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Comment by cbb330 | Hacker News Reader

Yeah sure, Thiel’s money helped put his protégé Vance in the VP chair, he has real influence, no denying it.

But scroll this comment section for any critique of Thiel and you’ll see the pattern: his wealth gets attacked, his actual ideas almost never do.

Take the “Antichrist Thesis” everyone mocks. It’s Rene Girard-speak for centralized, charismatic authoritarianism that weaponizes morality and scapegoating to grab power. Think Sam Altman preaching about AGI danger while lobbying the gov for openai prioritizing and startup stifling policies. Fed government using big tech censorship for preventing hate speech. He’s been dead-on about that danger for decades.

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> his wealth gets attacked, his actual ideas almost never do

This is false. His ideas get attacked plenty because it's clear that his ideas are destructive to society. But there are only so many times one can have the "holy shit his ideas are destructive to society" conversation without talking about how the only reason his destructive ideas are front and center is because of his money.

I see multiple comments regarding his actual views. Its been pointed out multiple times that hes a believer in a dark-enlightenment, where democracy has run its course and the power should be taken from ordinary people and centralized to the aristocratic elite such as himself.

He uses alot of coded language, hence why he is often called a Crypto Fascist (Crypto as in encrypted language, not cryptocurrency) To anyone knowledgeable enough to own a basic mental cypher, they can decode fascist and monarchist language. He's very clearly a selfish person in the business of consolidating his own power over others to fulfill his outlandish fantasies.

He's deffinately not the only person in the world holding these sorts of views, there is an overabundance of sociopathic elites in the world. But Thiel is able to operate on an influence level beyond that of most sociopaths and thus his wealth is one of the most pressing issues regarding his person. This particular nutjob being far less powerful and wealthy, would preserve alot of our social order.

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