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Comment by jonstewart | Hacker News Reader

The author is Wolf Tivy, a cofounder of Palladium Magazine. Palladium Magazine is funded by Peter Thiel. The other cofounder of Palladium is Jonah Bennett; he now works at a stealth web3 startup and he says on his website he’s a political moderate. However, he also used to work at Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller and pal around with white nationalists and neoreactionaries. He resigned from Palladium after those ties and several hateful emails came to light: https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2020/03/04/emails-reveal...

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How is this relevant to the article?

That’s gives context for who should, and what greater purpose they should quit their jobs for.

It’s gussied up a bit in the article but it’s still there in the calls for a leisure class, references to elites, “traditional” relationship values and so on. It’s not a neutral article on the value of following your dreams.

“Do you feel excluded? Good its working”

I started to think that the article _might_ have a certain political slant after coming across these phrases:

"problems of governance from beyond the established liberal democratic paradigm" ... " the lone overman" ... "Growth Through Struggle" .. "your cosmic duty and win glory only in the bold attempt" ... "our society has been so stagnant and uncreative ... We chose the path of comfort... In our cowardice, we turned away"

Now, what do those stirring words remind you of?

Why don't you just come out and say what you want to say?

My guess is it reminds of Ayn Rand / Atlas Shrugged, but that’s just based on what I’ve picked up from documentaries (I haven’t read this book or anything else by her).

Yeah I went and checked out the authors Twitter after reading the article and there was a tweet praising Atlas Shrugged very near the top which was amazingly on-brand I thought after reading the article.

Having actually read the book when I was going through an ill-thought out libertarian phase I don't understand how anyone capable of engaging writing themselves can think it's anything other than turgid dross. Feels more like praising it is part of the belief system than anything else.

I wasn't thinking about Ayn Rand (although her presence is no surprise at all). Lets just say that some of the rhetoric must have sounded better in the original German. e.g. "Übermensch" is a much more evocative word than "overman".

I was waiting for the blood and soil stuff but maybe that’s the next issue. I had thought the dork enlightenment stuff had died a death but apparently not.

> I had thought the dork enlightenment stuff had died a death

Gotta put out the rich backer's message to where the audience is receptive. And phrase it to please them (i.e. sound thoughtful)

Yes, exactly. When reading essays like this, a critical thinker should remember “consider the source” and “cui bono?”

> "Übermensch" is a much more evocative word than "overman".

Try "Superman" instead.

I'm not a historian, and I've wondered whether the historical background for the comic (conceived in the early '30s I think?) included some of the racial overtones that were more pervasive at the time. I don't know how influential Darwin and Galton were scientifically at the time, but even if they weren't current in scientific circles (which I kind of doubt), certainly it's hard to ignore that the ideas were "in the water" so to speak.

> and I've wondered whether the historical background for the (Superman) comic included some of the racial overtones that were more pervasive at the time.

Maybe you should look into it some more then

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/jan/30/take-that-mr...

https://screenrant.com/superman-secret-hebrew-name-jewish-ka...

https://anfieldindex.com/geek/comics/superman-jewish-hero

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Siegel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Shuster

Thanks for the links! I'll check them out.

These were super interesting, thank you. Do you know if there are any references to them intentionally trying to subvert the Nazi idealism of the Übermensch?

It’s a shibboleth at this point into the club of the ultra selfish.

Godwin's law.

So just to be clear - you're likening the author to Adolf Hitler?

If you think someone is a racist or a transphobe or a nazi or whatever flavour of the month punchline you prefer, you should just come out and say it, rather than being so bizarrely vague and smug about it. You think he's a nazi because he used to work with Peter Thiel - just say it!

I can't say what the author is like, as I never heard of them before today. I note what the rhetoric of this piece echoes very strongly, and no doubt deliberately.

I don't think that the "flavour of the month punchline" comment is in any way justified. It is neither.

But the Hitler comparison is what you meant, no? What is the rhetoric of the piece that you're talking about?

Since you ask, the phrases that I quoted are white nationalist and or Fascist (Neo- or old-school) thinking and imagery. I won't claim that it's all about one person's speaking style, that is reductive. The philosophy (such as it is) of those movements wasn't found there alone.

This guy gets it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29837954

Sorry to be "vague", I have no wish to be open to accusation (good faith or otherwise) regarding the site guidelines https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

So you know it's not OK to call people Nazi on this site, especially on extremely flimsy basis such as "he is financed by Peter Thiel" and "he talks about individual achievement". But you still do it. But since you're being coy about it and only "very very transparently hint" at it, it's completely OK. At least for you it's ok, because in this case the rules clearly do not apply.

I did not call the author that, and the basis for what I did state, is not flimsy, and it's not the basis that you claim - I had no idea about the financed part when I read the piece.

I see that the bad faith attacks that I anticipated have finally arrived. if honkdaddy is still reading, this bad faith counterattack is why it's carefully stated.

You did, just thinly veiled it. But everybody understood what you meant, and you know it. You can talk about "bad faith" all you want, but the matter is simple - you read article you didn't like (which is OK) and instead of engaging it on merits you went right into guilt by association and Nazi comparisons (which is not OK at all), all while perfectly knowing it's not OK to do it, but "carefully stating" your message so you could say "akshually, technically, I did not use that word, so here! Gotcha!" (which is not OK at all again). But everybody knew what you mean, what you intended and what you did.

I think the implications are less about Peter Thiel and more having associated with known white nationalists, and maybe separately also Carl Tuckerson

There was a time when Godwin's law was meant to prevent people calling each other literally Hitler with no justification. Now people just use Godwin's law to call other people literally Hitler with no justification.

Not "literally Hitler" and "with no justification".

So, a bad faith attack.

Yes "literally Hitler" - which you yourself admitted after some insistent prodding. And yes "no justification" - nothing in the article justified going strait into Nazi accusations.

And I don't think a person who thinks it's ok to skirt the rules every time he wants should talk too much about "bad faith". But of course it all fits into the same "it's OK when I do it" mold, doesn't it?

> which you yourself admitted after some insistent prodding.

Rubbish. After repeated attempts to put words in my mouth, which I did not rise to, you just declare the result anyway and launch into the argument anyway. It's not going to uncover any truth is it, just divert attention.

Have a nice day!

You've risen to (or rather, descended to) mentioning Godwin's law - which specifically implies Nazi & Hitler comparisons, and "white nationalist and or Fascist". That's plenty enough. I know what you meant, you know what you meant, everybody knows what you meant. Own up to it.

Not to mention the name "Wolf". Evidently, he is a "man of destiny". Oddly his linkedin profile pic has a toddler on his shoulders. I assumed the child was his own - the article does have a passing mention of finding a wife. No doubt he considers it his duty to transmit his elevated genetic legacy to future generation.

Do you think that transmitting your genes to future generations is bad? Is having a sense of purpose aka destiny bad?

Not sure what you are trying to say here, apart from the fact that you don’t like the author of the article.

It's a pretty common Germanic (and Jewish) first name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_(name)

Are you really faulting a person because he has a name you don't like? BTW, how about Wolf Blitzer, is he too...?

And of course him having kids makes him some kind of a eugenicist, only those folks have kids and love to put them on their shoulders, nobody else would ever consider something like fatherhood enjoyable and worth celebrating. Sheesh.

Of course the guy who wants to find his own path and share his ideas is literally Hitler. If you ask "how ridiculous ideological bubbles can be", the answer is - this ridiculous.

> guy who wants to find his own path is literally Hitler

Not an accurate summary.

Oh this is absolutely relevant as I was thinking on how that magazine/author can make a living from it. Now it makes absolute sense: it doesn't have to.

That is just banal ad hominem and guilt by association.

There was a news outlet around in the last few years called the knife of Aristotle which always seemed a little off to me. I did some research into it and found out the senior editor and many of the board were associated with NXIVM.

This didn’t affect affect the veracity of their articles, which I found were well written, but the association of their company with unsavoury people should cause all but the most naive and callow to ask WHAT their agenda is.

Similarly, this article is extremely pompous, faux-Nietzschean and comes directly from a media outlet owned by self proclaimed nationalists who are apparently also quite unsavoury. This should cause you concern and you should ask for what purpose such bare-faced propaganda is being pushed.

Or, to put in plain Canadian English “birds of a shitfeather flock together”

Hi Jon Stewart, big fan (wink wink)

I was satisfied with this reaction from Jonah wrt the mailing list and such:

https://medium.com/@thejonahbennett/statement-on-emails-83c5...

The Web3 stuff is making me more skeptical, but let's see!

I’m not satisfied by it. There’s no real excuse as a grown up for associating with hate folks.

That's interesting context, but does that meaningfully change the message of this article?

Is there a problem with interesting context?

It's a bit easier to boldly follow one's philosophical dreams when said dreams line up nicely with what a billionaire is interested in funding.

You do know that a lot of culture and science is not actually funded by scientists, actors and musicians themselves? In fact, there are people that advocate such funding is so important that we need to have the state take money from people - even not billionaires, but people earning very average salaries - and direct these money into financing people that are following some or other kind of philosophical dreams? If you are aware of that, I would like to hear how comes you think when the millionaire - after paying all the money allocated for all of the above - still wishes to spend money on financing even more people pursuing philosophical dreams, there's something wrong and shameful in that? Is that because this time politicians did not intervene in the process?

I think so: he used his personal example to say follow your dreams, but he followed his dreams with the backing of Peter Theil. If you were thinking you could start an online magazine too after reading this article it’s a nice reality check.

Why dont we like Peter Theil? A couple of interesting things and people have come out of the Theil fellowship

I don't personally think he went far enough to be an anathema as I would also consider leveraging political standing in any society where there are power vacuums, assuming his foray into courting a conservative administration is why people still dont like him

Foray implies it was a break from his previous trajectory.

He founded a mass surveillance company and is generally right wing/conservative.

And this concludes our demo of "guilt by association" concept.

What's your objection to the substance of the article?

How does this relate to the content of the article?

> Thiel

ah, that really explains everything.

i have no more questions, thank you

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