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Peter Thiel's Rise to Wealth and Libertarian Futurism

newyorker.com

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Re: Peter Thiel's Rise to Wealth and Libertarian Futurism

#21

Post by qdog »

jsnk wrote: post #14
qdog wrote: post #12

That article read like The Great Gatsby, I gave up after a few paragraphs. I don't think I'm into idolizing rich people anymore, I probably would have devoured this in high school, though.

What is it about a person being rich that bothers you?

People being rich doesn't bother me, reading fluffy New Yorker articles about them just doesn't interest me. Other people obviously enjoy it, but it doesn't really read like the kind of article I look for on HN, or even in the New Yorker.

Thiel's nose is bulbous? I needed to know that for some reason? It just read like a fawning article about some rich guy to me. The author met with Thiel in this fancy coffee shop, Thiel recently bought 2 multi-million dollar houses blah blah blah. Great, just not anything I personally care that much about.

Re: Peter Thiel's Rise to Wealth and Libertarian Futurism

#22

Post by dxbydt »

joshuahedlund wrote: post #3

How many digits does the number 125100 have? Two hundred and ten. They mean 125^100. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=125%5E100

In Indian high schools, you are supposed to memorize a ton of "useless" shit like atomic weights of 50+ elements in the periodic table, logs upto 20, exponentials, factorials, avogardo constant & tons of physics constants like g and speed of light & sound & diffraction constants & the like. So from the age of 12,I happen to know that log 5 is 0.7 Ergo, log(125^100) = 300log(5) = 210, hence 210 digits in 125^100.

But I do wonder - do schoolkids these days memorize this trivia or do they just reach for a calculator/wikipedia ?

Re: Peter Thiel's Rise to Wealth and Libertarian Futurism

#23

Post by tomjen3 »

chrismealy wrote: post #6

And no girls: http://gawker.com/5231390/facebook-backer-wishes-women-could...

Thiel is arguing, congruently with the facts, that females are more likely than males to vote for a larger government and a bigger social safety net and you believe that nobody has the right to take others stuff (through taxes) then it is understandable that he would prefer they didn't have the right to vote.

I don't think anyone ought to have the right to vote, except on matters of the military (which cannot work if it was subjected to market forces) -- the rest is just giving groups the right to do things individuals can't.

Re: Peter Thiel's Rise to Wealth and Libertarian Futurism

#25

Post by hindsightbias »

leot wrote: post #20
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They're a class of abstract thinkers stuck in an imperfect world where their theories will always be unapologetically shattered by complex and unpredictable realities." First, this is a blanket ad hominem about an entire group of people. Second, it's bullshit. There's nothing wrong with being a pragmatic libertarian. In fact, that's the way it's supposed to work. It's the purists on all sides of issues that present…

Generalizations have their place. A big problem many have with right-wing libertarians is that, unlike other political philosophies, libertarianism seems more like an elaborate, and status-reinforcing, justification for one's own socioeconomic position. To believe otherwise -- i.e., to believe that merit is largely a fiction, albeit a highly adaptive one -- would mean giving up far too much.

The day a libertarian realizes the world is not comprised of sets of well meaning rational actors is the day they get a clue.

Re: Peter Thiel's Rise to Wealth and Libertarian Futurism

#26

Post by jaredmck »

qdog wrote: post #21
jsnk wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is it about a person being rich that bothers you?

People being rich doesn't bother me, reading fluffy New Yorker articles about them just doesn't interest me. Other people obviously enjoy it, but it doesn't really read like the kind of article I look for on HN, or even in the New Yorker. Thiel's nose is bulbous? I needed to know that for some reason? It just read like a fawning article about some rich guy to me. The author met with Thiel in this fancy coffee shop, T…

I didn't think it was fawning, in fact quite the opposite - that some of these details were intended ironically, and the tone of the piece was actually more negative? Did I just read what I wanted to see?

Re: Peter Thiel's Rise to Wealth and Libertarian Futurism

#27

Post by qdog »

jaredmck wrote: post #26
qdog wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People being rich doesn't bother me, reading fluffy New Yorker articles about them just doesn't interest me. Other people obviously enjoy it, but it doesn't really read like the kind of article I look for on HN, or even in the New Yorker. Thiel's nose is bulbous? I needed to know that for some reason? It just read like a fawning article about some rich guy to me. The author met with Thiel in this fancy coffee shop, T…

I didn't think it was fawning, in fact quite the opposite - that some of these details were intended ironically, and the tone of the piece was actually more negative? Did I just read what I wanted to see?

I read a few paragraphs, started skimming, and eventually gave up, maybe it was only those first few paragraphs. It just didn't seem like a meaty article to me, and if it was, it was too much work for me to get to the meat. The internet may have made me lazy.

Or maybe I read jwz too often and was pre-biased against Thiel - http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/08/paypal-founder-has-played-fa...

Re: Peter Thiel's Rise to Wealth and Libertarian Futurism

#28

Post by TimPC »

tomjen3 wrote: post #23
chrismealy wrote: post #6

And no girls: http://gawker.com/5231390/facebook-backer-wishes-women-could...

Thiel is arguing, congruently with the facts, that females are more likely than males to vote for a larger government and a bigger social safety net and you believe that nobody has the right to take others stuff (through taxes) then it is understandable that he would prefer they didn't have the right to vote. I don't think anyone ought to have the right to vote, except on matters of the military (which cannot work if…

Thiel identifies the issue. There is a big difference between identifying an issue, and suggesting a proposed solution.

I can identify the fact that people die in car crashes, and this in no way makes it understandable that I would prefer cars not exist (for the record I don't).

Re: Peter Thiel's Rise to Wealth and Libertarian Futurism

#29

Post by makomk »

tomjen3 wrote: post #23
chrismealy wrote: post #6

And no girls: http://gawker.com/5231390/facebook-backer-wishes-women-could...

Thiel is arguing, congruently with the facts, that females are more likely than males to vote for a larger government and a bigger social safety net and you believe that nobody has the right to take others stuff (through taxes) then it is understandable that he would prefer they didn't have the right to vote. I don't think anyone ought to have the right to vote, except on matters of the military (which cannot work if…

Yeah, women have a really annoying habit of realising that the world doesn't quite work the way that libertarians like Thiel think it does. For example, no matter how good they'd be at jobs like CEO, they're still at a disadvantage to men because the people who do the selection are other men who naturally favour people like themselves. The market doesn't penalize them for this either - the people that invest in them and write reports for investors and make loan decisions? Almost all men who think in the same way.

Re: Peter Thiel's Rise to Wealth and Libertarian Futurism

#30

Post by bjorn2404 »

qdog wrote: post #19
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They're a class of abstract thinkers stuck in an imperfect world where their theories will always be unapologetically shattered by complex and unpredictable realities." First, this is a blanket ad hominem about an entire group of people. Second, it's bullshit. There's nothing wrong with being a pragmatic libertarian. In fact, that's the way it's supposed to work. It's the purists on all sides of issues that present…

Most people I've met who claim to be Libertarians seems to be very confused about how the world works. Usually, they have a pet idea (guns, pot, taxes, property rights, police forces, something) they are very hot about and fail to extend their logic out to the endpoint, ie: get rid of all law enforcment some magic is going to happen and criminals won't be criminals (I suspect life would be a lot like the show Deadwoo…

"get rid of all law enforcment..."

Are you confusing libertarianism with anarchism?

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