-You seem to say diversity is good, but not diversity of political thought?
-What are Thiels stances on equality that you see as so abhorrent?
-He was involved (as a financier) of a lawsuit... I struggle to see the huge moral deal here. He didn't decide the outcome - six jurors did, abiding by the laws, in a court![1]
-Is being a strong supporter of Ayn Rand a good reason that someone shouldn't be involved in Silicon Valley?
[1]http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/gawker-trial-jurors-made...
Peter Thiel - "People here don't accept conservative ideas"
Commentor - "I love diversity, but get the hell out with those opinions!"
...
Obviously there are some opinions I find abhorrent and wouldn't want to be associated with (Nazis, etc). However, I think both that I'm more tolerant of offensive opinions than the commentor, and that I also find really nothing very offensive about what I've read about Thiel.
Thiel doesn't seem that far right to me, and has been ostracized. But is any thought too far-left to be accepted in SV? You can support Venezuelan policies, Cuban policies, taxing rich people 90%, racism against whites and asians... and no one's trying to kick them out of civil society.
I do not think it's socially ok in SV to be more than a little conservative. After all, companies Thiel was associated with were pressured to kick him out just for the fact that he supported a candidate that was voted for by ~50% of the country! Maybe that's because of Trump's other non-political characteristics, but I'm not so sure.
And diversity of thought is for new interesting ideas, not discredited old ones.
The second point is just bad – judge a thought on its own merits and implications, not fashionability or novelty.
Marxism is the strawman that the right wheels out to try and push back against policies that encourage equality. Equality doesn't equal marxism, proving marxism won't work doesn't prove that policies for equality won't work.
One point I concede to conservatives is that being too strict about equality dampens personal autonomy (which is very important to happiness) and reduces incentives to innovate. A balance must be found. I should note that happiness from autonomy follows an inverted U curve, where too much autonomy (e.g. too many choices) causes just as much unhappiness as too little. Additionally, many extremely wealthy people don't spend in proportion to their earnings, the money is just their score in the game of capitalism, so redistributing more of their earnings doesn't materially affect them as long as you are doing the same thing to their competitors. Based on these facts, I believe that the autonomy/equality balance is currently very sub-optimal in terms of happiness.
"Evidence" like, say, North Korea? Cambodia under Pol Pot? The Soviet Union under Stalin? Maoist China?
Heck, people are so happy with the equality in Cuba that they'll cross shark-infested waters in rafts they've made of trash bags stuffed with styrofoam packing peanuts.
I think your "fact" is not supported by the...err...facts.
One remaining difference was that Marxism was at least well-intentioned, whereas Ayn Rand basically turned enjoyment of other's suffering into a philosophy.
And, luckily, it seems we will be spared any attempts to implement Randian cruelty, since it has turned from an actual political force to no more than many people's college embarrassment, even in SV.
I'm no Randian by any means, but I'd still treat her ideas honestly. By your statement, you either haven't read her works, don't understand them, or understand them and you are simply being dishonest in your representation of them. In any case, her philosophy, whether it is correct or not, is not one that "turned enjoyment of other's suffering into a philosophy."
It turns out you can treat her Objectivist philosophy like any other philosophy and actually attack the premises of her arguments. Disagree with her supposed solution to the "is-ought" problem, fine, present an argument against it...in my opinion, that is a much better route to take than completely misrepresenting her philosophy.
Irrespective of what you think she said, her core point was that "If a man lives for anyone but himself, he will be a deeply, deeply sad man".
Ayn Rand herself get that question asked to her whenever she did something which your misconception about her idea would lead you to believe that it should be a contradiction by her philosophy to act in such a way. For instance she supported her husband's art venture for a while, and the interviewer asks her why would she do that, and she explains the same thing. [1]
Clearing of this misconception DOES NOT mean that you agree with her, I'm just saying that your point of disagreement isn't what you think it is.
Her philosophy doesn't think (which was made clear in Galt's speech) that a mother buying food for her kids by forgoing to not buy a fancy hat for herself is a 'sacrifice'. She values her children's wellbeing more than the hat.
The problem also does not come in when Bill Gates gives up majority of his wealth to a charity as long as he truly does want to do that. The problem comes in when society takes 99% of these 'non-sacrificial actions', creates a moral scale out of it and asks everyone to follow it.
It translates to two levels of action:
Individual level: "I don't really want to become a doctor but my mom and dad would get upset if I didn't so I will".
Societal level: "Sure you don't want to pay for poor people's healthcare because you'd rather buy an XBox, but you must make this sacrifice for society's sake".
Rand's core philosophy of Objectivism says that both these paths to individual (like Peter Keating in Fountainhead) and societal unhappiness (like any socialist/communist society out there).
Well, it claims to be. Others would say it's a stalking horse for grabbing power over other people.
Given the 100 million plus victims, I'd say that the latter is more likely to be the case.
Encouraging diversity is a means of letting those who have been marginalized from positions of power for centuries have a seat at the table. Are there similarly marginalized political opinions? I don't think Thiel or others who think like him are in short supply of power. The idea that conservative political opinions are suppressed is so ridiculous, especially as Thiel's party is in control of all branches of the federal US government and in most states. It is perfectly reasonable to have a local imbalance of opinion as long as in general power is not withheld for one side.
The marketplace of ideas is against you: deal with it, or turn to 'liberal' solutions :p
Sometimes is feels like we're in a neopuritan age, complete with analogs to The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter, but the new sins are sins of thought and speech, not the occult or sex.
Is he a dramatic diva, or a pragmatic type?
Is he moving to LA for lifestyle reasons or business reasons?
What is his “next big thing”
- One source from 30 years ago where Thiel said that the moral issues of apartheid were irrelevant to their economy. He did not say "apartheid is good", he just said it didn't matter to their economy. I wouldn't agree with that statement, but even more important, I would make the link "Thiel thinks apartheid is good".
- The first source has the standard "this has been a lump in my throat for 30 years". Thiel has been in the media for far longer than that, so I guess it's just a coincidence this was timed during the Trump campaign.
- The second source seem irrelevant. She simply says Thiel said "morality and governments shouldn't be connected". Hardly a statement in support of apartheid.
- Note both sources are from individuals who had separate conversations about hot political issues 30 years ago. I have no doubt they were upset, but again that doesn't mean Thiel supports apartheid and he has already stated he doesn't.
I'm not really surprised by the article because politics in the US has become a "win at all costs" and "score points whenever you can" game. Rationale, logical discourse is gone. It's all about how many negative sound bits you can get and how many people believe them.
If this is the worst they can dig up about Thiel (30 years ago), he's got a cleaner record than most people in politics.
Don't get me wrong - I'm a huge fan of NPR.[1] However, it's a problem when one uncritically accepts what they say. Many are predisposed to disliking him since his support for Trump, and so they lower their standards when it comes to pieces like this.
[1] Kind of sad that I feel I have to put this disclaimer.
2. He didn't say rape is made up! Certainly in theory rape can be either too broadly defined or too narrowly defined. Have certain situations moved toward too broad a definition? Thiel thinks so.
I have no idea if rape has or hasn't been too broadly defined, but seems a reasonable enough position to be part of the discussion.
My understanding of the apartheid thing was he said something in college that someone else heard and remembered for many years. I think that 1. People say stupid stuff in college, and 2. Thiel could have easily said something in an exploratory philosophical kind of way without fully believing it.
He has denied the apartheid comments and apologized for the rape comments. I'm not saying this should get him off scot-free, it just seemed important to note that he doesn't currently say these things, publicly at least.
(They also publish opinion pieces from other positions/ideologies, but that's a part of the whole liberal free market of ideas thing.)
The newspaper's reputation as a platform for liberal and
left-wing editorial has led to the use of the "Guardian
reader" and "Guardianista" as often (but not always)
pejorative epithets for those of left-leaning or
politically correct tendencies.
Are you disputing the quotations attributed to Thiel in the reporting? No, you don't seem to be.
You asked for examples of toxic viewpoints held by Thiel, someone delivered, and you plugged your fingers in your ears and said "lol facts don't matter". Don't be that guy.
Now, he may well be a white supremacist (although I haven't heard any complaints from his Jewish cofounders, FWIW), but these do not prove it at all.
Unless Thiel, or anyone else really, comes out with some statement on the superiority of whites or the need to get rid of non-whites, let's desist from rushing to slap these labels on them.
Yes
>his support of Trump as a candidate.
Unlikely, since he was public about that all along so it's not something that was a secret.
Maybe it's a good thing, shows how ridiculous the idea is?
> Most of his political and economic philosophy seems to be the same gauche pastiche of SV's obsession with Rand. So, yeah, good riddance.
> TL;DR: Bye! Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out! Come back when you've got a little more mature and empathic towards others if you want!
LOL... I really don’t understand where he got the idea that there's an intolerance of conservatism in SV... /s
There's nothing definitive in this article specifically, mind you; but for one you can read more about his and his buddy Yarvin's toxic philosophy here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Enlightenment#Summary_of_...
... and then read various essays by Thiel himself, where you'll encounter more dog whistles than in a dog training center.
Given what Gawker did to him, I can hardly shed a tear.
There are plenty of reasons to dislike the man, but that ain't one.
I'm intolerant of Nazis.
The commentor is intolerant of Peter Thiel.
It's better to discuss the actual merits of a position, rather than just saying "They're intolerant".
Completely agree -- I think most people hold it against Thiel that he supported Trump getting the presidency.
> TL;DR: Bye! Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out!
The cognitive dissonance in this comment is astounding.
This bizarre drive to purge different points of view is really grating. Not everybody has to share the same values as you. Respecting that is exactly what diversity means.
What other type of diversity is there? Any other kind is simply superficial and irrelevant.
> Not all opinions are equally informed, or equally valid
A trite point used to justify intolerance. No opinions should be censored.
I am not sure if this even should be dignified with a reply.
Leftist talking points about "access to healthcare" only work on those who have no idea or first-hand experience with healthcare in countries that attempted to build that workers' paradise.
These diversity preachers are just a bunch pathetic weasels who haven't learned to work with/accept people with differing opinions
Worse, your account has been using HN primarily for ideological battle. We ban accounts that do this, for reasons I've explained at length at the links listed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16402816. If you'd please look through some of those, reread the guidelines, and use HN only as intended from now on, we'd appreciate it.
>thinks the path to doing that is intolerance, dominance, lack of accountability and an insistence on some Ayn Rand-ian gibberish philosophy of the World. He was intolerant of Gawker. He is anti-regulation which in this case is a synonym for anti-accountability. Most of his political and economic philosophy seems to be the same gauche pastiche of SV's obsession with Rand.
I have trouble figuring how you reconcile these two views. What about Thiel makes you say he "wants to improve the world"? Is it because he says so? Because anybody can say, like, they are "committed to improving the world through technology"; what actually matters is actions. And all his actions seem to indicate he his passionate about accumulating wealth and accumulating power to himself, very little else.
It is always somewhat amusing to see that for "voices of diversity" to win, diverse woices need to be silenced.
Gawker outed him, and leaked a sex tape of Hulk Hogan (and did a bunch of other really terrible things). He was lucky enough to have the money to bring them justice.
I've honestly never heard of anyone taking Gawker's side in this.
This is an argument where people who feel differently about "money as free speech" tend to have wildly divergent opinions. I find it quite alarming that billionaires have the power to squelch the free press.
How they feel about that is going to closely track partisan allegiance.
And what constitutes "justice", in the context of a sex tape or other journalistic malpractice? Tens of millions of dollars? Uncountable millions? Any number of millions so long as it's enough to put the company out of business?
I don't agree that shutting down Gawker was the appropriate remedy. Damages yes, annihilation no.
Couldn't disagree more.
As a result, in your world and mine, the press now has to fear secret reprisals should they offend the wrong billionaire. It is now more dangerous to report on the powerful. You can't fight them with your free speech, because you can't even know who's financing the campaign against you, or even that it's happening.
Like I said, I wish you didn’t need billions to keep them honest but at least someone can do it.
There's no constraint on billionaires as to what might motivate them to spend their money secretly financing lawsuits. Reporting on say, their bribery of a government official, could also persuade a billionaire to adopt Thiel's tactics.
Diversity of thought, REGARDLESS of age,sex, skin color etc should be the goal, not ideological purity.
To use "diversity" in this sense seems to just be an attempted to co-opt the other side's label.
It's not a loss to the sector to lose somebody who thinks the path to doing that is intolerance, dominance, lack of accountability and an insistence on some Ayn Rand-ian gibberish philosophy of the World.
He was intolerant of Gawker. He dominated them by suing them to the hilt via the Hogan case. He is anti-regulation which in this case is a synonym for anti-accountability. Most of his political and economic philosophy seems to be the same gauche pastiche of SV's obsession with Rand. So, yeah, good riddance.
If software is eating the World, it's important the people building and operating it are as diverse as possible, otherwise there is a risk it unconsciously or consciously becomes biased in its actions and consequences towards a single social group at the expense of others.
Of course a one-party political philosophy is a problem in the long term, but so is Trump's stance on equality - one Thiel endorses - and for now at least it's important the voices of diversity and accountability win out for the long run.
TL;DR: Bye! Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out! Come back when you've got a little more mature and empathic towards others if you want!