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 2:07 AM UTC

xorcist wrote: post #118

Houshalter wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be interested in seeing what the arguments in the actual book are. I recall reading something about this before, that pointed to evidence that more diverse groups are less happy and have more conflict. And that people in general like being part of a group of similar people and having a group identity, humans being tribal creatures. Anyway I'm not sure he's claiming western culture is homogenous. But it does seem…

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…

In a conversation about the death of the west, you express shock that there remains some vestige of Christian morality, and without a hint of irony.

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

#155

Post by omonra » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 2:37 AM UTC

wolfram74 wrote: post #63

jeremyt wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you cite one or two of those?

Etsy comes up pretty often. http://phd.meghan-smith.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Cox-T...

Sorry - that's an overview of how ONE company find value in diversity.

We are asking for research that shows that companies like Etsy outperform (on any metric) companies that don't really care about diversity (judged by their actual hiring practices, not paying lip service to it).

Because the availability heuristic points to the other 99% of Silicon Valley that's doing quite well without caring about diversity.

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

#156

Post by omonra » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 2:38 AM UTC

gallonofmilk wrote: post #141

lisper wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The only other clear thing is that Trump would be President.

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

#157

Post by vasilipupkin » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 3:21 AM UTC

boona wrote: post #140

vasilipupkin wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You don't need to know why someone thinks that 2 times 2 is 6 to assume that person is at least somewhat an idiot. Women's right to vote is pretty much equivalent to that. Also notice my phrasing: substantial likelihood

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

#158

Post by davidgay » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 3:26 AM UTC

techer wrote: post #149

gallonofmilk wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Pierre is Persian

I can't quite resist: https://www.google.com/?ion=1&espv=2#q=aryan

(this is of course irrelevant to 21st century usage)

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

#159

Post by bordercases » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 6:08 AM UTC

nommm-nommm wrote: post #76

GuiA wrote: post #34

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…

Western culture isn't even close to homogeneous. Really bizarre.

In terms of type, maybe. In terms of percentage, maybe not.

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

#160

Post by winter_blue » Fri, Jul 22, 2016, 1:18 PM UTC

douche wrote: post #129

winter_blue wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely and utterly disagree with you; language and word choice matters a lot: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/06/wol... There is a lot of implied sub-communication that comes with word choice in human languages. Only an idiot or a robot would take everything by its literal meaning.

We'll agree to disagree. The linked article is a pretty load of horse-hockey, in my opinion. If everyone is free to redefine words to mean whatever they damn well please, then it is impossible to have clear, effective discussions, because you get wound up wrangling about definitions - as we do habitually here, talking past each other.

I know you don't agree, but to make my point further, this great article just came out today: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/why-demo...