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Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

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Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#541

Post by atomi »

andrewchambers wrote: post #491
colemickens wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is some amazing mental gymnastics here, wew. ""White people are racist, ignorant assholes, except for some of them."" ^^ I'm sure this comment will do well!

That is so wrong, a better quote would be: "The illegal French immigrants are ignorant assholes, except for some of them". The key differences are - Not all , the illegal immigrants. And Mexican, like French is a Nationality and not a race.

The alt-right gained most of it's momentum during Trump's campaign. You think that's a coincidence? And this, "it's a nationality not a race' is hardly a good reason to denigrate an entire people.

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#542

Post by ebcode »

paulsutter wrote: post #294
betolink wrote: post #240

People here giving Thiel a free pass on his views and support for bigotry is just disgusting.

Here's Peter's speech at the National Press Club: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob-LJqPQEJ4 Could you point out anywhere that Peter supports bigotry? Or even, a single crazy statement in Peter's speech? (I wouldn't defend Trump. I'm defending Peter, who I respect a lot). The speech runs from 2:40 to 15:50, and can be watched in 7 minutes if you change speed to 2x. (Thomas, I respect you a lot too. I've never seen o…

It's called dog-whistle politics. It's subtle, so you have to listen hard, but here it is: "To the people who are used to influencing our choice of leaders, ..." and he goes on to describe "wealthy" and "successful" types of people. Basically he's talking "to" and "about" people like himself, namely, white men. The man is a bigot, and like all modern bigots, he hides (and shows) his bigotry in coded language like this.

edit: just to clarify, "people who are used to influencing our choice of leaders", I am interpreting in the context of voting rights in the United States, which of course were originally denied to everyone but white men. So those are the ones who are "used to it."

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#543

Post by joshkpeterson »

Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #340
pjdemers wrote: post #275

Disagreeing with each other's views on the economy, international relations, even the environment is good for the country. We need different points of view on important issues. But using race baiting to gain political power crosses a line that should never be crossed. He should not be helping to legitimize this.

I very much dislike Trump and would never vote for the man. Both sides use race baiting. Spurious use of the word "racist" against those who dislike government intervention and entitlements has basicly denuded the term of its once-quite-considerable power. They called Bush racist, wasn't true. They called Romney racist, a laughable claim. They called Trump racist and maybe this time there're right, but what does "rac…

Trump said he absolutely supports forcing Muslims to register in a Muslim database. The man must be opposed unequivocally and obstructed at every opportunity.

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#544

Post by [deleted] »

koolba wrote: post #539
tptacek wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why exactly am I meant to be comforted by the fact that the craven opportunists --- the lowest of the low of the Republican party, discredited outsiders like Newt Gingrich and John Bolton --- are getting the most important positions in the United States government for kowtowing to Trump? There are important thinkers in the Republican Party. People with ideas and a moral core, people who have given years of service to…

In your thought process is the right thing to promote the people who doubted, and in some cases outright campaigned against him? The country voted and chose Trump. That means that they also chose him to pick the people that he'll be surrounding himself with to make decisions. GP isn't saying there isn't a rewarding of those that stood by him. He's saying that compared to the unbridled corruption of a candidate that t…

[deleted]

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#545

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

dlss wrote: post #489
tptacek wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why exactly am I meant to be comforted by the fact that the craven opportunists --- the lowest of the low of the Republican party, discredited outsiders like Newt Gingrich and John Bolton --- are getting the most important positions in the United States government for kowtowing to Trump? There are important thinkers in the Republican Party. People with ideas and a moral core, people who have given years of service to…

> Why exactly am I meant to be comforted by the fact that the craven opportunists --- the lowest of the low of the Republican party [...] are getting the most important positions in the United States government for kowtowing to Trump? Twenty-three days ago you and Marco sought to get Peter Thiel removed from YC for his support of Trump[1]. This is to say you were explicitly working to ensure that respectable people w…

Props. That very much needed to be said.

> just twenty-three days after your witch hunt,

The thought processes of all these allegedly enlightened people are strange. For all the claims of "rationality", I can barely find difference with the psychology of the most primitive tribesmen. Just a better grade of pretexts.

(The murderous rage of the "rationalists" in the French, Russian, Chinese, Cambodian, etc. revolutions, all conducted by very educated people, is well documented and quite sad.)

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#546

Post by lunula »

Rapzid wrote: post #259
threeseed wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump I suspect will be very similar to George W Bush. From all accounts he simply doesn't have the intellectual stamina to handle the rigours of the job. And I don't mean that in a negative way he is just more of a hands on, energetic, get shit done sort of guy. So in order to survive he is going to delegate to people like Guilani, Christie, Gingrich, Carson etc. Some of the most shameless, self serving and unethica…

Apparently because they supported his campaign too.. Man, it's hard to watch. I see evidence and hope very much that the pivot people thought would happen when he got the GOP nomination has happened now that he has won the White House and everything is sinking in. I didn't support Trump for prez, but I really hope he is successful and was a little excited shortly after the shock wore off. Excited for the unknown and…

> Excited for the unknown and the prospect that he might shake up the establishment.

A lot of people say he isn't part of the establishment. The idea that someone who is rich and embedded in the media for the entire professional life is not part of the establishment is really confusing to me. Why do you have this perception? I am honestly curious.

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#547

Post by eis »

Interesting that the moderators found it important to remove the "YC partner" part from the submission. It also seems the submission is getting less exposure than other submissions even though it's newer and has more upvotes.

For example this submission has 349 points and was submitted 6 hours ago and has rank 17 while "Halite: An AI Programming Challenge" has 158 points and was submitted 12 hours ago and is rank 16. The Leonard Cohen post has just a bit more upvotes and was submitted also 6 hours ago and is rank 2. "Island generator was also submitted at the same time and with just barely over 100 upvotes is rank 7.

Can some mod please give some insight into this? I'm gonna give HN the benefit of the doubt, probably some invisible factors playing into it but the ranking plus the editing could look a bit like the story is getting burried.

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#548

Post by oldmanjay »

runako wrote: post #206
droopyEyelids wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always post this but if anyone wants to know why this is remarkable news, Mr Thiel wrote his “manifesto” and made it public. It’s short and to the point. https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...

"The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics." I wonder if he doesn't know or if he doesn't care how that might sound to people who were legally denied basic citizenship rights in the 1920s, or the descendants of those people. The 1920s were politically bleak for quite a few Americans.

It's understandable that people would like everything to be connotation managed so their sensibilities are never offended, but it's also a very valuable skill to be able to turn off the ability to be offended and just try to comprehend the intended meaning of something. It makes communication so much more viable.

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#549

Post by defgeneric »

odonnellryan wrote: post #254
meritt wrote: post #21

This was obvious from the RNC speech and further reinforced when Thiel donated $1M to Trump. A contrarian bet, sure, but $1M is a pretty small price to pay to have a 50/50 shot at CTO of the USA. I'm sure he'll see a very significant ROI on his $1M once the government starts awarding contracts very conveniently to companies of which he owns a portion. I had very negative feelings about Thiel, and those were magnified…

I love how much the right complained about Clinton's "pay to play." http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/videos/2016-11-03/trump-bl... We've seen this during his entire campaign. Anything he attacked Clinton for came up as something he was guilty of.

It's not exactly like he's the King of Morocco, and besides, he also campaigned for Trump.

It's not surprising he'd be on the transition team or give 1M to the campaign.

I mean, that's the approximate value of 3 Hillary Clinton speeches. Peanuts!

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