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Peter Thiel's Apocalyptic Worldview Is a Dangerous Fantasy

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Re: Peter Thiel's Apocalyptic Worldview Is a Dangerous Fantasy

#191

Post by bigbadfeline »

epgui wrote: post #57
throw310822 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the article's second sentence: "Thiel’s lurid, apocalyptic view of world politics may be ludicrous or even deranged, but his wealth and power mean that we can’t afford to ignore it."

Presumably the commenter read the article and is expressing his disagreement with the article’s second sentence.

> Presumably the commenter read the article and is expressing his disagreement with the article’s second sentence.

The comment in question didn't make a point, it provided only this unsupported opinion that happens to be flatly wrong: "It's a very different thing to have concentrated wealth and people's attention."

In fact, good buddies Thiel and Musk came from S Africa sharing similar librarian attitudes and both worked hard at circumventing the banking regulations while being part of the "PayPal mafia". They are both very keen on remodeling the government around the libertarian idea of uncountable corporate power.

“They went from scrappy guys dodging government regulation to now they are the government, in a generation” said Steve Blank... an adjunct professor of management science [1]

That cannot be done without using concentrated wealth to conquer people's attention. Sure enough, Musk proceeded to acquire Twitter at a great cost and to proclaim his idea of corporate control of speech through control of attention reach: "Freedom of speech is not freedom of reach" [2]

[1] https://www.seattletimes.com/business/how-musk-thiel-and-sac...

[2] https://www.chiefmarketer.com/twitters-musk-touts-new-freedo...

Re: Peter Thiel's Apocalyptic Worldview Is a Dangerous Fantasy

#192

Post by AlexandrB »

tavavex wrote: post #166
gishh wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Jacobin is not a whole journal on literal communism. It’s a magazine with a professed socialist view point but it’s more aligned with left-of-center American politics. Think Sanders or Mamdani rather than Stalin or Mao. > Sanders or Mamdani Sanders and Mamdani are about as far left of center as one can get at the moment, such that they almost meld into Stalin or Mao. The mental gymnastics you’re doing to blunt that…

> Sanders and Mamdani are about as far left of center as one can get at the moment, such that they almost meld into Stalin or Mao. So, when's Mamdani's Great Purge coming? Do you think he's gonna stand by the standards of his historical ideological equivalent, Stalin, and execute a couple hundreds of thousands of elites (if we're going by the same proportions as the USSR), or is he going all out - maybe he could get…

While I agree that the US has a historical obsession with communism, "anything right is abhorrent totalitarian fascism in the making" has been a far more commonly stated position for the last decade. At this point, it's necessary to regard both "communism" and "fascism" as simple pejoratives and focus on the specific policies being discussed.

This is unfortunate but perhaps inevitable. There are not that many left that remember the horrors of either ideology clearly.

Re: Peter Thiel's Apocalyptic Worldview Is a Dangerous Fantasy

#194

Post by Hikikomori »

next_xibalba wrote: post #185
JohnFen wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My problem with Thiel is that he's actively working to make the world a horrible place for anybody who isn't in his circle, and has the wealth needed to make inroads towards that end. I am not interested in listening to someone whose philosophy leads him to such behavior.

> he's actively working to make the world a horrible place for anybody who isn't in his circle Can you be more specific? I see similar claims thrown about him, but they don’t really hold up to scrutiny and often o. The basis of straw men claims.

He believes that democracy has run its course (did so in the 2008 crash as well) and believes in the ideas of Curtis Yarvin that think that tech CEOs should reign as feudal lords over small fiefdoms that he calls network states. Essentially the plan is to break the federal government and buy up its assets for pennies on the dollar. If this sounds bad for most people is up to you I guess.

Re: Peter Thiel's Apocalyptic Worldview Is a Dangerous Fantasy

#195

Post by LogicFailsMe »

mindslight wrote: post #163
LogicFailsMe wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBF Trump isn't a conservative. He's a populist that overthrew the Republican party without firing a single shot and the "conservatives" are all too busy running around in circles to do something about him.

Sure, I agree and I've made similar arguments. But there are still throngs of people self-identifying as conservative and considering Trump conservative. The best I've been able to surmise is that to them, "conservative" merely means in line with the reactionary talk radio of the past several decades, and that anger has replaced all of their ideals. This is kind of understandable, because that reactionary talk radio…

While I think one party started it back in the '90s, both parties are mostly 2-minute hate daily talking point driven at this point.

I don't think that bodes well for our geopolitical competitiveness in the long run. And you can already see it in the irrational hatred of renewables on the right and the irrational hatred of AI on the left. Meanwhile, enough of the rest of the world has better things to do that we seem destined to become a geopolitical NPC.

Re: Peter Thiel's Apocalyptic Worldview Is a Dangerous Fantasy

#196

Post by numbers_guy »

lowkey_ wrote: post #186
numbers_guy wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't be childish. I have no love for communism and I get that you probably have some personal grudge against communism because of what your family has gone through. But the way you are expressing your hatred of communism is diminishing the evil committed by the NAZIs and the suffering of their victims, and that's just not right. And it's also not winning you any friends and you'd be better served if you showe…

The above commenter's point was actually drawing a distinction between these, and "one-upping" by saying there was a difference, or worse one, out of these extremist ideologies. I disagreed and said that they are both equally horrid. Expressing equal hatred for people and systems that kill countless millions through starvation, gulags/concentration camps, and disappearing them, is not childish. I have a ton of solida…

You're purposefully ignoring all the nuance. There is nothing more to say.

Re: Peter Thiel's Apocalyptic Worldview Is a Dangerous Fantasy

#197

Post by noman-land »

zingababba wrote: post #164

It's crazy how this is trickling down. I work with someone who has recently started openly talking about the antichrist and is convinced the final revelation is going to occur. This person has always been loony but it seems to be going into hyperdrive.

Ask this person to give you all their stuff since they won't be needing it anymore.

Re: Peter Thiel's Apocalyptic Worldview Is a Dangerous Fantasy

#198

Post by ryandrake »

nanfinitum wrote: post #60
throw310822 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the article's second sentence: "Thiel’s lurid, apocalyptic view of world politics may be ludicrous or even deranged, but his wealth and power mean that we can’t afford to ignore it."

Yes we can actually. I think it has something to do with Silicon Valley's obsession with money. To SV-people, billionaires are like gods. They are worshipped and invited to all the events worth going to (meetups, hackathons, etc.). Everyone wants to be like them. And it seems to me to be a geographical problem too. In NYC, billionaires are like supervillains. Nobody particularly likes them (outside of select finance…

> I think it has something to do with Silicon Valley's obsession with money. To SV-people, billionaires are like gods.

Just look at some of the comment threads here. So many replies essentially White-Knighting for a billionaire! Why does one take time out of their day to post an impassioned defense of this guy? He doesn't need your help. Do y'all think he's going to Venmo you $100 every time you defend his honor online?

Same thing for Musk. Say one thing bad about him, and the Musk Defense League reliably crawls out of the woodwork to passionately argue for him and downvote criticism. What's the point?

Re: Peter Thiel's Apocalyptic Worldview Is a Dangerous Fantasy

#199

Post by Sammi »

AlexandrB wrote: post #169
sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition...There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."

I used to think this was deep, but it equally applies to progressivism as well as well as a range of human institutions. It's a restatement the basic observation that humans are prone to in-group bias. What's really dangerous is that some refuse to see the same flaw within themselves and instead always ascribe it to "the other".

And we're all made of matter and anti matter and nothing has meaning. This reductionism is not helpful.

Re: Peter Thiel's Apocalyptic Worldview Is a Dangerous Fantasy

#200

Post by _DeadFred_ »

mushufasa wrote: post #129
jmathai wrote: post #13

Maybe slightly off topic to the article, but I don't really care what Peter Thiel has to say. I do think we need to collectively think about how to not give these people a microphone. It's one thing to have concentrated wealth. It's a very different thing to have concentrated wealth and people's attention. I think that's a much more interesting discussion :).

Fundamentally money can buy a microphone (including literally). That said, buying airtime/ads does is not sufficient to create traction with your ideas. I have worked at plenty of foundations that spend a lot of money to "raise awareness" on various issues, which ultimately goes nowhere. IMHO the zany, outlandish claims by Thiel, are gaining attention because of their inherent shock-value. I sent a text to my girlfri…

Joe Rogan, now's mainstream media, humble brags about hanging with Thiel on show.

Thiel very much plays the game in your second sentence, he's just smart about it. Thiel is gaining attention because he's put in the work, for a long time. Not because of shock value. And he's leveraging his soft power/contacts/PR sources/exposing his power level/drawing on what he built pretty hard now. Why?

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