Oh please. You know exactly what the article is saying. You chose to attack the publication instead of their arguments which boils down to Thiel and friends are very much anti-regulation and if it wasn't their money they would resist government interference. Perhaps you could talk about the quoted comments from those billionaires and correct the article?
Anti-regulation on the business side, their political donations show they are very much into regulations when it comes to people and ideas that aren't "typical" and or "straight".
Great post. However, most of the people I've seen come out against Thiel have not taken this argument. They've painted it as a billionaire shutting down a news outlet and silencing free speech. Which is very far from the truth.
I don't have evidence to accuse Thiel of anything in this event, but many like Thiel, and I think Thiel too, are more concerned with power than money. Many are trying to sieze power in society (in part by creating chaos and disruption), and spend money to do it.
The article is making an argument (Thiel shows why tech billionaires are the new robber barons) and, regardless of the author's motives or background, I analyze his arguments.
Claiming "isn't saying he's wrong because of his motives" is just reinforcing what I'm trying to say.
Thiel is entitled to a lot of criticism, but this is dumbest possible criticism. If Thiel took his money out of SVB, then he didn't receive a bailout. That's 100% consistent with libertarianism. But then he's a hypocrite because he's a "tech bro" and some other "tech bros", who the article makes no effort to explain why they are libertarian, asked for bailouts.
> Even if they are reporting something that isn't libelous, they will always fear in the back of their mind that a wealthy person who doesn't like them will bring a case against them that will bankrupt them, even if what they wrote was legit, just through having to defend themselves.
So I keep reading this argument but am having a hard time accepting it because it's acting like Thiel is somehow the first person to think of something like this. If you think this will become widespread as a result of Thiel's actions, why is it not widespread already? You could make the argument that media outlets (or really anyone) were just never made aware of who was actually financing lawsuits but I'm more than certain that if it was widespread that someone would have looked into it by now.
While I, too, think Thiel's ideologies are rather nuts, I don't see any virtue in writing a hit piece about him, which is what this article basically is.
There must be something more worthwhile for journalists to write about than criticizing eccentric billionaires about how they choose to spend their money. Especially if all he's doing is investing in startups and undermining the middle class "stay in school" prejudice--as if watching generations of college drop-out billionaires wasn't enough to do that by itself.
"Do you create anything, or just criticize others work and belittle their motivations?" --Steve Jobs
Oddly, both the title and the article skip over the fact that Thiel was a founder of Palantir Technologies (which has plenty of government contracts). Conflicts of interest be damned
“I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
“Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women—two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians—have rendered the notion of ‘capitalist democracy’ into an oxymoron,”
And a quote from the article:
"The public, he [Thiel] says, doesn’t support unregulated, winner-take-all capitalism, and so he won’t support the public any longer. "
"Thiel is the lead backer of Sea-steading, a movement to create law-free floating communes and explore space, with the avowed aim of creating new POLITICAL structures even farther offshore. "
I don't see how its not obvious that Thiel's motives have an extreme conservative ideological bent. "The extension of the franchise to women" -- WTF?!
And I should have looked on Wikipedia earlier "he founded The Stanford Review, now the university's main conservative/libertarian newspaper".
Barring the fact that I don't expect to get journalistic integrity from a source such as "opendemocracy.net", I wanted to still highlight the irresponsibility in describing an individual like Thiel in such a specific way.
>What is it about Peter Thiel that you feel would raise animosity?
The article makes sure to highlight that for anyone that might have missed it :) " It’s well-positioned to cash in on more government work thanks to Thiel’s relationship with President Donald Trump."
Edit: Mentioned, sure. In the article title when he's not central to the story? Click bait.
Thiel is clearly a libertarian nutter of the Bannon varietal, from his statements and interviews.
To them "all regulations == bad," lacking nuance and honest reality in preference to utopian illusions that align with the interests of unlimited greed.
Not to speak for OP, but I think the point is obvious. Silicon Valley culture is liberal to progressive, not libertarian. That means more government intervention is the norm in the industry, not less. Thiel is more of an exception in that regard.
The entire premise that Silicon Valley has a libertarian culture is flawed, which is they the article can't back it up.
Or that the article author is Managing Director of Thiel Capital.
I'll grant this is getting into Ad hominem territory, but I point it out because an 'it's all just a performance' viewpoint seems kind of worrying when you wield signifiant influence.
reply