Hacker News Reader

Comment by trome | Hacker News Reader

So, why does anyone pay attention to the truly awful human being known as Peter Thiel? Between his plots to destroy the infrastructure that allowed PayPal and Y Combinator to be built, and his active attempts to rip away rights from other LGBT people, of which he is one, it seems like a poor idea to pay this person any mind.

View on HN

I have long stopped paying attention to what he says, not because he is an awful human being, but simply because his addiction to being contrarian seems to Trump all other considerations to a degree that makes his positions utterly predictable, boring and uninsightful.

In my view, rich people have the prerogative to adopt political views which appear contrary to their own interests; but in fact, they can easily achieve those interests elsewhere regardless of political environment.

You can adopt any view on abortion you want if you and the people you know can easily fly to another country to get excellent medical service. What do you care if gun laws are loosened or tightened? You have armed bodyguards, and the kind of gun crime people decry isn't the kind that reaches rich areas.

Because all rich people are completely selfish, and care nothing for others. /s

I'm not talking about propensities of selfishness. I'm talking about the prerogative of power. Selflessness doesn't change that. Whether or not you are selfish does not hobble your prerogative to purchase citizenship and property in New Zealand.

What are some of his active attempts to rip away LGBT rights?

He voted for a <whisper>Republican</whisper>.

Thanks for the translation.

It's sad that people generalize about people that vote Republican. Most republicans (or people that vote republican) I have met, including myself, have been supportive of the LGBT community. Not ALL Republicans are against LGBT, just like not all liberals want free government handouts. These generalizations about the "other side" are counter-productive.

Also, I'm not saying you came across as generalizing, I know you were making a joke, but a lot of people actually do think this way.

All of the Republican nominees this time around were opposed to gay marriage. So it doesn't seem to be that unfair to generalize to the conclusion that Republicans aren't very concerned about LGBT rights. They're certainly willing to vote for candidates who don't support LGBT rights.

It always seem odd to me that on a site where people are expert at algorithms and problem solving, lots of people here cannot deduce this very simple "therefore" scenario.

Or maybe people just really hate duck typing :)

They also added anti-LBGT elements to the GOP platform.

There are of course gay Republicans, and they argued against this, both on the grounds that it's immoral and discriminatory, but also that it wasn't in the Republican party's long term interest as younger members are far less anti-LGBT but they couldn't convince anyone.

I think the problem is that if you vote Republican because you are fiscally conservative you're making a decision that fiscal conservatism is more important to you than other citizens human/civil rights.

This isn't true of all Republican candidates, but it is true of many of the ones Thiel has donated to.

If you're really Republican, I'd suggest you stop framing debates about social policy as "for" and "against" LGBT. Thinking that heterosexual couples have an acute and unique problem with maintaining two-parent households, for instance, isn't anti anything.

I'm not aware of any serious Republican that wants bakers to be able to ban gay customers, either. Most of these issues are drummed up to form straw men and ad hominem arguments and avoid listening to legitimate concerns. We seem to agree on that.

That is, "for" and "against" is already framing the problem in terms of identity and division and I don't think that's productive, so I'd like to find ways to rephrase the problem.

>Thinking that heterosexual couples have an acute and unique problem with maintaining two-parent households, for instance, isn't anti anything.

Well, it is anti something if it's code for being against gay marriage.

I can realize that:

* half of all pregnancies are accidental

* pregnancies only happen by accident with heterosexual couples

* unprepared parents is a social and economic issue

...without being anti anyone.

Still speaking in code. Do you think gay marriage should be legal or not? If not, then at the very least you are anti-me, as I'm in a gay marriage. (And as far as I can tell my marriage hasn't led to any increase in unplanned pregnancies, if that's what's worrying you.)

The fact that you are both defensive and not interested in a new viewpoint makes me decline to give you a response to that question. I've already said I'm not anti-anybody. Let's not be so eager to outgroup our allies.

A "new" viewpoint? You think I haven't encountered people who are opposed to gay marriage before?

If you oppose gay marriage, then you are anti-me, and anti everyone else who's in a gay marriage. You can't have your cake and eat it. Your views have real consequences for other people.

Also, don't patronize me by claiming to be my "ally". If you think my marriage is wrong then you are no ally of mine.

But hey, thanks for hinting that gay marriage is wrong without having the courage to actually say it. As you refuse to offer any explanation for your views, I'm going to assume that, as usual, there isn't one. Maybe you should hold off commenting on the issue until you have thought it through a bit more.

He spoke at the Republican National Convention when the platform called for conversion therapy and outlawing gay marriage (and did not address the issue at all), and he has donated to a wide range of Republican candidates, most of whom are much more vocally against LGBT rights than Trump is.

I'm not sure these qualify as "active attempts to rip away LGBT rights", but at the very least it seems to be one of his lowest priorities.

> why does anyone pay attention to ...

Because he has a lot of power to influence the decision makers in one of the most powerful countries in the world?

What is wrong with destroying PayPal ?

PayPal will almost assuredly escape unscathed, Peter Thiel pulling up the ladder after him so others cannot be successful was what I was getting at there.

I'm interested to read about this, can you point me in the right direction?

Trump is a lot of things, but he isn't really anti-LGBT.

Honestly he was the most progressive candidate in the Republican field.

Didn't he fund Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker which essentially put that horrible rag out of business?

Is he awful because you don't agree with him? Or because he actually did something awful? I have a feeling it's the first one.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com