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Since there have been several submissions that have made the front page and then have been flagged by users, we're going to try turning the flags off on this one. If you're going to comment here, please take extra care to do so civilly and substantively.

Edit: we've turned the flags back on since the discussion has gone well beyond civility.

Thiel might have ulterior motives, but his support of Trump is not too surprising if you've listened to his other ideas. He feels that the political agenda has been overrun by distractions, like "who can use which bathroom", at the expense of real problems, like the stagnation of median wages over the last forty years. He prefers the days when the national conversation was about how to beat the Soviets, and sees the lack of substance in our political agenda today as tied to a slowdown in progress. So he probably prefers Trump's speeches about China and decaying inner cities to Clinton's about fairness and diversity.

He believes that most of Silicon Valley is naive politically, and that the popularity of social liberalism there is just a moral fashion. He is a liberarian, and believes that the Valley's instincts are libertarian, not liberal. He has a slightly pessimistic outlook on the future, and believes that America has been falling behind since 1969, "when Woodstock started... and the hippies took over the country". That aligns well with the central point of Trump's campaign - America has started losing and we need to "make it great again".

He's often said that one of his favorite interview questions is, "tell me something you believe to be true but which nobody agrees with you on". His support of Trump falls into that category. 40% of the population agrees with him, but the people closest to him see his opinion as unthinkable. He seems to take pleasure in having opinions like that. He has said that he believes climate change is "more pseudoscience than science", roughly agreeing with Trump. Thiel backed up his position by saying "whenever you can't have a debate, I often think that's evidence that there's a problem".

He likely sees the stories that have come out against Trump recently as worth ignoring when the future of the country is at stake, and Trump is the only candidate who can focus the national agenda on the right issues.

> He is a libertarian

I just find this impossible to reconcile with his support for Trump, the most authoritarian presidential candidate in a very long time and possibly ever.

I think many of his supporters would actually agree with that description, they like that about him, and they absolutely do not describe themselves as libertarian.

They describe themselves as "conservatives" who want a "strong" president to "take their country back". They talk about "getting tough".

I've lived in America my whole life, but I was born in Austria, and German is my first language. It pains me to see a fellow German-speaking immigrant support a right-wing populist who appeals pretty explicitly to white identity politics. We of all people should know better.

>"I've lived in America my whole life, but I was born in Austria, and German is my first language. It pains me to see a fellow German-speaking immigrant support a right-wing populist who appeals pretty explicitly to white identity politics. We of all people should know better."

As opposed to black identity politics? Or female identity politics? Would you feel better if the context was a place like South Africa where the white minority is actively being persecuted/discriminated against? Would that make white identity politics okay in your book?

>"I just find this impossible to reconcile with his support for Trump, the most authoritarian presidential candidate in a very long time and possibly ever."

I'm not an American, but I'm a libertarian and I definitely support Donald Trump. He represents an active regression back to a mean, rather than further towards the socialist-left. That is why I think it'll be better for him to be president, rather than someone like Hillary or Obama, or even Gary Johnson.

thiels philosophy is actually deeply technocratic authoritarian. in a lot of ways he is a technocrat and not a true libertarian. hes said on multiple occasions that politics has failed libertarians and that they should try 'alternatives.'

As a libertarian he believes in survival of the fittest, so a lot of his strategy involves "fuck shit up" and see what survives. Or just letting things sort themselves out.

We can argue whether Trump is an authoritarian or not, but what we can't argue about is that Clinton openly stated during the election she wants to take away your right to bare arms. Democrats can call it "common sense" whatever, but that's what it is.

> We of all people should know better.

Not if Austria's 2016 presidential elections are anything to go by.

He does not explicitly appeal to or endorse white identity politics. Where's the proof for your outrageous statement?

And what exactly is wrong with wanting to "take back your country"? He's talking about enforcing existing laws like having borders.

That's all well and good, but Trump is still a terrible option. He never held office, he doesn't know how the system works, and doesn't have the temperament to be commander-in-chief.

His tax plan will add trillions in debt over the next decade, and will only benefit the rich in the long run.

So excuse me if I think Thiel just wants to pay less tax and sue people that piss him off. It's the rich coming to power in a more matter-of-fact way.

I'm sorry but the tax adding trillions is utter rubbish. This figure only accounts if the current people paying tax continue to pay, and all benefits and handouts continue as is.

It neglects the fact that he wants to close loopholes that let people not pay tax and give less reason to dodge tax, you could argue that taking all this into account Hillarys tax could force more people to not pay tax and result in trillions rather than the estimated billions she will add.

So he does not know the system but you know it well enough to know that his plan will add trillions to the debt?

>He feels that the political agenda has been overrun by distractions, like "who can use which bathroom", at the expense of real problems, like the stagnation of median wages over the last forty years. He prefers the days when the national conversation was about how to beat the Soviets, and sees the lack of substance in our political agenda today as tied to a slowdown in progress.

Yes, and I agree with him. Strangely enough, when I thought about how to have a substantive politics, it led me to support Bernie Sanders. Now, you may not like Bernie yourself, but he sure as hell wasn't a climate-denying wannabe-dictator with a habit for sexual assault.

If you believe politics ought to be about policy, then the Trump candidacy has been miserable for your goal. I can't see how Thiel can hold that goal and support Trump, unless I posit that Thiel is choosing attitude ("MAGA") over substance (mercantilism and a typically Republican dislike of science and technology).

>He's often said that one of his favorite interview questions is, "tell me something you believe to be true but which nobody agrees with you on".

Our society cannot grow or move forward until the finance/real-estate capital complex is removed from control.

None of what you wrote answers "why Trump?", though. If Thiel thinks he can somehow control Trump and get him to pursue a Libertarian agenda (which Trump's platform bares no resemblance to) then he's an idiot.

If he wants Libertarianism he should donate to Gary Johnson. Anything else is just opportunism.

Flattering Gary Johnson isn't going to accomplish any political goals.

Getting him into the 3rd debate might moderately raise awareness of the party, but he isn't going to win the election. Full stop.

> Anything else is just opportunism.

But that might be it. Trump clearly lacks a well oiled political machine behind him like Clinton. Should he win power there will no doubt a lot of opportunities opening up for anyone with a cheque and an agenda. I guess 1.5 million is not much to gamble for Thiel and will pay back 1000 to 1 if Trump were to succeed.

it won't matter on HN and this shit story does not belong here. There already have been too many stealth political stories posted to HN all bent one way.

For supposedly open minded people techies (this happened on /. and ended that site for many) are the most bigoted close minded people you can find. They don't want to think, they want approval of supposed peers, peers they will never meet nor acknowledge them.

The common trope is always, Republican candidates or Presidents are dumb, they are racists, they are homophobes, they are anti science, they are anti-name it. Yet no matter how much proof is offered that the candidate they will support instead will trounce their privacy rights, their freedoms, and more, they cannot be convinced otherwise.

Shit like this does not belong on HN and thank god for the karma I have because fuck it, this type of crap is the reason to delete sites like this permanently from bookmarks. You want to go to the shitshow that /. became, don't do it.

All three candidates have bad points, some more than others, but I will not vote for someone whose entire political career is one deceit after another and who turns a blind eye to the deaths their decisions have caused nor will I accept a candidate the press desperately wants and will never call on the carpet

PG has made a couple statements about Peter Thiel's position on Twitter[0], and PB has take a stand against ostracizing Trump supporters[1], so let's dig into this.

The gist of the matter is: What should sane and compassionate people do about the Trump supporters in their lives? Many of us have them. Some of my family members support Trump, and I cannot fire them as family members or cancel Christmas, so I, and we, have to find another approach.

There are different levels of engagement, and the three most important are:

1) Political. Trump supporters are asking for power, and they must be denied that power, because their candidate is a dangerous, emotionally unstable racist, a sexual predator, and man who would do deep damage to US democracy. We should take a hard political line and fight them with all legal means to exclude them from decision-making positions that affect the public interest.

2) Private/Social/Familial. What kind of private discussions can you have with Trump supporters? There are different kinds of supporters, and the discussions you can have with them will vary according to which battle in the culture war you choose. Like previous GOP candidates, Trump has gathered a coalition of single-issue voters behind him. These include the usual suspects 1) anti-abortion groups, gun-rights groups, and climate change deniers. But Trump also has the support of a) white nationalists and other racist groups[2][3]; and b) post-factual conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones who preach the existence of an evil and "alien force not of this world".[4]

Anyone who has tried to argue someone out of their views on abortion or gun rights quickly finds that the discussion moving in circles, and pretty soon you've wasted a couple hours of your life.

People don't change their minds, and "when faced with doubt, they shout even louder."[5] So sure, talk with them if you want, but adversarial debate is one of the least effective ways to engage with Trump supporters.

Let's take Peter Thiel as an example: At the core of his RNC speech was the simple argument that the US government is broken and only Trump can fix it.[6] I agree that the USG is broken in a lot of areas, but hiring Trump to fix it, as someone funnier than me put it, would be like trying to cure eczema with a blow torch. Peter and I might agree on a lot of concrete, isolated problems with government, and he may have some pragmatic ideas for solving some of them, but when you go up one level of abstraction to a "total solution", there's not much to say. A debate between reason and irrationality leads no where.

At the heart of Thiel's position is a question: How do you fix a complex, broken and long-standing system? There are two alternatives: reform or revolution. Clinton represents reform at best and the status quo at worst. She has my vote because she's sane and sanity has become surprisingly rare. Trump represents revolution.

Most revolutionaries overestimate the good a total change will bring, and underestimate the damage. All they can see is the bad of the current situation. But most revolutions fail miserably. The Arab Spring failed violently in Libya, Egypt and Syria. The Iranian revolution of 1979 rang in decades of theocracy. In China and Russia, Marxist-Leninism ultimately killed tens of millions of people. The French revolution led to a century of political instability and the collapse of the French empire. The revolution that overthrew the decadence of Weimar Germany was called Nazism. In the wake of a revolution, you find that the new humans at the top are no better than the old ones, and generally less experienced. Without well thought out structures (like the separation of powers in the US constitution), the new elite will fail and be corrupted.

Anyone who's had to refactor a large, complex and crappy code base has longed to start from scratch. But countries cannot "start from scratch" without massive turmoil and bloodshed. Revolutions mean violence. I don't think we need a revolution, but if we did, it should at least go in the right direction. Trump is not the right direction.

Another important thing to remember is: some political views do not count as dissent, and cannot be accorded the same privileges as other forms of speech: hate speech and white nationalism don't count as dissent. Sexual predation and misogyny don't count as dissent. They are ugly prejudices, and it's not useful to listen to or engage them in a "debate". They have to be tackled in some other way.

In public fora, we should present alternatives to Trump supporters' views, but in private conversation, we should build relationships with his supporters based on non-political common ground. Years down the road, some of them will come round, and when they do, that human connection will be their road of return. One of my siblings was in a cult for about a decade. We just nodded, laid down some light rules about proselytizing and turned the conversation to baseball. For years. And then one day they left the cult and we never heard about it again.

3) Root cause. This is the most important level of engagement. How do we address the factors that have lead us to this point?

There are a lot of factors, but I think we can boil is down to one word: bubbles. People are living in bubbles. Wealth creates bubbles of isolation (Trump himself is a great example, and so is SV). Poverty creates bubbles of isolation, where people are not exposed to new ideas, other cultures and different kinds of people. And the media creates bubbles. Some of the media's bubbles are great (innocent weirdos congregate and find their human home on the Internet), and some are really damaging, because, as a nation, Americans no longer live in a shared reality or agree upon facts. Fox News has never cared about facts, and the GOP has done a lot to drive its supporters away from mainstream media where fact-checking actually happens. The FCC eliminated the Fairness Doctrine in 1987, and since then US media and their audiences have grown increasingly polarized.[7] Maybe that was a mistake.

Different types of bubbles can be burst in different ways. Internet media bubbles could be addressed, at least partially, with algorithms to recommend other types of content, but we would have to accept a benevolent algorithm-maker trying to change our minds.[8] Media bubbles cause bubbles of ideology -- destructive, self-perpetuating memes like anti-semitism and white nationalism. Those are hard to burst. It takes a huge commitment on the part of the people who are hated to go out, encounter the haters in a neutral context and demonstrate your humanity. It can be done. Sometimes it leads to a minor victory, like a racist realizing "not all n are bad." Really hard work.

Bubbles of poverty can be burst by investing more time and money in poor communities, getting people to work and exposing them to the other in non-threatening ways. Maybe we're talking dance troupes and exchange students -- I don't know.

To get to the root, we have to go beyond the media to the interests that are financing the culture wars and climate denial.[9][10]

I don't have ready-made solutions for bursting bubbles, or cutting off the funds that are creating the ideologies that threaten the US and the whole species, but that's where we need to focus. The real issue is the dark money and Citizens United. Beyond that is only capitalism itself, the system that allows a few individuals for reasons of merit or inheritance to lay enormous social claims on the rest of society through the unequal allocation of wealth.

We're living in a strange time. Large historical forces are at work in America, which are beyond the powers of any one person to address. This election cycle has taught me a lot about humans and group behavior, more than I ever wanted to know, and it's given me a surprising sympathy for the Germans whose lives were eclipsed by Nazism in the 1930s. Not all of them wanted it, but all of them got it. A few resisted and died; some fled; many sank into indifference and getting-by; and some saw it as a career opportunity. Just a few more percentage points in favor of Trump and all of America gets him, his walls, his deportations and his groping paws, too. And then we'll all have choices to make.

[0] https://twitter.com/dhh/status/787547255259758592

[1] https://twitter.com/paultoo/status/786990416537149441

[2] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/donald-trump-hat...

[3] http://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12256510/republican-party-trump...

[4] http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/03/17/defending-donald-tr...

[5] https://www.minnpost.com/second-opinion/2010/10/why-people-d...

[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTJB8AkT1dk

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine

[8] https://www.wired.com/2016/09/googles-clever-plan-stop-aspir...

[9] http://www.pnas.org/content/113/1/92.abstract

[10] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dark-money-funds-...

[11] https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Money-History-Billionaires-Radic...

Three comments -

(0) Nice setup of the sane and compassionate versus... Trump supporters? Who cannot in any way be sane or compassionate...

(1) If Trump supporters must be fought and excluded from any sort of decision-making that affects the public sphere, then why bring up US Democracy? The very nature of democracy allows the dangerous, the racist and the sexist to affect it. Are you suggesting something else?

(2) While I might criticize the five silos you toss Trump supporters into, I wonder more whether you'd find a Sanders revolution abhorrent. Not that all revolutions have been as bloody or as horrid as the French - are you saying the American Revolution was a terrible thing for the world? Certainly the Brits might think so. ;-)

Some of Trump's strongest policy prescriptions include

1) Clamping down on immigration

2) Clamping down on free trade

I don't see how any libertarian can be a fan of either.

It isn't immigration, it's illegal immigration. It's also against the abuse of H1 visas. Incidentally Tata was a major donor to the Clinton Foundation and logically she supports H1 abuses:

Here's a document from the 2008 Obama campaign about Clinton and her coziness with Indian H1 abusers: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/politics/memo1.pdf

Note that is a document from the Obama campaign -- not some republican hit piece.

Libertarians do favor free trade, however free trade doesn't exist as long as governments (such as China,) manipulate currency or (such as France, specifically with Airbus,) provide heavy state subsidization for certain industries in order to compete with companies that aren't as subsidized.

Free trade requires an end to all subsidies and market-distorting practices that disadvantage competitors.

Trumps trade stances aren't in opposition to free trade in as much as they're in opposition to unfair trade -- China being a great example. US companies have to compete in manufacturing essentially with one hand tied behind their back -- stricter environmental rules, tougher labor rules and much higher taxation compared to China. So allowing unrestricted Chinese trade isn't 'free trade.'

Not defending Trump or necessarily bashing Clinton, just providing some context for his 'opposition' to free trade and immigration.

Trump's trade positions aren't much different than the EU -- when I import an American product into France, I pay huge duties and taxes -- importing something to the US from France -- rarely do I get hit with a huge tax bill from FedEx or UPS.

I even had to pay taxes on $100 worth of kids clothes I ordered from the US. I've never had that happen when I bought something from the EU and had it shipped to the US.

Yeah, a libertarian who got rich on CIA investments and contracts. Isn't it amazing how everything else is crony capitalism and government needs to stop interfering in the market except to make oneself rich and protect ones own assets?

"who can use which bathroom" Isn't this the major problem we have currently?

Muslim terrorists. Warmongering Hillary, Zero Interest rates, crumbling infrastructure, imploding retirement funds. Who gives a fuck? But hey, bathroom problems.

Nicely put. MAGA.

Either that or he's shorting USD and looking to make a killing come November.

Also, trump is no libertarian, he's an extreme authoritarian.

I'm all for it but Trump isn't the guy to lead the change. He has no record of success and treats all humans terribly.

If Somebody with a similar mindset on the business matters minus the catastrophic interpersonal issues runs in the future I'll happily elect them.

Well, he actually does have a record of success. He wouldn't have a strong following if he treats all humans terribly.

I'm not surprised at all that Thiel is for Trump: he was always more for preserving America as white a possible than libertarian guy.

And Trump did for one important thing: we all know who are the racists and which organizations harbor and supporting racisms.

Everyone seems to think it's about maximizing his ROI or, less cynical, about economics. But here's a quote from Thiel's speech at the republican convention:

"Instead of going to Mars, we have invaded the Middle East. We don't need to see Hillary Clinton's deleted emails: her incompetence is in plain sight. She pushed for a war in Libya, and today it's a training ground for ISIS. On this most important issue, Donald Trump is right. It's time to end the era of stupid wars and rebuild our country."

He clearly says "On this most important issue, Donald Trump is right" and it's not really surprising, since Thiel is a libertarian.

Clinton's plan for Syria is scary. Ironically it displays the kind of toughness that Trump claims to represent. Personally I think it is a bad move, and Russia has already been reasonable, e.g. backing the Iran deal.

You don't even need to be a libertarian or an isolationist to believe that the neoconservative approach is wrong.

This is the only issue that really worries me, Clinton might actually attempt to get some leverage over Russia as she says. In such a bold move, Russia will feel so cornered that it may break out into a major war, with possible use of limited nuclear weapons.

The western world doesn't understand the mentality of Russia, they have had two regime collapses this century already. Putin believes that everything needs to be done to avoid a third one.

I'm not even in the US, but have been following the election closely. What a circus, both candidates are horrible choices. But Clinton's foreign policy is what scares me, at least based on what I have heard so far.

Another concern is some type of civil unrest after the election.

I think this applies to whole Asia.

This is how Japan was pushed into WWII, and how China right now is being pushed in arming up.

Quick history lesson:

China, basically dominated the world, even when the world weren't aware of China's existence for most of the history, then when England and US came knocking into China's door, they managed to force China into a mix of submission, collapse and opening.

Then US tried to repeat the feat with Japan, starting with the infamous "black ships" (how the japanese called the mysterious US warships when japan still used wooden ships).

Japan then started a serious attempt to avoiding "being the new China", and started to literally imitate US and Europe: invade everywhere, and attempt to become a colonizing superpower.

This in the end is the reason why Japan ended in WWII.

Russia saw what happened to countries around them, Iraq was literally created by England, with borders intentionally crappy to create internal problems (Lawrence of Arabia publicy proposed this), US and Europe actions in Japan and Korea region basically turned Japan and Korea into virtual US colonies, in fact, Japan plans I mentioned earlier failed, badly, Japan DID became a "new China" that must obey US interests, and instead of "black ships" at their ports, ended with a permanent base in their territory.

Not only to Putin, but to the russian population, stuff like trying to sanction Russia, is viewed as an strongarm attempt to pull Russia into submission, to the russian population, the fact that they are becoming poorer due to US sanctions, and US allies oil-price meddling, isn't a reason to become angry at Putin, to them it is reason to consider US the ultimate enemies, and do their best to support Putin no matter what happens.

US, England and France seemly doesn't understand that after 2 centuries meddling in Asia in a imperialistic manner, one country that always has been very imperial themselves, will see them as a major threat and will never, ever, back down.

To Russia, nuclear war is more desirable than "slavery", it is better to die, than to submit.

(this is not even counting yet the psychological effects of Russia terrain... Russia geography is so fucked-up that only people that are mentally resilient and willing to endure famine, poverty and extreme situations will live there)

I wish the press would call her out on using the term "leverage". If the US military confront Russia's proxies at the no-fly-zone and force them to turn back, then this would given them leverage against Russia. That's what the term implies. Changing that situation on the ground and then going to Russia and saying "now what". When Clinton uses the term "leverage" it's misleading voters, who don't realize that enforcing the no-fly-zone will require confronting Russian planes directly.

This is what worries me, especially given the state of both the mainstream press and feminism right now. Here in the UK, we've already seen the leader of the opposition accused of supporting harassment and violence against women for opposing bombing Syria merely because some of pro-bombing MPs that had anti-war protests outside their offices were female. Imagine what will happen once the President of the US is a hawkish, well-connected Democrat woman who can defend a man accused of brutally raping a 12 year old girl, leaving her with massive internal injuries, by convincing the court to put the girl through a forced psychiatric examination so nasty she refused to testify afterwards using an expert witness who argued that little girls fantasise and lie about sex with older men all the time - and have the press spin this a feminist act that only right-wing propagandists could object to. We're doomed.

George W Bush came to power claiming that it was time to stop being the worlds police and to rebuild the country instead.

This is a very real problem for Trump. Trump has already been forced to change his rhetoric on Israel, and even Pence doesn't support Trump's plan for Syria (letting Russia/Assad win).

On the other hand, Trump has a huge amount of support for him personally that hasn't been seen before, so maybe he can leverage this against the neocons in his own party.

I agree that Hillary would likely be a terrible president, but as PJ Rourke said, 'she's wrong within the normal parameters'

A vote for trump is a vote to end the republic. I don't think we're at that point yet, no matter how bad Hillary is.

Politics aside. What does it say about his judgement to continue investing in something that is statistically on track to fail. Not only that, but its also a toxic brand to attach yourself to.

Or do we just put this in the "expensive new hobby" section and leave it at that.

----

Update: I want to hijack my own comment to ponder something.

As someone with no money and no influence, I find it hard to think about how to use money to buy influence as part of a grand plan, like many of the comments here are suggesting.

As a layman, I think in simple terms like discrimination, racism, sexism, etc... and my belief in fighting against all those things.

Am I short-sighted? Is there some greater human social structure that I am not aware of that can only be achieved by making such calculated investments? Despite all the immediately negative rhetoric.

Pretty much all of Thiel's investing thesis is to invest in things that are statistically on track to fail, but whose payoff if they succeed is greater than most people imagine. PayPal, Facebook - both of these were terrible ideas when they came out (along with a number of other ones that did, in fact, fail). His idea is that people consistently mis-price risk, and so investing in a portfolio where everyone else thinks it's a terrible idea but you have reason to believe it's a better idea than others suspect will give outsize returns. (Note: it doesn't actually have to be a good idea, it just has to be better than everyone else thinks it is.)

Supporting Trump fits perfectly into this: if he loses, he gets egg on his face (which most people will forget fairly soon) and may lose out on a little startup dealflow, but if he wins, he becomes the sole connection between the Presidential Administration and Silicon Valley. That's worth a lot more than $12.5M.

I don't think he's investing in the hopes that Trump will pull of a long shot. I think he has a different goal in mind. He said in his speech at the RNC that the country is broken and that Trump is the only one who can fix it. I have no doubt that he believes the first part - he's said as much for a long time - but I do doubt that he really thinks Trump is the man to fix anything. Thiel may be nutty according to some, but he's not an idiot and the only thing Trump has ever been good at is self-promotion and entertainment.

I think he thinks the country is broken and _someone_ has to fix it. He's supporting Trump and investing in his campaign even at this late, seemingly forgone stage, in order to build credibility with Trump's base and conservatives in general. If he wasn't an immigrant I would think he might be aiming for the presidency himself, but he probably just wants to be an influencer or power broker.

Here is an interesting take on this matter:

> Famously, the only reason he went to seek fortune in the Silicon Valley was because he was denied a highly prestigious clerk position for a Supreme Court justice.

> It seems to me that Thiel originally wished to become a politician, and only stopped pursuing that path to seek his fortune in the Silicon Valley when he hit his first setback when applying to clerk for the Supreme Court.

Source: https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Peter-Thiel-supporting-Donald-T...

Considering how divisive Trump is even among the conservative base, and especially in the RNC, seems weird to support this particular candidate if what he wants is to assert himself in the republican base and party.

Actually if he loses, he becomes the first investor in a ultra conservative right-wing media empire, Trump Media, which appears to already have quite a large following.

I wonder if launching this media outlet is the real purpose of the campaign. It's at least more plausible than the Trump is throwing the election for Hillary conspiracy theory.

This is exactly what is happening.

You have the personalities in Trump and Giuliani etc. You have the news content courtesy of Brietbart. You have lifestyle content courtesy of his real estate assets e.g. golf/travel shows etc. And he already owns a TV production company that made the Apprentice.

And don't forget that Lachlan Murdoch is now firmly in charge of Fox News and has always talked about it being less alt-right and more centre-right. This will leave a massive opening for Trump in the alt-right space. The real question is whether Fox will allow it on their global cable platforms.

Ultra-conservative? Not by a long shot. I was a Ted Cruz backer and Trump to me is as bad as Clinton.

Trump isn't conservative. He's a big government populist. Completely different despite him having an 'R' next to his name.

He is about as close to Cruz as Sanders was to Clinton (in terms of policy philosophy.)

By the way, I understand downvotes because I mentioned Cruz in a positive way, however let's keep in mind that we can disagree with economic philosophy and role of government and still be friends!

I want a flat tax and a repeal of FATCA and Cruz was the only candidate that supported that. If some Democrat comes along with that proposal, they'd get my vote too.

FATCA and it's unintended consequences have caused serious harm to many Americans overseas, so that was my primary issue this election.

The only reason I support the RNC this election is because they have FATCA repeal in the platform while the Democrat side both enacted FATCA as wel as expressed support for continuing it.

Here's an article that delves deeper into FATCA if anyone is interested: http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21605911...

You need to factor in the probability that Trump doesn't feel any obligation.

Perfect quote from Paul Graham here:

Others may be reassured to hear Trump has only a 15% chance of winning, but it terrifies me. In Silicon Valley 15% is a good chance.

https://twitter.com/paulg/status/786801011830628352

It matters who has the most chance of winning.

If there are 10 competitors and they all have between 5-10% chance of winning you have 15%. Compared to a 15%/85% split.

When it comes to a company 15% isn't too bad as you have a long time to test and figure out whether you make it. It's never just about one exact moment.

With an election it can usually be summed to important event: the vote. So that's why it doesn't terrify me at all. There's enough evidence now and in previous elections to show me he's not going to win the election. If the situation were say closer to Gore/Bush or even Romney/Obama pre-vote polling numbers, then maybe I'd be scared.

> That's worth a lot more than $12.5M.

Agreed. (Though FWIW $1.25M is the amount he invested)

I'm assuming 1/10 probability of Trump winning. Most poll aggregators are going 1/6; I actually suspect we'll see a bigger Clinton blowout than expected, but that's just MHO.

You're assuming Thiel is acting rationally. But more likely, he's blinded by political ideology.

1.25M, not 12.5M.

That is one plausible interpretation but there are several layers to this. It is not a coincidence that RenTech and Thiel are supporting Trump.

I hesitate to be explicit about what I think is actually going on but if you've read my posts on the Stagnation Hypothesis or watched Peter Thiel's videos on Youtube (low view counts, so I know you're not watching them!) you'll know there is a rather disturbing big picture which most people are oblivious to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMpmfaE9bII

I am not sure what you are saying, and I really don't want to watch that video. Can you be explicit? I want to know what you are thinking.

> that RenTech and Thiel are supporting Trump.

RenTec is not supporting Trump.

Mercer is.

Simons, for what it's worth, is supporting Clinton. As, I'm almost sure, does the majority of employees. Mercer is the outlier.

Are you referring to his thesis that globalization without significant technological advance will lead to a Malthusian catastrophe?

I have considered this in wondering why he would support Trump.

Not interested in watching the video, but where are your posts?

Trump isn't nearly as far behind as you may think: http://graphics.latimes.com/usc-presidential-poll-dashboard/

Yes, this poll is an outlier because their methodology is very different than most other polls.

Yes, Nate Silver has a very different outlook on the election, but Nate Silver was also not very reliable during the primary season (although that is, by his admission, because primaries don't have very good polling).

If I had to make a[n extremely uneducated guess], it's because most polling is done over the phone, and I don't think "people who answer their phone when they don't recognize the number" is a very good random sampling of voters in the US.

I don't think this race is nearly as over as most people seem to believe, which is why, if you want to beat Trump, it is REALLY IMPORTANT (all caps!) that you get out and vote!

You've cherry-picked the one outlier.

It's, of course, very possible that "this time it's different" as they say every time. He is certainly an unconventional candidate. However, I'll throw my lot in every time with the MANY polls who are trying to account for this, and the MANY poll aggregators who are trying to make sense out of this madness.

I think 538 was actually quite reliable during the primary season. Pretty much bang on, in fact.

Everything they said anti-trump was basically opinion and they have been roundly chastised (as deserved) for treating punditry as fact.

There was a good documentary on polling on BBC Radio 4 in light of their very weak performance in IndyRef and the UK General Election. One pollster said that he actually has a high regard for outliers which statistical aggregations do not capture. In cases where the majority of pollsters got it horribly wrong, there have been outliers at some significant distance from the herd that have been on the money but ridiculed at the time.

The reasoning is that pollsters have herd behaviours - they believe publishing an outlier they will lose them credibility so they suppress inconvenient results and will rework methodologies and weightings to avoid it. For many, election polling is a loss leader - its publicity to get their name out there for commercial services. The credibility of the outlier is increased because it has escaped the herd pressure despite the incentives.

> I don't think this race is nearly as over as most people seem to believe

This feels a lot like the atmosphere over here (in Britain) just before the Brexit vote.

Many people thought it was a guaranteed Remain vote, and woke up to a terrible fright on that Friday morning.

The polls showed Brexit winning.

Nate silver personally hasn't had a good record of making predictions in the primary this year, but his model had trump winning through most of the primary season. He just didn't believe his own model.

4% in national polls (that's the number averaging across the polls) is a huge difference given the strong alignment of so much of the electorate. And it isn't even the interesting way to analyze the election, winning the national popular vote isn't what wins the race.

If you look at states that are contested, things look bad for Trump, even in the ones where demographics favor him he is not getting polling results that point to a win (an example would be Pennsylvania).

Regarding that poll specifically: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/10/13/upshot/how-one-19-year-...

Their response: http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-daybreak-poll-ques...

Where they eliminated that one 19 year old, and saw very little effect on the poll.

You've just selected the national poll that is the most favorable to Trump. An average over polls >> any individual poll. Note that I am not saying that poll should be thrown out. But picking one poll in isolation is almost useless.

Looking at this specific poll in isolation is fine as long as you understand that you are looking at it in isolation.

I say so because of its polling methodology, which is unique.

If you're a politics/polling nerd, this poll is interesting. If you're not, then yes, you are probably better off either just reading 538, or looking at the RCP polling average.

https://news.usc.edu/109339/why-the-usc-dornsifel-a-times-pr...

It is the height of stupidity to believe in any one poll. Especially that one which has had major issues with sampling:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/13/upshot/how-one-19-year-old...

There are plenty of aggregation sites which are far better at smoothing out any issues:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/upshot/presidential-...

They all show Trump losing in a landslide with Clinton getting around 330 EC votes.

USC's response to this: http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-daybreak-poll-ques...

I heard about this poll, but I haven't paid attention to it. You got me reading up on it.

Now I can't sleep...

If you look at the pictures of the number of people in attendance at their respective events one would conclude Trump is ahead.

Which is why thats an awful gauge of the electorate. The vast majority of voters do not attend political events, and "attendees at events" is really just an uncorrelated measure of "enthusiasm for a candidate amongst their base". If 40% of the country loved him so much that they all showed up at every single rally, yet the other 60% hate him, and will vote for HRC despite not really loving her, then you see a rally filled to the brim with Trump supporters, and nobody at hers, yet his chances are zip. Rally attendance is a meaningless metric.

Do we have any evidence that number of people at campaigning events correlates to more votes? If not, why would we conclude that?

Is it not (in absence of any evidence) equally plausible that the type of voter that will vote for Trump is more predisposed to attend a campaign event than other voters?

By that logic, Bernie Sanders would be the Democratic nominee.

I think it's very difficult to find truly unbiased statistics on this. Every current well-known analyst has been repeatedly egregiously wrong on the matter throughout this election cycle.

On matters of opinion, ABSOLUTELY. On matters of polling, absolutely false. Even Brexit was predicted by the polls, it just didn't happen until a week before the vote. (It's worth noting, of course, the same could happen here. And that's probably what Thiel is counting on).

Where do you see the Brexit predicted by the polls?

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

Seems to not support that claim.

Exactly there is a big myth going around that polls never predicted Brexit when in fact they absolutely did. People just didn't want to believe them.

Polls are objective not subjective.

With Brexit the reporting of what was going on was dodgy, even the leader of UKIP thought he'd failed. The bookies had Remain at something like .90 probability.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-23/bookies-pl...

This is different.

Just say you were going to vote for Trump. Someone stops you on the street, or call you up; would you admit it?

I wouldn't.

The guy is an absolute joke of a person on so many levels. He's stupid. He's just aweful.

But there's a tiny bit of Trump in a lot of us buried deep in that ID.

Personally, I do think we need to get much more vigilant on immigration, even though Obama has sent more illegials home than any other president. Would I admit this in public--hell no.

And I have never believed in Globilization. Would I admit this at work--hell no.

I really think a lot of people will vote for Trump in the privacy of that booth.

I won't because I won't vote for a president this year, or will I?

I'm not betting on a Trump presidency, but I'm fascinated at what the electorate is going to look like in the general. We've been basing so much of the polling on projections over 2012/2008 turnout. I would not be surprised if the final margin is within 2 points.

I would be more surprised if the margins are huge. I have come to expect team politics to give us close margins. I would be surprised, in either a very happy or very sad way, if instead the margins are big.

True; I wonder what impact a 9 point poll-implied spread turning into 1-2 points in the ballot booth could have on future political activities by "alt right" candidates. It feels like many are treating this as a "beat Trump and save the world" situation without realizing that the underlying movement isn't likely going away. If Trump brings in a large enough group of non-voters, that will have long lasting impacts (people that start voting tend to keep voting).

Super Tuesday voter turnout in 2008: 8,228,763 for Democrats, 5,025,685 for Republicans. 2016: 5,557,243 Democrats, 8,307,884 Republicans If I was a betting man, I'd put my money on Trump. I think it will be close. That said, I also believe electoral fraud could decide the election.

Depends what you mean by electoral fraud. In the US, the only electoral fraud that has a significant impact is one where groups of voters are prohibited/prevented from voting. Pennsylvania is particularly vulnerable to that one due to very broad rules that allow people to question the legality of other people to vote. It's why Trump has been calling PA supports to do exactly that.

Other types of fraud (ballot stuffing, voting multiple times, voting when you're not allowed to etc.) are exceedingly rare, and it would have to happen at a massive scale for it to make an actual impact.

That's just not going to happen, especially with it being a felony.

That doesn't make much sense. Super Tuesday primaries included all likely Republican voters. But Trump only has the support of about 40% of them and nothing he has done to date indicates that number is changing.

And there is no evidence that electoral fraud is likely to decide the election. In fact it's looking like efforts to prevent it e.g. in Indiana are far more likely to influence the election.

Because the greatest threat to a hegemony of the wealthy is democracy.

And a candidacy that threatens opponents with prison, encourages voter intimidation, enlists foreign powers for cyberwarfare, intimates that any result will be rigged, distroys the norms critical to government functioning and a dozen other things, is the best investment someone who hates public control of policy could make win or loose.

It should not be overlooked that Mr. Thiel's funding of hogan's lawsuit against Gawker was clearly a shot across the bow of American freedom of the press by the plutocracy.

It should also not be overlooked that Charles Harder (hogan's lawyer paid for by Thiel) is now Melania Trump's lawyer in 2 lawsuits against media outlets, and also is working for Roger Ailes, the disgraced deviant sexual harrassing adviser to Donald Trump and former head of Fox News channel.[1]

Also please don't forget that Trump has promised to "open up" libel laws so that he can sue news organizations when they report the truth about his depraved life or bring attention to his abject incompetence.

Thiel clearly shares at least one ideological viewpoint with Trump and his ilk (i.e., removal of freedom of the press)... the more interesting question I think is why?

[1]: http://www.newsweek.com/charles-harder-gawker-melania-trump-... [2]: http://www.politico.com/blogs/on-media/2016/02/donald-trump-...

While I generally share your sentiment, I also think it's a stretch to hold up Gawker as an example of the freedom of the press. Outing someone or publishing a "sex tape" of someone against their will clearly breaches boundaries. I doubt that the public interest, by any definition, was served by this. Neither Thiel nor Bollea were running for public office.

Trump, on the other hand, is a real danger.

I would not lump those two issues together.

sadly I find his opponent to be more dangerous as the press and Congress will likely never call her out regardless of what she chooses to do. already a proven welfare warfare queen we can expect simply more of the same. At least with Trump we know the press will nip his heels everyday and misstep and Congress will not be friendly.

we haven't had an adversarial press in eight years and only one adversarial party in the same

As a foreigner, I really don't get this attitude.

Hillary's a hawk, so let's support the obviously erratic, racist, bigoted, tax-dodging, incompetent, incoherent, sexually assaulting idiot who looks very much like a new Hitler and thinks if you win an election you get to lock up your opponents like a crazy third world state.

Boggles my mind that 'Murica' 'Freedom' can bring out such a petty, childish and obviously self destructive urge to vote for Trump.

What am I missing? Like with brexit, what the rest of the world seems to miss is the EU is a corrupt beuracracy with a privileged and out of touch political elite marching toward federalisation while deliberately ignoring it's citizens explicit wishes (I voted remain). Foreigners don't seem to report that, they portray the single market as somehow free, without a heavy cost and the British as inherently self destructive.

So what is it about Trump that's so compelling that is not reported to us? As the rest of the world is so horrified by this vile person, this demagogue. Why, America, why? How did he almost win? How did he even get 5% of voters?

Gawker deserved it. They were vehemently opposed publishing the Fappening leaks (i.e. nude photos of famous women), but more than happy to publish Hogan's video ("he's a man, he can take it"). Sexist of the finest degree.

It couldn't have actually been a just ruling against Gawker for their civil offenses? I imagine you must think the American court system is broken.

Good. The media needs to burn for the bullshit they've been pulling.

I hope the tech world shuns Thiel. This is what he is supporting

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/01/28/upshot/donald-...

Specifically, look for his insults aimed at reporters and journalists. This man is unhinged and unqualified. He is currently riling up his followers by claiming that the election will be rigged. I am concerned the consequences of that message

https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2016/10/15/donald-...

The real tragedy is how easily peoples attention are all about form not substance.

For all the crazy things Trump is saying he actually have some points that are far more important to discuss than whatever he said about women or journalists.

With Hillary you get a seasoned politician who is going to do what they have always been doing. Absolutely nothing. That's besides of course making a huge mess internationally. And a continued support for those specialt interests who pays for her campaigns.

With Hillary you get an absurd potential continuation of a two family dynasty having controlled this country for almost 40 years with only one interruption.

With Hillary you have a woman how is point her fingers at Trump for his taxes yet have done absolutely nothing to change the taxes and is herself using tax-havens where she channels all the money she and Bill make on international speeches, speeches they only have been paid for because they were politicians. Something the american people paid for and got nothing out of. (Not a single job created out of all that money they accumulated)

With Hillary you get both her support for Iraq and several other international faillures.

With Hillary you get a continuation of exactly what everyone agrees can't continue like this.

Go figure.

Well, you have to move past childish rhetoric before we talk substance. And even if we did, Donald doesn't have any substance. If he did, he would have focused on those. His policy ideas are broad brush strokes which don't hold up under further scrutiny. Hillary is a centrist and pragmatic politician. I for one is pretty happy with where the US is and do not want radical change. Minor tweaks around healthcare, military spending, and safety net should be good enough.

You still really only object to form. I have no interest in that.and be happy where the US is all you want. That makes you part of the problem the way I see it.

Something have to change IMO.

1. Taxpayer money was spent suing the Clintons for years. They ended up broke as a result.

2. HRC pays taxes. Lots of them.

3. Politicians on both sides earn lucrative speaking fees after leaving office. (Giuliani had a great thing going for a while.) Are you criticizing the practice in general or just HRC?

I am critiquing the double standards.

Well yes, but with Trump you get Eric Cartman come to life: all the problems of Clinton, plus vulgarity, plus neo-Nazism.

Some would claim you already have that.

Thiel is a Facebook board member and a YC partner, and we haven't heard a peep out of either organization.

It's a shocking display of gutlessness. As Trump would say, disgusting!

Have you seen the hidden-cam video of Alan Schulkin, NYC commissioner of board of election claiming that they are in fact rigged? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUDTcxIqqM0

Some commissioner somewhere said election is rigged, so that must be the truth we all accept and go rioting on the street.

I didn't say that... I was thinking that hopefully some people will pay more attention and maybe some folks will even follow buses around. But this is just one of many ways that they might be rigged.

Another example could be that polling/registration station employees can also influence votes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NTq1tlBwqI&t=2m20s

Some might even consider that the FBI rigged the elections by allowing Hillary to walk free...

I agree with Thiel about Trump.

On the surface, individually, I think that Trump probably looks like a worse person than Hillary, but if you look at each candidate as the sum of their social connections - I think Hillary turns out to be much, much worse.

Hillary Clinton is heavily influenced by big finance. That's where the bulk of her friends and her connections come from. Even her son in law is an investment banker (not a very good one - He lost his clients 90% of their investment - But he still lives in a $10m apartment). At least Trump built houses and apartments for people. He didn't build his wealth by leveraging political power, insider information or asymmetrical reward structures.

I agree with Thiel that big finance is responsible for increasing costs of living. Big finance captures a lot of value from the economy but it doesn't create any real value on its own. Whenever I've spoken to someone who works/worked in finance, it's clear that a large portion of their profits come from 'grey area' insider trading.

I think that the main reason why most people aren't aware of this is because people like Hillary have been running the show and legitimizing the whole industry (and allowing them to get away with more and more stuff).

If Hillary gets elected, I'm going to quit software engineering and work in finance instead. If the world is getting worse, I'm going to have to adapt and become worse myself - I refuse to let myself become a loser. If you can't beat them, join them.

It always amuses me how short political memory is.

> At least Trump built houses and apartments for people. He didn't build his wealth by leveraging political power.

All he said during the primary was that he was leveraging political power by donations in the past and his selling point was being self-funded.

On top of that he didn't build his wealth. He inherited it while declaring bankruptcy several times along the way. He doesn't release his tax returns and has been involved in fraud multiple times eg. Trump university.

It escapes me how from your premises you conclude that the problem you identified, big finance, will be broken apart or regulated by Donald Trump.

Unbelievable.

> It always amuses me how short political memory is.

Indeed. So many Clinton supporters overlook her voting record and justify it despite some very questionable decisions.

As a European following the election, I think Trump is a very scary man, yet you provide a good reason to support him, so I am grateful for that as it illuminates my perspective of the US election. Yet, Trump didn't mention those connections between HRC and the finance industry (which were already well known) in the presidential debates.

At the last debate he repeatedly mentioned her finance friends, her paid speeches and Soros during a question about taxes.

you're letting big finance cloud your judgement. you don't think trump is influenced by 'big finance'? how about the real estate? Russia? republican 1%ers?

The real difference is that Trump doesn't owe big finance any favors - Trump is fueled by his own (relatively petty) business interests. On the other hand, Hillary gets her fuel from by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Citygroup, Morgan Stanley... Hillary owes these people favours and she knows how to slowly change things in their favor without anyone noticing - If this election has taught us anything it's that Hillary partially owns the media. If Trump tries to pull anything, the media won't let him get away with it.

Ideally, I would have picked Bernie Sanders, but the elites wouldn't allow it.

I'm genuinely curious what the rational for Thiel is in doing this. He's a smart guy, but I just don't see the ROI.

At this point, it seems very unlikely that Trump will get elected. So Thiel isn't getting access to a future President.

Plus, in addition to the monetary cost of the donation there's definitely a very real reputational cost. A lot of people in SV hate Trump and are completely mystified as to Thiel's support. (Personally, I'm also confused as to how a self-described libertarian would support a candidate who opposes freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and increased government control over the internet.)

Has Thiel described himself as "libertarian" recently? Even if he has, I'm not sure he means it in the same sense as the general population.

I like Samuel Hammond's analysis. His shorthand for Thiel's political philosophy is "corporate feudalism":

https://medium.com/@hamandcheese/why-peter-thiels-endorsemen...

https://medium.com/soapbox-dc/peter-thiels-plan-to-become-ce...

Strange to be investing this late in the race though.

Neoreactionary(NRx). Dark Enlightenment.

Senate races? Enthusiasm for Trump is falling and if republicans don't show up to vote then it's very likely that democrats will get control of the senate.

Then there's Palantir. Even if Trump doesn't win, the "law and order" rhetoric is resonating with a lot of americans. Trump wants to ban muslims, put together a deportation force, bring back stop and frisk, more border control, nukes for everyone, boots on the ground to fight ISIS, more surveillance, more military spending. All of these would lead to more government contracts for Palantir.

> Then there's Palantir.

That's a fair point. Palantir is very well-positioned to be the IBM of Trumpism.

I've always found the right-libertarian philosophy to be extremely confused. They want freedom to do whatever they want but they also want to base everything off of capitalism which by definition means you can't do whatever you want unless you're rich. It just doesn't make any sense (unless of course you're already a billionaire in which case your world is already quite libertarian in reality).

Libertarianism isn't about doing whatever you want. It's about protecting your rights and the rights of others. This means you can do what you want, as long as you are not infringing on the rights of others.

That last clause is often overlooked or misunderstood, but it is critical.

> Libertarianism isn't about doing whatever you want. It's about protecting your rights and the rights of others. This means you can do what you want, as long as you are not infringing on the rights of others.

It is, however, "do whatever you want" in that it implies no non-negative social duties, ie, it doesn't require you proactively do anything to be part of society or that you seek to help others in society -- merely that your harm to them come through passive actions or side-effects of legally permitted actions.

It might be better to explain libertarianism as "rights over duties", in that it essentially asserts you have no social obligation which is more fundamental than your rights.

Others disagree, obviously.

But but...that is what communism is about too, just with a different set of rights. Making "rights" some abstract thing means you end up saying nothing at all.

Libertarianism is basically about negative rights - not so much about "do what you want", but more about "nobody is going to force you to do something you don't want". As an ethical system, think of it as utilitarianism which assigns infinite value to freedom from violent coercion. Everything else follows from that.

Unless it's violent coercion used to enforce the property system, which libertarians seem to like to ignore.

There are two notions of freedom to consider: One is the notion of a liberal society in which the collective notion of rights lead to freedom from slavery. This notion underpins modern liberal society.

The other notion of freedom developed in the late Roman empire which came to mean a lord's right to do whatever he wants with his property, including his slaves. This notion of freedom, indistinguishable from power, lies at the heart of the Neo-Reaction movement.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/openeconomy/david-graeber/two-...

> Capitalism means you can't do whatever you want unless you're rich.

You're conflating laissez-faire or free market capitalism with a plutocracy (society ruled by the wealthiest). They're diametrically opposed systems.

I have my problems with Libertarianism, but I don't understand what you don't understand. Libertarians think everyone should have freedom to do whatever one wants, but that says nothing of having power to do whatever one wants.

'… base everything off of capitalism which by definition means you can't do whatever you want unless you're rich. '

Capitalism is of course not an -ism at all. No one invented it. It's that freedom in the context of democratically agreed regulation whereby we can all trade goods and our labor with others and thereby generate value, usually monetary but by no means exclusively. We can even trade kind words and actions - they too contribute value.

Over the last century, billions of people have had the repertoire of 'things they can do' dramatically extended by the extension of an environment which allows people at all levels of income to take part in this productive exchange of items (abstract or physical) of value.

Small chance of making it to the Supreme Court? http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_57d80d57e4b09d7a687f9b03/a... ?

If Trump became president and nominates Thiel I expect it would be one of the rare times that the Senate rejects the nomination -- considering this donation and relative lack of experience.

> Small chance of making it to the Supreme Court?

That honestly does not seem like a very compelling reason. I think Thiel can easily have a bigger impact on the world outside the Supreme Court.

> I'm genuinely curious what the rational for Thiel is in doing this. He's a smart guy, but I just don't see the ROI.

I personally see him more of a cunning guy than just smart because I find his actions disturbing.

Seems like the kind of questions Twitter was designed for no? Has anyone asked?

It's the Stagnation Hypothesis.

More precisely it is the high level implications of the Stagnation Hypothesis. You won't know it from HN or a survey of typical developers but the people who really run Silicon Valley have a set of beliefs about the world which are very different to the people who work for them.

Watch this all the way through.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMpmfaE9bII

I'm not talking about typical developers.

Lots of top technology leaders have come out vehemently against Trump, [0] including Sam Altman, who I would definitely include in "the people who really run Silicon Valley." [1]

To be clear, I'm not disputing Thiel's politics. I think he's right about a lot of things. They have near-zero overlap with Trump's policies. Trump is easily the least libertarian Republican presidential candidate in recent history.

[0] https://shift.newco.co/an-open-letter-from-technology-sector...

[1] http://blog.samaltman.com/trump

Yeah, I'm with you. From the article:

A source close to [Thiel] says the investor feels the country needs fixing, and Mr. Trump can do it.

The first part I completely get: there are a lot of things that need fixing. It's the second part that has me scraping my jaw off the floor.

I believe you're missing a puzzle piece. Take the time out to watch a few of his Youtube videos. They are long and have very low view counts but they're important.

For everyone saying Trump is not authoritarian and Thiel is just some flavor of eccentric Libertarian, Thiel says very clearly in the first paragraph of his essay at Cato that "freedom and democracy are incompatible"[1]. Thiel's version of freedom does not involve American democracy as we currently practice it, and I think it's reasonable to assume that he hopes Trump agrees with him.

[1] https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...

> “Across the country, wages are flat. Americans get paid less today than 10 years ago,” he said. “But health care and college tuition cost more every year. Meanwhile, Wall Street bankers inflate bubbles in everything from government bonds to Hillary Clinton’s speaking fees. Our economy is broken. If you’re watching me right now, you understand this better than any politician in Washington D.C.”

I would like to know what Peter Thiel's solution to our broken economy is.

“Across the country, wages are flat. Americans get paid less today than 10 years ago”

His solution has been to advocate increased immigration. Yep, wages are flat, lets bring more people so more people can compete for fewer jobs.

> His solution has been to advocate increased immigration.

Which doesn't square with his candidate's rigidly anti-immigrant policy proposals.

Available jobs increase with population. Additional people need more services, goods, etc. This leads to increased demand. In other words, more people are needed to produce stuff for more people.

Immigration can be very selective. Eg. Meeting minimum education standards, having certain amounts of cash on hand, or targeting those that will start a business. research on this suggests immigration policies tend to create jobs.

"His solution has been to advocate increased immigration. Yep, wages are flat, lets bring more people so more people can compete for fewer jobs."

That isn't true. Peter Thiel has opposed low skill immigration.

Peter Thiel is a YCombinator partner, yet YC has steadfastly refused to disavow him. In a Twitter exchange with David Heinemeier Hansson, Paul Graham suggested that to do so would somehow be the equivalent of firing an employee for having a distateful political opinion.

YC's silence on a partner's outspoken support of Trump is disgraceful, and sends the most shameful message about our industry.

What is disgraceful is trying to ensure there is only one acceptable point of view, and preclude people from trying to support other points of view under threat of public boycott, being fired, deemed unemployable, etc. This is ultimately what you fight is for - so that nobody would be able to speak in support candidate you don't like or policy you don't like or idea you don't like because if he does, he will be run out of his job and made into a pariah. You (taken broadly, not as you personally but as a community of people making similar demands) are not only trying to ruin Thiel, you are trying to make not participating in ruining him as dangerous as being Thiel. And, I assume, not participating in ruining those that didn't participate too. This is not how marketplace of ideas supposed to work. This is how a totalitarian state is supposed to work.

This false dichotomy of "Thiel is making a political statement and expressing his beliefs, he shouldn't be punished/bullied/ruined/etc for it, less we start moving down the slope of totalitarianism" is intellectually dishonest. It paints Thiel as this everyman who is simply expressing his rights, while the truth could be no further than this story.

Peter Thiel is an influential person. He has created and helped build some of the richest companies in the world, an extremely impressive effort. However, his success, intentionally or not, has catapulted him into a leadership role for many in the tech industry, and an advisor for many more. As a result, we should hold him to a higher standard, because he has so much more sway and influence than your every day person. When Thiel made this contribution he crossed the line of neutrality, moving from expressing his speech into an action. Whether this action is a good one or not is debatable, but to pretend that it is not an action is incorrect. We should allow everyone to express their freedom of speech. We should definitely criticize those who perform actions we deem harmful, since to act as a bystander comes close to being complacent with the action.

pinboard is a bookmarking website with a funny twitter, not the gestapo.

people giving other people shit for supporting bad ideas is a fairly important part of the marketplace of ideas.

do you draw any line where support of abhorrent politics is grounds for social shunning?

As another immigrant to this country, I agree with idlewords. Trump is not a regular candidate but someone who has openly argued for bigotry, war crimes, violence against journalists and other groups as well as jailing opponents.

He's not out to make some policy changes; he's openly arguing for throwing out the regime of this country. Now, I don't think he'd be able to do that but at best, he's so callous and lacking of judgement that he'd be utterly manipulated by people, inside and outside US, to do so.

Trump and Hillary are not on any sort of comparable level; Trump is utterly out of what's acceptable political behavior.

And I haven't even come to his personality; which I would argue in a civilized society would be enough to distance yourself with.

So Thiel's actions must be considered in this regard. He's not some poor, misinformed person. He's not someone who is so ravaged by the economy that he's judgement compromised. He should not be prone to demagogues putting the blame on immigrants.

The only explanation I can come up with is that he's arguing for Trump because he's arguing the current political system must be fully debased and must be replaced with something else. That could be an argument but if you are supporting Trump, the only thing that can replace it with is a form of authoritarianism tinged with racism, bigotry and outright hatred.

It's just disingenuous for me to see PG, who while I rarely agree with his views on most things outside of tech, ignore this. He's said that Thiel's actions are a blind spot and it would be a slippery slope to "punish" Thiel for his political stance.

Firstly; calling this a "blind spot" is being naive at best; misleading at worst. Thiel has contributed millions, spoke at a keynote. And he's obviously smart and thoughtful. This is not just some guy being tricked.

And no one is calling for a punishment. YC, by way of taking Thiel's money, is now supporting financially (I assume Thiel invested in YC to make money), this person. This isn't firing someone, which is a different kind of relationship where you involve someone's livelihood.

What idlewords (and others like me) are asking for is just a statement of disapproval of Thiel's actions. Just like Zuckerberg did when Marc A. spoke about the wonders of colonization for Indians (and even then he had the decency of apologizing for his callousness) or when Musk withdrew from FWD.US when he realized there were fossil fuel companies on board as well.

This isn't hard.

Right there with you.

I'd like to know your perspective of the explicit amorality of the SV "quirky-elite", especially the YC-Facebook nexus. To me, Altman, Zuckerberg, and Thiel all very obviously have ulterior scifi motives (live forever, solve the question they think underlies existence, etc) predicated upon a sort of über anthropic principle, i.e., "I'm one in a million so there is a special underlying meaning to my life."

I'm only guessing this from afar. Do you think I'm on base with this, or is their issue just hubris?

I think of it as "AI cosplay". They imagine how an ultimate superintelligence would behave, trying to pull the hidden levers of power in the world to achieve their ends, and then try to emulate it.

At the heart is a very undemocratic belief that the most capable people should 'hack' the world to their own ends, and the rest of us will catch up.

It's disgraceful that you're trying to bully an organization based on the political opinions of one of their partners. You should be ashamed of yourself and of the damage you're doing to your country.

bully : (verb) use superior strength or influence to intimidate (someone), typically to force him or her to do what one wants.

i.e. you're completely wrong about what it means to "bully". You should be ashamed of yourself for your abuse of the English language.

Having political beliefs that you disagree with does not constitute "bullying".

He can dry his tears with the $25 I pay for Pinboard.

Political opinions are not always sacred - there IS a point where you must oppose what is wrong. If you don't think that Trump's racism, bigotry, xenophobia, misogyny, demagoguery, and general incompetence crosses that line...you're obviously not alone. But many of us feel that speaking against Thiel is justified.

I know that after this, I won't work at any YC company, as well as any place Peter Thiel is involved in any way. The organization get to decide which reputation hit they want to take, but no option is neutral in the face of a racist, sexual-assaulting demagogue.

Why aren't you going behind mark zuckerberg as well? Thiel is not only an influential investor, but also has a board seat there, and he probably has a bigger share in facebook than he has in YC right?

I agree, and I've called them out, too. But I'm trying to tilt at one windmill at a time. Paul Graham (to his credit) at least answers my emails, while I have no hope of reaching anyone at Facebook.

There's a bunch of responses here:

* It would be weird to suggest that Zuckerberg gets a free pass from the likes of DHH and Maciej Ceglowski.

* Zuckerberg's affiliation with Thiel is less voluntary than Graham and Altman's. Fb took on Thiel before the Trump election, and they're bound together by contract.

* Attacking Facebook for not taking a stand against Trump would probably be counterproductive, because it would play into the false Trump narrative that the media elites are conspiring against him when in reality it's simply human decency creating all his public adversaries.

What are you suggesting that YC say or do? Should they be compelled or forced to make a statement?

They should say whatever they want, but remember that silence looks an awful lot like assent.

Public statements made under duress (however weak the duress) or after the political calculus is done are worth their weight in tweets. Any silence -- which has been anything but in Graham's back and forth with Hansson -- is already indelible.

This is really just a lame, Valley-lensed Pascalian wager. Say nothing and maintain a flatline with YC applicants (who care mostly for YC demo day flow) and the notoriously humorless Thiel; say something and enjoy only the satisfaction of having demonstrated (Apple-like) courage of conviction -- while risking whatever havoc Thiel wishes to wreak upon you.

I think Graham's point is sound. How is making a donation not an instance of political expression?

It's a public political act. I'm asking Graham to do the same thing—publicly express an opinion.

I have to admit as much as I dislike Trump pg raises a valid point. Another analogy would be YC disavowing Thiel for being gay.

An employer has no business in their employees sexual lives or politic preferences.

Disavowing Thiel for being gay would be the opposite of what I am asking for.

"Supporting bigotry" and "gay" are not interchangeable moral categories.

The foundations of this argument are so rickety that my heart is racing just seeing you perched up on it. Come down, before you hurt yourself!

Graham isn't Thiel's employer. Neither is Altman. Thiel is a business partner of Altman's, and to a lesser extent (Graham's involvement with YC being at present attenuated) to Graham.

Meanwhile, Paul Graham is literally the dean of the movement to recognize tech-style startups as singular among modes of human endeavor. To my chagrin, he's managed to redefine a mainstream business term ("startup") through sheer force of will. And among the things that make his "startups" unique, so important that it got a callout in Graham's most famous essay about them, is that affiliation with partners and founders isn't subject to discrimination law.

I refuse to accept that Paul Graham simultaneously believes that it's right to refuse to start a company with a mother of small children, but wrong to refuse to maintain a partnership with someone who campaigns stridently for intolerance --- worse, someone who donates sum so large it makes the front page of CNN to the campaign for intolerance even as that campaign rallies to attack the vote itself.

A core understanding of justice and equal citizenship exists, even between libertarians and supports of teachers unions. We should be able to agree on these principles even if we agree on nothing else. By campaigning for intolerance, giving speeches in favor of intolerance, and funding intolerance, Thiel places himself outside that understanding. Our disagreements aren't merely political, but about the urgency of preserving equal citizenship.

Paul Graham knows this. He has obligated himself, in his own words, to oppose Trump. Were Trump to win, Graham says, he'd "join the resistance". We cross no lines of civility or fairness by pointing out what it takes for Graham to live up to his own words.

Justice does not require that Paul Graham stand idly by while Thiel works to destroy the society that makes Graham's life's work possible.

To conflate being gay with fascism is beyond the point of false dichotomy and well into being grossly offensive.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

I'd say that your kind of mentality which is very common within our industry sends a shameful message about our industry.

Unbelievable. I'm disgusted that you would suggest the blackballing of an investor simply because you don't agree with his political opinion--an opinion, I might add, that is shared amongst a large percentage of our country. Trump say a lot of nutty things but he's not far off the mark when he speaks of a liberal conspiracy to ruin him in this election. Your suggestion is a textbook example of this: using out-of-band threats and pressure to force the hands of major supporters.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

I'm suggesting Thiel face consequences for supporting a sexually predatory bigot.

I'm literally just a guy with a Twitter account, so the idea that I'm strong-arming billionaires with my ruthless tweets is a little hard to credit.

Trump is a racist and a misogynist, a serial adulterer and a sexual predator, a pathological liar and a con-man. He is totally unfit to stand let alone serve. His supporters are mostly either alt-right racists or Republicans who don't have the guts to do the right thing and put their country before their party.

Dozens of senior Republicans have done this and are backing Hillary Clinton. Staunch Republican newspapers such as the Arizona Republic and the Cincinnati Enquirer have also endorsed Clinton.

The suggestion that there's a liberal conspiracy is a totally crackpot theory, like most of Trump's. In fact, Trump has got far further than anybody expected because the reverse has happened: Clinton has been attacked by the liberal media, which hates her, while Trump was -- until recently -- given a free ride.

When you have a candidate who lies all the time, boasts about not paying taxes (and won't release his returns), insults Gold Star families and vets like McCain, makes racist attacks on Mexicans and US-born Hispanic judges, admires dictators and spouts Russian propaganda, runs a crooked Foundation, is involved with fraudulent scams like Trump University, is a serial adulterer who boasts about being a sexual predator, and is accused of raping a 13 year old girl, you really don't need a conspiracy theory. No other candidate could have such an appalling record and still be in the race.

Trump is a blot on the character of anyone who still supports him, and globally, he's a blot on America's character. In the UK and Ireland, we put Trump's picture in urinals and piss on him -- a first for a US presidential candidate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/opinion/sunday/if-hillary-...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/06/30/he...

http://uk.businessinsider.com/hillary-clinton-endorsements-n...

http://mashable.com/2016/09/21/trumpinals-are-a-thing-now/

It's disgraceful that you would suggest someone be punished for a political opinion.

What's worse is that Clinton is a pathological liar supporting neocon policies which will likely lead to more conflict.

This whole anti-Trump atmosphere is very 1984.

It looks like a lot of people here don't understand how someone could possibly support Trump. If I were simply following the mainstream media's narrative, I'd be in a similar position.

If you're really interested in trying to understand a viewpoint that differs from your own (which I believe is healthy for anyone, even if you don't plan on changing your views), I would suggest beginning by listening to Stefan Molyneux (https://www.youtube.com/user/stefbot/). Label him as you will - at least he makes a lot of logically sound arguments in support of Trump (which I honestly can't say for a number of other Trump supporters).

" According to Jessica Roy of Time Magazine Molyneux argued that violence in the world is the result of how women treat their children, and that "If we could just get people to be nice to their babies for five years straight, that would be it for war, drug abuse, addiction, promiscuity, sexually transmitted diseases, ... Almost all would be completely eliminated, because they all arise from dysfunctional early childhood experiences, which are all run by women."

I fear for the future of society when 40% of the population are on that level.

I would have never thought I'd miss GWB. Now, it seems only a matter of time until all pockets of civilization are overrun by those peddling comspiracy-theories on youtube.

Spend some time looking at some of the most well respected and researched philosophers in history. Many of their views are far more extreme that that quote, yet they are embraced by the mainstream and high academia.

See, you're falling into the trap of trusting what other people say about a person, rather than actually listening to that person's viewpoint. If you were familiar with Molyneux and his full line of reasoning, you'd understand quotes like that in context rather than how someone in the media wants to characterize him.

Oh who's this Stefan Molyneux character, let me just check out his Twitter...

https://twitter.com/StefanMolyneux/status/787530311299112961

Have you actually listened to a significant portion of what Molyneux has said, or do you routinely judge people 100% based on tweets out of context? Please, do yourself a favor and start listening to alternative viewpoints.

It's this kind of "let's judge a person by a tweet" mindset that is extremely dangerous to the pursuit of truth and improving society. The media thrives on one-liners (such as those found on Twitter), but I'd like to think we can do better.

Yeah, but you could say exactly that about the Pinboard guy and how much he hates Trump on his Twitter timeline. Just because they might be polemics doesn't mean they're wrong. It just means they have a strong opinion.

Here's a surprisingly fair attempt at understanding red-state Trump supporters from blue-state voter:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-on...

> [Trump's] position on immigration is the opposite of the tech industry’s

Is this true? I'm not familiar with Trump's policies because it doesn't sound like he talks about them in much detail. Isn't he all for "legal immigration" and was just extremely against illegal immigration? Has he even addressed H1B or T1 Visas?

Although he has mentioned making immigration harder through intensive testing/vetting, which sounds like it could filter out some smart people arbitrarily. Having personally experienced Canada->US secondary screening most of the questions were already very arbitrary. Especially those without great social skills who can't talk their way through immigration will be at risk. That will also hurt business travel if TSA gets even more power and becomes even more aggressive.

The vagueness of it all makes it a risky bet regardless. That being said, I'm not sure what's worse, vague policy positions with just high-level strategy and no details or over-promising everything in detail and not following through on the majority of them. But I'm generally cynical about all of this stuff.

Naturally he hasn't recently mentioned immigration because he's trying to move to the center.

During the primary, however, he wanted to block all Muslims from entering the country, as well as build a wall along the Mexico/US border.

Interesting to see that many comments on money buying influence. Yet no one seems to consider the possibility that the most pro-establishment candidate, with a proven track of money-for-favors trafficking is, in Thiel's opinion, a worse outcome.

I wasn't aware either had a proven record of money for favors. Except maybe Trump's donation in Florida.

I feel more people support Trump than we know. Probably many billionaires, but don't announce it because the people who listen to two minute sound bites in between their cartoons and reality tv will call them "racist" and the other ist words.

I just don't get how business people can support democrats when republicans are supposed to be more business friendly(for smaller gov, less regulations from what I've heard).

I think big powerful rich people supporting Hillary is just a PR Stunt, and they secretly don't want her to win. Just a hunch I have. I just don't understand how they can fulfill their fiduciary duties to their shareholders when voting for a party wanting more rules and regulations.

Correct me if I'm viewing this wrong, I've just never understood how Silicon Vally is mainly democrat, but focused on entrepreneurship and innovation. Sounds like it should be a republican area then?

There isn't a big dial labelled "regulations" that when you turn it up, the "economy" needle goes down. Business requires trust. Just as more and better deals happen when both parties believe that contracts will be enforced, when consumers can trust that the meat they're buying has been inspected, that there's no toxic materials in their mattresses, and that their bank deposits are insured, the whole engine of commerce runs better.

A country with an educated, healthy, and secure population will be a better place to do business than one which is plagued with social problems. So even if the billionaires of Silicon Valley are voting purely out of economic self-interest (which I highly doubt), it's still wise for them to vote for who they think will run the country better - across all dimensions, not just who wants less taxes and regulation.

And sure, you can argue that having less taxes and regulation in the manner that Republicans propose results in having a better country overall, but apparently most in Silicon Valley don't believe that.

Its unclear what Peter Thiel is supporting with this donation. This candidate is highly inconsistent. Perhaps his bet is that if this candidate is elected, it will result in chaos. A sharp, rapid upheaval will enable him to accelerate his overall agenda. Given his net worth he is insulated from the negative effects this chaos will have on everyone else. Given his net worth he, and others who support his agenda can quickly capitalize.

This is my thinking too. Anyone who has been paying attention knows that he doesn't have anything closer to a consistent policy in his platform. To be fair, there is a lot of copy-paste from standard GOP platform, but his own speeches and interviews give out the impression that he doesn't have a handle on any of them. So to think that Thiel might have hitched his wagon based on ideology or policy is illogical. On the other hand, some of Trump's impulsive ramblings (dishonor NATO agreements, refuse to pay US debt, start a trade war with China etc.) shows that, if elected, he can potentially create huge massive disruptions to world order. Thiel might be thinking he can either benefit from that or that the status-quo deserves to be destroyed.

Profiting off the chaos seems much more likely than relying on Trump to keep his word or re-pay favors. I'm not sure which is more reprehensible, actually supporting Trump's general platform, or 'merely' hoping his election destabilizes the country enough for Thiel to advance his personal goals.

The policies on donaldjtrump.com have been the same for a long time, and Trump has not contradicted them for the most part.

He's making a wise investment decision - if Trump wins he will probably gain a lot in favors. If Trump loses, he will lose a little bit of money and some goodwill of some people. I'm sure he can live with that. Cynical.

I'd absolutely agree if I thought: 1. Thiel needed favors 2. Trump was going to hand out favors 3. It wasn't too late.

#3 is really what gets me. We've got 3 weeks. Mail-in ballots are out in a bunch of states already. Peoples' minds are made up. The election is basically over. If you believe in extreme polling error, sure, Trump could win -- but, again, it's so late, will this have made the difference?

I almost wonder if he believes Trump will win, and thinks his last-minute donation will merely give the impression of having made the difference, when he was going to win anyway.

But again -- why now?

But why is he making the donation now? That logic would have made a lot more sense when Trump's odds looked a lot better. You have to multiply the upside by its (low) probability. I also think the reputational cost is more severe than you let on: look at what happened to Brendan Eich, and his "crime" was a lot less than supporting Trump.

This analysis in the purest form of just best business strategy is spot on. Little risk... big upside.

Everything has to be such a spectacle, so black-and-white and binary in the US.

The forum discussions, here and elsewhere, give outside observers this impression:

  |=============================X=| Candidate X: some minor flaws, but overall a great option
  |=X=============================| Candidate Y: the new Hitler, world falls apart if elected

For reference, here is how many people in (not only) Europe view this "great American match":

  |============================X==| amazing candidate
  |================X==============| acceptable candidate
  |=======X=======================| Clinton & Trump: dishonest, obviously manipulative untrustworthy crooks
                                    within rounding error of each other

Is the election system so broken that these two are the best USA can offer?

> For reference, here is how many people in (not only) Europe view this "great American match":

I have a lot of European/non-American friends and not a single one of them thinks Trump and Clinton are "within rounding error of each other."

It's fundamentally dishonest to compare a run-of-the-mill corrupt politician to someone who openly advocates nuclear proliferation.

The only place where I've seen this "both are equally bad" false equivalence is US.

Most European media seems to like Clinton. Most definitely, she's preferred to Trump by a large margin.

The only (part) European country that I can think of with a prominently different internal opinion is Russia. But they don't go for equivalence either, they just root for Trump.

1. To answer your question, yes.

2. Putting Trump and Clinton on the same level simply isn't accurate. I would revise this:

|============================X==| amazing candidate

|================X==============| normally acceptable candidate

|============X==================| Clinton

|==X============================| Trump

Clinton is certainly worse than most candidates historically, but her corruption and scandals are par for the course. It's the underbelly of politics that has always existed. Trump is a new level.

The Clinton-is-dishonest narrative is a completely American fiction, created four of five years ago in some strategy meeting and popularized by repetition.

There's nothing there. Republicans spent thousands of hours in Benghazi and came up empty handed. Worst thing she apparently did was setting up a private mail server, as did her predecessors, Republicans included.

Europeans see Trump as an actual danger to peace and stability. He's assembling an angry mob spewing hate against minorities, women, people who think. He's peddling in conspiracy theories undermining democracy. He's treating the carefully adjusted balance of power in eastern Europe. In short: Europeans know his type quite well. He's no Hitler, no. He's Putin, Erdogan, Orban.

> For reference, here is how many people in (not only) Europe view this "great American match"

It's difficult to generalize over Europe. For instance, I live in France and have no idea about the opinions of let say Romanians or Swedes. But my feeling is the opposite. I suspect that Trump has more supporters in the US (even on HN) than in France.

Here I don't see anybody enthusiastic about Clinton, but most people and media don't take Trump seriously (and that's an euphemism). However he has his supporters, essentially among right wing extremists (who tend to like Putin as well).

I've been watching pg complain about Trump on Twitter with some interest. It is mind blowing to me that he has said nothing about Thiel so far.

This recent exchange with DHH may give you some insights: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/787561745686618113

Here in Canada, it is illegal to give more than $1525 per year to a political party. That would have saved this guy some money.

There are similar donation limits in the USA, but the recent Citizen's United supreme court ruling allows individuals to give large sums to "political action committees" which can act in support of a candidate as long as they don't get caught directly coordinating with them. This has lead to some pretty egregious influences on politics, especially in smaller races with less scrutiny where elections can now be bought for sometimes as little as $10k.

The words brave and courage do not appear in this threat. They should.

Mr. Thiel is standing up for his beliefs in the face of great personal risk.

I applaud him.

hackernews seems pretty confident that Hillary is going to win this election. If anyone would like to bet $200 against my $100 (my position being that Trump will win the USA popular vote), msg me. I'm not sure how we'll do the escrow, but I'm willing to place a few bets on the underdog.

There are betting markets which will offer significantly better odds in order to take your money. For example:

https://www.betfair.com/exchange/#/politics/event/27713489/m...

Why is this news when the fact Clinton received donations from major corporations, banks, and foreign governments isn't. It's like the media wants to paint a target on anybody openly supporting Trump.

He probably evaluated that if there's a 1/n chance of Trump getting elected, he'll be able to get favors worth $1.25m * k, with k > n.

n = 6 [1]

[1] http://www.paddypower.com/bet/politics/other-politics/us-pol...

Rich guy. Does whatever he wants with his money. 1M is chump change for him to buy influence.

Thiel seems a lot like Trump -- he won the startup lottery and acts like it entitles him to be taken seriously about politics and economics. My reaction is similar when some movie star endorses a candidate.

Has he spotted a political party that's to some extent going to be up for grabs over the next few years? Is the cash just so he looks like he's being loyal this election?

Maybe he is fighting the disgraceful shaming culture going on in this election.

By standing up and making a donation, he is forcing people to reconcile his success with his political views, creating real discourse, like this HN discussion.

I cant recall a single election that had so few lawn signs out and that people are afraid to admit who they truly support.

Everyone is over-weighting what Donald Trump says. This is a problem for both his supporters and antagonists. Between not paying back lenders and Trump University, I don't know whats left to claim credibility.

I think Thiel is hedging for both himself and as a proxy for Facebook. If Trump wins, Facebook gets the most favored corporation status currently awarded to Google. If Trump loses, Thiel perhaps assumes everyone will forget soon enough and Zuckerberg can diss-avow any Facebook connection.

It's fine for Thiel to prefer Trump's vision. I wonder if he had thought hard about whether Trump can deliver that vision. Trump didn't deliver well, historically. You don't get ten times return but you can destroy a country fast. Think Third Reich.

Wouldn't the most important information, though not news,be that you guys live in a country where companies pay to support candidates...

"Mr. Thiel is making his first donation in support of Mr. Trump’s election. He will give $1.25 million through a combination of super PAC donations and funds given directly to the campaign"

An essential ingredient for the breed of industrialists like Thiel, is the presence of tyrants to remove unnecessary impediments to commerce without dissent.

He's buying publicity.

Why are Clinton's wikileaked transcripts weighted down in addition to users' flags[1] while this story is being protected from flagging?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12715222

Seems like it would be better to spend the money supporting imperiled GOP senate races. Trump can't win the electoral college. At this point his only hope is to win the popular vote and spend the next four years on Fox News whining about how the election is rigged.

It's pretty disappointing to see someone of Thiel's stature do this. Distasteful choice and motives aside, it's good to remember that the tech industry has a long history of forwarding poorly thought out political initiatives while underestimating politics as its own craft with separate and largely non-transferable skills. (Tim Draper's plan to split California into six states, two rich, four poor as dirt, being a relatively recent example of something that didn't work out so well).

If Thiel had really wanted to disrupt presidential elections, he could have thrown some money and social media connections behind Evan McMullin as a way of throwing a malotov cocktail into the race. It's his money, but if it were me I would not want to be associated with someone as vulgar as Trump.

Thiel thinks several steps ahead like a chessmaster. Donating to Trump is likely an effort to thwart the current money influenced political system not about morals.

IMO, Trump will stumble and fall with every step like he already is right now.

Perhaps a better supported Trump will continue to widen the gulf between the candidate and the GOP, and that in turn will create a vacuum of opportunity for change after the election.

The real mystery to me is the timing of this donation. At this point it's pretty unlikely(1) that Trump will win the election and 1.25M surely won't swing the outcome very much at all. What does Thiel gain by doing this? It seems like he has a lot to lose in terms of his reputation and business dealings with other people in Silicon Valley that don't share his politics.

1. https://www.electionbettingodds.com

The problem with Trump is that he is grossly inconsistent. Take his foreign policy; sometimes he wants to "get the hell out of Syria", which I agree with him on, but then he wants to "rip the Iran deal", thus escalating elsewhere (which I strongly disagree with him on).

That's why if you wanted positive change, you should've voted Bernie Sanders.

Make sense to me for YC. Whatever who wins, they ensure a connection.

How much power does the president of us as a person wield? The us has numerous powerful institutions and checks and balances. Thats probably why many people dismiss the fear of authoritarianism.

Interesting.

Alt-news folk backing Trump will have a heart attack upon seeing the steering committee head of Bildeburg back him.

Thanks for the flexibility (for context https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12716662).

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12716854 and marked it off-topic.

Not sure why we would turn off flagging, if it's doing its job keeping flame wars off of the front page.

I'm not very political and I haven't decided who to vote for yet, but I don't understand why the tech industry is so anti-Trump.

He seems like a relatively sincere and smart guy to me, and some of his policies seem to be better for business.

Is it because of tougher immigration laws? Are there other reasons based on his policies, or is it mostly just emotional?

> why the tech industry is so anti-Trump.

People don't risk openly supporting Trump unless they have the kind of fuck-you money/assets that allows them to do so. Truth is that the tech industry is probably leaning toward the Democratic party a lot less than it actually seems simply because of the politically motivated discrimination you would face should you endorse the wrong candidate (or embrace the "wrong" opinions in public).

I have seen what happened to a couple folks who told "unappropriate" jokes in a private discussion to their friends while at a public event. They lost their job.

I have seen how tons of progressives (not to say most) are so entrenched in their own bias that they fail to realize that dissenting opinions to their beliefs are not morally reprehensible. And that their cultish attitude with respect to diversity is as stupid as the white nationalistic obsession of homogeneity.

Finally, I have seen how the democrats/progressives systematically demolish the lives of the people who oppose them. That's why I will remain silent. Post anonymously and take action with my vote. And that's why everyone at my workplace believes I am a staunch HRC supporter.

And before you accuse me of paranoia or to have a persecution complex I recommend you try to first figure out why so many people are behaving the exact same way I am: telling one thing in public (or to pollsters) and do another when they are protected by the opacity of a voting cabin.

edit: I posted this comment 4 seconds ago and it is already at -1. You read very fast!

It's a false dichotomy to suggest that opposition to Trump is either based on disagreements with his public policy statements or 'just emotional'.

Sometimes people are just not qualified for a position, even if they can occasionally say some of the right answers at the interview.

If a tech company is considering hiring a CEO or CTO who has ruined several companies, refused to do business with black people until specifically ordered by a court, sexually harassed dozens of subordinates, publicly and verifiable lied about important topics on a regular basis, or bragged about being exploiting his fame to get away with groping women, it doesn't really matter which tech stack they've been praising. Trump has actually done all of those things, if you don't already know.

He actually bought a teenage beauty pageant and then frequently ogled and sexually assaulted (nonconsensually groped and kissed) the contestants backstage. That should tell you everything you need to know about his attitude towards abuses of power and how he'd exploit the Presidency. Please don't dismiss this stuff as 'just emotional'.

And you can hardly tell what his policies are anyway because he contradicts his own statements on most topics.

On the policies that have been clear, the tech industry is opposed to Trump for the same reasons they're opposed to other Republicans. If you're wondering why he's more unpopular in the industry than a generic replacement-level Republican, it's for the same reasons that he's exceptionally unpopular among Republicans themselves.

Views on Global Warming:

"Well, I think the climate change is just a very, very expensive form of tax. A lot of people are making a lot of money. I know much about climate change. ... "

"NBC News just called it the great freeze - coldest weather in years. Is our country still spending money on the GLOBAL WARMING HOAX?"

"I don’t believe in climate change."

"The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive."

I'd argue the opposition to Trump has very little to do with politics -- or, at least, no more so than the (generally Democrat) opposition to (generally Republican) candidates.

Most of the repulsion is due to his tone, his personality, his unpredictability, and how generally erratic he is.

Frankly, to the extent that you ascertain any coherent political principles he has, they're more moderate than the other candidates in the Republican primary.

On top of that, his tax plan, such as it is, would save many of us more money than that of many of the other candidates.

I think the reality is successful people hate uncertainty. If you're not doing well, you're more likely to roll the dice and say "what's the worst that could happen?"

People who have benefited from society as it is today (and, let's admit it, most of us in tech are in the top 5-10%) believe we have the most to lose from an erratic unpredictable leader.

And again, that's nothing to do with politics.

Can't speak for others, only myself.

To me he's an obvious off the charts narcissist... so much so that his narcissism actually seems extreme against the backdrop of Washington politics and the media. That's kind of amazing.

IMHO that disqualifies him from the presidency regardless of his policies. It's analogous to why you can't get a pilot's license with bad eyesight. A narcissist is a person with a dangerous addiction to domination, attention, and approval, and giving such a person the power to start wars is just irresponsible.

(Of course IMHO the president should have less power to act unilaterally with the military, but that's another matter.)

I am not much of a fan of his politics either, but he has said some good things. He is the only politician in the lineup who has made an issue out of the collapse of the American interior. That wins points with me and many other people. If he were constitutionally fit to be president I might consider it.

I also wonder if Thiel, being from Cleveland, is perhaps also affected by this last issue. I am also from Ohio and I can relate. You coastal types have no idea. I am not being hyperbolic with "collapse." Huge swaths of the American heartland are essentially de-developing. Maybe Thiel just wants to make some kind of point. He's rich and that's not a lot of money for him. Might just be a costly f-u.

Because he's a bully with a dangerous trigger-finger mentality. He doesn't have any actual policies. There's the formal GOP policy which he frequently contradicts and his own viewpoints are extremely fluid as well. His only consistency is attacking those who he views as lower than him.

I don't believe you.

There is no way you're incapable of making the distinction between Trump and HC. I can get why people would vote for Trump. He's obviously a dangerous idiot, put we all knew there's a market for that (though the size is somewhat scary).

It's simply not possible to be undecided between these two for anyone who has spent more than five minutes on it.

Regarding your question why people hate Trump: he's openly stigmatizing minorities including calls for violence against African-Americans at his rally. He's threatening to use his power as president for criminal persecutions of his opponents. He advocates for laws making it illegal to criticize him in the media. He has a history of ventures peddling get-rich-quick-schemes to barely literate people for tens of thousands of dollars. There are now more women accusing him of sexual assault than Bill Cosby. He has recently spend a week calling some woman nobody knows fat on Twitter. Reading any of his interview transcripts makes me doubt he'd pass a Turing test.

I upvoted you because I don't think you should be downvoted for stating a political opinion. Democracy is about everyone getting a vote, even if the other side thinks your vote is wrong.

From my observations, the tech industry leans pretty heavily liberal/democrat.

Tech leans liberal and highly-educated, demographically not a good fit for Trump.

Trump now wants a drug test for him and HC before the next debate.

I wonder if there's a way to get him to take a Turing test.

Not convinced this is Hacker News worthy. Let's keep politics in political forums.

This statement is absurd.

Hacker News has a very, very, very well-established history of political pieces. Everything from EU politics, tax policy, candidate elections, and law enforcement practices.

Peter Thiel is a YC advisor. This is both a tech and a political story.

Technology has always been political, even moreso today. to ignore that in search for purism around codebase discussions is at the peril of this forum.

I've enjoyed reading the well thought out arguments on this page. So, where is a better political forum? I've tired of reddit as the noise/signal ratio has grown intolerable.

True - still hoping it ain't so

I don't feel that discussions of what is appropriate to discuss on hacker news are Hacker News worthy. Let the chips fall where they land, I say.

Of course, there's an old adage about the ubiquity and quality of opinions

I wonder what his thoughts are about Trump nonconsensually groping women?

A libertarian could not support such violence/coercion.

[Edit: wow, off-topic?]

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12718512 and marked it off-topic.

Thiel thinks the world would be better if women couldn't vote.

"Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron."

Basically, women don't vote for libertarian economic policies, and make it impossible to have a capitalist democracy, so he wants to get rid of democracy.

Source: https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...

I haven't kept up, but have any of the accusations been proven yet? Last I checked they were all allegations.

The time has come for Silicon Valley to denounce Peter Thiel.

(citation needed)

The only way out of the current mess I think is to elect Clinton and to immediately impeach her. Neither candidate is looking good at this point in time but Clinton at least seems to be relatively stable and won't do irreparable damage to the country.

Hm... She seems to be following Obama's lead in Syria, e.g. supporting the no-fly zone, which leads directly to a war with Russia. Very irreparable IMO.

I like your novel approach to the problem of being forced to choose between 2 candidates that are both inappropriate (for very different reasons) for the role.

What crimes would you list in the articles of impeachment?

So are you saying that Trump is better because he could not be impeached?

First mistake was allowing Trump to run. Second was to be Republican presidential candidate. Third and the final one would be to make him win

Who was going to stop Trump from running?

During the primaries, did the RNC want Trump in their tent? Or did he force himself in?

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