
Is Trump mulling Peter Thiel for a top intelligence advisory post? - dlp211
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/09/donald-trump-peter-thiel-top-intelligence-advisory-post
======
rrggrr
Rumours of Theils maleavolence are greatly exaggerated. His bio better
resembles a modern day Ross Perot, libertarian and all. Network analysis and
data mining inteilligence toolsets were used in the intel comminity lkng
before Palantir, same as mercenaries were vighting foreign wars ling before
Blackwater. A real problem in government is lack of domain expetise in
oversight. Heres a chance to have some of that if the article is correct.

~~~
confounded
Perot was in favor of direct democracy, Theil believes that democracy is
making things too difficult for capitalism. Perot was in favor of increasing
taxes on the rich, Theil is effectively a feudalist.

Both men were billionaires who invested in computing and were involved in the
'military industrial complex'. But the word 'libertarian' has been dragged so
far to the right in the US in recent years that it's not a meaningful category
to compare the two with.

~~~
hal9000xp
I'm tired of two so wide spread dogmas - "will of majority is absolute good",
"rich owes money to society, so we need rip them off".

I lived in Sweden and now I live in the Netherlands. You have better chance to
meet alien from another galactic than a person who doesn't believe in these
dogmas. So I definitely see absolute political monogamy here.

In centralized democracy high earners have absolutely no voice. I.e. formally
they can vote but they will be always in the minority. So middle class and
ultra-rich rule the game. Ones through voting, others through lobbying.

So middle class can very effectively rips off high earners (a good example -
Sweden). In other words, middle class strive to "equalize" them as they are
not normal. They completely forgot that high earners already brought value to
society while earning their money.

The culture in many western european countries despise those who want to stand
out of the crowd. So in this sense the crowd is against highly motivated and
ambitious people.

That's why I don't believe that Europe could beat Silicon Valley without
significant cultural shift.

Here are things I deeply hate in Swedish culture:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante)

Very similar ideologically thing in Dutch culture "Doe Normaal" which often
translates to English as "Act normal, it's already crazy enough".

Fortunately not every swede or dutch likes these "normality" things.

~~~
d--b
That is certainly not true. In the US, republicans control the presidency and
congress. It means that somewhere around 50% of american people believe that
the rich should be taxed much less. I believe a similar fraction of European
countries believe that too.

The rich (whether they're on the left or on the right) have a massive impact
on the media. Think Rupert Murdoch, think Oprah.

There are 27 billionaires in Sweden. For a population of 10 million people.
Per capita, that's about twice as much as the US.

Stop feeling victimized for being on the right. The rich pay taxes, so that
society seems fairer to those millions of people who make everything that the
rich consume. Tough luck, but guess what, you can still become super rich, so
what's the issue?

You can talk to anyone who's worth more than 100 million: being twice as rich
won't change a damn thing to their way of life. At this stage, it's only a
matter of power and counting points.

~~~
hal9000xp
In Sweden, you will pay 58% from your every Swedish krona for monthly salary
above 55000 SEK (6873 USD). So social-democrats believe you are already rich
having monthly income just above 6873 USD. At that level of income you have
absolutely no vote over majority and you have zero lobby power and you
obviously don't control any media. Having that level of income is already not
normal and according to social-democrats you have to be "equalized".

So when I hear "rich should pay their fair share", I know they are going after
me! I've _never_ seen social-democrat policies which touch only billionaires
as they constantly claim!

The pretty similar situation all across Europe with exception of German
cantons of Switzerland.

Yet ripping off upper middle class so effectively, western European socialists
still constantly complain about "inequality". Which means, they are not
satisfied to taking only 58% from me, they want more, much more. In fact, I
believe they will be not satisfied until everybody is completely "equalized to
death".

I honestly do NOT believe that I owe anything to poor people. And I'm saying
that as a person who born in Uzbekistan and lived in extreme poverty (my
income in 2003 was ... 10 USD per month).

~~~
croon
> I honestly do NOT believe that I owe anything to poor people. And I'm saying
> that as a person who born in Uzbekistan and lived in extreme poverty (my
> income in 2003 was ... 10 USD per month).

May I ask you why you moved to Sweden? or Amsterdam? Where they also have the
"Doe Normaal" mindset which you say you take issue with.

You say that you don't believe that you owe anything, but immediately
afterwards say that you were poor not even 15 years ago.

Are you absolutely certain that you are 100% responsible for your success, or
is it possible that the luxuries of both these "socialist" countries awarded
you the opportunities not found in your (original) homeland?

I don't doubt that the tax brackets could be improved, inefficiencies in
government could be ironed out, etc, but it's a bit much to criticize two
systems that awarded you such success, don't you think?

~~~
hal9000xp
> May I ask you why you moved to Sweden? or Amsterdam?

I moved here because choose least worst option, not because I appreciate
socialism and high taxes. In Uzbekistan, taxation is also very high but in
different dimension - the government squeeze you via high inflation (by
printing money) and unofficial taxation (corruption).

 _I 'm logically consistent_ since Uzbekistan is on 148th place in rating of
economy freedom (read it as how economically liberal the government), Russia
(my second country) is on 114th place, Sweden (my third country) is on 19th
place, the Netherlands is on 15th place.

So as you can see I move to more liberal country each time in terms of economy
freedom and taxation (in Russia real taxes are high by the same reason as in
Uzbekistan).

Liberal economic policies are core reason why western Europe stays afloat
_despite_ (!) socialist policies and high taxation.

People in Uzbekistan and Russia are _less_ capitalist than in western Europe.

Yes, I'm absolutely sure that my little success is _despite_ socialist
polities and more generally the Government (Uzbekistan, Russia, Sweden, the
Netherlands).

Look, I've never received any help from government. I don't have any formal
education (neither school nor university). I'm self-taught. I have zero
inheritance. Everything I've earn was from private enterprise.

------
electriclove
> “Peter has indicated that if he takes the P.I.A.B. position he intends to
> take a comprehensive look at the U.S. intelligence community’s information-
> technology architecture. He is super-concerned about Amazon and Google”—and
> Facebook, less so.

Is that because he invested in Facebook early on?

~~~
beambot
Any mention of massive conflicts of interest with Palantir?

------
intopieces
> Thiel reportedly doubled-down and immediately donated $1.25 million to
> Trump’s campaign

Can someone describe corruption and help me understand how it differs from
this situation?

~~~
Turing_Machine
Personally, I find an explicit campaign contribution to be considerably less
sleazy than paying a politician hundreds of thousands of dollars for "making a
speech" (a very popular ruse with the Clintons, and now Obama). Less sleazy in
that campaign funds have to be accounted for (i.e., actually spent on the
campaign, or retained for a future campaign) while "speaking fees" can be
spent any way you want.

~~~
elefanten
False equivalence. Campaign contributions and personal income are separate
categories.

It might feel unsavory that those speeches are indeed personal income for the
long list of politicians, from both left and right, who have engaged in that
practice. But those events aren't about buying influence, they're about rich
wankers feeling special because they get to hear some bullshit commencement
address from important people behind closed doors.

Those private speeches don't buy any more influence than campaign
contributions... which is to say rather little for the presidency. The higher
the office, the more visibility and intervening forces there are to keep you
from making arbitrary policy in favor of donors.

To be clear, I agree these things are bad. And we should strive to remove them
entirely from our democracy. But the magnitude of both campaign contributions
and private event income is routinely overstated these days.

~~~
KVFinn
>It might feel unsavory that those speeches are indeed personal income for the
long list of politicians, from both left and right, who have engaged in that
practice. But those events aren't about buying influence, they're about rich
wankers feeling special because they get to hear some bullshit commencement
address from important people behind closed doors.

Also about the fact that people are more likely to sign over millions of
dollars in accounts to be managed after they are hanging out in the glow after
shaking the hands of somebody they admire. The bank hires Neil Degrasse Tyson
or any other celebrity for the same reason. They make money even after
spending hundreds of thousands of dollars.

------
mtgx
> _“Peter has indicated that if he takes the P.I.A.B. position he intends to
> take a comprehensive look at the U.S. intelligence community’s information-
> technology architecture. He is super-concerned about Amazon and Google”—and
> Facebook, less so. “He feels they have become New Age global fascists in
> terms of how they’re controlling the media, how they’re controlling
> information flows to the public, even how they’re purging people from think
> tanks. He’s concerned about the monopolistic tendencies of [all three]
> companies and how they deny economic well-being to people they disagree
> with._

I'm confused. I thought Thiel _loved monopolies_. Isn't that all he preaches
about in one of his books, that you should create a monopoly ASAP? Or does he
only love _his monopolies_ or the ones he's been involved in - such as
Facebook? And is that why he's willing to give Facebook a pass?

~~~
xiaoma
If you read the book, he directly explains that what's ideal for a company
isn't necessarily what's ideal for society. For a company's founders or
investors, it's pretty much always good to become a monopoly and that's
completely legal, too. The anti-trust problems happen after a company already
is a monopoly. The US government seems to have essentially ignored anti-trust
issues during the Bush/Obama era, but enforcement used to be common.

During the MS anti-trust case in the 90s, it was common to hear things like
"becoming a monopoly should be the goal of any business but once they succeed
they can't use that monopoly to compete unfairly for another." It was lauded
that the created the DOS/Windows monopoly, but it was illegal to force
suppliers to bundle MS Word, IE or Media Player with each system and it was
illegal to prevent them from pre-installing Word Perfect, Netscape or Real
Player.

I don't think MS would have survived so unscathed if Gore had won, but it's
impossible to know for sure. The political administration has a huge effect on
how much these things are pursued, and it would be a huge deal if the Trump
administration were to pursue anti-trust cases as aggressively as the Clinton
administration did.

------
andy318
I don't think this bodes well for Amazon, in particular. Trump has a grudge
against Bezos and it won't be out of character for Trump to hint to Thiel to
express his loyalty by being harsh on Amazon

------
sremani
>> Peter Theil's mastery of Dark Arts...

I mean providing Data Mining and Intelligence analysis software for Intel
organizations is Dark Arts now?

~~~
jacobush
Given Intel ME, mmm yes?

------
urlwolf
You can read this the following way. The 'analogs', represented by Trump,
realize they are losing power, that regulation may be their best shot even if
that has proven to not work well, and are launching a full-force attack
against the 'digitals' (eg Valley).

This event is more meaningful for the world economy and safety than North
Korea playing with nuclear weapons. The sides of a possible WW III are analogs
vs digitals.

What do you think? I'm thinking about writing a blog post expanding on the
idea.

------
Overtonwindow
I would like to see Thiel involved in government more, but where, and doing
what I am not sure. I think his talents would be useful. The question remains,
however, if the President's ego will let him.

------
ajennings
Wait, I thought Thiel approved of monopolies...

~~~
nocoder
Only the ones he has invested in.

------
dpflan
Here is the Vanity Fair article this piece references and recommends ("You can
read the whole, absurd story here. Highly recommended.")

> "here" \--> [https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/09/donald-trump-
> peter-t...](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/09/donald-trump-peter-
> thiel-top-intelligence-advisory-post)

~~~
jlgaddis
Yep, mods should consider changing to this URL, IMO.

------
xiaoma
This article is exactly as objective and as "inciteful" as one would expect
given the source.

Gizmodo's parent company, Gawker, outed Thiel for being gay and he later
helped fund a lawsuit someone else brought against them (for taking and
publishing a recording of a private sexual encounter). That lawsuit put Gawker
out of business.

~~~
thirdsun
I recommend the documentary "Nobody Speak" on Netflix for an overview of how
the lawsuit unfolded and why it's so problematic:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHow1B32WZw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHow1B32WZw)

------
return0
Finally

------
d--b
This position is about intelligence oversight. What's the link with being
harsh on Google and Amazon?

What the article makes it sound like is that Thiel is against forms of
censorship at the level of companies like Google and Amazon, which in a way is
fine, right? (Or maybe I misunderstood?).

Also it sounds like Thiel would very much want to limit the role of the NSA in
matters of domestic privacy, which is kind of what everybody wanted Obama to
do.

Don't get me wrong, I really dislike libertarianism in that it necessarily
leads to very unbalanced societies. And I especially dislike it when it's
incoherent (like when libertarians are against immigration/freedom of
movement).

But in matters of personal privacy, it's kind of good, no?

EDIT: ok - whoever downvotes this - please send a comment regarding why you
think my comment is inappropriate / not interesting?

~~~
confounded
> _Also it sounds like Thiel would very much want to limit the role of the NSA
> in matters of domestic privacy, which is kind of what everybody wanted Obama
> to do._

He founded and directly profits from Palantir, a huge private surveillance
company that makes its money from government surveillance contracts. He's
already got some sweet deals for the company after working for Trump,
especially new contracts for ICE.

It's possible that he'd like to _privatize_ surveillance work for his own
profit, but given that he's spent the last 13 years working on superior mass
surveillance systems, it seems unlikely that the views you seem to attribute
to him are true. This is all outside of him being on the board of Facebook
(which I'd argue is single greatest force against domestic privacy in the US,
and an extremely large ingest source for the NSA).

