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Peter Thiel’s Embrace of Trump Has Silicon Valley Squirming

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Re: Peter Thiel’s Embrace of Trump Has Silicon Valley Squirming

#91

Post by crusso »

pbreit wrote: post #36
carsongross wrote: post #4

There are quite a few Trump supporters in the Valley, but they simply stay quiet because they will get 'racist' yelled at them and it will potentially hurt their careers.

Don't you think being a Trump supporter =should= hurt most people's careers? It's pretty poor judgment, for starters.

Allow me to meander a ways with extending what I view as your point:

Should employers use whatever public records they have available to punish employees who donate money to the wrong party or candidates? Perhaps they should use this information in hiring?

If political support is fair game for attacking people in other aspects of their lives, why as a society should we allow for votes to be made in secret?

Maybe we should force people to vote on public record so we can really punish or reward each individual for his or her political choices.

Re: Peter Thiel’s Embrace of Trump Has Silicon Valley Squirming

#92

Post by Jtsummers »

saboot wrote: post #69
James001 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not a murderer, unlike the other option

[citation needed]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Foster

Probably who GP is referring to. Popular conspiracy theory amongst the anti-Hillary crowd (on both sides of the political aisle, actually).

Re: Peter Thiel’s Embrace of Trump Has Silicon Valley Squirming

#93

Post by dragonwriter »

seany wrote: post #52
josephlord wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you like about him?

Honestly, Trump and Hillary aren't that different. He's a little less of a warhawk, speaks his mind, and is pro-2A. The last one is almost enough on its own for me, given Hillarys stance on that issue.

> He's a little less of a warhawk

Given that he's criticized Obama/Clinton for being insufficiently aggressive in several areas, and praised Putin's aggressiveness, I'm not sure where that conclusion comes from, besides his after-the-fact claims to have opposed the Iraq War before it started (his only public statement on the war before it started appears to have been grudging support, not opposition, on the Howard Stern show in 2002, and stating that a decision on the war one way or another was important on Fox News in January 2003, without expressing support or opposition.)

Re: Peter Thiel’s Embrace of Trump Has Silicon Valley Squirming

#94

Post by sevenless »

Apocryphon wrote: post #89
sevenless wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a certain conservative mentality that delights in being more-reactionary-than-thou. When I encounter it I tend to say things like "Oh, the real problem started when we adopted agriculture in 6000BC. It was Big Government that wanted us to drop the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and submit to the state. And don't get me started on the invention of reading and writing..."

That's pretty much what the ideology of primitivism is about. They advocate a return to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. John Zerzan (/ˈzɜːrzən/, zur-zən; born 1943) is an American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author. His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocate drawing upon the ways of life of hunter-gatherers as an inspiration for what a free society should look li…

Thank you, that is a fantastic link. I love reading out-there philosophies.

And of course he inspired the Unabomber.

Re: Peter Thiel’s Embrace of Trump Has Silicon Valley Squirming

#96

Post by aliston »

dforrestwilson wrote: post #18
carsongross wrote: post #4

There are quite a few Trump supporters in the Valley, but they simply stay quiet because they will get 'racist' yelled at them and it will potentially hurt their careers.

Why not more Gary Johnson supporters?

Personally, I'd probably align most with Gary Johnson, but feel like he has virtually no chance of winning, so there's no point in wasting my vote. Like most Americans in this election cycle, I'm voting for the lesser of two evils. I think there are lots and lots of folks in Silicon Valley that feel the same way.

One thing that I've never really understood is why the valley apparently leans so far left. On its face, the sorts of policies that the left tends to advocate for would run counter to the things that Silicon Valley stands for: higher taxes, more regulation of businesses, more intervention in housing markets, higher marginal tax rates on "the rich" (AKA a middle class salary here) etc.

I assume that those who vote on the left either feel there are more important issues at stake, that those aren't really things the left stands for, or have enough money that it doesn't matter... would be curious to hear someone explain their reasoning, though.

Re: Peter Thiel’s Embrace of Trump Has Silicon Valley Squirming

#97

Post by pbreit »

jscott0918 wrote: post #8

This is interesting to me. The lack of diversity in the tech industry is definitely something that will be harmful in the long run. Diversity is necessary to improve the relevance of new ideas in tech and to promote them to broader audiences from different cultures. The trend towards making a pariah out of anyone with opposing points of view can be equally harmful to promoting diversity of thought. Making people afra…

But don't you think people need to be held accountable? You can't just let Trump supporters off-the-hook because it's just their opinion! Many of us would never belittle someone voting for Mccain or Romney who are accomplished and respectable, even if they may hold differing political views. Trump is a totally vacuous, exceedingly risky candidate. People should feel embarrassed voting and supporting him.

Re: Peter Thiel’s Embrace of Trump Has Silicon Valley Squirming

#98

Post by fweespeech »

noobermin wrote: post #81
fweespeech wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why not more Gary Johnson supporters? Because Peter Thiel, among others, are largely operating on a hybrid ideology with the pillars of Nativism/Nationalism & Libertarianism. Gary Johnson is pretty much a pure in the middle of the right/left axis among the range that is called "Libertarian". He is too left-leaning for many of the people that call themselves Libertarian but want to be able to enforce their beliefs o…

>But want to be able to enforce their beliefs on other people. Is there not a more contradictory thing to say? I don't know how libertarians are okay with others using their moniker for something that doesn't seem libertarian.

> Is there not a more contradictory thing to say? I don't know how Libertarians are okay with others using their moniker for something that doesn't seem libertarian.

Its doublethink, yes.

Thiel publicly proclaims he is a libertarian but his genuine, underlying belief is he can change the world and enforce his beliefs upon it.

This is pretty much the antithesis of Gary Johnson who is very much the live and let live libertarian.

http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education...

> I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years: to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good. I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. For all these reasons, I still call myself “libertarian.”

> But I must confess that over the last two decades, I have changed radically on the question of how to achieve these goals. Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible. By tracing out the development of my thinking, I hope to frame some of the challenges faced by all classical liberals today.

http://archive.is/pQc1F

> He is now not so much a libertarian as a corporate Nietzschean, who believes in the power of gifted entrepreneurs to change the world through the sheer force of will and intellect.

Re: Peter Thiel’s Embrace of Trump Has Silicon Valley Squirming

#99

Post by 13years »

dforrestwilson wrote: post #18
carsongross wrote: post #4

There are quite a few Trump supporters in the Valley, but they simply stay quiet because they will get 'racist' yelled at them and it will potentially hurt their careers.

Why not more Gary Johnson supporters?

Gary will appeal to libertarian leaning, but much less to principled libertarians.

A lot of his recent statements have come across as major disappointments to core libertarians.

Such as his support of Hillary over her emails, reluctance to audit the fed, support for basic income and his VP pick which is seen as purely establishment.

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