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If it weren’t for him, neoreactionaries, techno-commercialists/libertarians, the IDW, and the New Right would not be a thing. Fuck him.

I’ve always had the impression he covertly funded thinly veiled racist thinktank concepts like “cliodynamics”, but in actuality I don’t know anything about what he did that made the “New Right” happen. Are there receipts here or do we just assume?

I can’t escape the feeling that this whole “New Right” concept has given us a slight misperception that Christian white supremacism wasn’t around before. But it has been the basis of conservatism for how long now?

Is the argument that Thiel is the one who reconnected the anti-SJWs from nihilism back to the high-falutin’ white supremacy of types like Allan Bloom and Rene Girard? I do admit individuals can have large impacts. Anne Coulter has had a really big impact on politics in her lifetime and her book Adios was the template for Trump’s campaign. Coulter dedicated one of her last books to Thiel.

Thiel funded the Silicon Valley side, Mercer funded a lotta the others
Y'know, I was going to ask how you know this to be true, but it's frankly a stupid question on my part. No one needs a paper trail to know, since he hobknobbed directly with them at gatherings and is rich af. I've suspected that a bunch of smaller rationalist-adjacent groups are funded by him and pretend to have ordinary goals. One group I spoke to did expensive leadership consulting that sounded totally banal under the hood, but told me they also thought about "civilization-scale problems" which is often thin cover for alt-right stuff.
the surprising thing is that there isn't documentation of Thiel and Mercer working together - and they know a lot of the same conservative culture war crew in common (e.g., George Gilder).
> thinly veiled racist thinktank concepts like "cliodynamics" wot
Sorry, wasn't "cliodynamics" invented by Peter Turchin? As far as I know the guy has no connection to Thiel and in fact despises Trump.
Sure. I am never going to read about cliodynamics in any detail, so feel free to dismiss my comment as anti-intellectual. But the people I've met who are interested in cliodynamics are always doing that "fall of Rome" "decadent America" type shit with it. It doesn't surprise me that I google cliodynamics and someone talking about it on Unz Review comes up second. >In my Facebook Note, Musings on the decline and fall of civilizations, I draw a link between the fast population increase / abundance of the “rise” period, and the concept of the “Golden Age” common to all civilizations. Also ventures a theory as to why cities (hedonism, conspicuous consumption, etc) have such a poor reputation as a harbinger of collapse… because they are, it’s just that the anti-poshlost preachers haven’t identified the right cause (i.e. overpopulation, not “moral decadence” per se). I don't like anything that trends toward these sorts of explanations, and on the face of it I don't accept anyone who even *wants* to somehow make sure we apply political problems of, say, Rome to the United States or current global economy. It seems more anti-intellectual to me than my own view, being confident that postmodern post-industrial global economies in climate change will be adequately shoehorned into a comparison with Rome. I am open to being convinced but the discourse I see around these topics is always thinly veiled "overpopulation" and "degeneracy" arguments.

Way pre-dates Thiel:

https://www.alamut.com/subj/ideologies/pessimism/califIdeo_I.html

Yeah but it wasn't coupled with extreme cultural and social conservatism then.

He is actually three distinct piles of shit in a trenchcoat.

Oh man, the way Michael Vassar talked about Peter Thiel, you’d think he was vampire Jesus. At least he got the first part right.

Also: Quantico made fun of Peter Thiel and it was amazing.

[deleted]
According to everyone I had to listen to talk about him? He has the money, which means he's smart and chosen and special. You have to understand, these are literally people who would look at my husband and go "You have an IQ of 136, why are you not a millionaire? There must have been a mistake in your test. No one who is smart isn't rich."

Also killed Gawker, the hypocrisy of which is utterly lost on his Hacker News fan club, who jump to defend the free speech of every Nazi and white supremacist.

Peter Thiel has done some shitty things, taking down a tabloid isn't one of them.
Oh please mister billionaire psycho please take down one of the few actual adversarial press outfits in the U.S. Oh yes I just love my endless diet of corporate media owned by other psycho tech billionaires.
Is it really hard so accept that an evil billionaire might occasionally do something good and that independent press might do some bad stuff, like not paying their employees? https://abcnews.go.com/Business/fed-interns-office-grievances-court/story?id=19476629 Is Gawker really the hill you want to die on?
Gawker was a not a very sympathetic publication, but I don't want to live in a world where billionaires silence criticism media outlets through legal proxy wars. Imagine if Jeffrey Epstein found a puppet to destroy Gawker before they published this: https://gawker.com/here-is-pedophile-billionaire-jeffrey-epsteins-little-b-1681383992 Is it really hard to accept that a press outlet that might have done bad stuff shouldn't have died the way it did? Also: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/08/22/gawker-has-been-gone-for-a-year-weve-never-needed-it-more-than-now/
1) It's pretty disingenuous to say Thiel shut Gawker down for criticising him. The beef stems from them outing him against his will. That's a pretty big violation of his privacy. 2) Plenty of other newspapers published Epstein stories. There are also other publications like buzzfeed that publish things WaPo won't, without outing people. 3) I don't know how anyone can see how nakedly hypocritical Gawker is and feel anything but disgust for them. https://jezebel.com/manboys-throw-tantrum-over-having-their-celebrity-nudes-1629737440 https://gawker.com/a-judge-told-us-to-take-down-our-hulk-hogan-sex-tape-po-481328088 How can anyone read these article back to back and not wonder if these people have any values at all?
Oh my you have really discovered some rank hypocrisy. Imagine having two different authors at two different verticals have different opinions. Its almost as if the different verticals in GMG had different editorial viewpoints. Next thing you'll tell me is that the writers at io9 don't have the same view point as the writers at deadspin. Thiel the head of palantir and a funder of facebook isn't exactly the greatest advocate for privacy now is he? Its almost as if he is a hypocrite. Oh no.
the employees themselves will tell you that gmg isn't perfect, but that doesn't mean they didn't and don't do some amazing independent journalism
How dare you assume irony on my part. I am just like you and love being dommed by my vampiric overlord. I welcome his abuse of the legal system to destroy the idea of a free press. I too believe that a major funder of Facebook has a deep and abiding interest in protecting privacy. I just hate myself for being too old to be a viable blood bag for his Thielness.
You're going for dry and witty but it's coming across as more insufferable.
This is such a fucking bad opinion holy shit
Billionaires shouldn't get to shut down tabloids that they don't like.
If Gawker didn't break the law Thiel couldn't have done anything to them. It sucks that you have be to a billionaire to get justice but Gawker getting shut down was absolutely just. Legality aside, Gawker outed many gay people against their will. They were morally and legally in the wrong.
Banned for defending thiel's actions wrt gawker
It's a good thing scummy tabloids have brave mods like you to defend them.
Cope
Gawker was fun, and I loved the writers and the content, but they totally had it coming.
They outed him

Don’t forget about the whole “vampirism” thing!

Please. We prefer the term, "hemoglobinally deficient photophobes".
Hey that's me >:(

That’s an awful lot to hang on one guy. Like the Great Man Theory, but for rich assholes.

peter thiel is the worst person in the entire world

what a controversial take

https://youtu.be/PXNe7vVTnkw
This is the kind of thing someone would say if they’ve spent so much time hanging out with the fascists at r/unpopularopinion that they’ve forgotten that you can express a thought without performing the whole chud “I know this won’t be popular BUT...” kabuki.

Well that’s not terribly controversial.

quite...