How did you get to normative judgements from a positive assertion?

That is, how did you get from a description of what is, to inferring what the author thinks ought to be?

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem

> How did you get to normative judgements from a positive assertion?

The description of things a logically incompatible (“oxymoron”) means that support for one logically excludes support for the others. Thiel's description of capitalist democracy as oxymoronic in the presence of women voting excludes support for the combination.

(Though his other statements outside of the one in question suggests democracy, not women's suffrage within it, is the piece he has come to oppose in light of perceiving the incompatibility.)

You're mixing up "support" as a logic connective with "support" as an opinion. Those are two different words.

A leg may support a table. That doesn't mean it has an opinion on the matter.

> You're mixing up "support" as a logic connective with "support" as an opinion.

No, I'm not. I'm using it strictly in the latter sense. (I am, of course, assuming that Thiel has a minimum degree of rationality, and thus does not hold positions he himself describes as logically incompatible.)

Or (4) Two things that are good and just can conflict sometimes and cause challenges.

Or Thiel likes all three and sees that they can work against each other.

As a self-described libertarian that would be impossible to square with Thiel's rather famous quote: I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.

It may be true that Thiel doesn't believe one of the three things dragonwriter listed, however:

1. The quote being discussed doesn't require this.

2. If Peter Thiel doesn't like democracy (and therefore would like no one to vote) it would be misleading (although technically accurate) to describe that as Peter Thiel not wanting women/minorities to vote.

If you want to interpret what Thiel says then you have to take into consideration everything that he says. So yeah, the quote being discussed does require this. That would be the case if you consider Thiel as some sort of libertarian intellectual. If he's just a whatIsaywheneverIsayitmeaningwhateverIwantittomeanwheneveritsuitsme-arian then I see your point.

Way to ignore half of my post.

It is completely reasonable to take context into account when doing this sort of interpretation, but it is important to be explicit about what context is included in the analysis. The article we are discussing is being criticized for being dishonest in this regard, which is why the distinction between "implied by this quote" and "implied by something else he said" is important.

I apologize for ignoring the second half of your post. In addition to it being some form of rebuttal, it contained 5 negative clauses. Basically, I couldn't figure it out and thought best to leave it alone.

I guess the idea is that the "tyranny" of the majority would curtail your freedoms.

You are constructing normative statements out of Thiel's descriptive one.

I'm pointing out that Thiel's own description makes certain combinations of normative statements untenable as they are contradictory.

Thiel is somewhat of an Austro-anarchist, if not fully one like I am. As a matter of fact, he was to speak at PFS 2016 [http://propertyandfreedom.org/2016/01/pfs-2016-annual-meetin...] but cancelled - likely due to PC pressure - but it would have been great to hear him speak.

Anyway, this school of thought espouses that capitalism and democracy are inherently incompatible. Democracy is seen as a slightly longer but sure road towards communism (as Karl Marx himself said [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_Marxism]).

The logic here being that, if the criteria by which elected officials get into government is by promising the demos more and more government handouts, then the logical conclusion is that at some point, we'll have transitioned from democracy to communism.

The Austro-anarchists' solution is therefore to nip it in the bud and ensure that society doesn't employ democracy from the onset.

>Democracy is seen as a slightly longer but sure road towards communism

Not really. I can't remember Marx, but Marxists after him have made the distinction between what they call 'bourgeois democracy' and proletarian democracy. Marx was careful not to say that democracy inevitably leads to Socialism, and in fact correctly notes that proletarian movements have been supressed in democracies, such that revolution would be the only possible way.

>The logic here being that, if the criteria by which elected officials get into government is by promising the demos more and more government handouts, then the logical conclusion is that at some point, we'll have transitioned from democracy to communism.

This line of thought is ridiculous. Communism isn't about "handouts", it's got nothing to do with "handouts". More "handouts" doesn't mean Communism. Which people are proposing that Communism is about handouts? I can't imagine that there are intellectuals so misinformed about the aims of Communism such that they think it merely comes about by giving a lot of money away.

>The Austro-anarchists' solution is therefore to nip it in the bud and ensure that society doesn't employ democracy from the onset.

Then the Autro-anarchist position is flawed for the reasons I have stated.

> they think it merely comes about by giving a lot of money away.

Then it would behoove you to tell me what redistribution is all about (or for that matter what communists today like to call re-redistribution).

Ai yai yai...You're actually a self-professed communist as per your bio. Never thought I'd see the day. I don't think our debate would ever come to an end.