Netflix probably bidding for the screenplay as we speak. Billions, death and gay couple, with a side of culture war, Trump, hulk hogan's nude pics, racism and gawker. At least six episodes of a docuseries right there.
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#12Anyone here can explain why is Peter Thiel so dedicated to conservatism and the culture war? I don't get how bankrolling people who actively support policies that hurt minorities (like the LGBT community) can bring any upside to him. What is his endgame here?
I'm going to try and explain how I understand Peter Thiel's worldview here, which I've learned from listening to him talk and reading what he writes. You can downvote this all you want, but I believe it's an accurate interpretation. I'll try to keep my own opinions out of it.
To understand Thiel's position, you have to broaden your idea of harm past immediate harm to a single group of people.
While I'm sure Thiel has personal economic concerns, his stated primary moral concern is preventing wealth redistribution, socialism, and the mass-scale violence that those programs have caused in the past. You can choose to believe him as to whether this is his true motivation or not, but you asked for an explanation of this worldview and that's what he's stuck with over 10+ years now.
While you might be more worried about Nazis, Thiel is more worried about things like 1905 and 1917 Russian revolutions, the ensuing Red Terror, and mass starvation/poverty. About 20M people died in Russia during this time, mostly from starvation but up to 200,000 dead by being executed by the state for having the wrong political beliefs. And many more during the various violent uprisings and civil wars.
Some of you reading this are going to huff and just disregard it, but for Thiel, preventing potential massive tragedy in the future is likely worth a tradeoff of some people being "harmed" now.
Edit: the number of replies to your comment which basically amount to "he just doesn't care about others/he's rich so he's evil" indicate that even the Hacker News audience is not immune to believing in lazy explanations and supernatural forces. Google "The Myth of Pure Evil" for more on this.
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#13Anyone here can explain why is Peter Thiel so dedicated to conservatism and the culture war? I don't get how bankrolling people who actively support policies that hurt minorities (like the LGBT community) can bring any upside to him. What is his endgame here?
Thiel is a multi-billionaire, so the same rules don't apply to him as the masses. Even the most anti-LGBT politicians will fawn over you if you have such money and power despite being what they supposedly detest.
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#14Anyone here can explain why is Peter Thiel so dedicated to conservatism and the culture war? I don't get how bankrolling people who actively support policies that hurt minorities (like the LGBT community) can bring any upside to him. What is his endgame here?
I'm going to try and explain how I understand Peter Thiel's worldview here, which I've learned from listening to him talk and reading what he writes. You can downvote this all you want, but I believe it's an accurate interpretation. I'll try to keep my own opinions out of it. To understand Thiel's position, you have to broaden your idea of harm past immediate harm to a single group of people. While I'm sure Thiel has…
"At San Mateo High School, he read Ayn Rand, admired the optimism and anti-communism of then-President Ronald Reagan" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Early_life_and_edu...
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#15Anyone here can explain why is Peter Thiel so dedicated to conservatism and the culture war? I don't get how bankrolling people who actively support policies that hurt minorities (like the LGBT community) can bring any upside to him. What is his endgame here?
I'm going to try and explain how I understand Peter Thiel's worldview here, which I've learned from listening to him talk and reading what he writes. You can downvote this all you want, but I believe it's an accurate interpretation. I'll try to keep my own opinions out of it. To understand Thiel's position, you have to broaden your idea of harm past immediate harm to a single group of people. While I'm sure Thiel has…
It's a mystery to me how those on the left get to spend so much time focusing on the threat of nazism whilst completely ignoring their own horrific history. I dont know how they get away with it.
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#16Anyone here can explain why is Peter Thiel so dedicated to conservatism and the culture war? I don't get how bankrolling people who actively support policies that hurt minorities (like the LGBT community) can bring any upside to him. What is his endgame here?
I'm going to try and explain how I understand Peter Thiel's worldview here, which I've learned from listening to him talk and reading what he writes. You can downvote this all you want, but I believe it's an accurate interpretation. I'll try to keep my own opinions out of it. To understand Thiel's position, you have to broaden your idea of harm past immediate harm to a single group of people. While I'm sure Thiel has…
> preventing wealth redistribution, socialism, and the mass-scale violence that those programs have caused in the past
> While you might be more worried about Nazis, Thiel is more worried about things like 1905 and 1917 Russian revolutions, the ensuing Red Terror, and mass starvation/poverty.
That political violence was caused by competing authoritarian regimes, not socialism and wealth redistribution.
If socialism were the cause, the US would have had a violent revolution after WW2, a time of very high wealth redistribution and the implementation of programs like Social Security and Medicare.
Much of the current unrest in the US is caused by the stagnation of workers wages and quality of life in politically relevant places, not the opposite. That's far more like the situation in Germany prior to the rise of the Nazis.
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#17Anyone here can explain why is Peter Thiel so dedicated to conservatism and the culture war? I don't get how bankrolling people who actively support policies that hurt minorities (like the LGBT community) can bring any upside to him. What is his endgame here?
I'm going to try and explain how I understand Peter Thiel's worldview here, which I've learned from listening to him talk and reading what he writes. You can downvote this all you want, but I believe it's an accurate interpretation. I'll try to keep my own opinions out of it. To understand Thiel's position, you have to broaden your idea of harm past immediate harm to a single group of people. While I'm sure Thiel has…
The problem with Thiel's worldview is that it's not all that accurate. Yes, the Soviet Union was a horrible authoritarian state but the alternative to it isn't any better especially if you're not in the United States or of its preferred/default social classes. The damage done by the USSR and the Russian civil war pale in comparison to the yearly death toll of millions from medical deprivation and starvation even after the Green Revolution (we still have a distribution problem wrt food and medicine). His solutions are basically go back to some form of feudalism but without there being a singular sovereign to keep the nobles of our age in check (i.e. him and other billionaires). The reality is that capitalism has been limping along post Cold War and it's not getting any better, so without there being an outside threat to unify ourselves around, its flaws are seen more keenly and felt more closely than in the past. If Thiel wants to stop the second Bolshevik revolt then he should focus on making wealth distribution through market means viable and support ending monopolies and enclosures of various commons (weaken IP law, reform land rights, and so forth).
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#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm going to try and explain how I understand Peter Thiel's worldview here, which I've learned from listening to him talk and reading what he writes. You can downvote this all you want, but I believe it's an accurate interpretation. I'll try to keep my own opinions out of it. To understand Thiel's position, you have to broaden your idea of harm past immediate harm to a single group of people. While I'm sure Thiel has…
It's a mystery to me how those on the left get to spend so much time focusing on the threat of nazism whilst completely ignoring their own horrific history. I dont know how they get away with it.
How would I, as a native born US Midwesterner, view the USSR or the PRC as "my own history"? Not to mention that the USSR and PRC have both transitioned from economic socialism to capitalism while retaining political totalitarianism. So maybe the economic system and the political system are separate issues? There are plenty of countries in western/northern Europe that are more socialist, and indeed more democratic, than the US.
It's kind of like asking contemporary Christians how they get away with not focusing on the Spanish Inquisition. Why would someone today view that as "their own horrific history"?
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#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm going to try and explain how I understand Peter Thiel's worldview here, which I've learned from listening to him talk and reading what he writes. You can downvote this all you want, but I believe it's an accurate interpretation. I'll try to keep my own opinions out of it. To understand Thiel's position, you have to broaden your idea of harm past immediate harm to a single group of people. While I'm sure Thiel has…
It's a mystery to me how those on the left get to spend so much time focusing on the threat of nazism whilst completely ignoring their own horrific history. I dont know how they get away with it.
I was going to just write this off as ridiculous whataboutism but it doesn’t do your comment justice. “The Left” frets about nazism because the BS fascist tones of the typical far-right-but-with-mainstream-appeal policy platform bare a far closer resemblance to the left-wing counterpart does to say…communistic dictatorships of times past. Pull your head in.
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#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm going to try and explain how I understand Peter Thiel's worldview here, which I've learned from listening to him talk and reading what he writes. You can downvote this all you want, but I believe it's an accurate interpretation. I'll try to keep my own opinions out of it. To understand Thiel's position, you have to broaden your idea of harm past immediate harm to a single group of people. While I'm sure Thiel has…
The problem with Thiel's worldview is that it's not all that accurate. Yes, the Soviet Union was a horrible authoritarian state but the alternative to it isn't any better especially if you're not in the United States or of its preferred/default social classes. The damage done by the USSR and the Russian civil war pale in comparison to the yearly death toll of millions from medical deprivation and starvation even afte…
How many people die every year from medical deprivation? While that is a legitimate problem that we need to fix, I'm skeptical whether that could exceed the 100M who have been killed by Communism.