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dothedewJ.K. Trotter
7/21/16 6:07pm
Dress it up in whatever fancy terminology you want, but Peter Thiel is an asshole and an anarchist and the philosophy he espouses is completely antithetical to that supported by Trump and his most vocal supporters, which is economic protectionism in which the State is the entity forcing manufacturers to make things in the US, for example.
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  RollinDoobiesUpdothedew
  7/21/16 6:13pm
  >Peter Thiel is ... an anarchist
  
  N o p e
  
  Fiefdom is not anarchy
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  Sid and Financydothedew
  7/21/16 6:13pm
  He’s the worst kind of asshole anarchist. One who got his and thinks only idiots can’t get their own.
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gramercypoliceJ.K. Trotter
7/21/16 6:36pm
Great analysis, but I think you give the other Valley elite way too much credit. Zuckerberg and Andreessen and Tom Perkins and Larry Page and Sergey Brin and the people who run Uber, Theranos, Airbnb, and lots, if not most, of the tech companies in the Valley truly hate the idea of democracy and egalitarianism, worker protections, social fabric (irl, i mean — virtual societies are applauded), and the idea of a middle class. They don’t know wtf Thiel is talking about, but 99% of them are scared to say they see anything wrong with it because they don’t.

Living in the Valley does that to people. The primary goal of most Valley tech companies is to eliminate employment without replacing it for the displaced workers, and to avoid any contact with any human who is not either in the technology cult or servants of the members of that cult.

My favorite anecdotes that really illustrate the mental state of the Valley are these:

When BART workers went on strike, the tech world’s solution was, “We need to make these trains run without human drivers.” Not, “How do we help these workers get a fair shake?” More like, “How do we go about punishing people who are not sufficiently subservient to us?”

And recently, when the SF area transit agency did a survey, SFist found that employees at various tech behemoths said that if they had to walk more than 5 minutes to catch their tech bus, they would drive instead. Five minutes. Most of these people are in their 20s and 30s and they can’t walk more than 5 minutes.

They represent back to Thiel what Thiel represents to them: an intellectually lazy, morally dishonest, socially dismissive philosophy that says only they know whose life is worthwhile. And for Thiel, the candidate who is best positioned to help him make other people miserable is Donald Trump. Being a billionaire, by itself, isn’t good enough. Other people must be cheapened and miserable.

It’s a contagious philosophy for dim-wits to adopt. And the Valley is full of dim-wits who think that developing an app that lets you draw a beard on a selfie is the same thing as “changing the world.”

Either I'm right, or I'm just really mad that Miranda Kerr accepted an engagement ring from that dipshit at Sanpchat. But maybe it's both.
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  belly83gramercypolice
  7/21/16 6:44pm
  This is beautiful poetry. Thank you. I am hoping that there will in the not-too-distant future be a big backlash against SV and its pathetic solipsism. It’s honestly one of my (numerous) problems with Clinton, by which I mean her courting of the tech industry and vague suggestions that SV-style “innovation” and “entrepreneurship” are key for growing the economy. News flash, being a part of a startup - not even actually being the founder - is generally hell and 9 times out of 10 you end up broke, as well as physically and emotionally exhausted. Not that I’m bitter or anything.
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  lilyblue68gramercypolice
  7/21/16 7:30pm
  Miranda Kerr is a notoriously unpleasant person
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Bolivia Newton JohnJ.K. Trotter
7/21/16 6:17pm
If it makes you feel better, society goes through one of these guys every generation. Starting with the Gilded Age, we have eccentric luminaries such as Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Astor, all of which who sought to remake the world in their own image. These gentlemen inevitably gave way to the renaissanceical lunacy of Howard Hughes, who spent millions on planes that didn’t fly, poisoned actors with radioactive sand to make c-list movies, and spent the latter years of his life guarding his precious, precious capital from IRS mosquitos by hiding his emaciated being in countless penthouses throughout the American West. We could go on about the cocaine addled corporate raiders of the 80s, the dot-com boom renegades of the 90s, and the start-up darlings of the last fifteen years to bring us to Thiel, but the point is this: any mark that these men left of the world was ultimately minuscule in comparison to the societies that developed in their wake, in spite of their best efforts. By looking at a list of our fallen social superiors, all we find are the worthless socialite pups sucking at the rotting, deceased teat of their forbearers opulent corpses. Thiel will lose, just like the Carnegie’s and Rockefeller’s before him, because like them, he will fly too close to the sun and our democratic processes will melt his wings. While his tactics may be ruthless now, our appellate courts will look to this precedent with the same horror they have over the last 125 years and will check it just as they always have. Our legislatures will have no choice but to follow suit, just as they have in the past with anti-monopoly laws, trust busting, labor regulations, and the ever blanket to ward off the chilling effect against the free press.

Give it time, kids.
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  XrdsAlumBolivia Newton John
  7/21/16 6:42pm
  Just keep in mind that his alt-right movement openly and proudly opposes democratic institutions (like appellate courts, elected legislatures, a free press, etc.). All of the others you mentioned at the very least paid lip service to those values being exceptionally American and patriotic, and the worst they did was purchase them wholesale.
  
  Thiel and his bunch are open in their desire to eliminate those institutions entirely as “outmoded” and “alien” (code for “Jewish” in some of their circles), and he’ll be looking to try to mainstream that view to GOP voters. It won’t be an easy trick to sneak those ideas in, but he has an audience that’s right-wing authoritarian at heart and that worships rich people. We have to be especially vigilant with these characters.
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  Classicblanca FilmBolivia Newton John
  7/21/16 7:54pm
  Just a brief detour off subject as an FYI to you, Film historian here BTW. The cancer thing on The Conquerer is a myth. (Wayne, most notably already had bouts of cancer before the film.) The tests happened of course, but it had nothing to do with the actors getting cancer. And when compared the amount of crew on that film who got cancer weren’t any different than any other film with a crew of similar size of the time. Rates were high across the industry then (and society), a byproduct of the mores of the day of constant chain smoking, high levels alcohol consumption being a common socially acceptable practice, and exposure to hazardous materials used in the industry and during the war years (in which many of the men served) like asbestos, among other things. Hughes did awful shit (like mowing down a pedestrian in Hollywood), but that wasn’t one. He’s also quite different from Thiel in that half the time he was so crazed he could barely function. He was hardly threatening to the public at large like Thiel is.
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99Telep☺dpr☹blemsJ.K. Trotter
7/21/16 6:04pm
To skull fuck Nick Denton for starters, I would assume.
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  MBCock99Telep☺dpr☹blems
  7/21/16 6:05pm
  TRUMP BUILDS WALL AROUND GAWKER, MAKES DENTON PAY FOR IT
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  Sobchak Security99Telep☺dpr☹blems
  7/21/16 6:08pm
  OVER THE LINE!
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robertogreenJ.K. Trotter
7/21/16 7:15pm
Seasteading is a very silly and poorly thought out idea, that founders upon the very least amount of diligence. a person who would promulgate such an idea is mostly just intellecually a dullard.

but peter will drive in car that was partially developed with gov’t subsidies down sand hill road, paid for with tax dollars, to sit in an office reserved for him at palantir, a company that has as its main clients the NSA and the CIA, counting his money all made from being lucky in bets about the internet. which used to be called the darpanet. which was developed with taxpayer money at educational institutions. i’m a marginally clever guy and i can tear his horseshit apart in 30 seconds, so i’m thinking that where hulk hogan was ultimately terrified of being found to be a straight up racist, simple and plain, thiel terror comes from the world figuring out that he’s a fucking moron.
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  GuyFromIpanemarobertogreen
  7/21/16 8:43pm
  This is the best comment I’ve read so far about Thiel.
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  Kony! Koni! Koné!robertogreen
  7/21/16 11:12pm
  So if im reading you correctly, your saying that Peter Thiel is Otto from “A Fish Called Wanda”
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BCDFGJ.K. Trotter
7/21/16 6:29pm
IMHO, never forget that Thiel came to the U.S. from a West German family. Post-WWII Germany’s built a class system where the working class does far better than economically than working class Americans, but at the cost of a high degree of of social stratification. E.g., working class goes to vocational school, because that’s what the working class is good for —not thinking, because that promotes social disorder (as happened in 1968 with the student uprisings —coincidentally, when his father packed up the family and left for California).

So I’d put forward that the way Thiel views politics is give poor people their free shit to keep them happy, but keep them away from the levers of power. Stratify government so that it’s the philosopher kings like him calling the shots. Everything gets looked over by machines of loving grace.

Not coincidentally, running things according to this kind of outlook depends heavily on maintaining necessary illusions and obfuscations of what powerful people do behind closed doors —which is opposed to what a free press does. And they ask really inconvenient questions, like why the fuck would you care so much about being outed, when you’re willing to take billions from people who behead people just like you?
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  CharitybBCDFG
  7/21/16 7:01pm
  “why the fuck would you care so much about being outed, when you’re willing to take billions from people who behead people just like you?”
  
  I get what you’re saying, but isn’t the fact that he works with people who “behead” gay people a perfect reason why he wouldn’t want to be outed? I mean, shit, isn’t that more or less why gay people are ever in the closet — because they suspect that something bad will happen to them (legally, socially, physically, economically) if they were outed? I’m not justifying Thiel’s subsequent actions but I can’t really get behind the idea that he isn’t supposed to be angry that a total stranger randomly decided to share his sexual orientation with the world.
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  HelioBCDFG
  7/21/16 11:44pm
  Thanks for the background. I never would have bothered to look that up. Do you read Matt Taibbi? His latest article talks about the liberal thinkers, if you will, who are expressing even less confidence than usual in the masses voting/having the levers of power.
  
  We’re all guilty of feeling this way; Idiocracy is referenced daily. But especially after Brexit and now Trump, this promotion of, or at least openness to, rule By Experts/Elites whatever, is a bipartisan thing. Which is more worrisome.
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festivusaziliJ.K. Trotter
7/21/16 6:11pm
My bet is that Thiel comes out as a full-bore neoreactionary. It’s where his philosophy is headed, and it’s what the Trumpalos want to hear. All hail King Trump, our benevolent overlord.
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  XrdsAlumfestivusazili
  7/21/16 6:34pm
  He’s already there, the sugar daddy of the movement. I’m sure he sees King Donald like Cersei Lannister saw King Robert.
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  festivusaziliXrdsAlum
  7/21/16 6:48pm
  He’s currently more of an anarchocapitalist than a neoreactionary. Support for Trump indicates he’s willing to transition through some totalitarian system (or maybe societal collapse?) to get where he wants to be. But I don’t think he’s thrown his lot in with the National CEO crowd yet.
  
  Either way, he’s a shitty human being. As much as I disagree with them, I think most people at least believe (however misguidedly) that their preferred policies will result in the best outcome for the most people. Thiel has completely abandoned that in favor of “Fuck you, I’ve got mine.”
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CharitybJ.K. Trotter
7/21/16 6:06pm
“What does Peter Thiel want?”

“Vengeance. Justice. Fire and blood.”
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  PanamaJack69Charityb
  7/21/16 6:13pm
  This.
  
  I just love these ‘leave us, peter, what do you even want!’ pieces. It should be clear what he wants. Gawker fucked with an even bigger bully them themselves and now cries like a little bitch ( or like Jared in prison).
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  I Am No OneCharityb
  7/21/16 6:50pm
  +1 Varys
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#NotAllYzermanJ.K. Trotter
7/21/16 6:04pm
To not be outed as a gay dude.
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  Ihpsdm#NotAllYzerman
  7/21/16 6:15pm
  Cue Thiel’s lawyers in 3......2.....1.........
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  LocalSP#NotAllYzerman
  7/21/16 6:25pm
  And yet there he’ll be addressing those that see him as an abomination and would like to see him dead.
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Murry ChangJ.K. Trotter
7/22/16 8:31am
“Thiel now believes that higher education is an elaborate scam.”

He may be a huge douchbag, but he’s not wrong about this one.
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  Pokemongo just pawn in game of lifeMurry Chang
  7/23/16 10:49am
  To an extent....Ill allow that for some of the softer disciplines....but I want my doctors and engineers to have formal training....MBAs, however...
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  Murry ChangPokemongo just pawn in game of life
  7/23/16 10:57am
  I’m not saying doctors and engineers shouldn’t have formal training, but the costs are stupidly high and not getting any better.
  
  Sure, stats say that, on average, a sheepskin will make you more money but that actually doesn’t mean anything to many people because the people on the top end of the scale making lots of money obscure the fact that there are a lot of people on the low end of the scale who really wasted a lot of dough for something that doesn’t help them make more money at all.
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TRUMP BUILDS WALL AROUND GAWKER, MAKES DENTON PAY FOR IT