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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

#241

Post by kcplate »

shevy-java wrote: post #41

His ramblings aren't that relevant. The problem is that the money is used to get influence; we could see this with Musk too. Something has to change. The superrich act as parasites and broken all inter-generational promises. The USA really messed up here - they should have put down control systems to prevent this parasitic situation.

But how many people is he actually influencing?. His primary audience is probably more like the folks in the HN community and no one here seems to be taking these ramblings seriously.

A half dozen preachers at medium to large congregations reach and influence far more people with these kind of ideas without his billions and press at their disposal. He’s actually small potatoes in this apocalypse space.

I say let him talk, who cares?

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

#243

Post by esseph »

next_xibalba wrote: post #232
Hikikomori wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you have any legitimate quotes or clips of him saying or writing any of these things? Not you or someone else paraphrasing, but actual, verbatim quotes. Bc as I have said, I've read and watched quite a bit of Thiel and none of this rings true.

https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...

Read it yourself

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

#244

Post by fastball »

dpark wrote: post #80
fastball wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Power might be hard to ignore, but wealth you literally just can.

It’s naive to believe these are not connected. Wealth buys power.

They are not intrinsically connected. Not everyone who is wealthy is powerful, not everyone who is powerful is wealthy.

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

#246

Post by fastball »

SimianSci wrote: post #87
fastball wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Power might be hard to ignore, but wealth you literally just can.

Wealth is allowing people to buy consent for their worldviews these days. this is an incredibly naiive take.

If you have bought consent, you have power.

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

#247

Post by bigbadfeline »

esseph wrote: post #225
bigbadfeline wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wo…

Librarians, what will they do next?!? (Typo ;)

yes, typo, should read "libertarians"

Thanks

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

#248

Post by philipallstar »

dpark wrote: post #181
lowkey_ wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mamdani has said that (1) they'll open government-run stores, and (2) the government will seize buildings from bad landlords. My family is from a communist country and I can assure you, that is communistic.

I would agree that government run stores falls into the communist playbook. Despite the communism boogie man, though, I don’t think supporting a couple of communist policies strictly makes a person a communist. Trump sent a bunch of government checks to people during Covid and no one called him communist for this.

> Trump sent a bunch of government checks to people during Covid and no one called him communist for this.

Giving people money on a temporary basis is the opposite of the government opportunistically taking over areas of the market.

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

#249

Post by philipallstar »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #141
philipallstar wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He 100% uses this for profit. Why does he not give away his money? You haven't given away your money. Does that mean everything you do (including writing the above comment) is for profit?

Everything else aside, this is a really stupid comparison. A multi-billionaire giving away even 99% of their billions of dollars is not the same as any normal person giving away a substantially smaller percentage of their money. Thiel can give away 99% of his money and would still have hundreds of millions of dollars left, which is already quite literally more money than any normal person can spend in their entire li…

> which is already quite literally more money than any normal person can spend in their entire lifetime

They don't spend it - if you think someone with a net worth of X has that money in cash then you need to go to school.

Even if they did - that's a greedy person's way of thinking. They invest money they do have, which employs people and pushes world R&D forwards.

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

#250

Post by haizhung »

kcplate wrote: post #241
shevy-java wrote: post #41

His ramblings aren't that relevant. The problem is that the money is used to get influence; we could see this with Musk too. Something has to change. The superrich act as parasites and broken all inter-generational promises. The USA really messed up here - they should have put down control systems to prevent this parasitic situation.

But how many people is he actually influencing? . His primary audience is probably more like the folks in the HN community and no one here seems to be taking these ramblings seriously. A half dozen preachers at medium to large congregations reach and influence far more people with these kind of ideas without his billions and press at their disposal. He’s actually small potatoes in this apocalypse space. I say let him…

I see this all the time in real life though. Right-wing „influencers“ with the worst takes you could imagine are getting funded somehow, while even the best scientists are getting deplatformed left and right.
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