Competition Is For Losers | Hacker News Reader

Competition Is For Losers

lrb.co.uk

73 pointscrones47 comments

The first paragraph is misleading enough that I stopped reading; there's no evidence that Thiel has NZ citizenship "as a hedge against the looming apocalypse" (?), and he recently sold that "500 acre estate".

He was given citizenship by a conservative-leaning Prime Minister in the hopes that he would invest in the local tech scene, which he has. The $50 million he invested is not a lot by silicon valley standards but it is a fair amount for New Zealand, and it went to some of NZ's best startups (possible bias, I worked at one).

> and he recently sold that "500 acre estate".

He just filed his plans for developing a massive compound in New Zealand.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/01/peter-thiel-files-plans-to-b...

Oh eek, I retract my comment!

The way he got the citizenship doesn't disprove the idea that he wanted it "as a hedge against the looming apocalypse".

It also doesn't disprove the idea that he wanted it to host sex parties in NZ for people that are exactly 6 feet 3 inches tall and have green eyes.

Both are equally made up "reasons" for Thiel getting NZ citizenship.

BTW: what kind of apocalypse exactly does one hedge against with NZ citizenship? A zombie apocalypse where zombies don't like New Zealand?

Perhaps something like covid, but worse. NZ is doing better than Australia for containment.

We also have looming ecosystem collapse, or cascading problems in spercific ecosystems (pests and plagues) that NZ might be partially sheltered from.

What the fuck is this guy's problem?

Unsurprisingly, these dreams came to nothing.

One of the people he's shitting on in that sentence is Laura Deming, who's raised investment funds for companies working on stroke and biotech research as well as running a foundation that searches out disadvantaged people exhibiting special talent.

We get it dude, Peter Thiel is a jerk who doesn't vote like you and that really chafes your britches.

Putting the context back in:

> ‘They were – nearly all of them – boys,’ as Chafkin points out, ‘and, almost to a person, they shared Thiel’s social awkwardness.’ One 17-year-old was hoping to extend the average human lifespan by three hundred years; a 16-year-old was developing a workaround to China’s Great Firewall. Unsurprisingly, these dreams came to nothing.

> that really chafes your britches.

Mmmm I dunno, I looked the fellow up and I think he's more of a culotte type.

> stroke and biotech research as well as running a foundation that searches out disadvantaged people exhibiting special talent.

Might be worth mentioning it is life extension research it is primarily focused on. The stroke thing is great, they may have initially started out trying to hibernate billionaires like bears to let them make it to the singularity, but the enzymes may prove useful for humans too.

I think the main thrust of the article is that Peter Thiel's libertarianism is hugely unprincipled and inconsistent with itself. which might describe of lot of the more famous libertarians out there actually...

Well of course. Having a billion dollars is like having a dozen children: something is deeply wrong with you.

Statistically speaking, many of our ancestors probably had an above average number of children...

not relative to their time. in a world of weak institutional and little in the way of medicine, most children die before adulthood. those that do are your only insurance policy in old age.

> Having a billion dollars is like having a dozen children

You mean being a billionaire is like making up for ~5 childless couples not contributing to the next generation? Could be!

Careful with that sarcasm.

The full title is "Competition Is For Losers: Silicon Valley Vampire".

Further reading:

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/indepth/national/how-peter-thiel-...

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/88745476/peter-thiel-is-a-n...

https://www.dia.govt.nz/diawebsite.nsf/Files/Citizenship-rel...

https://www.dia.govt.nz/diawebsite.nsf/Files/Peter-Thiel-rel...

Whats interesting is that people often mention that he secretly funded a lawsuit against some low quality news website, yet in his letter to NZ asking for citizenship he stated his Founders Fund is the primary supporter of an organisation called the Committee to Protect Journalists, "a non-profit group that prmotes press freedom and defending of the rights of journalists "to report news without fear of reprisals".

Ad hominem right out of the gate... why should I care what this intellectual bully thinks about anything?

First rule I've learned about persuasion is to not behave this way, but of course it's okay when you have the "correct" politics.

Are they trying to persuade? I figure they were just trying to signal their "loyalty" to some audience they have in mind.

I found this hilarious:

"The Thiel Fellowships, which began in 2011, initially provided $100,000 each to 22 high school students with big ideas for changing the world… Unsurprisingly, these dreams came to nothing."

Because of [0]:

"He dropped out of university in 2014 when he was awarded with a grant of $100,000 from the Thiel Fellowship, a scholarship created by venture capitalist Peter Thiel and went to work on Ethereum full-time."

Which I guess is "nothing" for these sorts of people.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalik_Buterin

Fair enough.

That last quote reminds me of this classic Dilbert: https://imgur.com/zbTJR5o

The last quote is from the wiki, but the first one is from the article

Ethereum is 14 Mt CO2 annually or more, which is a disaster for what we got in return (ransomware), but at least they are moving to proof of stake.

This is such a strange and wildly ignorant opinion that seems out of place here on Hacker News of all places.

> which is a disaster for what we got in return (ransomware)

Right, that's all "we" got for it… "nothing" besides ransomware and easier ways to pinpoint CO2 compared existing systems it seeks to obsolete…

The existing systems are much more efficient. I do think it is good they are moving to proof of stake.

> The existing systems are much more efficient.

If you ignore the costs of the trust issues between participants (as well as a lot of physical infrastructure apart of trust chains) and how that plays out through the entire system, and a lot harder to trace CO2 values on (esp those that people will all agree on).

Here's one persons take on this with Banks vs BTC wrt CO2[0] with their numbers from last year that I'm sure plenty of people will disagree with in one form or another (usually without numbers of their own).

[0] https://medium.com/@mukeat/carbon-footprint-differences-btc-...

There is a book (political hit piece) about Peter Thiel coming out by a Bloomberg reporter this is part of its press tour along with the hit piece in Bloomberg.

What stood out for me was the assessments of Peter Thiel's involvement in politics by Steve Bannon and the author of this piece. They both seem way off in those assessments to me, given both the success of Palantir and Anduril and his ongoing ties to the conservative establishment - e.g. his recent appearance at The Nixon Seminar (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVOHakxXbMw)

> As a political disrupter, Thiel was a flop. Steve Bannon considered him too flaky for the serious graft of government, which is saying something. But this wasn’t really the game Thiel was in. Mainly it was just for show. What he wanted was to get close to government contracts.

[emphasis mine]

Surely the success of Palantir is a data point in favor of the thesis of the piece?

Perhaps, but his reception at that talk I linked suggests there is more to his involvement than that to me. (I am not American though, so might be reading too much into it)

I don’t think that shows any aptitude for “the graft of government” or goes a ways to disproving the characterization of him as an ideologue whose focus is to assist fiscal conservatism (reduce costs) and to have a cosy relationship with the military industrial complex (increase revenue).

This piece is mostly an odd attempt to parallel construct a working philosophy that the author imagines is behind Thiel’s various interests and actions. It comes off as a hit piece. But the last couple paragraphs raise some interesting points that are worthy of debate independent of Thiel. Isn’t the point of a capitalist effort to ultimately become a monopoly? And how do we get the best of a free libertarian society with sovereign individuals without the runaway power of unregulated monopolies taking away the same sense of freedom for others? And does accepting government contracts make you less of a libertarian or is it just surviving within the system as it exists? I found those ideas more interesting than the earlier parts of this piece.

>>Libertarians would have us believe that unregulated, free-market capitalism is somehow diametrically opposed to state capitalism. One encourages innovation; the other stifles it. What Thiel demonstrates is that unregulated, free-market capitalism is in fact closely aligned to state capitalism. Deregulation means that nothing constrains the monopoly power of the security state and nothing gets in the way of people selling it their bogus and corrupting wares

Absolutely ridiculous characterization of "unregulated, free-market capitalism" and libertarianism in general. The logical fallacies, in particular the non sequiturs linking Thiel's decisions to some imagined definition of "free market capitalism" that allows for abusive expropriations of private property to expend on wasteful security state initiatives, is particularly egregious seeing as how the author is intelligent enough to be aware of them.

This is pure bad faith ideologically motivated sophistry.

Free market capitalism simply means markets free of prohibitions on mutually voluntary interactions, including interactions that involve the exchange of money (gasp!). If you want to claim that interactions between parties with different wealth levels are inherently non-voluntary because of power/information asymmetries or some other superficially plausible but ultimately cockamanie ideological talking point, fine we can have that debate, but don't mislead the public about the plain definition of free market capitalism.

Oh and free market capitalism is not unregulated. There are foundational regulations, encapsulated in common law and that the statutes that codify it, against fraud, assault and any other violation of others' human rights. Under this governance doctrine, the courts are the parties who determine what constitutes a breach of anothers' rights, as they are the only body capable of engaging in the impartial deliberation required to do so effectively.

Free market capitalists exist in the world as it is now, which involves a capitalistic state apparatus. Pointing out an alliance, however temporary or opportunistic, between these groups is not sophistry. The piece is describing the world and actions and actors within it, not abstract ideology.

The author is not merely pointing out an alliance between an alleged free market capitalist and the state. They are drawing broad generalizations from this anecdote about free market capitalists in general. They are also giving a false definition of free market capitalism. You want to argue against the purported freedom of an imagined ideal free market capitalist society? Fine. You want to argue that such an ideal society is impossible to achieve, and will lead to the outcome we see today? Fine. These are debatable points where one can take either position without being clearly deceitful.

But don't characterize violent expropriations of private property by the state, to enrich special interests in the security state, as "free market capitalism". This is pure sophistry/propaganda. And it's shameless/immoral when it comes from someone intelligent enough to know better.

Where is this characterization made? Is it the comparisons with Goodfellas and The Usual Suspects? I think you’re taking it far more literally than intended. Is it a description of taxes? Sorry, but if so, that’s very funny.

In the section I quoted:

There is absolutely nothing in the principle that we should not have prohibitons on mutually voluntary interactions, or expropriations of private property from peaceful individuals, that would elicit resistance to the state having rules governing appropriations to ensure tax dollars aren't being wasted. This is such a ridiculous and shameless formulation by the author that it discredits everything else they wrote, and exposes them as an ideologue who puts advancement of their ideological agenda above truth.

I’m aware of the basics of this school of thought, so I think the fact that I can still genuinely find no trace of “violent expropriations of private property by the state” in that quotation shows who the ideologue is.

A person with the level of general knowledge that the author exhibits is obviously going to be well aware of libertarianism's stance on taxation.

Most forms of taxation constitute "expropriation of private property by the state", which libertarianism strongly opposes.

And in that passage I quoted from his article, it is funds derived from taxation - since that is the source of all government funding - that the author is alleging libertarianism/free-market-capitalism not only accepts the wasting of, as long as the waste is under the umberage of the government provisioning security services, but also, in its governance philosophy, expressly forbids having any rules to reign in the wasting of. Even spelling out his logic leaves me dumbfounded by its shameless dishonesty and absurdity.

I can't believe I even have to explain this: his claim is completely baseless, with nothing in any mainstream definition of libertarianism to justify it, and moreover, it contradicts one of the core concerns of libertarians/libertarianism, which is the avoidance of inefficiency and waste when expending tax dollars.

The article is an ideological hit piece, and it's crafted in utterly bad faith. But hey, as long as it's supporting the right political tribe, that's evidently okay for some people. The ends justify the means, i.e. bad faith sophistry is justified by the righteousness of the larger cause.

OK so it is taxes, the thing I said would be funny, and it is.

How glib. This is not just disrespectful to me. It's disrespectful to the process of civil discourse.

Not sorry, your histrionics are rooted in that logical leap, so the situation is funny to me.

Can you elaborate, by reiterating my argument back to me, and pointing out to me where I did what you allege, instead of evading with these vague, glib one-liners?

No of course not. You'll continue hiding behind these bad-faith quips.

Same as it was in my original comment, the author is not describing abstract ideology, except as minor background -- he's describing real people doing real things in real situations. He's speaking of lowercase-ell libertarians in the political sphere, and what ideological adaptations they've made for personal gain.

Hacking away at the state's budget, but with an extreme focus on the welfare and regulatory side, all while seeking contracts from the military industrial complex for tasks that have nothing to do with capital-ell Libertarian tasks like enforcing the NAP.

>>he's describing real people doing real things in real situations

He is describing what he claims "unregulated free market capitalism" produces:

>>What Thiel demonstrates is that unregulated, free-market capitalism is in fact closely aligned to state capitalism. Deregulation means that nothing constrains the monopoly power of the security state and nothing gets in the way of people selling it their bogus and corrupting wares

I've described in detail why this claim is absurd. Just to touch back on those for a moment: the "deregulation" has nothing to do with the security state. It doesn't mean a lack of laws constraining what the state can do. The term refers exclusively to an absence of regulatory restrictions on voluntary economic interactions between consenting private actors. Not lack of restrictions on the state and its procurement processes.

You're welcome to contend with my arguments, which I've elaborated on in detail, when you decide you want to have a meaningful exchange of arguments.

Again, in that quotation he’s really describing what “actually existing proponents of free market capitalism” are doing in reality — practicing a form of heterodoxy that is common within the community. The article barely spends any time discussing philosophy, so I think it’s irrational to elevate his critique to that level. He’s discussing a biography after all.

First of all, he's generalizing from an anecdote of one, which is intellectually lazy and morally reckless, when it results in a negative characterization of a large set of diverse individuals who share the trait of being free market capitalists.

Second, in the quote, he refers to "unregulated free market capitalism" not just "capitalists", and describes what it, as a political and economic doctrine, allows, and his description is unambiguously false.

It's a hit job. It's intellectually dishonest and not fair to the target.

>>He’s discussing a biography after all.

Yes, but in that excerpt, he clearly makes a claim about "unregulated free market capitalism". An individual in his position, writing for a highly reputed publication, has a moral and professional responsibility to not make false claims, even as a side-note in a piece about a different subject from the claim.

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