Peter Thiel: The Online Privacy Debate Won’t End With Gawker

For example, it's entirely possible that Peter Thiel is part of a losing faction of the board that values more privacy, and has actually been a force for the better with regard to privacy at Facebook? Is that likely? I have no idea, but it's supported by just as much evidence as you put forth.

Keep in mind, by the logic you've used so far, if we ignore the voting history of congress, then every congressperson must obviously have been in favor of invading Iraq, since that's what the US did.

Note: If you take this as a defense of Peter Thiel you've entirely missed the point. I have no evidence as to how Peter Thiel truly feels about privacy in general, and more importantly that's irrelevant to the point I'm making.

Theils crusade against gawker killed what I think was a shitty trade rag focused on gossip, at a very steep price. Too much in my opinion.

I had trouble taking his speech at the RNC seriously.

I deeply respected him, probably naively, and I still do; just in a much more narrow context. His intellect and knowledge of technology and macrotrends is amazing, however I find his philosophy in contrast with some of his actions

In real life the content of an argument isn't the only think that matters. The motives of the arguer are also important -- what they're trying to achieve/sell by using it etc.

That's because people don't only offer their arguments to have other people discuss them and assess their merits, but also to use them to influence people towards other stuff, often unrelated to the argument.

E.g. "listen how right and eloquently I speak in favor of privacy -- and thus forgive my enormous contribution to privacy violations, or the fact that I killed an online outlet out of spite".

>The fact that I state 10 wrong facts about bananas does not mean that the next fact I state is wrong

No, but it means that pragmatic persons with limited time spans should do better than spend time listening you on bananas -- and thus are more right than wrong to dismiss anything else you have to offer beforehand.

Sure, they might commit to a false negative this way, but it's statistically more likely that they wont (and being quick and mostly right to access stuff is more important than being 100% right but slow, again for people with limited life spans).

Besides a hypocrisy charge is not the same as a "he is wrong" charge.

How about this? The degree of disconnect between the lower middle-class and below versus the upper middle class and ruling economic elites in the US has become a rift large enough to drive a semi-truck through. So how were we surprised when in comes Donald Trump's semi-sized narcissism and sociopathy?

The thing to ask yourself, as a member of the educated elite from either the left or right side of the political spectrum in the US: Have I understood and served all of those who have lost ground economically, or only "my side" while declaring the "other side" to be somehow unworthy and deficient? Trump and Sanders both demonstrate that for many in the US, the answer is the 2nd choice!