
Peter Thiel Calls Google 'Treasonous' and Says CIA Should Investigate - rbanffy
https://gizmodo.com/facebook-board-member-peter-thiel-calls-google-treasono-1836370398
======
neilv
They've both built crazy imminent totalitarian nightmares for everyone.

The disagreement here seems to concern _appearances_ atop that.

Or merely competitive rivalry, in the dystopia engineering business.

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Pandabob
More thorough notes from Thiel's speech by Bonnie Kavoussi (via Marginal
Revolution): [https://medium.com/@bonniekavoussi/notes-from-peter-
thiels-s...](https://medium.com/@bonniekavoussi/notes-from-peter-thiels-
speech-at-the-national-conservatism-conference-on-july-14-2019-6a51b26b202)

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mrkeen
> Neither Google nor a representative for Mr. Thiel responded to a request for
> comment early Monday.

Too bad, he could have spelled out in what way Google are helping the Chinese
military.

~~~
schappim
It might have had something to do with the reports of Google helping the
Chinese with touchscreen tools used in PLA fighter jets.

Google denied these reports.

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coldcode
CIA does not investigate things inside the US. That would be the FBI.

~~~
aNoob7000
I agree with your point. I wish Mr. Thiel were less conspiratorial and provide
more detailed information.

The same concerns he has about Google, anyone else can have about Planatir.

~~~
blaser-waffle
Isn't Planatir explicitly a government contractor? Like, the CIA/FBI/etc. is
buying data mining from Theil's people.

Pot-kettle-black. I wonder if some spook ripped off his software or said mean
things about his mom or something.

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moccachino
Pot calling the kettle black!

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maze-le
Calling the biggest gang around the block... interesting way to get rid of an
competitor -- tried and tested through the ages.

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bassman9000
_There is the fraud of university education. Student loan debt is not
dischargable in bankruptcy. The government can garnish your Social Security
payments when you’re 65 to pay off your student loans. I’m very optimistic
that this fraud is finally coming to an end._

There's a lot in this speech.

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gct
Peter Thiel is a blithering idiot, film at 11

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drevil-v2
That entire article is an opinion piece and not news item. I stopped reading
at the phrase "Trump regime".

These days it is impossible to find straight news without a sanctioned
political and social narrative.

No country for old men.

EDIT: The word "regime" has negative connotation meant to convey oppression
and tyranny. To call the present Amercian administration a "regime" is a slap
in the face to hundreds of millions of human beings who have suffered under a
true regime.

Go to your local retirement home and speak to someone who has lived through
those times. Words like that should not be casually thrown about.

~~~
JaimeThompson
How is that not a valid word choice? Regime - Mode or system of rule or
management; character of government, or of the prevailing social system.

~~~
drevil-v2
The word "regime" has negative connotation meant to convey oppression and
tyranny. To call the present Amercian administration a "regime" is a slap in
the face to hundreds of millions of human beings who have suffered under a
true regime.

~~~
aNoob7000
I agree with you that words matter, but Trump and his administration use of
words can also be condemned. His use of the phrase "Fake News" for every
unflattering news piece is just as terrible.

Unfortunately, we are in a race to the bottom with what people say in this new
social media/Twitter world.

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playing_colours
Sorry for this off-topic comment, I am not pro-Trump and not American, but I
cannot help but have negative feelings towards the obvious grains of bias
against Trump and Thiel in the article. Probably, because I am from an ex-
Soviet bloc country and sensitive to the media propaganda language. Examples:

\- “the Trump regime”. We use “regime” for the countries led by dictators who
are not friends of USA, right? Since when Trump is a dictator?

\- Mentioning Thiel’s comments about fat people, etc. How does it contribute
to the main problem? It looks like another cheap manipulation - like “boo,
see, Thiel is crazy!”

~~~
mises
Your point about "regime" is dead on. I never heard the phrase "Obama regime";
it was always "administration". Our media has a sickeningly blatant leftward
bias, unless you go to fringe conspiracy sites which are no news at all. There
are a few good ones, but not many.

~~~
moccachino
I don't want to get into politics much here but I have to respond to this. I'm
not American but from where I stand I see that Trump is trying his best to
turn his presidency into a dictatorship. He also admires and enjoys the
company of actual dictators. So using this word as a form of criticism is not
unfounded.

Also, it's not the general rule, most articles I see use 'administration'.

And I don't think it's the media who has a leftward bias, rather the
Republican Party has moved way way out on the fringe. If you look globally,
the average Democratic office holder would be a right wing politician in most
other countries.

~~~
xibalba
> And I don't think it's the media who has a leftward bias

Leftward bias has been repeatedly demonstrated in the literature.

Your belief that there is no media bias may in fact be evidence of your own
biases. This too is supported in the literature. I.e., there is evidence that
media which confirms our beliefs is viewed as higher quality than that which
disconfirms.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Leftward bias has been repeatedly demonstrated in the literature.

No, it hasn't, and if it had, the Right wouldn't keep spinning findings of a
predominance of Democratic Party membership among media employees as if it
were the same thing as a finding of leftward bias.

~~~
xibalba
> No, it hasn't

This was a 2 minute search of Google Scholar:

^1 "...the mainstream press in America operate within a narrow range of
liberal beliefs... only a narrow band of liberal thought is supported by the
press"

^2 "Our results show a strong liberal bias"

[1]
[https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jim_Kuypers/publication...](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jim_Kuypers/publication/318990476_Press_Bias_and_Politics_How_the_Media_Frame_Controversial_Issues/links/5a8e207faca272c56bc40dc2/Press-
Bias-and-Politics-How-the-Media-Frame-Controversial-Issues.pdf)

[2] [https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-
abstract/120/4/1191/192...](https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-
abstract/120/4/1191/1926642)

~~~
aNoob7000
The sad thing about left or right bias is that it is all the same thing. The
left doesn't care about what the right says, and the right doesn't care about
what the left says.

Unfortunately, there is no more compromise in today's world. People just want
to win because even giving up even a small amount of ground to an opponent is
considered a complete failure.

~~~
bin0
I personally blame social media for a lot oft this. Mob mentality has been a
problem since forever, but Twitter has created a nation-wide 24/7 mob which is
angrier than ever and never disbands. I blame that for the elections of
President Trump, Congresswoman Ocasio, and other such divisive figures. I also
think it's responsible for the phenomenon of each "side" seeing the other as
morally wrong, inuhame, and almost not people. It's been known for a while
we're meaner on-line because we can't see any one on the other side; I think
that's a significant part of the problem.

This, of course, begs the question: how do you fix it? I don't know.

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drivingmenuts
Hmm. Weird. I thought Libertarians were free to do business with whom they
choose.

I guess only when it's to their own advantage.

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Barrin92
>According to other attendees at the conference on Sunday, Thiel also said
that Americans were too fat and addicted to drugs, adding that, “the biggest
problem in our society is the problem of political correctness.”[...] Thiel
said that any links between Google and China, “need to be asked by the FBI, by
the CIA, and I’m not sure quite how to put this, I would like them to be asked
in a not excessively gentle manner.”

No offense, but has Thiel completely lost it? He's starting to sound deranged.
Is he seriously suggesting civilian Google employees should be interrogated by
three letter agencies to institute some sort of state capitalism in the US?
For all the scaremongering about China he doesn't seem to have a lot of
problems with applying their methods

~~~
vikramkr
I thought he was some sort of ultra libertarian- apparently he isn't since
he's pushing for the government to interfere with business and interrogate
civilians over a perceived threat.

~~~
notahacker
He cofounded Palantir. Not sure his libertarianism goes much beyond a desire
to reduce his tax bill.

~~~
blaser-waffle
Sounds like classic Tea Party Libertarianism then.

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linkregister
There is almost no substance to this news story, or of the quote's
newsworthiness. Taken in context, Thiel is employing speculative rhetoric.

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julienreszka
At this point Peter is only pointing out the obvious. YC isn't that innocent
either regarding influence from China
[https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/1/18511540/silicon-
valley-...](https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/5/1/18511540/silicon-valley-
foreign-money-china-saudi-arabia-cfius-firrma-geopolitics-venture-capital)

