Is Trump mulling Peter Thiel for a top intelligence advisory post? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Trump mulling Peter Thiel for a top intelligence advisory post?

#151

Post by d--b » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 2:26 PM UTC

dagw wrote: post #135

d--b wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is certainly not true. In the US, republicans control the presidency and congress. It means that somewhere around 50% of american people believe that the rich should be taxed much less. I believe a similar fraction of European countries believe that too. The rich (whether they're on the left or on the right) have a massive impact on the media. Think Rupert Murdoch, think Oprah. There are 27 billionaires in Swede…

There are 27 billionaires in Sweden. No there are 27 billionaires with Swedish citizenship. I'd estimate that less than half of them live full time in Sweden. Also over 50% of them are from 1 of 4 families. and only 2 of them made their money by founding an actual company (as opposed to a hedge fund or trading company).

Ok, good to know. This only gives more reasons to increase taxes on inheritance and capital return...

Re: Is Trump mulling Peter Thiel for a top intelligence advisory post?

#152

Post by belorn » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 2:40 PM UTC

Larrikin wrote: post #48

belorn wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The left used to opposed multiculturalism in favor of promoting cultural globalisation. Its only in recent 40-50 years that majority of the left has swung on that issue, now being in favor of multiculturalism and against cultural globalisation.

And the Republican party defeated the group that fought for slavery. Things change over generations.

Slavery was a 19th century issue.

Cultural globalisation was favored by the left during the 1970's and lost favor during the 1980's and later.

Is slavery and Cultural globalisation a fair comparison?

Re: Is Trump mulling Peter Thiel for a top intelligence advisory post?

#153

Post by dogruck » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 2:49 PM UTC

croon wrote: post #100

dogruck wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proper corruption typically includes: * Lack of transparency. It's tough to be corrupt in plain sight. * Payment to someone who currently possesses power -- not a public contribution to a political candidate seeking a new office of power.

> * Payment to someone who currently possesses power -- not a public contribution to a political candidate seeking a new office of power. The difference is negligible if you consider it a hedge on that person getting into office, upon which time you get rewarded through appointment. A theme that has become a pattern.

I agree that some people and corporations strategically donate to multiple candidates with the expectation that they'll subsequently have influence.

I don't think the difference is neglible though. In particular, voters incorporate the campaign financing into their decision (as we saw people not voting for HRC because of all the cash she got from Wall Street)

Re: Is Trump mulling Peter Thiel for a top intelligence advisory post?

#154

Post by hal9000xp » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 3:00 PM UTC

croon wrote: post #150

hal9000xp wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Sweden, you will pay 58% from your every Swedish krona for monthly salary above 55000 SEK (6873 USD). So social-democrats believe you are already rich having monthly income just above 6873 USD. At that level of income you have absolutely no vote over majority and you have zero lobby power and you obviously don't control any media. Having that level of income is already not normal and according to social-democrats…

> I honestly do NOT believe that I owe anything to poor people. And I'm saying that as a person who born in Uzbekistan and lived in extreme poverty (my income in 2003 was ... 10 USD per month). May I ask you why you moved to Sweden? or Amsterdam? Where they also have the "Doe Normaal" mindset which you say you take issue with. You say that you don't believe that you owe anything, but immediately afterwards say that y…

> May I ask you why you moved to Sweden? or Amsterdam?

I moved here because choose least worst option, not because I appreciate socialism and high taxes. In Uzbekistan, taxation is also very high but in different dimension - the government squeeze you via high inflation (by printing money) and unofficial taxation (corruption).

I'm logically consistent since Uzbekistan is on 148th place in rating of economy freedom (read it as how economically liberal the government), Russia (my second country) is on 114th place, Sweden (my third country) is on 19th place, the Netherlands is on 15th place.

So as you can see I move to more liberal country each time in terms of economy freedom and taxation (in Russia real taxes are high by the same reason as in Uzbekistan).

Liberal economic policies are core reason why western Europe stays afloat despite (!) socialist policies and high taxation.

People in Uzbekistan and Russia are less capitalist than in western Europe.

Yes, I'm absolutely sure that my little success is despite socialist polities and more generally the Government (Uzbekistan, Russia, Sweden, the Netherlands).

Look, I've never received any help from government. I don't have any formal education (neither school nor university). I'm self-taught. I have zero inheritance. Everything I've earn was from private enterprise.

Re: Is Trump mulling Peter Thiel for a top intelligence advisory post?

#155

Post by maxerickson » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 3:36 PM UTC

Turing_Machine wrote: post #16

intopieces wrote: post #2

> Thiel reportedly doubled-down and immediately donated $1.25 million to Trump’s campaign Can someone describe corruption and help me understand how it differs from this situation?

Personally, I find an explicit campaign contribution to be considerably less sleazy than paying a politician hundreds of thousands of dollars for "making a speech" (a very popular ruse with the Clintons, and now Obama). Less sleazy in that campaign funds have to be accounted for (i.e., actually spent on the campaign, or retained for a future campaign) while "speaking fees" can be spent any way you want.

Corruption is all about quid quo pro.

So getting sweetheart speaking gigs after you leave office isn't all that likely to lead to corruption charges (unless, say, you believe that Obama has a lot of influence over the present government).

The speaking fees the Clinton's accepted during her interregnum were heavily investigated, because they were an easy target. I wonder if a better prosecutor than Chaffetz would have found something.

Re: Is Trump mulling Peter Thiel for a top intelligence advisory post?

#156

Post by confounded » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 4:20 PM UTC

d--b wrote: post #110

This position is about intelligence oversight. What's the link with being harsh on Google and Amazon? What the article makes it sound like is that Thiel is against forms of censorship at the level of companies like Google and Amazon, which in a way is fine, right? (Or maybe I misunderstood?). Also it sounds like Thiel would very much want to limit the role of the NSA in matters of domestic privacy, which is kind of w…

> Also it sounds like Thiel would very much want to limit the role of the NSA in matters of domestic privacy, which is kind of what everybody wanted Obama to do.

He founded and directly profits from Palantir, a huge private surveillance company that makes its money from government surveillance contracts. He's already got some sweet deals for the company after working for Trump, especially new contracts for ICE.

It's possible that he'd like to privatize surveillance work for his own profit, but given that he's spent the last 13 years working on superior mass surveillance systems, it seems unlikely that the views you seem to attribute to him are true. This is all outside of him being on the board of Facebook (which I'd argue is single greatest force against domestic privacy in the US, and an extremely large ingest source for the NSA).

Re: Is Trump mulling Peter Thiel for a top intelligence advisory post?

#157

Post by throwawayknecht » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 4:39 PM UTC

em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #73

KGIII wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, no. Libertarian is, on the political compass, the opposite of authoritarian. As such, there's actually a whole spectrum of beliefs. Anarchists believe in no laws. Libertarians believe in increased liberty for the individual. This can be manifest as a reduction of laws, it may be as extreme as a desire for anarchy. Libertarian really is (was?) about increasing and protecting the individual liberties, maxim…

> "For the most part, the leftist leaning libertarians are extinct in the US." Actually there is a recent trend of leftwing libertains in America under the names "free-market anti-capitalist", "thick libertarianism", " market-anarchism", and even "libertarian socialism", all working inside and outside of the Libertarian Party.

Wow this comment is confusing a lot of stuff.

- "Free-market anti-capitalist" is a term used by people who want to call themselves "mutualists" but lost the rhetorical shell game trying to compare themselves to Proudhon, with whom they in reality share nothing.

- Thick vs thin libertarianism is orthogonal to the discussion here, though I think it's discussed almost exclusively by ancaps; as far as I know the distinction was created to discuss two different attitudes towards the NAP. Anarchists and other socialists don't put much faith in NAPs.

- "Market anarchism" is a synonym for full-on Rothbard ancap.

- "Libertarian socialism" is identified with anarchism back into the 19th century. Any attempt to use the term to describe "free market" policies is incoherent appropriation for the sake of (probably populist) branding.

No libertarian socialists of note work within the Libertarian Party in the US. When the term "left libertarian" is used in that context, the "left" is only relative to the paleoconservative parts of it.

Re: Is Trump mulling Peter Thiel for a top intelligence advisory post?

#158

Post by petraeus » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 4:41 PM UTC

hal9000xp wrote: post #109

confounded wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perot was in favor of direct democracy, Theil believes that democracy is making things too difficult for capitalism. Perot was in favor of increasing taxes on the rich, Theil is effectively a feudalist. Both men were billionaires who invested in computing and were involved in the 'military industrial complex'. But the word 'libertarian' has been dragged so far to the right in the US in recent years that it's not a me…

I'm tired of two so wide spread dogmas - "will of majority is absolute good", "rich owes money to society, so we need rip them off". I lived in Sweden and now I live in the Netherlands. You have better chance to meet alien from another galactic than a person who doesn't believe in these dogmas. So I definitely see absolute political monogamy here. In centralized democracy high earners have absolutely no voice. I.e. f…

You're not in the minority bud, sorry to break the news to you but the majority of people are selfish assholes who think all the opportunity in their life is simply the outcome of a god given right and ignore the centuries of oppression and theft that has enabled them to reach such a social status.

Re: Is Trump mulling Peter Thiel for a top intelligence advisory post?

#159

Post by throwawayknecht » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 5:18 PM UTC

em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #83

pryce wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't that Thiel thinks 'Capitalism and Democracy are incompatible' that makes him right-wing, it is that given he believes they are incompatible, he concludes Democracy should be discarded to preserve Capitalism, rather than the other way around. This is a far-right view.

Not necessarily far-right because the political spectrum has more than one dimension.

So first, this retort is vacuous because the whole point of Thiel's supposition is that the dimensions are not orthogonal. The meaning of the quote is that he is willing to move right on others (political structure, social issues, surveillance state, etc) to be able to move right on another (economic policy).

But even putting that aside, on which dimension is Thiel not on the far-right? He's hardcore capitalist who supports (self-described!) monopolist policies; he sits on the board of a public surveillance company and is the chairman of a second military-industrial one; he published a book in which he called a substantial portion of rape victims liars; and we're talking about him getting an appointment in a right-wing movement in the federal government.

Re: Is Trump mulling Peter Thiel for a top intelligence advisory post?

#160

Post by marvin » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 6:02 PM UTC

lokedhs wrote: post #130

marvin wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well said. I have been trying to pinpoint these sentiments for a while, but haven't quite figured it out. The ultra-rich and the middle-class ruling above others is a very eloquent way of phrasing it. Your description hits my native Norway very well. It is very difficult to excel and get recognition for it. In a discussion with my SO the other day, I was trying to find a Norwegian word for 'excel' and realized that w…

In Swedish we have the word "överträffa" and I was sure there must be a corresponding Norwegian word. However, after looking at several different dictionaries, I really can't find a Norwegian word that translates to this. Two separate sources translates it with "stige" which doesn't sound right at all.

Specifically, I can't find a Norwegian word for "apply yourself to improve, be the best that you are able to and succeed". I think this is reflective of Norwegian culture, at least the parts that I have seen for the last 30ish years.