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Comment by laingc | Hacker News Reader

I can't speak for Silicon Valley, nor for the majority of HN, but my (obviously biased) sample of approximately 20 HN-reading friends are all massive Thiel fans. Myself included.

So perhaps there are more of us than you think, we're just not keen to speak up in the comments section because it just invites a flame war?

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If your 20 friends are all "massive fans" of a given person, I agree, that's a pretty solid indicator of significant bias. Well, maybe not if that person were the Dalai Lama or something like that, but Thiel is not the Dalai Lama. (Even a regular llama would be strong competition.) I should add that the same would very much apply if all your 20 friends felt the opposite way - that would be closer to the norm, but still implausibly unanimous.

> If your 20 friends are all "massive fans" of a given person, I agree, that's a pretty solid indicator of significant bias.

I'm glad you agree.

Would you say that the tone of your comment reinforces, diminishes, or is neutral with respect to my comment about starting flame wars?

Well, how do you define a 'flame war'? Specifically, what besides the fact that someone is challenging your view?

Which of my views are you challenging?

Your approval of Thiel. I agreed with your view that your sample was biased.

Your comment didn’t challenge anything about my approval of Thiel. In fact, your comment didn’t add anything substantive whatsoever apart from a tone of disapproval - hence my question about starting flame wars.

Usefully, your comment has demonstrated the exact phenomenon I was referring to.

Yeah, most people I know have a lot of respect for Thiel (myself included) even if they have serious political disagreements with his trump support.

>So perhaps there are more of us than you think, we're just not keen to speak up in the comments section

May be. But I certainly know he is extremely unpopular on twitter, HN along with pretty much all mainstream media. You just have to look at some of the comments in this thread ( some of them are filtered as dead )

To the point I think it is extremely courageous to admit you are a big fan of him.

I dont want flame wars. But I certainly want balance of opinions. Whenever something is extremely one-sided I tends to get wary. But then I also understand why replying may start a flamewar. Discussion is hard.

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