Comment by antonvs | Hacker News Reader

Comment by antonvs | Hacker News Reader

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The psychopathic tell is dismissing political activism as "trying to derive meaning." It's right up there with the idea that moral or ethical claims are "performative".

These kinds of claims generally come from people who don't feel any moral or ethical impulses. These people are most commonly malignant narcissists and psychopaths. A great example is Elon Musk who described empathy as a "bug".

Morality is a fundamental feature for most humans. The people who make the kinds of claims above constitute a small, single digit percentage of the population. They tend to have an outsize influence though, because they exploit the trust of others to rise to positions of power, where their lack of compunction can be an advantage.

People like Trump, Musk, and Thiel are canonical examples of this. Eventually, when their actions make things bad enough for everyone else, people tend to take action. We may be approaching a time like that. You acknowledged this yourself in earlier comments.

There are many things I consider to be deeply immoral that I nevertheless cannot change. My political activism is merely performative.

Power and wealth are already so entrenched I think we have little chance of effecting any lasting change without violence. So either I become a literal terrorist, or I enable Daniel Plainview mode. It seems to me like the rational move is to try to get rich by any means necessary so I can fuck off to somewhere isolated and never have to deal with the rotten society I hate ever again.

Most of what people call morality is just their own feelings or interest or some attempt to protect their ego, it's basically just an expression of narcissism.

The cultivation of a sense of actual morality requires a lot of study and humility and quieting your own feelings and ego. This is very difficult and most people can't do it, ideally in a healthy society the elites you have are people who can and do do this.

Ironically Thiel in particular is precisely one of these people. He's very thoughtful and well read and displays a lot of humility in his speech and conduct.

People with morals are narcissists and Peter Thiel is humble.

Well, that’s a point of view, I guess.

People with morals are moral. People often confuse morality with just their own feelings, interests, ego. If you don't understand this then likely you are not actually moral.

This is a very childlike understanding of how people engage with politics across the US. Fitting that immigrant tech workers wouldn't understand the culture then cry foul when rightfully called out on it.

Maybe DHH was right.

This is exactly how most people engage with politics across the US (and all over the world) and I am not an immigrant tech worker. Both of my grandfathers served in WW2 in the US military.

Don't really believe you, looking at past comments you don't really come across as someone raised in America while also being completely unaware of what local politics looks like or how US citizens engage with politics.

Not too mention the completely sociopathic comments made above.

Are you trying to fool me or Stephen Miller here?

I was born and raised and lived in America up until my mid 30s. I am just very clearpilled or perhaps blackpilled on the nature of things in the US. I am completely aware of how people engage in politics and I’ve lived all around the US, things just get worse and worse. Fortunately I am no longer subject to the insanity and I don’t really care anymore.

What was DHH right about? Reference went over my head

> Most of what people call morality is just their own feelings or interest or some attempt to protect their ego, it's basically just an expression of narcissism.

Oh good grief. Hot take of the month right there. All you're doing is demonstrating how uninformed you are on the subject. Can you name anything you've ever read about this?

> [Thiel] displays a lot of humility in his speech and conduct.

You can't be serious. Where in this does the talk of the "Antichrist" fit?

What kind of humility are you talking about? Because if it means intellectual modesty, willingness to acknowledge one's own fallibility, or reluctance to cast one's own political/intellectual beliefs as uniquely farsighted, Thiel's public record is not consist with "displaying a lot of humility."

The reason you call Thiel immoral or psychopathic is because he's wealthy and this evokes jealousy in you, it's a threat to your ego and your own sense of self worth.

It's really that simple and this is a good illustration of what I'm talking about.

No, Thiel is immoral because he is funding a panopticon and wants to get rid of democracy in favor of authoritarianism. It's really that simple, and your blindness to his cartoonish level of villainy is a good illustration of what everyone who is pushing back against you is talking about.

People who say they are against panopticons and for democracy are universally fine with subjecting their political enemies to panopticons and only for democracy when their side wins.

Quotes from the man himself:

On Democracy and Freedom: "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible"

On Competition: "Competition is for losers"

On Technology and Control: "One of the things I like about technology is that when technology is unregulated, you can change the world without getting approval from other people. At its best, it's not subject to democratic control and not subject to the majority, which I think is often hostile to change"

On Reputation: "I'd rather be seen as evil than incompetent"

Just because these ideas are heterodox relative to prevailing norms which makes you uncomfortable, it doesn’t make them immoral ideas.

I wouldn’t say these statements even have moral judgments in them either way. For example, this doesn’t even ascribe moral weight to “freedom” or “democracy” just that they are at odds.

This is why these types of things are better left to elite minded people who are capable of these types of discussions. You’re just responding essentially to the valence of these terms.

“Democracy = good feeling, freedom = good feeling, how can good feeling != good feeling?” This is the level at which you’re engaging.

If these were mere ideas we wouldn't have a problem. On a given day anyone can come up with worse ideas.

What makes us separate from animals and thrive as a civilization is that majority of us do not act on our intrusive ideas without consequences.

Thiel is an exception because he is acting on thsea ideas, causing harm to real innocent people, without any regard for consequences.

>This is why these types of things are better left to elite minded people who are capable of these types of discussions.

fred sanford noises WE ALL GONNA DIE

> these types of things are better left to elite minded people who are capable of these types of discussions

In a world of eye-poppingly hot takes, I commend your ability to somehow raise the bar

Bonus points for dismissing things like "you can change the world without getting approval from other people" (you could hardly ask for a more substantive topic to debate in moral philosophy than one's freedom to affect other people) as mere valence-level "how can good feeling != good feeling" sophistry

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