An attempt to understand Peter Thiel

Pete Buttigieg has a great take on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAk0k7QE9eQ

tl;dw "Rich white men support Republicans, who tend to enact policies that benefit rich white men"

> It’s not at all normal for VCs to write about the crossroads Western society met after the Enlightenment, and how one should act in face of this crossroads. Most of these guys are focused on what how to value a B2B SaaS business.

Are they really? Feels like many of the most prominent VCs have written philosophical essays of one type or another. At some point a good VC surely has to think about the broader social trends behind the success and failure of the Ventures they gave Capital to.

Posts here should inform, or at least attempt to inform. Thiel appears to have a messianic complex, believes that he must 'Save the Shire'. What does that mean? Perhaps he believes there are cultural roots in America - in Protestant Christianity and many other aspects - that are slowly being bled away by liberalism, capitalism, and multiculturalism. I think he's essentially correct in this. I just don't believe that he is doing anything to solve this issue. By supporting reactionaries, he's just going to make things worse, and in the end throw the babies, humanism and the enlightenment, out with the bathwater. The last 80 years have proven that while people may not be essentially good, if you give them the benefit of the doubt, they often surprise you. But you need to believe in them.

Peter is just an other white giy billionaire who wants to buy power and influence for his own selfish interest. What better politicians to align with than the most corrupt one, Trump.

Everything else Peter says is distraction. Occams Razor: he has lots of money and wants more

hitjob on political opponent. Get that out of here, and ideally out of this solar system

> Thiel writes: “one may define a “liberal” as someone who knows nothing of the past and of this history of violence, and still holds to the Enlightenment view of the natural goodness of humanity.”

> I have to say, I think this describes my worldview pretty well (although I would argue that in my limited knowledge of the past, it does seem to me like an increasing level of abundance and education can ward off violence pretty well).

I’m surprised the author (oh, hi submitter!) hasn’t clued in that perhaps it’s time to put blogs to the side and learn a bit more about history and how today came to be prior to attempting to “understand” Peter Thiel.

The thinly veiled “weird” memery going around as of late in the subtitle is trite and immediately, in my mind, devalues the blog post. It basically signals “this isn’t an objective attempt to understand as much as it is me taking the piss out on Peter Thiel.”

I gained no new knowledge about the guy, unfortunately. Hyper focused on trump and the like as usual and treats the guy like he’s a 1D political villain. So this was essentially empty content.

Put another way, I’ve seen much better shitposts about Thiel than “this guy thinks he’s smarter than everyone else.”