raverbashing 3 months ago

As much as I consider the author of the article the deep hand behind Elon's puppet performances, some items of this are just too funny to ignore

> Can we believe that a Brazilian judge banned X without American backing, in a tragicomic perversion of the Monroe Doctrine?

Yes? Why? Is it hard to block?

(in a more charitable interpretation this can be construed as a statement of disbelief more than a question over capacity - but that again betrays a certain naivety over how things work. And yes I was never in favor of that block)

It's funny how these people ignore any agency of other countries or people. In a way it tells a lot how much these people take democracy and self-determination seriously. Of course given the quality of education in the US and the size of their egos, it's not surprising

  • A_D_E_P_T 3 months ago

    The full quote is interesting.

    > Our First Amendment frames the rules of engagement for domestic fights over free speech, but the global reach of the internet tempts its adversaries into a global war. Can we believe that a Brazilian judge banned X without American backing, in a tragicomic perversion of the Monroe Doctrine? Were we complicit in Australia’s recent legislation requiring age verification for social media users, the beginning of the end of internet anonymity? Did we muster up even two minutes’ criticism of the UK, which has arrested hundreds of people a year for online speech triggering, among other things, “annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety”? We may expect no better from Orwellian dictatorships in East Asia and Eurasia, but we must support a free internet in Oceania.

    I'm trying to find a way to interpret the argument charitably. I think that he's saying that foreign countries may be free to sanction or block US internet firms, but that the US should respond forcefully to such actions.

    There is a certain degree of hypocrisy here, given the impending TikTok ban which Peter Thiel himself supported. That ban, universalized, implies that nations should be able to manage internet-based services and applications on their sovereign territory.

    • s1artibartfast 3 months ago

      I think it is a lot more general than that, and outlined in the first sentence. In a world interconnected with soft power, the battle lines on free speech are unclear, and the US position is not ideologically consistent.

    • defrost 3 months ago

      Thiel: Can we believe that { examples } without American backing,

      > I think that he's saying that foreign countries may be free to sanction or block US internet firms, but that the US should respond forcefully to such actions.

      My read on that is he's obtusingly saying that "US (old) leaders" are prevented by the US Constitution from doing stuff they'd like to do .. and so instead they use five eyes allies and partners to do these things about the globe with a view to normalising them and bringing them to the US seemingly without direct US involvement.

      It's commonly held that the US | UK | AU agencies spy on each others citizens in order to have clean hands and truthfully state that they don't spy on their own.

      Presumeably he wants to champion Trump as someone to clean house, etc. but I have my doubts about the machinations of Thiel .. he's more complicate than most via the panopticon of Palantir .

      • A_D_E_P_T 3 months ago

        That's a good insight, but, at the same time, it's not at all difficult to believe that a Brazilian judge in Brazil banned Twitter "without American backing."

        That Monroe Doctrine jab also makes zero sense. The Doctrine doesn't hold that other countries in the Western hemisphere shouldn't be allowed to decide matters of law and trade policy for themselves.

        All in all, what Thiel is trying to say is terribly unclear. Open to multiple Straussian interpretations, I guess.

        • defrost 3 months ago

          > All in all, what Thiel is trying to say is terribly unclear.

          We're in furiously colorless green sleepy agreement here.

          Is this deliberate or old age creeping up on someone who once had realistic Supreme Court ambitions and clerked at the highest level in the US legal system.

          * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorless_green_ideas_sleep_fu...

          ( FWiW the entirity of what the Brazilian judge did or didn't do of his own violoition is a sideshow here )

    • cafard 3 months ago

      What do they say about this at Gawker?

jasdi 3 months ago

His "deepest" questions have well know answers.

The US had decades of low interest rates, dollar hegemony and no large power challenger. So its easy to get away with lot of excess. Until you can't.

Manheim 3 months ago

I find Thiel's chronicle disturbing, and I believe everyone should read it. To cite Norway's largest business newspaper, Dagens Næringsliv: His vision of the internet as the destroyer of the liberal "ancien régime" and thus the true savior of the people is fundamentally totalitarian. It assumes that once the outdated liberal hegemony is annihilated, there will no longer be any conflicts of interest. The masses can finally cast off the oppressive yoke, and from the depths of the people, pure truth will emerge. Such is the essence of Peter Thiel's message.

cempaka 3 months ago

Quite surreal to watch Thiel and his little puppets try to market this faux awakening to the skeptical public out there, when so many of them are up to their necks in their own ties to Epstein and spook cut-outs like In-Q-Tel.

"How the Deep Right is Coopting Conspiracy Consciousness" https://open.substack.com/pub/childrenofjob/p/peter-thiels-g...

  • archagon 3 months ago

    > Jeffrey Epstein described himself as Donald Trump’s “closest friend” and claimed intimate knowledge of his proclivity for sex, including cuckolding his best friends, according to recordings obtained exclusively by the Daily Beast.

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/listen-to-the-jeffrey-epstein-...

    What a fucking hypocrite Thiel is. His purchased president is, without exaggeration, likely to be a child rapist. I suggest he dig for "truth" in his own backyard.

Veliladon 3 months ago

The problem with every empire is that eventually the aristocracy/oligarchy/ruling class get high off their own supply.

taylodl 3 months ago

The only new era Trump is capable of leading us into is an era of idiocracy. Mark my words, that era will turn out poorly for the majority of Americans who don't earn their living by cons and grift.

  • smitty1e 3 months ago

    > who don't earn their living by cons and grift.

    This may prove true, but the observation is considered to apply to the current pack of louts, as well.

  • fuzzfactor 3 months ago

    >The only new era Trump is capable of leading us into is an era of idiocracy. Mark my words,

    You words have been well-marked since the 1970's, consistently proven decade after decade. Now might as well be etched in stone since it's too late for sensibility to creep in, and some of the stupidest shit will probably outlast the vehicle.

    >It may be too early to answer the internet’s questions about the late Mr Epstein.

    No need, Epstein & Trump were well-proven to be low-class untrustworthy operators by nature way before the internet existed.

    All of the old money in Palm Beach would question your judgment of character if you associated with low-lifes like this. They were so out-of-place in the respectable yachting communities and had no legitimate business in the high-class country clubs of South Florida. 19th century and 20th century titans of industry did kind of look down their nose at fake millionaire wannabes for a reason.

    After the old money died, oh well there went the neighborhood.

    >A time for truth and reconciliation

    If past performance is any indication, the next 4 years will not be one of those times.

    • cempaka 3 months ago

      The "old money" was all made by psychopaths too, many of whom practiced all the same pedocratic techniques that Epstein has made broadly known.