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Comment by btown | Hacker News Reader

Someone who writes “The purpose of the rape crisis movement seems as much about vilifying men as about raising ‘awareness’,” and who says that apartheid was effective, is not someone whose views on equality should be emulated, regardless of their other activities and political leanings.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/21/peter-thi...

https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/03/50...

EDIT: Updated post to summarize the links, as it seems that some people believe the very presence of conventional news sources to be a reason to disengage from a discussion.

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The second source about apartheid is nothing but a political hit piece. Let's break it down:

- One source from 30 years ago where Thiel said that the moral issues of apartheid were irrelevant to their economy. He did not say "apartheid is good", he just said it didn't matter to their economy. I wouldn't agree with that statement, but even more important, I would make the link "Thiel thinks apartheid is good".

- The first source has the standard "this has been a lump in my throat for 30 years". Thiel has been in the media for far longer than that, so I guess it's just a coincidence this was timed during the Trump campaign.

- The second source seem irrelevant. She simply says Thiel said "morality and governments shouldn't be connected". Hardly a statement in support of apartheid.

- Note both sources are from individuals who had separate conversations about hot political issues 30 years ago. I have no doubt they were upset, but again that doesn't mean Thiel supports apartheid and he has already stated he doesn't.

I'm not really surprised by the article because politics in the US has become a "win at all costs" and "score points whenever you can" game. Rationale, logical discourse is gone. It's all about how many negative sound bits you can get and how many people believe them.

If this is the worst they can dig up about Thiel (30 years ago), he's got a cleaner record than most people in politics.

Regarding the apartheid thing, I was expecting some sort of smoking gun - a video or a blog post or something. We have little to back it up other than two people's memories of an event 30 years ago. I'm not disputing he may have said it. My concern is we do not know the context. If I think of all the interesting conversations I had in my years of university - I'm sure I've said much worse (with no regrets). Playing devil's advocate and intellectual games (not the manipulating kind, but the "let's imagine" kind) are par for course there.

Don't get me wrong - I'm a huge fan of NPR.[1] However, it's a problem when one uncritically accepts what they say. Many are predisposed to disliking him since his support for Trump, and so they lower their standards when it comes to pieces like this.

[1] Kind of sad that I feel I have to put this disclaimer.

1. Discussing the economic effects of apartheid seems totally ok. In the 40 year old "quote", he seemed to separate the moral issues of apartheid and he just thought it was economically beneficial. Lots of things can be immoral but make money! It does perhaps show a lack of social intelligence in how he discussed it, but he was presumably ~18-20, this was 40 years ago, and a lack of social intelligence doesn't make someone a bad person.

2. He didn't say rape is made up! Certainly in theory rape can be either too broadly defined or too narrowly defined. Have certain situations moved toward too broad a definition? Thiel thinks so.

I have no idea if rape has or hasn't been too broadly defined, but seems a reasonable enough position to be part of the discussion.

It's potentially worth noting that both those statements should be past tense, not present.

My understanding of the apartheid thing was he said something in college that someone else heard and remembered for many years. I think that 1. People say stupid stuff in college, and 2. Thiel could have easily said something in an exploratory philosophical kind of way without fully believing it.

He has denied the apartheid comments and apologized for the rape comments. I'm not saying this should get him off scot-free, it just seemed important to note that he doesn't currently say these things, publicly at least.

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