I am not a fan of Thiel in general but China has the majority of Bitcoins hash rate last I checked and if the maximalist dreams come true with debasing USD while BTC gains relative value then that is a lot of leverage, no?
I don’t get it either.<p>Thiel criticizes Google for working with China in a Uiygur genocide (but admits he doesn’t have proof). He criticizes Facebook for its stance on Hong Kong democracy because there are more Chinese born employees at FB than Hong Kong born (is that “evidence”?).<p>First thing — these are foreign policy issues from the perspective of the USA. We (the USA people and our government) have done far worse in the foreign policy sphere.<p>Also worth mentioning that Theil’s Palantir moved out of the Bay Area partly because he and the other execs didn’t like that Bay Area tech employees are activist about politics and things like foreign policy in their job as stakeholders at those companies — a role he seems to advocate in this article (he just doesn’t like the direction of their advocacy).<p>Also worth mentioning that he made these comments at an event dedicated to one of the presidents that most damaged the USA in both domestic policy and foreign policy (Richard Nixon) and Thiel publicly supported another more recent president who managed to destroy USA institutions even more than Nixon.<p>Worth taking these words with a giant grain of salt and observing that this man has a giant log in his eye.<p>Please don’t take anything in this post as supporting China or any of the FANG companies mentioned. I’m only pointing out that Theil doesn’t seem to have a consistent stance on government policy or what constitutes “hurting America”.
Video source: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgDkrDeuV6I" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgDkrDeuV6I</a><p>I like how Thiel's counter-culture criticisms that seems to go against the crowd gets shut down by big tech and media. It is one of his techniques in his book Zero to One:
“What important truth do very few people agree with you on?”
<a href="https://fs.blog/2015/11/the-single-best-interview-question-you-can-ask/" rel="nofollow">https://fs.blog/2015/11/the-single-best-interview-question-y...</a><p>He might just be misunderstood: he is not making conclusions, but asking questions, posting hypotheses or conjectures for further investigation (the scientist method). He is checking against his own biases (investor in Facebook and Bitcoin)<p>Ex: His support for Trump happened to be a bad bet against the crowd, but he did not endorse him for a 2nd term (after seeing the data). Most Palantir attacks by the tech community are also baseless and political (covered by liberal media).<p>His suspicions are valid given past observations.
Who would blame him for distrusting marketing giants = brainwashing machines like Google, Apple, Facebook and by extension China? Do you see his logic? His law background might actually make him the best advocate for ethics, which big tech hides violations really well with marketing and PR.<p>Bitcoin may have been countercultural at the beginning, until is was not- right now it is being speculated more like a money making scheme than a promising technology. Thiel's comment might be right onto something, let's not discredit him this early. Remember, he was part of the Paypal mafia...
I don't get it. The company he hates the most is Google - the one major tech company to stand up to China and pull out on principle.<p>Gotta wonder if his hate is motivated by his association/investment in Facebook and his alignment with Trump. (I also think that his camp is pretty angry about Oracle losing that lawsuit and looking for new ways to attack.)