Sherilynn Ifill wants people to read Peter Thiel's op-ed in the Financial Times to see how crazy he is

[highplainsdem]

https://bsky.app/profile/sifill.bsky.social/post/3lffkegn7kc27

@SIfill
‪@sifill.bsky.social‬

I strongly encourage you to read this op-ed by Peter Thiel. He is considered the true brain of the Paypal mafia.

The incoherence, paranoia & self-absorption, the meandering, impenetrable prose, the paper-thin thesis & logic…
These are the men who want to run the world.

https://www.ft.com/content/a46cb128-1f74-4621-ab0b-242a76583105

January 10, 2025 at 9:52 AM

I loved the reply to her here, which includes a screenshot of one of the comments to FT about Thiel's batshit ideas: https://bsky.app/profile/soupyaya.bsky.social/post/3lffrcsyh4225


But IMO there's a method - at least an intent - to Thiel's madness when he recommends that the stupid conspiracy theories he says it's necessary to answer be answered not by a serious commission looking into alleged scandals, but by "piecemeal declassifications [that] would befit both Trump’s chaotic style and our internet world, which processes and propagates short packets of information" - which I agree would appeal to Trump and rightwing conspiracy theorists, but sure as hell wouldn't get to truth, let alone any kind of reconciliation.

It would just give Trump and his lunatic followers more ammo in their war of disinformation.

Thiel is trying to justify that with pseudo-intellectual babblng published in a magazine whose editors should be ashamed of themselves for accepting this nonsense - even though Thiel is the billionaire who owns JD Vance...


Matthew Gault wrote about this latest craziness from Thiel for Gizmodo:

https://gizmodo.com/i-have-no-idea-what-peter-thiel-is-trying-to-say-and-its-making-me-really-uncomfortable-2000548724

I Have No Idea What Peter Thiel Is Trying to Say and It’s Making Me Really Uncomfortable
By Matthew Gault
Published January 10, 2025

Peter Thiel, longtime Trump supporter and billionaire master of the universe, published an op-ed in Financial Times that perfectly replicates the experience of being cornered by a sweaty cokehead at an Austin, Texas house party.

“A time for truth and reconciliation,” is the piece’s ominous title. The reference to South Africa’s post-Apartheid era policies is the most coherent line in the article. The subhed immediately takes us into drug-rant territory: “Trump’s return to the White House augurs the ‘apokálypsis’ of the ancien regime’s secrets.”

To hear Thiel tell it, the incoming Trump presidency is the dawn of a new age. Thiel uses ancient, I’m sorry “ancien,” spellings of many words. Words like “apokálypsis” which he says will lead to the grand unveiling of multiple truths. Who killed Jeffrey Epstein? What’s the real story behind the JFK assassination? Was COVID-19 a U.S. bioweapon? Did Brazil ban X at the behest of the Biden administration?

According to Thiel, Trump has an opportunity to unveil all these truths and more. It’s an essay that rails against a word coined by Thiel’s “friend and colleague” Eric Weinstein, what they call the “Distributed Idea Suppression Complex (DISC) — the media organisations, bureaucracies, universities and government-funded NGOs that traditionally delimited public conversation.” In short, elites.

-snip-

The magazine's own Bluesky post linking to Thiel's lunacy:
https://bsky.app/profile/financialtimes.com/post/3lffbab5mfe2q

[SalviaBlue]

1. Wow! That is some bat shit crazy gobbledegook.

[highplainsdem]

5. Yes. And when you see how defective his thinking is, it's less surprising that he's been impressed by

other lunatics like Curtis Yarvin.

[usonian]

2. Commentary at GIzmodo

I Have No Idea What Peter Thiel Is Trying to Say and It’s Making Me Really Uncomfortable
https://gizmodo.com/i-have-no-idea-what-peter-thiel-is-trying-to-say-and-its-making-me-really-uncomfortable-2000548724

See also:
The shadow of apartheid South Africa in America.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100219696928

Peter Thiel-Backed Startup That Wanted to Buy Greenland Is Thrilled That Trump Wants to Buy Greenland
https://gizmodo.com/peter-thiel-backed-startup-that-wanted-to-buy-greenland-is-thrilled-that-trump-wants-to-buy-greenland-2000548415

He was into seasteading, so why a tiny island or oil rig when you can have Greenland instead.

I have to wonder if Comrade Caligula gets his ideas from a trailer-load of nutcases.

Does he even know?

[tenderfoot]

3. Kick!

[oasis]

4. Kicking

[Iggo]

6. No thanks.

[allegorical oracle]

7. Great post -- thank you. nt

[Hugin]

8. Back when I posted...

Shit like that there was an intervention and it sure as hell didn’t appear in the Financial Times.