Don't you think it's more intellectually honest to question and hear what others have to say rather than just paint them as idiots because they don't believe what you believe.
> I'm sure he's heard all the traditional arguments like we have, which means he has additional information that I don't.
It means nothing of the kind. Occam's razor suggests, rather, that he reasons differently than you (or at least me).
> Don't you think it's more intellectually honest to question and hear what others have to say
In theory, if we had infinite "compute time" in our lives to hear and evaluate all the arguments of those advocating regressive politics, then yes, sure. But we don't. Instead, we rely on a cluster of markers to heuristically determine if it is likely that someone has anything to say that doesn't just reduce trivially to the same BS you've already heard.
In this case, we have an arrogant economic royalist lamenting the consequences of women having a political voice. It is quite obvious that he has a ton of raw intellectual horsepower in that brain, but equally clear that he has no novel, reasonable justification for disenfranchising women.
Hilarious! This is exactly what I'm talking about! You have no idea how he got to his position, but you've already made up your mind as to how he got there. And to top it off, you go on this big rant that places you above him in terms of virtue because obviously he's "an arrogant economic royalist" and you're not therefore you're better.
It's fine with me if you want to behave that way. All I'm suggesting is that if you want to be intellectually honest, then you need to explore the 'why' of a person's viewpoint, rather than commit the fundamental attribution error and simply make up the 'why'.
In the United States, we generally understand the right to political autonomy, and the right to vote in particular, to come from a citizen's existence as a citizen (which itself is derived from Enlightenment principles of inalienable human rights). There are nearly no philosophical exceptions to this and only a few pragmatic ones (e.g. age of majority).
The question of women's suffrage is by itself a reasonable litmus test of whether someone is politically sensible and, by this measure, Mr. Thiel can be judged insensible.
To judge Mr. Thiel as politically insensible on the basis of his opposition to women's suffrage is by definition intellectual honesty. Given the long history of philosophical, political, and jurisprudential consensus that produced the 19th Amendment, it is in fact intellectually dishonest to entertain the possibility that Mr. Thiel has a novel set of arguments that could justify the disenfranchisement of women as a class.
People are justified in being skeptical of Thiel based on his radical assertion that women's suffrage is a mistake and they are behaving sensibly when they express wariness about other claims he might make based on his established predilection for asserting dangerous claims against the political autonomy of others.
EDIT: grammar, readability.
> You have no idea how he got to his position
False. I cannot prove how. The objection is pure sophistry. Were I to ask him, "how did you arrive at this position", his answer could be a lie. Would you commit the fundamental attribution error and assume that he would tell the truth? Perhaps he secretly doesn't even believe what he claimed to believe!
I doubt very much that you live your life doubting all things beyond your own thoughts. Trotting out a single fallacy mode and applying it in a scope carefully limited to bolster your argument is a rhetorical method for scoring debate points, not sound logic.
You are attempting to use "intellectual honesty" as a cudgel. Who wouldn't want to be intellectually honest?! Of course, you'll be the judge of when someone has met the criteria for honesty, and that will depend on whether they agree with you or not.
I am under no misunderstanding as to what I can and cannot know. I am completely comfortable with using mental shorthand to navigate the world. I do not need to stop and listen to every individual born-again christian to discover if they are the one that holds the key to my finally knowing the truth.
I do, in fact, have a very good idea as to how Thiel arrived at his position. I have a very good idea about why Strom Thurmond opposed the civil rights act of 1964. I have a very good idea that the sun will rise tomorrow.
> you go on this big rant that places you above him in terms of virtue
Yes, precisely. We all hold values. I find his to be in conflict with mine.
There is nothing mathematical or logical about value judgements. Those are two fields that pride themselves in that. You are deciding that the opinion is idiotic because it's not your own opinion.
>If I hear additional information, I am happy to revise my opinion if necessary.
But for the time being you're willing to paint someone as an idiot without knowing why they've developed certain opinions. It's a classic case of the fundamental attribution error.
It is to do with social programs and taxes.
Libertarians are overwhelmingly white and male. Why this would be the case is interesting, it might be biology at work but let's stay on point.
Women are overwhelmingly not libertarian.
Therefore if 50% of the voters are in favour of social building programs then that is what government policy will enforce, forever, in a democracy. Whether this is morally/fiscally right or wrong is beside the point.
Bluntly that women can vote means libertarian policies are impossible unless large numbers of women decide to become libertarians. You can be the judge of whether this is fair or not.