Peter Thiel Speaks at the National Press Club – Live Stream | Hacker News Reader

Peter Thiel Speaks at the National Press Club – Live Stream

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It would be interesting to get a list of thoughtful people supporting Trump. So far I have:

- Peter Thiel

- Scott Adams

- Nassim Taleb??

Who else?

Most thoughtful people I follow pick against Trump and more or less believe he is a threat to the Republic. I tend to agree with them mainly because of his attitude toward the press (even though I agree they are biased against him) and his proclivity to violent rhetoric.

Edited: formatting

Edit: I also want to clarify the biasedness of media was based on Wikileaks coverage and the [0]social media blackout after the Comey's letter to congress. I acknowledge their coverage of him probably helped him.

Edit: It is possible Taleb does not support DT, there is no direct evidence of this. I added '??' to him. See this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12838352

[0] http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-29/social-media-blacko...

Scott Adams thinks he is a wizard whose voice has hypnotic mind-control powers, and that the Clinton Foundation personally bankrolls an army of trolls to harass him on Twitter. In other words, he's delusional. He is not in any sense of the term a "thoughtful person"

>Scott Adams thinks he is a wizard whose voice has hypnotic mind-control powers

He thinks Trump is a good persuader. And he is. Trump's use of confirmation bias is very skillful and effective.

That's probably true! But the "he" in my sentence refers to Scott Adams, not Trump. Scott thinks of himself as a brilliant persuader, a theory that is ill-supported by the evidence.

FWIW I've used Scott's arguments to get at least 2 more votes for Trump. Including one from a 20-something girl that was a diehard Bernie supporter. I know, anecdotal.

What I find effective is asking people to really state exactly, specifically, what actions Trump himself is going to do that'll lead to the downfall of civilization or whatever they think's going to happen.

Clinton's dirty play with Bernie also helps quite a bit. And honestly, the US accepting that kind of thing, openly (as in, act like this, have it exposed, still become president) would be much more damaging to society.

It would seem to me that relying on confirmation bias means he's not much of a persuader at all.

"thinks.. Clinton Foundation personally bankrolls an army of trolls to harass him on Twitter. In other words, he's delusional"

If you were presented evidence that shows this to be true, would you be opened minded enough to update your beliefs?

it's called CTR

I read Scott's stuff and he also complained about the trolls putting bad reviews on amazon. I had a look and there were exactly two bad reviews giving 1* and saying don't buy because he's promoting Trump. I suspect the Twitter thing is similar in that a handful of readers criticize him and he figures that's an army of trolls.

He also said he doesn't want to live in a society were all of its citizens are not covered for healthcare and praised ACA for including more people (~20 mil).

And his analysis of Trump seems better than most who claim he is dumb and/or Hitler. I don't agree with Adams nevertheless he is thoughtful.

Yeah bullshit. It's been 100% proven the Clinton campaign paid thousands of online bullies to astroturf everywhere from Twitter to 4chan.

[citation needed]

https://correctrecord.org/

Where precisely is the evidence of that "100% proves" the existence of "thousands of online bullies" that were "paid"?

They use the term "correcting the record" instead of trolling and bullying. But it's undeniable that they're spending millions to pay people to post on social media in favor of a candidate (usually without any type of disclosure).

He is not in any sense of the term a "thoughtful person"

The problem is, there's no inherent contradiction between being "delusional" and being "thoughtful". In fact, throughout history many of the very people generally regarded as having unleashed the greatest amounts of havoc in the world got into positions where they were able to do that precisely because they were able to reconcile these seemingly contradictory traits.

Those three people are consistent contrarians. Contrarians are of course more likely to support Trump. It's important to remember that being a contrarian is easy, but it's extremely hard to be a contrarian about the right things.

> attitude toward the press

Just because Trump hates the media doesn't mean the media isn't completely obsolete and irrelevant. I thought we were all in agreement that the U.S. media is long overdue to be replaced with reddit/Twitter/HN.

From a consumption standpoint I could see that. But from a content creation standpoint HN and Reddit lack the expertise, discretion and attention span to provide in-depth reporting and investigation that is critical to uncovering and discouraging corruption.

Define "biased"

Its like saying the US media was biased against Hitler. He espouses hateful, racist, sexist, and violent ideas. Its not a case of bias but rather rational distaste and fear.

I believe the point is media not digging into Wikileaks' papers. You can compare it when Wikileaks showed Bush's faults -- the media was after it right away.

It doesn't take a lot to understand Hillary is corrupted. Watching CNN from over the ocean here it's almost a joke. They only talk about Trump's sex allegations that are not even at the court yet. At the same time you can read from Wikileaks about shady things Hillary is doing, but the breaking news is a pornstar accuses Trump, Trump said that, Trump did a funny face.

you must watch different media to me. Today is wall-to-wall Clinton E-mail stuff and little about Trump apart from him talking about Clinton's e-mail.

The media go with what they think will get the most views/clicks/sales, that tends to be the most outrageous thing they can find.

Trump says many outrageous things, ergo he gets more coverage.

Today yes since it's breaking everywhere. During the Wikileaks -- no. Despite it would be a hit to write whatever you find from the documents.

"I believe the point is media not digging into Wikileaks' papers. You can compare it when Wikileaks showed Bush's faults -- the media was after it right away."

If nothing else, a Trump presidency would mean the return of investigative journalism on the national level.

The "Fourth Estate" has become terribly out of shape in that regard.

Most thoughtful people I follow pick against Trump and more or less believe he is a threat to the Republic.

Thiel clearly also believes this, but he's also quite pro-threat-to-the-Republic.

This isn't terribly useful, but I'll just add that I personally know a number of name-brand academics, investors, and tech people who support him privately.

I agree it isn't useful and you could argue dangerous but I am very curious!

There's no social media blackout. If you look at trending topics in politics on Facebook, you have Anthony Wiener, Harry Reid, Eric Holder, and Loretta Lynch -- all related to the letter.

Twitter Moments is full of related news, especially if you click through to Election 2016.

Trending Buzzfeed news is very rarely political.

wait - Taleb supports trump ?

Yeah, who'd have thought? But according to Tyler Durden (at ZeroHedge), we have the following tweet from his account:

"I far prefer Bernie Sanders to Trump but absolutely no Hillary."

Followed with:

"No SHillary"

Which in Tyler's words, "seems to sum it all up perfectly."

Ok, I could not find that tweet anymore. Perhaps that is a sign of him not supporting DT. I put a question mark next to him. In fact the lack of thoughtful people supporting him is damning in itself.

I'm just a nobody but let me share my story:

I thought Trump was a racist who is inciting hate. At some point I read somewhere saying Trump hadn't said what media was reporting. I thought it to be BS and went to see myself. Lo and behold after searching more and more pretty much all the media reporting are false.

They are mostly positioned to counter what Trump is saying about Clinton or see what sticks. Trump calling out Bill's rape victims or remember before Clinton campaign was bombarding Trump that he wouldn't get along with Russia.

As a side note: It's quite scary to see paulg comparing Trump to Hitler and accusing FBI dir for doing his job.

-Read the Podesta emails. Clinton campaign is in bed with mainstream media.

-Media coverage is absolutely joke. FBI has been investigating Clinton Foundation for weeks and there is no coverage of that. Should be headline news.

-The only campaign inciting hate and violence is the Clinton campaign[0]

-Twitter constantly takes down trending hashtags that are created by Trump supporters and are against Clinton. Reddit blocks all pro Trump from /all, check out r/politics not a single negative Clinton story etc.

Trump looks like to be the next President and I would recommend doing your own search to see why.

[0] Video I: Clinton Campaign and DNC Incite Violence at Trump: Rallies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY

+1 MAGA

The [0] video is kind of suspect: http://www.salon.com/2016/10/21/donald-trump-foundation-paid...

> -The only campaign inciting hate and violence is the Clinton campaign

Not really.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/donald-trump-punch-pro...

Not to mention the attacks on Muslims, Mexicans and a generally terrible attitude towards women.

Sorry, but why hold any of these people out as purveyors of truth?

I could rip a apart Thiel, Adams or Taleb on ___(their own dumb kryptonite). For example, listen to Taleb on religion. He's a buffoon. On power laws...very insightful.

I see no reason to glorify individuals outside of their domains.

Regarding Trump, he's just a Republican, as Hillary is just a Democrat. They are the faces of the machine. This is how most Trump-backers get comfort with Trump.

If Trump TRULY TRULY was anti-establishment, he would sound more like Lawrence Lessig and less like Archie Bunker.

I think the core of Trumps message and support base is that the people in power seems to have forgotten about, and left all the Archie Bunkers behind. This seems like a valid argument, and one that I agree with wholeheartedly.

As a gay man, I also worry that those of us who fought hard for equality may be trying to close the doors behind us, and prevent some other group from getting there.

I can't vote for Trump, largely because I consider him to be a buffoon - but that doesn't mean he's all wrong either. Even idiots sometimes have a good point to make.

I don't know if you've been following it but even lifelong Republicans who are gay have decried the new GOP party platform as being the most actively anti-LGBT in the party's history.

And Trump has declared that his Supreme Court picks will be based on opposition to marriage equality, so shutting the door to other groups is perhaps the least of your worries.

I'm aware - but other than for some extreme party loyalists - no one cares. I think the platform is bullshit.

Really appreciated how he espoused how Boomers' optimism borne out of an exceptionally easy and comfortable life has been dangerous for the country. I've long felt the same about American optimism, but have been happy to see that it's become much more mainstream to admit America needs a managed decline of its empire this year thanks to Trump and Sanders. Boomers have pushed the American culture of blind optimism into a reality distortion field which draws the country into various bubbles: stock market bubble, housing bubble, war bubble, etc.

Also enjoyed his statement that America needs to be a "normal country again." I have been trying to convey this sentiment due to my understanding of other countries. Most Americans probably don't understand how abnormal the US and its government are in many ways. He says, a "normal country doesn't run a $500 billion trade deficit, intentionally run a broken government, five simultaneous wars."

> Most Americans probably don't understand how abnormal the US and its government are in many ways. He says, a "normal country doesn't run a $500 billion trade deficit, intentionally run a broken government, five simultaneous wars."

When you look at that trade deficit on a per capita basis, or as a percentage of GDP, it then does look pretty normal compared to other first world countries.

He almost crushed his own credibility in his opening remarks by saying "Look, our leaders come from a generation of people of whom half are broke!" as if that means anything.

I cannot take anyone seriously who calls himself a libertarian. For Christ's sake, learn something about the various traditions of right- and left-wing libertarianism, study the basics of anarchism (e.g. Stirner), and read some Adam Smith.

Libertarianism is either mislabeled right-wing liberalism, which has a long-standing tradition, or it turns out to be no more than a fairly inconsistent mix of classical liberal and anarchist ideas peppered with some generic right-wing gun-nuttery and diffuse anti-government sentiment. You know, in the end somebody has to pay for the military, police, firemen, ambulances, roads, drinking water, sanitation, food safety, consumer safety (like not getting electrocuted by your vacuum cleaner), schools, hospitals, ...

In isolation this comment is not absurd or incorrect. But when you consider the contorted meaning of nearly every word describing political affiliation, describing one's self as a libertarian is very minor offense, and far less inaccurate than the typical use of "right" and "left" in modern American politics.

My personal interactions with a few self-labeled Libertarians tells me that they are fine paying for those services for themselves, but don't want to subsidize them for anyone else. Well, their vision of "Libertarianism" sure sounds good if they're rich. Nevermind the collective society that allowed them to profit in the first place.

I suspect the label "Libertarian" is too widely used for many ideologies.

Libertarianism is not anarchism, so I am not sure what you mean. Somebody needs to pay A, B, C, D, ..., it does not mean all the answers to the "somebody" is the government.

Libertarianism, as it is actually defended in the US by the libertarian party and others who label themselves libertarians, is de facto a mixture of anarchism and general right-wing ideas.

That is not to be confused with the political constructions and justification of Nozick and other right-wing liberals, of course.

In general, I can take libertarians seriously... but not Peter Thiel. The depth of his convictions can be measured in microns. He's the perfect example of the "libertarian" who espouses that philosophy not out of any genuine commitment to its ideals, but just because he wants lower taxes and more leeway for whatever despicable business practices he has in mind.

For instance, he founded a company whose, no joke, entire raison d'être is providing surveillance-as-a-service to increase the power of the State. This is something I wouldn't even do, and I'm what might be derisively called a "big-government liberal".

His justification, bizarrely, is that as a hardcore libertarian he is exactly the sort of person who should start a massive surveillance business because other people respect individual rights much less than he does. If the business is going to exist anyway (because of market demand) then having it chaired by a libertarian is the best case scenario.

> In general, I can take libertarians seriously... but not Peter Thiel. ...and I'm what might be derisively called a "big-government liberal"

Thank you. I'm glad you've been able to distinguish between Thiel, perhaps one of the most anti-liberty, authoritarian 'libertarians' in modern history.

I likewise take many liberals (and conservatives!) seriously, even if we do not always agree. For example, one of my favorite congressmen is Alan Grayson (a pro-liberty Democrat/liberal) and one of my favorite senators is Rand Paul (a pro-liberty Republican/fiscal conservative). I don't always agree with them, but I appreciate their willingness to stick up for their beliefs.

Sadly, people like us are relatively few and far between.

The point is that libertarianism is just one more whacky US misnomer for right-wing liberalism, which has existed since Bentham.

I suspect Thiel might be willing to argue against his obvious business interest (in re Palantir) and would rather that the government not be in the business of spying on its own citizens.

I have no shame is taking money to do a task I wouldn't ever do myself. Thats part of why they're paying you. So long as I'm not doing 'hard evil' (direct physical, mental or emotional harm to a group) - everything else is open to interpretation.

The actual Libertarian in the presidential race is a lot better than Thiel and Trump:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/29/opinions/making-legal-immigrat...

I still won't be voting for him, but he's got some good points of view. I wish he'd been Hillary's opposition; perhaps we would have had a more substantive debate about ideas, and the size of government.

Thoughtful debate about the size of government is nice and all. But it's also important to have at least of basic grasp of major world events. Per WP:

On September 8, Johnson drew widespread attention, much of it negative, when he appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe and was asked by panelist Mike Barnicle, "As president, what would you do about Aleppo?" Johnson responded, "And what is Aleppo?" After a clarification from Barnicle, Johnson answered that he favored greater diplomacy with Russia and criticized U.S. support for the Free Syrian Army and Kurdish forces as well as U.S.-supported "regime change." Johnson's "what is Aleppo?" question prompted widespread criticism.[106][108] In response to charges that he was uninformed, Johnson said that he had "blanked," that he did "understand the dynamics of the Syrian conflict," and that he had thought that Barnicle's reference to "Aleppo" was in relation to "an acronym, not the Syrian conflict."

Yeah, I recall that. Certainly a reason to not vote for him. OTOH, unlike a certain major party candidate, he actually appeared really embarrassed and felt bad about his error, subsequently.

It's a shame you weren't around 15 years ago to tell Robert Nozick he was an idiot for calling himself a libertarian. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy,_State,_and_Utopia

(I'm not going to argue etymology with you, and I'm not inclined to defend libertarianism per se, I just think your condescension is gross).

I was around then, and Nozick is indeed an idiot for calling himself that way.

He said earlier that people are tried of being lied to by politicians. Meanwhile, only 30% of statements DJT makes are in any way true: http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/

PT clarifies that the "Wall" DJT wants to build shouldn't be taken literally. It was just a metaphor (metaphor is my word not PT's) for a tougher immigration policy. Wow!

Are there really people still capable of holding an idealized model of DJT in their head while dismissing or spinning anything that doesn't fit that model ?

DJT was my childhood hero so I understand the desire to stay hopeful and avoid thinking. Never meet your heroes feels applicable here.

Edit: typos

I was kind of a fan of "Trump" after reading The Art of the Deal. It was only recently I found the actual Trump didn't write any of the book and the guy described was basically fictional.

I don't even think he read it.

There's a section in the book where he says that he shouldn't be given too much credit for the Wollman rink project, because the NYC government had regulatory requirements that didn't apply to his construction team.

Only in a parallel universe would DJT give himself less credit.

Well, there seems to be tremendous support behind what he is saying. The chat is exploding.

My favorite takeaway so far:

[Thiel on Trump] "The media always takes him literally, but never seriously. I think his supporters take him seriously, but never literally."

A snapshot of comments from the chat:

"Hillary's only claim to fame is she is the only woman not to suck Bill's cock. "

"god this interviewer. CUCKED"

"FBI Stumbled onto Huma's INS Policy to keep her from being Vince Fostered... 53 dead around hillary makes the mob look like Pikers."

"Liberals think Taxes are more important than Hillary Butchering People!!!! Really?! Wake up peeps"

"Wikileaks will ultimately put the Clintons in prison and will hopefully allow President Trump to prosecute the entire Obama administration past and present!"

What an inspirational group of people.

Let me reiterate Thiel's quote, which I think perfectly describes this situation: "The media always takes him literally, but never seriously. I think his supporters take him seriously, but never literally."

Most of Trump's HIGH ENERGY comes from him and his supporters saying over-exaggerated things. Everyone who supports him understands that these things are over the top, but they agree with the basic sentiment behind them.

Most people who dislike Trump, however, take everything he and his supporters say literally. This is a mistake.

There are plenty of people who dislike the basic sentiment behind many things that Trump has said.

Sure. And there are more than one hundred million Americans who disagree with the basic sentiment behind what Hillary says.

So... what are you saying then?

You're right that is a mistake.

Knowingly or not, Trump has played the media like a fiddle, giving them tons of useless grist in which to spin their wheels in exchange for the equivalent of a Billion dollars in media time which he has used shrewdly to build up his base.

This is the other excellent outcome. People trust the news, they eat it up. Trump has shown it to be a farce, a circus (thinking of the tape he leaked a few months ago that got him a full day of coverage about absolutely nothing). This can only be a good thing, although perhaps I'm overestimating the number of people that will actually change habits.

I think you are making two claims, but I want to make sure. Are you claiming that:

1. Trump himself leaked the Access Hollywood recording; and

2. There was nothing relevant in the Access Hollywood recording.

The Access Hollywood recording came out at the beginning of this month, so I'm not sure if that's the one you're referring to.

No I'm referring to the People Magazine interview, the one where he called back in and pretended to be a Trump employee. Washington Post "broke" the story IIRC, and the media spent a whole day with audio forensic analysts deciding "is this Trump's voice?". Trump got on interviews and says "Well it doesn't sound like me. When is this from? 25 years ago? Come on."

Here's a great cap of it at the end of the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPnMfSJ_qis - skip to 1:50. You can even hear the studio crew start laughing as they realise they've been played.

Understood on the tape you meant. Are you claiming Trump is the one who leaked it?

No, he's referring to the John Miller tape where years ago Trump called up a reporter and pretended to be a PR person so he could brag about himself.

I'm not sure it's Trump that played the media like a fiddle, or at least he had help from a certain Hillary Clinton whose campaign strategy (per the e-mail leaks) was to make him look like a plausible candidate and downplay the actual serious candidates. Basically, her strategy seems to have been to try and make sure what her campaign considered the worst candidate possible ran against her, and she sure as hell has a lot more media connections to pull that off with than Trump ever did.

Interesting, I thought "tells it like it is" was his whole appeal. As soon as he's in hot water, though, he was being sarcastic! It was just locker room talk!

Unfortunately, this leaves me with no way to distinguish between genuinely alarming sentiments and exaggerations. I can't support blurring that line.

For example, you can say that Trump didn't really mean you should vote twice, and perhaps he didn't. On the other hand, that isn't stopping some of his supporters from voting twice. So did he mean it? Or is he just accidentally encouraging it because some people are taking him literally? Either way is bad.

Trump's staff didn't kick the guy chanting "Jew-S-A" out of his rally. Conway says she would have kicked him out, which is nice, but nobody on the ground did it. Does that mean Trump thinks the chanter was just over-exaggerating his racism? Would it be OK for Trump to chant the same thing, since we're not supposed to take him literally?

I think it's preferable if people running for President make it clear when they're being sincere.

You do realize that people are specifically voting against the ideology that backs your opinion, right? People aren't voting for Trump because he's racist or sexist; they are voting for Trump because of the ideology behind moral-elitist people like you.

Wait, they're voting for Trump to spite moral elitists, not because Trump will make america great again? That's their whole motivation - not trade deficit, not immigration, not the economy, not jobs -- but to vote against moral-elitist people like GP? Holy shit, that absolutely crushes the credibility of Trump and all of his supporters. Wow.

Except that he never actually said voters should vote twice, he was implying that his opponents do, and the quote was 100% completely twisted by the media: http://www.mediaite.com/online/cnn-screws-up-says-trump-enco...

Unfortunately, this type of media attack on Trump, whatever you think of him, is common, and it makes people think twice about the credibility of the media and how they're pushing Clinton so very hard.

Furthermore, it seems like a really bad idea for people to base their voting decisions on what "supporters" of a candidate are doing, especially given that we've seen hard evidence of paid infiltrators agitating as fake supporters in order to make candidates look bad.

So how do I tell what his actual positions are?

For example, when he says that vaccinations and doctors cause autism [1], how can I tell if he really believes that (which has bad implications for public health under a Trump presidency), or if it is just something over the top?

Same with climate change...how do I tell if he really believes it is a Chinese plot [1] to get us to cripple our economy, or he is just saying something over the top?

If these are just over the top exaggerations for the sake of HIGH ENERGY, and his supporters understand "that these things are over the top, but they agree with the basic sentiment behind them", could you explain just what that basic sentiment is?

[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/trump-comments-on...

It doesn't matter what his _actual_ positions are. Trump represents a total F-U to American politics. This is what his people WANT.

He can say anything he wants and get away with it (... and he literally has).

There is some precedent here. Berlusconi in Italy was a similar character (another a-hole media billionaire) who ended up making Italian politics a laughing-stock by grossly mismanaging the running of government. Like Trump, he appealed to fake old-timey values, people were willing to ignore his appalling behavior and character flaws and accept him like some nasty uncle-like figure.

Unfortunately, someone like Trump as president in the USA would be capable of far more damage geopolitically and economically than that clown, Berlusconi, in Italy ever could.

Exactly. From the moment I saw Trump, I was excited because it is a radical departure. As close to an independent (both parties hate him!) as is possible in the US and still win.

What specific actions do you think Trump would take that'd create so much damage? And are those things more damaging than allowing a corrupt party (see WL emails on DNC on Bernie) to win? To say hey, corruption's OK in the US, even when it's totally public? Or to get people to think that war with Russia, even if in another country, might be OK?

GP gave a couple of easy ones for you: climate change and vaccinations. Is he lying/exaggerating (not sure how you can exaggerate an absolute non-issue like vaccinations) about those things or is he severely dangerous?

Something must be done! This is something!

> Most of Trump's HIGH ENERGY comes from him and his supporters saying over-exaggerated things.

Imagine that you're older, let's say 40, and no longer a college kid. Do you think you will be more likely to describe Trump's statements as "HIGH ENERGY" (all caps) or "childish"?

YouTube comments are terrible. What's your point?

My point is that "Well, there seems to be tremendous support behind what he is saying. The chat is exploding." doesn't tell us much. Who cares if the chat is exploding? It's exploding with comments like that.

If you were wondering where "deplorable" came from, look no further than that chat.

It astounds me how people have set it up in their minds. One friend from SF, who was incredibly anti war, who earlier said Trump was dangerous because he'd start a war, actually said "It's not like we'd really go to war with Russia, it'd just be a proxy war like Vietnam" -- as a reason for why Clinton will be an OK choice. The accuracy of the comment doesn't matter, but the fact people are willing to accept it is mind boggling.

And then I've been told I can't understand, can't have a real opinion, etc. cause I'm a white guy and thus too privileged for my mind to comprehend things correctly.

Even on HN, the yc guys actually said they cannot understand how Thiel can support Trump. If you find yourself saying that, it indicates your understanding is deficient, not the other way around.

It annoys me because this lack of critical thinking is going to cause a huge backlash and I'm afraid some positive liberal values could be collateral damage.

> If you find yourself saying that, it indicates your understanding is deficient, not the other way around.

My philosophy professor used to give us a ethical debate prompt, and we'd develop our initial positions. Then he'd have us argue the opposite position. Extremely helpful exercise.

"I can't understand how he can support him" doesn't literally mean "I do not perceive the facts", it is "I find it incredible that he holds weights on various factors such that he made a list of pros and cons, calculated the net value based on the factors' weights, and came to the conclusion that supporting Trump is net good in this situation".

For example if someone's weights are:

disruptor, 100

shows signs of insanity, 0.1

then I can "understand" that they support DT. I can't understand why they choose to weigh certain factors like that.

That was a pretty effective comment Thiel just made: "I think the press never takes Trump seriously, but they do take him literally, whereas his supporters take him seriously, but not always literally."

rhetorical 360 slam dunk

But when DJT takes 3 days to evaluate whether the KKK should be denounced, his non-supporters took that very seriously. Meanwhile while most of his supporters took his eventual statement literally.

That sentence was in The Atlantic in September.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/trump-ma...

Per HN's guidelines, there's no reason this post should be flagged. Anything (of genuine public interest) to do with YC's accidental poster boy -- Peter Thiel -- is definitely fair game as conversation material.

> 'Diversity has come to mean complete agreement with the establishment or you are out'

Way to prove him right. Now I'm going to see his whole speech.

If you're a single-digit millionaire like Hulk Hogan, you have no effective access to our legal system. It costs too much.

This is not an intellectually serious speech.

Link to the actual quote. http://www.tubechop.com/watch/8509031

They really ought to be asking some tougher questions. At the end of the day, Trump is a man whose platform consists of removing the rights of large cross sections of the American public (Mexican-Americans, Muslims, women, etc.).

Supporting someone like that makes you a supporter of state sanctioned violence against those people and I think every institution -- the media, law enforcement, universities, businesses, etc. -- have a responsibility to denounce this in the strongest possible terms.

This is not simply a disagreement on tax policy, it's about the fundamental human rights of millions of Americans. To see a supporter of this sort of hate receiving softball media treatment or condoned by respected organizations such as YCombinator is disgusting.

>Trump is a man whose platform consists of removing the rights of large cross sections of the American public (Mexican-Americans, Muslims, women, etc.)

You cannot be serious.

Trump wants to deport illegal immigrants, something that is actually following the law, and something that Obama has done by the hundreds of thousands (millions?).

Trump wants to temporarily suspend immigration from Muslim countries that are near ISIS controlled territory. Suspending immigration from dangerous hotspots is something that has been done regularly by previous administrations. Furthermore, non American citizens don't actually have any "rights" under American law.

Trump wants abortion laws to be decided by individual states. Women in each state will have their democratic voice about that issue at their state ballot box.

You can quibble about how he says things perhaps, but to say that his platform consists of removing rights of large cross sections of the American public is just wrong and ignorant.

Thiel is an interesting character but not the best speaker. I wonder how comes is she so successful despite looking not very convincing, neither dominative and confident person.

When the (boring) interviewer asked about the Gawker sex tape, he was literally sweating and looking for water with his shaking hands.

A bit disappointing talk, nothing too interesting. Basically, he says media takes Trump literally. Gawker's case has nothing to do with the first amendment and he talks about the case from a very personal perspective -- destroyed lives, mobs attacking people -- doesn't really answer from the law point of view.

Other answers were kind of dull, it's difficult to understand his ideas. But I still feel like I would like to hear more. Maybe a better interviewer could open him up.

I think we are all tired of slick talkers and charismatics full of hot air.

Sort of expected a better interview when I heard "The National Press Club". This is mostly "What do you think about x? I think this and that" read from notes.

Unfortunately, the National Press Club is now merely a venue. It can be booked for events like any hotel or conference center. Though the club itself still has its own programming, part of the value for an outside party is that it can borrow on the cachet of the name.

I just listened to Theil's argument for supporting Trump, roughly that there are problems in America - soaring health and education costs, stagnant incomes for many, excessive debt, financial bubbles, too many wars and denial of the above by politicians, which is fair enough.

He then suggests Trump has the correct policy to deal with this by restricting free trade, reducing wars, avoiding financial bubbles and government denial and returning to the efficient government that built the highways and launched Apollo.

The trouble I see with that is that Theil seems a bit over optimistic about Trumps ability to achieve that stuff. If you look at Trump's record he tends to leverage up and go bust which is not a good model for efficient governance and bubble avoidance.

If you read Trump's Gettysburg speech it seems rather unlike Theil's picture of him https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-...

If your measure of a candidate is how likely they are to be able to get things done, I doubt a candidate like Hillary - who would be likely facing federal investigations and impeachment proceedings on day one would be more likely to get things done than Trump.

He seems like a reasonable guy and his points about how close minded the diversity movement in SV is are interesting.

Currently in class, anyone been capturing the stream? I'd definitely be interested in an offline version.

YouTube normally keeps a recording of the stream available after it's finished.

The Clinton campaign's strategy on Wikileaks is repeating that the emails could be fabricated. However, it is technically almost impossible. The tech community has been mostly silent on this issue. For example, I did not see @paulg twitter on DKIM verification.

He speaks in a very similar manner as Mark Zuckerberg, that is the first time I noticed this.

Watching now. Pretty surreal

Will he end on a positive note or send countless liberal techies to the self-medication cabinet this afternoon??

Why is this flagged?

Is this being censored from the homepage? I'm surprised I'm not seeing Peter Thiel's speech on the homepage of HN.. seems fishy

I noticed that too. I had to go back in my history to find the link.

If true that only shows further how extreme the anti-Trump censors are that want to tell us how we should think. That is exactly why Trump will win.

Actually, if you read the guidelines, politics is considered off topic:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

The resulting discussion here is all politics.

I think it's pretty fair considering his role in the Tech community

Just speculating, but it may have been caught by the flamewar detection software. I don't know how it works. Here's a couple of mentions of it being used in the past:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12792215

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12729921

Yes, anything about him is gone within 2-3 hours, I went so far as 5 pages past the homepage and all 6 items as I type this (https://hn.algolia.com/?query=peter&sort=byPopularity&prefix...), including this one that got a lot of votes, but also one of the 5 or so votes one that showed up on the home page for a tiny bit, have been disappeared.

Perhaps the mods will step in, assuming they aren't behind it; me, I wonder what'll happen to these people's minds if/when Trumps wins.... Nothing good, especially to those who's business includes needing to sell to ~half the country.

ADDED: And now it's flagged; guess he won't be getting to give his side of his story to the HN crowd.

No. This is the usual case of user flags and the flamewar software. See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12738677.

Thanks for clarifying and providing the link!

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