Peter Thiel: The Online Privacy Debate Won’t End With Gawker • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by harshreality » Tue, Aug 16, 2016, 12:57 AM UTC

Analemma_ wrote: post #17

The balls on this guy. The sheer cynical audacity of trying to market yourself as a "defender of privacy" when you serve on the board of a company so antithetical to privacy that they're under federal supervision for twenty years [1] is breathtaking. Please tell me no one on Hacker News is dumb enough to fall for this. My Google-fu is failing me on the exact link (can someone help?), but Marc Andreessen once penned s…

My take on Thiel is that he sees himself trying to help navigate between Scylla and Charybdis. On one side, I think he agrees that too much surveillance and data gathering is a problem. He calls himself a libertarian, after all. He just sees the other side as being just as much of a problem, as in this quote (mostly relating to his involvement in Palantir):

"As a libertarian, I don't think we should have had the response [to 9/11] we did to those buildings blowing up. But all the mass movements, all the consciousness-raising in the world did not stop us from getting the Patriot Act. The ACLU is always good at talking about civil rights, but [despite that] once something happens, protections go out the window right way. I think there's something to be said for trying to figure out some ways to stop another attack which will be used to curtail civil liberties even more. A company like Paypal could not get started in the post-PatriotAct world, because we would be accused of money laundering [based on how we operated] in '98-'99..." (from a discussion with David Graeber hosted by The Baffler, Fall 2014)

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

#112

Post by serge2k » Tue, Aug 16, 2016, 12:58 AM UTC

swang wrote: post #106

nikcheerla wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obligatory xkcd about free speech: https://xkcd.com/1357/ Gawker's outing was free speech. Peter Thiel giving money to Hulk Hogan to fight his legal battle was also free speech. There's nothing hypocritical about wanting to protect free speech, yet disliking someone's specific use of free speech.

the hypocrisy is in saying, hey i still believe in free speech, while punishing free speech because he doesn't like what was said. that just means he's all for speech that doesn't affect his bottom line.

Except he's not suppressing dissenting opinions or hushing up stories about his wrongdoings.

He is going after them for outing him as gay. Gawker does this to people as a matter of policy. This policy has lead to people committing suicide, they have fired reporters who disagreed with it. It is a legal policy, they have the right to do this. You can find cases where doing it isn't that unreasonable. A politician with an awful record on gay rights gets caught with a male prostitute, that's news worthy. It is a matter the public has an interest in.

A VC being gay? Why say anything. It's just cruel tabloid gossip.

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

#113

Post by gd1 » Tue, Aug 16, 2016, 1:00 AM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #30

nikcheerla wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why exactly do you think those two positions are necessarily in opposition? You can be proudly gay while still believing that 'marriage' is only between men and women. AFAIK this is a pretty common belief among those who are both Christian and gay.

> You can be proudly gay while still believing that 'marriage' is only between men and women. AFAIK this is a pretty common belief among those who are both Christian and gay. Is there any reason to believe this is a common alignment of views? While I haven't seen things broken out at that detail level (e.g., gay marriage views of gay Christians), in general, belief that society should accept homosexuality tracks pret…

It's perfectly possible to believe that society should accept homosexuality and also be against gay marriage. It's a complex issue. 'Marriage' is a religious ceremony, and freedom of religion and association is a thing. If the Christians don't want to let the gays join their club and do their funny little ceremony, then so be it. Any change needs to be driven by the Pope and the church itself, not enforced by the state.

That is completely distinct from the concept of a legal union as defined by the state, which should be available to all consenting adults. Hell, as a mathematical type myself, if you can get it working in 2 dimensions you should be able to generalize to n dimensions, so why not legalize a union between any n consenting sentient beings while we're at it?

The bigger mystery is why any non-christian gay people would care...?? If you're not Christian, you shouldn't care about a religious 'marriage', only civil unions. If you are Christian, you should take it up with your Church and work on change from within. I mean how is it going to work? If you're a Christian gay and you feel hurt and not included because your faith denies you the right to a religious marriage, are you really going to feel any more included when the state kicks the door down and forces them to accept you? They have to decide to accept you on their own.

I just don't get the whole issue.

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

#114

Post by brown9-2 » Tue, Aug 16, 2016, 1:01 AM UTC

nikcheerla wrote: post #25

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #23

FTA: I’m glad that an arena full of Republicans stood up to applaud when I said I was proud to be gay, because gay pride shouldn’t be a partisan issue. All people deserve respect, and nobody’s sexuality should be made a public fixation. From the 2016 party platform[1] of that arena full of Republicans[2]: In Obergefell, five unelected lawyers robbed 320 million Americans of their legitimate constitutional authority t…

Why exactly do you think those two positions are necessarily in opposition? You can be proudly gay while still believing that 'marriage' is only between men and women. AFAIK this is a pretty common belief among those who are both Christian and gay.

AFAIK this is a pretty common belief among those who are both Christian and gay.

Citation?

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

#115

Post by linkregister » Tue, Aug 16, 2016, 1:10 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #102

stcredzero wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're trying to discredit an argument because the person saying it is a hypocrite, which is also an ad-hominem . If the argument is true, then it would also be true even if the person saying it were hypocritical.

> If the argument is true, then it would also be true even if the person saying it were hypocritical. And nobody said otherwise -- for the core argument. But in real life we don't usually know whether the thing (let's call it A) itself that an argument tries to prove is true. We only know that the argument in favor of A is formulated correctly (follows its premises correctly, etc). Regarding A though, there might be…

I'm convinced that stcredzero is intentionally misdirecting you into arguing about logical fallacies. Based off of her/his other comments in this thread, it doesn't appear that she or he cares much about them. stcredzero's viewpoint is clear and not focused on policing the thread from logical fallacies.

I would say it's a fallacy to harp on logical fallacies; it's not as if everyone has infinite time to convert all arguments to syllogisms. The common list of logical fallacies entered Western culture from the ancient Greeks but shouldn't be taken with religious fervor.

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

#116

Post by swang » Tue, Aug 16, 2016, 1:11 AM UTC

serge2k wrote: post #99

swang wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

okay thats just kinda semantics then. he didn't get revenge because he did something wrong. he got revenge because he felt someone else did something wrong. so this is still all about revenge for thiel at the cost of chilling free speech. thiel saying he is defending free speech is disingenuous when the supreme court has given the press considerable latitude to write about someone's sexual orientation. he is mad abou…

> now it is a really shitty thing to do to out someone as gay. but let's not pretend this wasn't thiel's payback. It's absolutely payback, I'm saying I don't have a problem wiht it. I think gawker is getting exactly what they deserve. Thiel/Hogan had to go and prove their argument in court. Do you not trust the court system to preserve free speech? Does this argument apply to everyone, or just billionaires who actual…

> It's absolutely payback, I'm saying I don't have a problem wiht it. I think gawker is getting exactly what they deserve.

cool. just don't say you (thiel) advocate for free speech when you do that.

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

#117

Post by guelo » Tue, Aug 16, 2016, 1:25 AM UTC

In Hulk Hogan's sex tape he goes off on a racist rant. That's the reason the WWE fired him. I'm glad my kids won't be exposed to that racist and I'm thankful for Gawker's public services on that issue.

Also, Hogan was never going to earn $140million for the rest of his life. That judgment was ridiculous.

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

#118

Post by shanusmagnus » Tue, Aug 16, 2016, 1:26 AM UTC

r00fus wrote: post #110

tertius wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Goldwater rule removes the strength of your statement regarding him being a sociopath.

Had to look that one up [1] So is it your understanding that shanusmagnus is a psychiatrist, or am I missing something? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldwater_rule

I didn't know the term either, so thanks for digging it up. I'm close to, but not quite a psychiatrist, so I think I squeak through on a technicality :)

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

#119

Post by guelo » Tue, Aug 16, 2016, 1:27 AM UTC

shanusmagnus wrote: post #42

Implying that objections to Trump's narcissism and probable sociopathy amount to "culture war" is a staggering re-framing of reality. That combined with the gay-conservative-Christian thing suggest that the amount of cognitive dissonance Thiel can endure must truly be Olympic calibre.

Not to mention, the supposed uber-libertarian supporting government restrictions on free speech.

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

#120

Post by swang » Tue, Aug 16, 2016, 1:29 AM UTC

serge2k wrote: post #112

swang wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the hypocrisy is in saying, hey i still believe in free speech, while punishing free speech because he doesn't like what was said. that just means he's all for speech that doesn't affect his bottom line.

Except he's not suppressing dissenting opinions or hushing up stories about his wrongdoings. He is going after them for outing him as gay. Gawker does this to people as a matter of policy. This policy has lead to people committing suicide, they have fired reporters who disagreed with it. It is a legal policy, they have the right to do this. You can find cases where doing it isn't that unreasonable. A politician with…

i am against outing people. gawker's policy of outing people, at best, is terrible. saying people being outed could cause them to commit suicide is true.

but

> He is going after them for outing him as gay. Gawker does this to people as a matter of policy. This policy has lead to people committing suicide, they have fired reporters who disagreed with it.

you're going to have to cite any firing. there have been resignations because nick denton took down an article about a conde nast executive who was gay and the editors disagreed with the article takedown. no one (afaik) was fired. they resigned because their article got taken down. also saying gawker outs being as a matter of policy... what.

also let's talk about thiel's outing. thiel was a huge investor in facebook, therefore he is a public figure. and is it really an out-of-the-closet "outing" if nearly everyone who worked with thiel knew, and told that to people outside of thiel's general circle? you think the author of the story dug through thiel's trash to find out that he was gay? it was pretty much common knowledge regardless of what thiel's dislike of talking about it.

and imo he is suppressing dissenting opinions. cross peter thiel and you better prepare to go through a legal battle for it even if what was said was not libel.