41–50 of 99 posts
This is a stroke of genius by Peter Thiel. In hindsight, he was hedged. If Clinton won, his Trump endorsement would have been chalked up to his contrarian, eccentric bent. If Trump won -and he did- Thiel's bet would have a huge return. His self-interest aside, this is a huge deal for Palantir, the company that he helped found and has many federal governments as their client. Also, in a sense, Thiel ensured that Silic…
I am ok with Thiel thinking Trump would win. What was a disappointment for me is that Thiel actually believes Trump was a good candidate and (I speculate) agrees with his platform. Also, apparently has no problem with the incendiary and hateful speech of Trump
He explains his rational argument here[1]. Basically his argument is "don't take Trump literally, take him seriously". 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob-LJqPQEJ4
Which I guess is great if you're a billionaire and probably get some time with Trump or someone close to him that knows what he actually plans to do.
In the meantime, all the rest of us are left with "I'm going to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something great." Forgive me if I would have preferred something a little more substantial. Then again, I would like other people to have preferred that as well. :/
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very many sane people had no desire to see Hillary Clinton be the president of the United States. There's just no need to keep pretending that your opinion is the only rational choice when you've been repudiated so completely.
Nobody thought Clinton was swell, most Democrats I've spoken with hated her. The alternative is someone (Trump) who never had any kind of political experience of any kind, period. Would you get in a plane flown by someone with 0 hours of flight training, literally zero? I'd rather get in a plane flown by a pilot who has spoken out publicly about being a Jihadi terrorist (in this analogy Hillary Clinton, and I make th…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very many sane people had no desire to see Hillary Clinton be the president of the United States. There's just no need to keep pretending that your opinion is the only rational choice when you've been repudiated so completely.
Nobody thought Clinton was swell, most Democrats I've spoken with hated her. The alternative is someone (Trump) who never had any kind of political experience of any kind, period. Would you get in a plane flown by someone with 0 hours of flight training, literally zero? I'd rather get in a plane flown by a pilot who has spoken out publicly about being a Jihadi terrorist (in this analogy Hillary Clinton, and I make th…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There's just no need to keep pretending that your opinion is the only rational choice when you've been repudiated so completely. You do realize that Clinton won the popular vote, right? the majority of Americans agree with her policies and voted for her. Trump won because of the arcane 18th century election structure unique to the US called an electoral college.
Ahh, is it time to cry about the electoral college again? I suppose if no one knew going in that it was the way things were done, I'd care. Since everyone knew, it's just the worst kind of monday-morning quarterbacking. The thorough repudiation is that Hillary Clinton was anointed the next president, anointed the "only" "sane" choice, and lost. It's a fact, no matter what tears people dredge up now. I say this with n…
To be fair, it's not like this only gets brought up after the election. The last 3-6 months have been filled with people complaining about how our voting system works, different systems and their own problems, etc.
I am ok with Thiel thinking Trump would win. What was a disappointment for me is that Thiel actually believes Trump was a good candidate and (I speculate) agrees with his platform. Also, apparently has no problem with the incendiary and hateful speech of Trump
That's probably because that has been overplayed. The President, whatever his beliefs doesn't change America's racism (or lack thereof), in the same way there was a record of police shootings of blacks etc. under Obama.
A president's economic platform is more important, and Hillary, as did most pundits, mostly retold the old wives tales that globalization necessarily means giving up factories, or that somehow having jobs and motives for building stuff in one's country is obsolete, etc.
That approach might maximize enterprise profits, but not necessarily help middle and lower classes, and general societal wealth. A country can have huge companies, but not get out of them but minimal local jobs and infrastructure (because they outsource those), and not even taxes on their profits (since they use globalized subsidies and other schemes to avoid paying any).
I don't believe that Trump will actually fix that, but he at least (as did Bernie Sanders) paid lip service to the notion, and that counted to a lot of people.
There's also the foreign policy issues. Trump might be a "loose canon" or whatever, but Hillary has been constantly and vehemently pro war / invasion etc. She has threatened Russia and Iran, helped destabilize Syria, Libya, etc.
The very real potential for wars and tons of deaths (on both sides) is more important than whether Trump made misogynistic comments, or spoke against illegal immigration, etc.
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Thanks for helping the readers of Hacker News understand why Trump won.
I voted for Trump. I'm also a distinguished engineer at Google in Mountain View, CA.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very many sane people had no desire to see Hillary Clinton be the president of the United States. There's just no need to keep pretending that your opinion is the only rational choice when you've been repudiated so completely.
> There's just no need to keep pretending that your opinion is the only rational choice when you've been repudiated so completely. You do realize that Clinton won the popular vote, right? the majority of Americans agree with her policies and voted for her. Trump won because of the arcane 18th century election structure unique to the US called an electoral college.
Just barely. So? Besides, nobody would have complained is she had won against the popular vote (which most pundits expected her to).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ahh, is it time to cry about the electoral college again? I suppose if no one knew going in that it was the way things were done, I'd care. Since everyone knew, it's just the worst kind of monday-morning quarterbacking. The thorough repudiation is that Hillary Clinton was anointed the next president, anointed the "only" "sane" choice, and lost. It's a fact, no matter what tears people dredge up now. I say this with n…
> Since everyone knew, it's just the worst kind of monday-morning quarterbacking. To be fair, it's not like this only gets brought up after the election. The last 3-6 months have been filled with people complaining about how our voting system works, different systems and their own problems, etc.