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Peter Thiel Gave Money to Attorney General Going After Google

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Re: Peter Thiel Gave Money to Attorney General Going After Google

#31

Post by flexie »

ForHackernews wrote: post #19
flexie wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be a sound assumption. Why else should a Silicon Valley billionaire give 300k to someone running for attorney general in a Missouri? Is he just interested in justice being pursued in a small Midwestern state he doesn't live in, that he is neither from, nor studied in, nor has his major business interests in? $300,000 is a sizable donation for someone running for attorney general in a low key state.

> $300,000 is a sizable donation According to Forbes' estimates, Thiel is worth about $2.8 billion. Donating $300,000 for him is proportional to giving maybe $30 for a normal upper-middle class person.

The important question is what $300,000 is to the attorney general. For 99 percent of us it's more than we could hope to save up in many years.

Re: Peter Thiel Gave Money to Attorney General Going After Google

#32

Post by ZeroGravitas »

0xbear wrote: post #24

It’s only fair. Google goes after conservatives, conservatives go after Google. Don’t want your fortunes to depend on politics? Easy solution: stay out of politics. Be neutral and above the fray, declare political discourse (all of it, not just conservative points of view) socially unacceptable at work.

Is there any real evidence of Google going after conservatives?

Is it not just a result of the fact that younger and better educated people are less likely to be conservative that gives this impression?

Re: Peter Thiel Gave Money to Attorney General Going After Google

#33

Post by ravingraven »

downandout wrote: post #23

While this headline is factual, this is like saying " Man With Pre-Existing Health Conditions Donated to the Obama Campaign, and Now We Have Obamacare ". People shop for candidates that will serve their interests and then try to help get them elected. That is how our system of government works, and there is nothing wrong with that. The article strives to imply that Thiel paid this guy off to bring the action, but pro…

>While this headline is factual, this is like saying "Man With Pre-Existing Health Conditions Donated to the Obama Campaign, and Now We Have Obamacare".

And what you are saying is like saying "a pebble fell into the ocean and a boulder fell into the ocean and it's the same because they both produced waves".

Donations from the 1% are many orders of magnitude bigger than donations from ordinary folks mainly because ordinary folks live paycheck to paycheck and do not have the time or resources to donate.

The leverage a big corporations have over politicians is enormous. IMHO they should have zero leverage (no vote, no influence).

Re: Peter Thiel Gave Money to Attorney General Going After Google

#34

Post by ratsimihah »

> unveiled a probe into Alphabet Inc.’s Google for favoring its own products in search results

Is there something inherently wrong with that? I understand it's annoying, but Google is a business after all, not a charity.

Not showing competing results could be considered evil, but merely favoring their own products seems fair to me.

Then again every product I've been building never took off, so what do I know?

Re: Peter Thiel Gave Money to Attorney General Going After Google

#35

Post by 0xfffafaCrash »

naturalgradient wrote: post #30
wavefunction wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with your notion that some hypothetical person with health issues donating $100,000 to the Obama campaign is anywhere in the same moral and ethical situation being discussed here. In fact it sounds like quite an empty equivalency.

Do you have an argument other than that it feels wrong to you? Some people feel deeply about net neutrality and the state of society.

Consider two scenarios:

You contribute $X to a political figure because you want to draw there attention to an issue because...

A) you think society stands to benefit from making certain changes the political figure can enact

B) you think you personally stand to not only get back your $X but personally fatten your wallet significantly in other ways as a result of changes the political figure can enact

Is the distinction between cases where A applies and B doesn't apply vs. cases where B does apply (and A may or may not actually apply) with respect to ethics actually hard to grasp?

In A, the $X is a personal sacrifice made for what you think is the greater good. In B, the $X is an investment for which you think you could have a high personal ROI for regardless of whether it actually makes things in general better or worse. Only B stands to create corruptive influences.

Re: Peter Thiel Gave Money to Attorney General Going After Google

#36

Post by smhost »

downandout wrote: post #23

While this headline is factual, this is like saying " Man With Pre-Existing Health Conditions Donated to the Obama Campaign, and Now We Have Obamacare ". People shop for candidates that will serve their interests and then try to help get them elected. That is how our system of government works, and there is nothing wrong with that. The article strives to imply that Thiel paid this guy off to bring the action, but pro…

> That is how our system of government works, and there is nothing wrong with that.

The system you described naturally consolidates power, and most of society finds it acceptable only if it coexists with a mechanism to redistribute some of that power to the underprivileged class. So there are some things wrong with it.

> a man hated by liberals for his support of Donald Trump

Liberals hate him for his conservative views, not just for his support of Trump. As a PoC, it's hard not to feel disgust toward a powerful elite who says shit like: "...when you start looking for racism everywhere, and you start finding racism everywhere, it's only a very small step to finding racists everywhere. Now, there's nothing wrong if there are really racists out there, but I'm going to suggest to you that there really aren't." Textbook conservative gaslighting to downplay the prevalence of an issue that they find to be inconvenient.

Re: Peter Thiel Gave Money to Attorney General Going After Google

#37

Post by CodeWriter23 »

flexie wrote: post #13
liamtk43 wrote: post #9

Are we supposed to assume that by Thiel giving $300k to Hawley's political campaign in 2015, Thiel is behind Hawley's antitrust investigation into Google? Enough with the "click bate" titles and attenuated conclusions. Another article from a major news outlet that contains zero facts supporting its implied premise.

That would be a sound assumption. Why else should a Silicon Valley billionaire give 300k to someone running for attorney general in a Missouri? Is he just interested in justice being pursued in a small Midwestern state he doesn't live in, that he is neither from, nor studied in, nor has his major business interests in? $300,000 is a sizable donation for someone running for attorney general in a low key state.

EU Courts already found Google guilty of antitrust activities. So the sound assumption here is US Courts will rule similarly. So why would a State AG pass on such an opportunity to fill the state coffers and defend their citizens? Check out followthemoney.org to learn why California isn’t filing the suit.

Re: Peter Thiel Gave Money to Attorney General Going After Google

#38

Post by mrpopo »

downandout wrote: post #23

While this headline is factual, this is like saying " Man With Pre-Existing Health Conditions Donated to the Obama Campaign, and Now We Have Obamacare ". People shop for candidates that will serve their interests and then try to help get them elected. That is how our system of government works, and there is nothing wrong with that. The article strives to imply that Thiel paid this guy off to bring the action, but pro…

> That is how our system of government works, and there is nothing wrong with that.

For most of the world population, wealthy people buying off politicians to serve their interests is seen as unethical, and it is flat illegal in many countries.

Re: Peter Thiel Gave Money to Attorney General Going After Google

#39

Post by CPLX »

downandout wrote: post #23

While this headline is factual, this is like saying " Man With Pre-Existing Health Conditions Donated to the Obama Campaign, and Now We Have Obamacare ". People shop for candidates that will serve their interests and then try to help get them elected. That is how our system of government works, and there is nothing wrong with that. The article strives to imply that Thiel paid this guy off to bring the action, but pro…

If you think a Republican politician and billionaire financier is one of the most liberal people on earth you have a truly profound misunderstanding of what that word means.

Re: Peter Thiel Gave Money to Attorney General Going After Google

#40

Post by flexie »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #37
flexie wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be a sound assumption. Why else should a Silicon Valley billionaire give 300k to someone running for attorney general in a Missouri? Is he just interested in justice being pursued in a small Midwestern state he doesn't live in, that he is neither from, nor studied in, nor has his major business interests in? $300,000 is a sizable donation for someone running for attorney general in a low key state.

EU Courts already found Google guilty of antitrust activities. So the sound assumption here is US Courts will rule similarly. So why would a State AG pass on such an opportunity to fill the state coffers and defend their citizens? Check out followthemoney.org to learn why California isn’t filing the suit.

American antitrust legislation is completely different from European competition law. It's by no means given that the result will be the same in the US or that the fines would be similar.

Also, I doubt that most Missourian voters care nearly as much about fighting Google as they care about jailing local criminals.

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