Just look at this trainwreck:
> When I remark that President Obama had eight years without any ethical shadiness, Mr. Thiel flips it, noting: “But there’s a point where no corruption can be a bad thing. It can mean that things are too boring.”
Or this:
> When I ask him if he can explain to Mr. Trump that climate change is not a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, he offers a Chinese box of an answer: “Does he really think that? If he really thinks that, how would you influence that? If he really thinks that and you could influence him, what would be the best way to do it?”
It feels to me like he thinks he's just shooting the shit with a friend, not publishing his views for millions of Americans to read. Can anyone explain this apparent lack of self-awareness?
If you believe that, then look for other explanations for his oddball statements. The contrarian angle seems like the right one - Thiel has lamented in the past that you can't say certain things anymore. He might be saying these things just to provoke a reaction.
edit: And I'd love to believe the contrarian thing, but when I've seen it done by well-informed people, it's immediately substantive and really thought-provoking, instead of... well, whatever this is.
I'd be very interested in reading the interview you mentioned, if you find it at any point!
Coupled with the fact that knowledge is often much narrower and more domain-specific than the reputation for knowledge that it produces, and it's quite easy for someone who has, due to time and energy invested in one domain (plus generally-applicable rhetorical skill), built a well-justified reputation for knowledge to end up turning out to be quite ill-informed (if still rhetorically skilled) in other domains in which they have an interest and choose to be an active pontificator.
- if trump believes X, and you believe X is wrong, how would you change that.
One of the ways is by being in the inner circle.
The issue this misses is that influence is held By many people, and it's not mutually exclusive. To exert influence on trump, you too will end up being influence and modifying your own stances so that it's possible you can apply force.
But if your position is to extreme (too far out on an axis) in the end the influence you can exert reduces to naught.
For a live example : There's some Chap who has invested large amount of money to explain to republicans what climate change/pollution mean. His position has now Morphed to supporting clean coal, in order to adapt to the environment he is in.
That was a misrepresentation of what happened. And not due to Obama.
Source: http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21595902-expelling-rec...
The contrarian thing may have been a rhetorical tactic to say nothing in an interview, too.
“Maybe I do always have this background program running where I’m trying to think of, ‘O.K., what’s the opposite of what you’re saying?’ and then I’ll try that,” he says. “It works surprisingly often.” " -- That clearly provides more context in that Theil was trying to demonstrate his contrarian mindset.
How does this mindset influence your interpretation of his statement that a nonzero amount of corruption is good because otherwise things are "too boring"? To me, the preceding paragraphs seem to only confuse his intent -- it makes it sound like he could either be not taking the conversation seriously, or saying that he really does think that some corruption is a good thing.
a "roving bandit" only has the incentive to steal and destroy, whilst a "stationary bandit"—a tyrant—has an incentive to encourage some degree of economic success
The same point could be made for having no interest vs having a conflict of interest.
By the way, if you think becoming a close advisor to a new president is unimpressive then I'd like to know what would impress you!
No journalist would just change topic after hearing this. It's a very controversial and ambiguous statement, and Thiel must have elaborated a great deal on it. But there is no further mention of any of that in the article.
So I think it's contextually possible that they just moved on after Thiel's response.
Odd preferences, though, to be sure. The preference for some corruption over none, especially, strikes me as one that most do not share.
He recalls a story from his and Mr. Musk’s PayPal days, when Mr. Musk joined the engineering team’s poker game and bet everything on every hand, admitting only afterward that it was his first time playing poker. Then there was the time they were driving in Mr. Musk’s McLaren F1 car, “the fastest car in the world.” It hit an embankment, achieved liftoff, made a 360-degree horizontal turn, crashed and was destroyed.
“It was a miracle neither of us were hurt,” Mr. Thiel says. “I wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, which is not advisable. Elon’s first comment was, ‘Wow, Peter, that was really intense.’ And then it was: ‘You know, I had read all these stories about people who made money and bought sports cars and crashed them. But I knew it would never happen to me, so I didn’t get any insurance.’ And then we hitchhiked the rest of the way to the meeting.”
Paradoxically - this is a path to success - their self-belief is so strong that it's very convincing - and so long as they have 'success' to point to - then it all snowballs from there.
The press writes 'puff pieces' to build up character, they read it and believe it.
I witnessed this with the CEO of an F50 firm that I worked at. This CEO would say crazy, irrational things, make up words. Even to the press - nobody called him out on it - because we were doing well. Printing money. Everyone at the company treated him like some kind of demi-god. Then, when things started to go awry, the press started calling him out on his nonsense, eventually lost his job.
This article is a good example: Thiel is obviously a smart, successful man. But look at how crazy some of his statements are! Most people saying such things would be laughed out of the house. But they have enough acolytes who just eat it all up.
Most of these guys are not really genuises
Crashing “the fastest car in the world.” and coming out of it without a scratch = Made up story. It seems like Thiel makes up exicting heroic stories, just like Trump, to compensate for an otherwise boring excitement-less life.
1 main reason I am calling BS on the story is cos Theil alleges he wasn't wearing a seat belt, and the car wrecked. My cousin DIED because he wasn't wearing a seat belt, and he didn't wreck the car, he hit a tree on the corner at 25 mph (yep 25 mph).
The only wreck pics that come up are the ones of his Model S crash. There's absolutely nothing on this alleged crash/wreck that Theil and Musk were allegedly involved in and came out "without a scratch". https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1...
So to (fairly) paraphrase: "The political and psychological reactions people are having to the fact that confirmed serial sexual predator (and all-around loathsome human being in general) Donald J Trump will be assuming the highest office in the land are far worse -- categorically worse -- then the fact itself. And BTW, as offensive, disgusting, and profoundly disturbing as what he said on that tape was -- on a deeper level I couldn't help thinking, hey, this sounds someone I can really relate to, and hitch my wagon with."
When I ask him if he can explain to Mr. Trump that climate change is not a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, he offers a Chinese box of an answer: “Does he really think that? If he really thinks that, how would you influence that? If he really thinks that and you could influence him, what would be the best way to do it?”
More liberally translated: "You know, I could never really make heads or tails of all this fact-based, hard-science-y stuff people keep obsessing about. Philosophy and politics were always so much easier. At the end of the day, though, what I guess what it comes down to is -- hey, maybe we're at risk of seriously and irrecoverably damaging the environment (and killing scores and scores of people in the process) if we don't radically change course, or maybe we aren't. But either way, if I can use my relationship to this administration to bring my radical political agenda into the mainstream -- it will all be worth it."
Bill Clinton wasn't elected (he hasn't held the "highest office in the land" for some years now)... so I am little confused at this sentiment?
What he says on the tape (in conjunction with perfectly credible statements from multiple witnesses) tells you everything you need to know. And BTW, the standard shouldn't be whether he's been criminally convicted or not; but "preponderance of evidence".
As in the, you know, rational, pragmatic "Would you even consider (for so much as half a second) hiring someone who made statements like that, in conjunction with statements his victims? Let alone electing him to the office of dog catcher?" sense.
However, it's also a completely immaterial to the subject of Donald Trump's behavior. And and to the subject of FB board member, and YC advisor Peter Thiel's attempt to obfuscate and normalize that "behavior" (i.e. sexual violence) -- even more so.
Preponderance of evidence is there is a greater than 50% chance of it being true. One person's word against another never meets that standard.
Broaddrick denied her accusations in an affidavit, and later retracted that denial. That destroys her credibility.
Edit: The only legit accusation is Paula Jones's, since Bill settled that case. Regardless, this is Bill Clinton. There is no evidence Hillary attacked Paula.
I don't have time to get into the fine-grain of it with you -- but if that's your impression then I'd suggest you look more closely into the basic event chronology. (What you're saying about counter-testimony has some relevance to the Wiley case; but to the Jones and Broaddrick cases, none to speak of).
Preponderance of evidence is there is a greater than 50% chance of it being true. One person's word against another never meets that standard.
The word of "one person" (who has been established to be pathological dissembler and obfuscator on the subject of, well, just about anything he opens his mouth about) against the generally consistent and credible statements of at least 15 accusers, to be precise. Combined with his irrefutable statements on tape.
Again... it all comes down to the "would you hire this person?" standard.
I don't think you can get much stronger than "bragged about it on tape".
Soon after the release of the video statement, Trump qualified the apology with the "it was locker room talk, Bill Clinton has done way worse on a golf course, I apologize if anyone was offended."
Too bad he didn't just stick with his original video statement!
In a way he sounds like his whole life is a sales pitch for a flaky startup, he's started running with some crazy pitch and somehow life just threw all this money at him so he just went on and never stopped.
I gasped when I read this
Think about the California High Speed Rail project. It's not going to happen without some low grade corruption involved. Good Ol Boys giving other Good Ol Boys the inside track on certain opportunities.
That's just something that happens in the real world. If it's not happening, the chances are good nothing is happening.
There's no way to contextualize or get around that statement.
Like the value of a college education: His scholarship fund accelerates kids lives into what they're passionate about instead of seeing them waste years in college.
Medical research: He funds longevity
Governments themselves: Seasteading
Competition: Promoting that people being definitive in their goals and working on things no one else is.
Crushing bastards: like the evil rag gawker hiding behind genuine journalistic protections.
If you're on the wrong side of an issue from Peter Thiel, it's not because he's being reflexively contrarian, it's because he could write a 100 page thoughtful essay on why his position is better than any alternative.
The reason that Peter Thiel seems so contrarian is because so many other people are so cowardly. Shouldn't more billionaires be crushing bastards? Shouldn't more billionaires be funding medical research? Shouldn't more billionaires be publishing books to motivate the masses to create themselves the future that has been only dreamed of for the last few decades?
On the short list of people in this world who are doing a really really great job with what they have, Peter Thiel is at the top of my list.
Now the caveats. Violations of the 4th amendment suck, and if Palantir is part of them, it's not great. Trump is clearly not the best the business world had to offer. Christianity, not so fabulous.
Peter Thiel is a gay christian republican billionaire philanthropist genius.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13380273
Your effusive language undermines your credibility, for the record. Then again, I don't think I'm your audience.
I think Thiel has bad politics, uninteresting investment theses, and a knack for bad macro- timing. I've devoted too much time to him this evening already. So I don't think you and I have much common ground to discuss, regardless of forum.
Sadly, I'm heading to bed. I'm a single parent this week and my son's up in ~5 hours. Where are you based?
The world is a complex place, and listening uncritically to people who sound smart is a very dangerous impulse. When in doubt, check your priors, and anchor on something objective.