Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

linkedin.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

971–980 of 1001 posts

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#971

Post by rootlocus »

masondixon wrote: post #920
Chris2048 wrote: post #817

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Call him out, but keep listening. Those names are used to justify shutting down the discussion.

Great point. Racist and misogynist are very heavy terms, and once they are in the mix, there is no way a moderate is going to go near the discussion. It is like "you are racist, racists shouldn't be listened to, I will not listen to you". There have been so many comments like this in this thread - even when the original comment is pointing this out. Sigh. Its so great to learn something I did not think of during a di…

I'd like to quote another comment of yours:

> Bias, bias, bias, and bias.

And also share with you a special kind of bias you might be victim of: confirmation bias.

Also your quotes:

> Racist and misogynist are very heavy terms

> On misogyny - she (Clinton) has never attacked a woman's character before?

So, misogyny is a very heavy term, but you consider it's ok to attribute it to someone who simply attacks a woman's character (which actually has nothing to do with any definition of misogyny).

Also, if you need proof that those terms weren't used lightly, I urge you to read another of my comments [1] where I posted videos of Trump proving he deserves being called that.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12932570

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#972

Post by floodyberry- »

masondixon wrote: post #935
floodyberry- wrote: post #900

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why don't you ask me what I think about those issues? You didn't vote for your views, you voted for Trump. You had to believe that whatever would result from a Trump election was at least balanced by your desire to show the left the consequences of their free speech, yes?

> balanced by your desire to show the left the consequences of their free speech There is no vengefulness here. We just wanted to be able to debate freely and openly without ad-hominem attacks all the time. Because we think that it is bad for the country. If your freedom of speech is about shutting down the discussion by shaming people, then we will not reach a middle ground. So now we took complete power. There are…

Ok then, you valued your free speech more than the rights of those whose speech you think shouldn't be so free. There isn't anything more to say here.

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#973

Post by couchand »

Chris2048 wrote: post #898
couchand wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To describe Trump as simply warty is to vastly misrepresent or dismiss his proud racism and misogyny.

> his proud racism and misogyny The amount of mis-quotation around Trumps alleged "racism and misogyny" means I'd like at least a few specifics along with any such claim, just to be clear what your level is.

I don't think there's a serious question here. I'm sorry if you don't feel like I'm engaging your argument; it may genuinely be thoughtful but just comes across as intentionally ignorant.

EDIT: I'm going to engage with this even though the premise of the request bothers me significantly.

Here is Trump announcing his candidacy, declaring Mexican immigrants rapists and drug dealers (but it's okay, he's sure there are some good people there, too): https://youtu.be/q_q61B-DyPk?t=7m57s

And here is our President-elect advocating for sexual assault: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wM248Wo54U

That's just a taste. I encourage you to wade deeper into this muck if you're unfamiliar with it.

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#974

Post by DefaultUserHN »

dcposch wrote: post #618
Rapzid wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we believe all the recently headlines about who he's bringing in it appears pure "pay to play". Lots of individuals who Trump "owes" through either money or support they provided to him; pure cronyism. I'm not sure Trump realizes what worked best in business, or what he felt worked best for him in what business he has done, is not necessarily best for operating policy. I'm not sure he cares. I suspect he might tho…

> Dude looked humble-struck in the video today with Obama; almost worried about what he got himself into. I bet part of that was an emotion completely absent from Trump's public persona: shame. Trump started his political career circa 2010 as a "birther" -- going on national TV, asking for Obama's birth certificate, saying he was born in Kenya and therefore ineligible to hold office. Really racist, bottom-of-the-barr…

Trump did not start in 2010. It had been a long road to the White House for Trump.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxf1XmVZ9qY

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#975

Post by hueving »

tptacek wrote: post #763
hueving wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you scare quoting "illegally"? They are here in violation of the law. If you don't believe in controlled immigration, just state that up front rather than trying to hide behind an appeal to emotion via stories of tearing families apart. Your argument seems to be either that long time violators of a law should gain immunity to the law; or that we should grant citizenship to anyone who enters the country. Which…

I just described people who are not here in violation of the law and yet will be gravely harmed by Trump's immigration policies.

They will be harmed by their parents' decision to break the law. The same thing would happen if their parents violated any other law. Why would this be different?

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#976

Post by DefaultUserHN »

cmurf wrote: post #518
RealGeek wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Wasn't Trump rallying against such crony corruption aka 'pay for play'?

Trump rallying against the Electoral College in 2012 as bad for democracy. Now that it gives him the win contrary to democracy what's his opinion? https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/26603855650449408...

He tried to change the rules, to make it fair. They won't change it. So he played it by their stupid rules and won. Now, they're complaining that he's playing by their rules.

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#977

Post by kafkaesq »

minikites wrote: post #723
minikites wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's essentially a vampire: http://www.inc.com/jeff-bercovici/peter-thiel-young-blood.ht... http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/08/peter-thiel-wants-to-... http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2016/08/02/peter-thiel-...

To the downvoters who seem to think I used that word in jest: > A vampire is a being from folklore who subsists by feeding on the life essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. The desire to extend your life at the expense of other people is incredibly disturbing to me and I'm not sure how it's a defensible position.

The desire to extend your life at the expense of other people is incredibly disturbing to me and I'm not sure how it's a defensible position.

They'll be getting some burrito money in return. So don't say it's not a fair trade.

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#978

Post by internaut »

defgeneric wrote: post #487
darawk wrote: post #4

This is good news, I think? Thiel has some extremish views, but I generally regard him as intelligent and thoughtful. And he's in close contact with other smart, influential people (e.g. Musk, Sam Altman, etc.), which gives them some indirect influence. Not that this makes things substantially better. But maybe a little bit? Hopefully?

Theil is very interesting from a Marxist point of view. https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio... A few summary points: - Did a BA in philosophy at Stanford--an analytic department--in the late 80s. - As Reaganism was reaching its apex, he became a libertarian. - The 90s were a period of pessimism. As the Reagan revolution was in retreat, and as conservatives retreated with it, the "smartest" li…

Appreciate your analysis defgeneric, though we probably don't see eye to eye.

In my view what you're calling Thiel's anti-political phrases are important. I know you see them as the spread of virus-capitalism, but I think without that kind of frontier building the world would be a much more boring place. I take it you're familiar with Patri Friedman's thesis. What did you think then of Balaji Srinivasan's Exit Ycombinator talk?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOubCHLXT6A

I know presently the anti-Trumpists are getting a lot of airtime with their talk of secession, but to be honest there is something much deeper beyond the current election fallout which is worth looking at. From a right perspective I have been wondering for a long time whether Silicon Valley's interests are ultimately orthogonal to Washington but appear to be similar in the present because they're competing for the same thing.

This is a strand of Rene Girard's philosophy, which Thiel is a big fan of (he knew Rene at Stanford I think), many of his ideas revolve around ideas of mimesis and scapegoating. Interestingly; he had a Girardian rationale for investing in Facebook. Never say reading philosophy doesn't pay off! I would love to have a photo of his library.

John Strange is very wrong about Thiel's activities being random. I was asked to write essay on Medium which I called "Peter and the Wolfe", which was an attempt to explain the deeper undercurrents around some of his recent decisions.

The main content of it was written before Trump got into power, so it makes it more interesting retroactively. If you recall, many people on HN were calling him mad, stupid, trying to get him kicked out of Ycombinator and Facebook's board etc. Here is the original comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12884413

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#979

Post by Chris2048 »

couchand wrote: post #973
Chris2048 wrote: post #898

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> his proud racism and misogyny The amount of mis-quotation around Trumps alleged "racism and misogyny" means I'd like at least a few specifics along with any such claim, just to be clear what your level is.

I don't think there's a serious question here. I'm sorry if you don't feel like I'm engaging your argument; it may genuinely be thoughtful but just comes across as intentionally ignorant. EDIT: I'm going to engage with this even though the premise of the request bothers me significantly. Here is Trump announcing his candidacy, declaring Mexican immigrants rapists and drug dealers (but it's okay, he's sure there are s…

>the premise of the request bothers me

Is that the premise that you can't trust the judgement of a stranger? Since in this case that stranger I'd is you, maybe that's why it bothers you?

Trump declared that Mexican immigrants were not screened to remove rapists.

Trump didn't advocate sexual assault.

These are known examples to me, so what "deeper" muck are you referring to?

The fact that you feel so confident about these examples that you'd doubt that I'm serious, and even call me "ignorant"...

Re: Peter Thiel To Join Trump Transition Team

#980

Post by [deleted] »

defgeneric wrote: post #537
yolesaber wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://youtu.be/CoxxGhLFbw4?t=2m30s He argues that "climate science" is not real science because it has "science" in the name. I'm serious.

This comes from his philosophy BA at Stanford, which is a department largely of the analytic school. He is, broadly speaking, positivist. The idea of science we have is closer to the German Wissenschaft which has a more encyclopedic meaning, more about the organization of knowledge, and less strict in it epistemology which in the analytic school is very narrow and in its crude expression simply empiricist.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN