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Comment by Miner49er | Hacker News Reader

It seems to me he has yet again shifted his views since writing this. He has seemed to embrace politics and benefits from government spending. Does anyone who knows more about Thiel know his reasons for this change in views? To go from wanting to get rid of politics to fully embracing it?

I've became more interested in Thiel since he started his congressional campaigns. Since he seems to want to change society so much, I was curious what drove him, and what his goals were. All I found was that he and I seem to agree on many problems, but our solutions are nearly opposite, and I can't see how he arrived where he did.

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Perhaps his real views were always just greed and power for the sake of it? What kind of ideology would cause someone to spend so much supporting a presidential candidate who has no ideology?

Typically the process is after 10~15 years, pretty much everyone realises that someone just like them - or even more capable - has already tried & failed to improve the situation.

At the point, the rational thing to do is just go with it and try to get in the path of the government's money hose. Principles are all well and good, but it doesn't change the fact that the government is deciding who gets to win.

>What kind of ideology would cause someone to spend so much supporting a presidential candidate who has no ideology?

I am not suggesting that Thiel fits this description, but accelerationist ideologies can potentially support such a candidate because their actions just happen to align with the goals of accelerationism.

Kind of sounds like he doesn't have any ideology at all and is merely a reactionary.

Funny enough, most of these ideas are not his own but James Davidson, who elaborates on them in the sovereign individual. In the latest edition of the book, Thiel writes the preface.

In the pre-face, he discusses China. His thoughts on China may be encouraging his foray into politics.

Curious why do you think he wants to change society ? His ideas are kind of outdated, people don't want flying cars, they want a virtual future. Neither is he the inventor of individualist liberal ideals.

> Curious why do you think he wants to change society ?

In the opening paragraph of the article, he sets out his ideological principles, which are not exactly conservative.

That's a good point. I guess I should've said "influence society" or have maybe just said "seeking political power." He's started and funding multiple political campaigns, spending lots of money on it, and has been giving speech at various conservative events since 2016, or so, plus his involvement with Trump. So I guess I'm just interested in why he's so interested in politics all of a sudden. In this article from 2009, he was trying to avoid or get rid of politics.

If you mean VR by “virtual future” then I see flying cars gaining more traction instead.

That said, his comments on flying cars weren’t so much about flying cars — it was about the disconnect between society’s expectations of progress in technology vs our actual progress in technology thus far.

it was about the lack of progress in the physical world, which i think is a mistake. we underestimate to what extent we are informational creatures once our basic needs are met. People choose to spend more on experiences and connectivity than on huge houses and physical luxuries.

Benefitting from government spending is not inconsistent with believing in a society free from the government.

I see the government as a parasitic and malevolent organisation who forcefully steals tens of thousands from my profits every year.

This is not inconsistent with getting benefits to reduce my taxation or apply for government grant. The more resources and benefits you can get off from your enemy, the better it is.

His beliefs are inconsistent with working for the government.

I think Peter Thiel should have sided with the libertarian party more than Donald Trump; he probably didn't do it because a libertarian victory is pretty much impossible. In the case where a libertarian win is impossible, I'd pick republicans vs democrats as well. I don't have any hopes that republicans will reduce spending or reduce the size of the government, but at least they tend to enact redistributive policies less than their left wing counterparts.

I'm not sure if Thiel is an anarcho-capitalist, but something I've found after debating for 20 years is that left wing anarchist and anarcho-capitalists agree on the problem but not on the solution. Anarcho capitalists think we should have a society without government and with free market capitalism. Left wing anarchists think we should have a society without government and with individuals that voluntarily share what they have.

Depending on who you are, one explanation will make sense and the other one won't. I invite you to research the subject more and to spend time thinking how your solution could work in practice. The book that finally convinced me that anarcho capitalism might work is The Machinery of Freedom (Friedman).

I personally think that left wing anarchism and communism without a government could work if all the individuals were behaving perfectly. I also think anarcho-capitalism could work, if we managed to privatise the entire government without creating a power imbalance between armed people and non armed people (creating one or more quasi-governments), because the evil nature of humans would be kept in check by competition in the market and reputation.

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