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Re: undefined

#31

Post by Teever »

tdehnel wrote: post #12
dakial1 wrote: post #2

Anyone 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…

> 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.

Let's say I agree with Thiel on this matter. We agree so much that I intend to drone strike Thiel.

Is this position good or bad? How does it differ from that of Thiel?

Re: undefined

#32

Post by Jackevansevo »

dakial1 wrote: post #2

Anyone 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?

He's a nutter

Re: undefined

#33

Post by BeFlatXIII »

tdehnel wrote: post #12
dakial1 wrote: post #2

Anyone 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…

…yet the measures meant to prevent economic redistributionism may be exactly what entices the populace to choose violence.

Re: undefined

#34

Post by tqkxzugoaupvwqr »

> I saw the spark in me fade away, and it was toxic, and it was unhealthy

What does it say about you when your boyfriend/friend with benefits/boytoy says the relationship is toxic yet you continue? Thiel basically snuffed the life out of a close person. If that is how much he cares about close people, he does not care the least bit about the American population and anything he does should be met with skepticism.

Re: undefined

#35

Post by imeron »

ladyattis wrote: post #17
tdehnel wrote: post #12

Earlier 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…

Interestingly social setups had 'billionaires' and 'everybody else' too, it was just way worse for everybody else. It's not like there was no unchecked ruling class there.

Re: undefined

#36

Post by cinntaile »

xenospn wrote: post #24
cinntaile wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people seem convinced he's a fascist but where is the actual evidence?

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. Have you seen who he bankrolls?

Your comment also doesn't contain any evidence.

Re: undefined

#37

Post by n4r9 »

cinntaile wrote: post #21
michael1999 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The man believes what he believes, and has sex the way he has sex. Lots of fascists are gay. It’s a whole trope.

A lot of people seem convinced he's a fascist but where is the actual evidence?

This article by John Ganz presents possibly the most comprehensive argument - https://johnganz.substack.com/p/the-enigma-of-peter-thiel

> So, let’s sum up. Peter Thiel believes he belongs to an elite group, often understood in implicitly or explicitly racial terms, that is entitled to set aside democratic governance in favor of pursuing a program of technological progress and national restoration. He believes the political means to accomplish this is through a charismatic leader with manipulative, populist appeals to past national glory and against parasitic immigrants and culturally decadent liberalism. For him, even the most milquetoast, reformist liberalism is “tantamount to communism.” He’s obsessed with romanticized fantasies of absolute power, domination, and control. He dreams of wielding the the national security state against enemies both foreign and domestic. He envisioned a kind of imperialist world-state controlled not through deliberative bodies like the U.N. but directly by the intelligence and secret police bureaus. He combines the ideology of white collar, petit-bourgeois intermediary class with its emphases direct management techniques and closely-held ownership with the grandiose, world-spanning designs of an industrial titan. There’s really no contradiction within Peter Thiel’s politics, they are quite consistent: he’s just realized, more clearly than his opponents often, that there’s ultimately a contradiction between the rule of capital and democracy, and the way to deal with this contradiction, as far as he’s concerned, is to do away with democracy.

Re: undefined

#38

Post by theGnuMe »

tdehnel wrote: post #12
dakial1 wrote: post #2

Anyone 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…

Do you have any links to first person evidence that "his stated primary moral concern is preventing wealth redistribution, socialism, and the mass-scale violence" .. I'd be interested in reading them.

Someone on this forum the other day suggested reading the book "Who Owns the Future?" by Jaron Lanier. I am only a few chapters in but it has been interesting to see the argument that Walmart prevented WW3 with China and at the same time the amassing of computation, digital networking and information is hollowing out the middle classes and driving economic inequality.

Fascinating stuff that any true capitalist should read.

Re: undefined

#39

Post by inparen »

dakial1 wrote: post #2

Anyone 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?

Everyone, ignoring reality, has the view that this is how the world should be. Of course, if you have money and power, you work to influence (enforce?) it in whatever way you can.

Re: undefined

#40

Post by pasabagi »

nradov wrote: post #20
ladyattis wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. https://victimsofcommunism.org/

World population circa 1950 was like 2 billion. I don't know what the root study is that reaches that 100M figure, but the idea that communism killed one in twenty people on the whole planet seems a bit unlikely.

The really high end figures for the worst[0] man-made disaster of all time (the famine during the great leap forward) are 42 million, no idea where you'd get the rest of the numbers from.

[0]: edit: I thought it was the worst: apparently there were several previous famines in China in the 19th century that were more deadly.

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