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Comment by jamesgill | Hacker News Reader

Palantir.

Valar Ventures.

Mithril Capital.

Lembas LLC.

It’s remarkable to me how someone like Thiel could be such a fan of Lord of the Rings, with its central themes of the corrupting influence of unchecked power and good triumphing over evil and evil’s will to control and dominate—then decide to become Gollum.

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Mr. Thiel identifies as Sauron, thank you very much.

1000 points have been deducted from your Palantir AI Social Credit Score™

Let's constitute the fellowship of the ring :D

Well, hope they’re using int64 and not int32.

Hmm why not rather opportunistic Saruman? Serve whoever brings money, fuck the plebs and some naive higher principles

You know, I think you're right.

In all of these types of stories, "evil" rules for long enough that makes it appealing for those with the same views. Sometimes, it's generations before "good" overcomes. Plus, each one of the "evil" leaders feel like they are special and different. It's easy to understand why. You just need to be able to see it yourself.

There are no evil people, media (books, TV, movies) have plainly evil people so the story is easily digestible and appealing to the masses. But it is completely incorrect framing of how the world actually is.

In reality "evil" people almost always want to genuinely make the world a better place, and they are fighting "ignorant" people who are dragging society down by not conforming to their golden vision. And then "evil" becomes largely a function of who you ask. It's the opposition that labels them evil, not society on the whole.

There are very few leaders ever who are straight up storybook style evil. Almost all of them were/are deranged people who convinced enough people of their ostensibly good vision to begin executing it.

No one came to power because they wanted to turn society into burning rumble while they ate babies during daily random execution time. It's all nuance and complication.

> There are no evil people [....] In reality "evil" people almost always want to genuinely make the world a better place

I would have to disagree here...lots of historical examples of criminal gangs, privateers, etc seeking to simply do harm.

Who? I can only think of Nero who sought only to "simply do harm." This is such a reductive way to cast people

Because it's only evil when your opposition/competition is doing it. You're always the hero in your own story and for you the actions are justified because you're doing it "for good". The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Hitler was also a fan of works of art with themes of peace and harmony.

The world, at the highest levels of competition and leadership, doesn't run on morals, it runs on unscrupulous force, conquest and domination. See: the human history for the past infinity years. Those who tried to maintain peace on morals instead of force, got eliminated form the gene pool. People should remember this more often.

> See: the human history for the past infinity years. Those who ran on morals instead of force, got eliminated form the gene pool. People should remember this more often.

Fortunately not so; some time around 50-100kya, humans rapidly became a whole lot nicer to each other.

Kya? No idea what you mean.

Contextually clear that this is a stand in for “thousand years ago.”

Ah ok thanks, then that's false.

Thiel on the whole is just providing technology that can be used for good or evil. The decision to deport pro palestinian protesters is down to Trump who was chosen by the American voters.

Thiel and Karp have both said in various places that western civilization is worth saving and that it's better that we develop this power than enemies of the West, and I'm not going to lie, I'm inclined to agree with them.

Do you really think Putin, Xi and Khamenei are better stewards of the world than the West?

The West's introspective nature is good and all, but sometimes we unwittingly forget that there is actual evil in the world, and it's much worse than saying mean things on Twitter, or putting facts above feelings.

Students in Iran literally die protesting the regime, meanwhile students here who live a life of luxury and don't know what actual oppression is "protest"/simp for the Iranians (or one of their various proxies)...

> Do you really think Putin, Xi and Khomeini are better stewards of the world than the West?

I'm sure they're saying the same things about the West.

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/355/607/670

Of course they say the same things about the West. Especially North Korea, which is the epitome of human achievement.

Saying it doesn't make it true though.

>North Korea

Maybe try addressing a more serious version of my argument rather than the weakest thing you can strawman.

[flagged]

Thiel himself is part of a "protected class". If I was a standard consumer/ believer of leftist news publications wouldn't it be the time to defend him and say the reason he's being attacked is because he's a homosexual? If not, why should I believe it any other time they toss that accusation around?

Maybe you should consider this evidence that gay people aren't a "protected class" in the first place.

Maybe there were never any such classes to begin with? And the party that sold them to us was lying?

"Leftist", "Rightist", and much "news" in general rots your brain by promulgating broken paradigms. This applies regardless of whether you think of yourself as supporting or opposing any given narrative.

You're twisting your thinking in knots acting like the authority claimed by some news, then contradicting itself, creates authority to the contrary. Really you're just helping spread brain rot.

Absurd. It's literally impossible, by definition, for gay white males to enact racist policy or otherwise act in ways harmful to minorities. "Gay" and "racist" are mutually exclusive terms, again by definition.

This is a very strange argument. I don’t have a problem in principle with a country developing a security apparatus. It’s how they use it, is the issue. The current US regime doesn’t feel like a particularly custodian of Western, liberal democracy

> The current US regime doesn’t feel like a particularly custodian of Western, liberal democracy

With it's middle finger to due process and courts, it clearly isn't. It's a particularly un-American administration.

That's a bit of a strawman argument, no? The options are not only become a tyrant or let Putin rule the world. There's many and more clever options. I think we can demand much better from the people in power.

Also, that rhetoric of The West vs the world is a bit lazy. Things are more complex, even recent events prove The West is not a unified block where everyone thinks the same way.

And it is forgotten that people will do evil under the auspices of “western ideals” and power unchecked leads to an erosion of those ideals.

Reminder - Iran offered support after 9/11 but instead we rebuffed them and called them part of the axis of evil just because. Right at a time when they were really modernizing again but our jingoistic attitudes entrenched the autocrats further.

They agreed to a nuclear deal that we tore up just because.

We overthrew their government.

We have presidential candidates singing “bomb bomb bomb Iran” for fun.

The reason we have a bad relationship with Iran and a large reason why they have bad leaders is because the US has made it so.

So why does Iran have bad relations with most of their neighbours? Why does Iran support terrorism against countries that aren't the US?

Did the US make Iran oppress women and minorities? Everytime Iran executes people who oppose the regime, is it because the US made them do it?

I don't know the answer to your question, but it struck me that we can ask exactly the same question about the US today.

    So why does US have bad relations with most of their neighbours? Why does US support terrorism against countries? Did Iran make US oppress women and minorities?

To be fair, nearly all superpowers and regional powers in the world currently have poor relations with their neighbors lol.

USA? Check (the new entrant). China? Check. Russia? Check. India? Check. Japan? Check (too few neighbors though) Iran? Check. Israel? Check. EU? Check. Saudi Arabia? An exception. Brazil? Another exception. UK? Check. (lol)

Because Iran is Shia and the rest of its neighbours are ruled by Sunnis. Some even have majority Shia populations that can be restive under a Sunni autocrat.

Even then, Iran still has strong ties with all of those neighbors. They trade actively, US sanctions be damned, and would pounce at the opportunity to invest in Iran if given the opportunity (Iran's industries are basically all owned by the Ayatollah and IRGC currently).

Thiel has explicitly advocated for the abolition of democracy and is funding contemporary efforts to do so. What privileges our students enjoy only exist because he hasn’t succeeded yet. You pose a false choice between authoritarian regimes. Claiming that Iranian protesters have it worse so we shouldn’t protect the free speech rights of our students is similarly disingenuous. It divides people using guilt around relative privilege rather than directing our efforts to solidarity in fighting the ruling class, of which Thiel is a part.

> free speech rights of our students

Based on the article, a foreigner is being denied entry to the US. Every country has the right to do this for whatever reason they see fit. Most countries don't allow foreigners to protest, see Egypt and the March to Gaza a few days ago...

Free speech is a human right not a right of citizens. You conflate several issues here under the notion of national rights: legitimate border concerns, deportation of students as retaliation of free speech (under your umbrella term foreign protest), increasing authoritarianism in the US (which this is clearly evidence of). Nor should we take cues from governments suppressing protests against genocide. Genocide is something all people and all countries should unite against. It is a crime against humanity.

What power, specifically? Overwhelming surveillance of citizens? Whining that people attending universities in the US protested things?

Why on earth would anyone think Khomeini (who, of course, has been dead for 24 years) would ever have any say over the West?

You’re deeply afraid of a very strange bogeyman. It seems odd to pretend that Peter Thiel also fears dead men in politically/economically/socially irrelevant countries.

...Khamenei is not Khomeini

Parent had Khomeini when I replied.

Khameini, of course, also has absolutely nothing to do with anything and is a nonsensical bogeyman. He just happens to still be alive.

So far, the signs are that Trump is likely a worse steward than Xi. He just hasn't had the ability to properly fulfill his wishes.

Its funny how trump is actually helping China long term to become top superpower. He either can't see long term consequences of his emotional tantrums or simply doesn't care in the name of ego polishing games.

I categorically do not wish to live in a West perverted by Thiel and Karp’s grotesque ideology.

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