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The Education of a Libertarian (2009) - Peter Thielwww.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian/
606 sats \ 8 comments \ @k00b 6 Mar BooksAndArticles
This is most often shared out of context to highlight Thiel's misogyny:
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.
In Thiel's quantum fashion, it's pretty black-pilled and simultaneously optimistic:
I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.
In our time, the great task for libertarians is to find an escape from politics in all its forms
Because there are no truly free places left in our world, I suspect that the mode for escape must involve some sort of new and hitherto untried process that leads us to some undiscovered country; and for this reason I have focused my efforts on new technologies that may create a new space for freedom.
Anyway, it's a great read. I wish Thiel would write another book or something - all of his writing is strewn about.
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100 sats \ 7 replies \ @elvismercury 6 Mar
I struggle so hard with this guy. He's talked about like some genius messiah, but I usually find his takes ... underwhelming. Good at business, though.
I'm reading this(pdf) from him right now.
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63 sats \ 6 replies \ @k00b OP 6 Mar
I'm probably easy to impress. In contrast to most people thinking about these things, he's thinking with the purpose of acting on his thoughts, with an enormous arsenal of resources that only one-in-ten-million people have, and sharing them. That's what I imagine we're all hypnotized by.
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145 sats \ 5 replies \ @elvismercury 6 Mar
That sounds right. It's like he's a smart, thoughtful guy who's trying to understand the world, with a billion dollars of influence to exert. I think we're so used to the mega-rich who are good at business, but not at all thoughtful about anything else, and with no aspirations larger than increasing their own stack, that when one appears we're collectively mesmerized.
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188 sats \ 4 replies \ @SimpleStacker 6 Mar
I don't agree with a lot of Thiel's views, but I do think he's an insightful thinker.
I think it was Thiel who said, "We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters," referring to how all the tech talent was getting employed on socially trivial (and even destructive) things
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30 sats \ 3 replies \ @k00b OP 6 Mar
It was him that said that. The bigger point he was making, at the time and continues to make now, is that we've technologically stagnated outside of the narrow cone of information tech.
More recently (it seems) he's concluded we didn't get flying cars because we are afraid of destroying ourselves.
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177 sats \ 2 replies \ @SimpleStacker 6 Mar
I think one thing I appreciate so much about Elon is that he seems to be one of the few people trying to bring back the spirit of exploration and of mastering the elements back into the tech world
we got so wrapped up in doomsday thinking about climate, inequality, and just short-sighted financial gain, that we stopped reaching for the stars, but reaching for the stars is what we need to do to tackle those other problems
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