Cato Unbound

Peter Thiel. He says "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible." The beginning of the essay > I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years: to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good. I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. For all these reasons, I still call myself “libertarian.” > But I must confess that over the last two decades, I have changed radically on the question of how to achieve these goals. Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible. By tracing out the development of my thinking, I hope to frame some of the challenges faced by all classical liberals today. The full essay https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertar…

> Hey, Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, was selling out all your principles worth it? I don't think they have sold out their principles. These are their principles. Thiel thinks democracy and freedom are incompatible. Thiel thinks women getting the vote was bad. Thiel's ambition is to "escape" democracy by seasteading or by building "freedom cities" or "network states": https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertar… https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/11/donald-trump-steve-ban… https://www.thenerdreich.com/trumps-weird-freedom-cities-and-the-netwo… It's a juvenile perspective. It's John Galt cosplay. They think they will build a utopia. In reality what they're proposing is garden variety authoritarianism.

https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertar… It is rather obvious that he thinks women shouldn't vote given he blames them, in part, for the decline of "capitalist democracy". I could have also mentioned his work to make sure the general public has much less privacy while fighting with lots of money to make sure his privacy is respected. I have little use for those who wish to have separate rules for themselves than they want others to follow.

Always worth a read in these discussions. Hanson has a prediction market business, Consensus Point, so there’s at least two sides to the issue: convincing specific customers to care vs the general applicability. https://www.cato-unbound.org/2011/07/13/robin-hanson/who-cares-about-f… Hanson is not naive about the social and political barriers. This goes far beyond prediction markets, extending to all kinds of uses of forecasting and statistics in industry where political gatekeepers want to control the implications of models, rather than caring about objective truth first and mollifying it towards business concerns second.

I think this isn't a great article, but.. Here's the Thiel quote[1]: Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron. and his clarification: It would be absurd to suggest that women’s votes will be taken away or that this would solve the political problems that vex us. While I don’t think any class of people should be disenfranchised, I have little hope that voting will make things better. (published at the bottom of that article) So how do I read that and not read something essentially the same as "capitalism is undermined by women being allowed to vote"? Is it merely that he thinks that the right shouldn't be withdrawn? [1] https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertar…

'The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.' [1]: https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertar… I suppose there are different ways to read that, but Thiel doesn't believe democracy with universal suffrage leads to the best outcomes. I disagree.

If you'd like to learn a little more about Thiel's politics and why this is of public interest, I recommend checking out his short manifesto "Education of a libertarian" https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertar…

> Thiel just thinks giving women the right to vote was democracy's greatest mistake. He's claimed not to actually think that [0]. Statistically, few women are Libertarians, and arguably, he was just referencing this point, which is apparently familiar to the Libertarian community, if not to the rest of us. [0] https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/05/01/peter-thiel/suffrage-isnt-dang…

If you have any legitimate criticisms of Peter Thiel, or the essay mentioned in that gawker article ( http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/the-education-of-a-… ), please consider elaborating on them in a new post. I'm sure many here would be interested. But linking to gawker in the comments of an unrelated story probably isn't the best way to express your concerns.

And the rest of the discussion is playing out on their main site this month: http://www.cato-unbound.org/

I'm not sure this is exactly a source, but this article by Thiel tends to imply that he thinks the system is pretty broken : http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/the-education-of-a-… And then Thiel has talked about the education bubble (links on HN previously, too) : http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2431431. Thiel is definitely pro "different" from the current system. I think the idea of promoting more entrepreneurial activities earlier is great, but it seems very anti-university/higher ed in his vision rather than as an alternative path.

Lots of health care is pointless and has no net health benefit (i.e., benefit - side effect). But some is useful, and we don't want to cut that portion. This has been known for years by health care economists, and is ignored by everyone else. As far as I'm aware, there is only good filter for determining which medical procedures are useful: the ones patients are willing to pay for out of pocket. This was the conclusion of the RAND experiment. Robin Hansen wrote a great review article on this topic. http://www.cato-unbound.org/2007/09/10/robin-hanson/cut-medicine-in-ha…

That's right! I was vulnerable from reading about Bryan Caplan's book about rationally ignorant voters (http://www.cato-unbound.org/2006/11/06/bryan-caplan/the-myth-of-the-ra… and then I discovered Moldbug and he tipped me over the edge. Thanks for the book recommendation, I'll look into it.

Yeah ignore the Oracle CEO saying everyone will be on their best behavior because AI surveillance will keep people in check [0]. Or Thiel saying that "democracy and freedom are no longer compatible". I wonder who's freedom to do what he's talking about? Surely he's concerned about the little man? [1] Or Elon Musk cutting USAID and causing all sorts of death and destruction around the world [2] while enriching himself from government coffers. [3] Or Marc Andreessen calling the concept of "social responsibility" an "enemy of progress". [4] Sure wonder what his idea of progress is! I'm sure it's great for everyone given that it's opposed to even the notion of social responsibility! And that's just in our little tech world! If you venture out a bit further, you'll find many more gems, like Tim Gurner complaining that workers have gotten "arrogant" and continuing to say: "We need to see pain in the economy. We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around." [5] Sure, it's all just one rich dude making an offhand comment. Or maybe all of them making offhand comments all the time? [0] https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/16/oracle-ceo-larry-ellison-says-that-a… [1] https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertar… [2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jul/07/elon-musk-doge-cuts… [3]…

With all due respect, this is completely wrong. There is a difference that someone smoking nearby automatically harms people around you. With alcohol, the effect is more unpredictable, but it is equally real. Alcohol is a factor in an automobile crashes, and a factor in a significant proportion of violent crime, especially domestic violence (https://www.cato-unbound.org/2008/09/17/mark-kleiman/taxation-specific… edit: this source isn't as great, Kleiman has written elsewhere about the subject, but google is failing me). If we could wave a magic wand and cause drinking to cease to exist, many lives would be saved. Note: I do in fact drink, I am not a teetotaler. But what I said above is factual. I personally believe that prohibition would be worse, and it's reasonable for individuals to make their own choices. But that does not entail denying that it goes very badly for many.

>Thiel apparently gives talks about the Antichrist You forgot to mention the part where Thiel tells, in all seriousness, that the Antichrist is on Earth, now, and may literally be Greta Thunberg [1]. And that's one of the reason Greta Thunberg must be opposed. > He's actually a very thoughtful Christian That's one way to upsell "deranged". Thoughtful he is (as many lunatics are). As far as religious aspects go, him losing faith in democracy after women and "benefits recipients" got the right to vote[2] doesn't sound very Christian-like to my ears. Neither does his argument to end affirmative action[3], if you read it carefully, but that's a whole another can of worms. > following the works of Rene Girard. Ah yes, the fine fellow who (like Thiel) sees religion as a technology to manage humans by designating sacrificial scapegoats, which is the Girard's final solution to all problems. In Girard's (and Thiel's) view, scapegoating isn't only an emergent outcome, it is necessary to stave off the end of the world.[3] Thiel's support of Trump and his influence and backing of the Heritage Foundation / Project 2025 is very consistent with this philosophy. Trump/Project 2025 make scapegoats out of immigrants, DEI, minorities, trans people, women who don't dedicate their lives to being breeding machines, ... - the list goes on. So, in Thiel, we have: - a gay man (who destroyed the paper that outed him out of spite) who thinks women are not just ewww, but are the reason…

The framing in the article is ahistorical. The post-WW2 period was a period of exceptionally _low_ inequality. If you look back to just the 1800s there were swings in inequality comparable to the present day. We're now moving back to the historical baseline. There are some contributing factors to the shift in inequality, a major one being that labor is now oversupplied compared to the post-war period, and the competition is driving wages lower. The U.S. has much higher immigration rates now, which contributes to the oversupply of labor. The late 1800s and early 1900s had similarly high immigration and high inequality. [1] Whether the historical baseline for inequality is the best amount of inequality is a different question though. It's clear that as redistribution flattens the income curve there is dead-weight loss as highly productive people stop wasting their time doing taxable work. It's also clear that investing in children who would otherwise be malnourished or lack education or healthcare is a net positive for society. It's not clear to me that the current level of inequality is the wrong one - we're admitting a lot of immigrants who are vastly improving their life prospects as a result, the economy is growing, and technology is amazing. Spending more money on health care would have limited benefits [2]. I don't really have a strong opinion on whether inequality should be higher or lower (it's hard to find a good-faith analysis in these terms), but the Time article…

This isn't that surprising. Healthcare economists have known for a very long time that medical spending, on the margin, has precious little impact on actual health outcomes.[1] Basically there's a "core" set of medicine that constitutes basic care and is essential to health. But even during deep budget cuts or quarantine, very few people are avoiding vaccines, not setting broken legs, and letting appendices explode. In contrast an enormous amount of healthcare is very expensive and of dubious effectiveness at best. For example it's not uncommon for courses of certain chemotherapy to cost $400,000 and have no statistical effectiveness.[2] Overall nearly half of medical procedures are unsupported by evidence[3]. Even procedures we take for granted, like routine mammograms[4], have no actual impact at reducing mortality at the population level. This is what economists call "on the margin". These are the treatments that get cut first during rationing. [1] https://www.cato-unbound.org/2007/09/10/robin-hanson/cut-medicine-half [2] https://freakonomics.com/2013/10/22/the-unsustainable-economics-of-can… [3] https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/12/28/16823266/medical-treatment… [4] https://theconversation.com/routine-mammograms-do-not-save-lives-the-r…

That's one of the most interesting questions I've read on HN; thanks; I've really had to think about it. To refine the question, I think it is, 'to what degree' does each factor - perception or system - cause the other? First, I'd love to read someone who has studied the issue and has expertise in the domain, if anyone has any suggestions. Obviously, I don't know the answer. I'd wildly guess that the economic system creates inequality which creates social division which creates the perceptual fallacy which reinforces it all. I'd also guess that for some the economic system creates a conscious desire to control the underprivileged; Thiel might be a leading example: "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible."[0] Also, any system gains the self-reinforcing phenomena of normalizing itself (perhaps defined by the perceptual fallacy that the system is inevitable or the best of all possible worlds) and of vested interests who act, consciously and unconsciously, to protect the system that benefits them. [0] https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertar…

Mike Godwin, who worked with Barlow at EFF back in the day, talked briefly about the Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace in a recent essay: "Barlow, best known prior to his co-founding of the Electronic Frontier Foundation as a songwriter for the Grateful Dead, was writing to inspire activism, not to prescribe a new world order, and his goal was to be lyrical and aspirational, not legislative. Barlow wrote and published his “Declaration” in the short days and weeks after Congress passed, and President Clinton signed into law, a telecommunications bill that aimed, in part, to censor the internet. No serious person – and certainly not the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other organizations that successfully challenged the Communications Decency Act provisions of that bill – believed that cyberspace would be “automagically” independent of the terrestrial world and its governments. Barlow’s “Declaration” is best understood, as Wired described it two decades later, as a “rallying cry.” Similarly, nobody thinks “The Star-Spangled Banner” or “America the Beautiful” or “This Land Is Your Land” is a constitution. (And of course the original Declaration of Independence isn’t one either.)" https://www.cato-unbound.org/2018/01/04/mike-godwin/free-speech-our-so…

If Flynn effect was real, we would expect to see average SAT scores improving (which we don't see): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT#History https://www.erikthered.com/tutor/historical-average-SAT-scores.pdf https://www.infoplease.com/us/higher-education/average-sat-scores-1972… Flynn effect is a result of misunderstanding of IQ scale: "The basic misunderstanding is assuming that intelligence test scores are units of measurement like inches or liters or grams. They are not. Inches, liters and grams are ratio scales where zero means zero and 100 units are twice 50 units. Intelligence test scores estimate a construct using interval scales and have meaning only relative to other people of the same age and sex. People with high scores generally do better on a broad range of mental ability tests, but someone with an IQ score of 130 is not 30% smarter then someone with an IQ score of 100. A score of 130 puts the person in the highest 2% of the population whereas a score of 100 is at the 50th percentile. A change from an IQ score from 100 to 103 is not the same as a change from 133 to 136. This makes simple interpretation of intelligence test score changes impossible." Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3950413/ Also worth…

> or the blog post he wrote for Cato in 2009 lamenting that women had obtained the right to vote? He said no such thing in that article[1]. I have no idea about the rest, or about Thiel in general, but I did read the article. Your statement is as bad and inaccurate as any one-liner soundbite on right wing media. The section in question (emphasis mine): As one fast-forwards to 2009, the prospects for a *libertarian politics* appear grim indeed. Exhibit A is a financial crisis caused by too much debt and leverage, facilitated by a government that insured against all sorts of moral hazards — and we know that the response to this crisis involves way more debt and leverage, and way more government. Those who have argued for free markets have been screaming into a hurricane. The events of recent months shatter any remaining hopes of *politically minded* libertarians. For those of us who are libertarian in 2009, our education culminates with the knowledge that the broader education of the body politic has become a fool’s errand. Indeed, even more pessimistically, the trend has been going the wrong way for a long time. To return to finance, the last economic depression in the United States that did not result in massive government intervention was the collapse of 1920–21. It was sharp but short, and entailed the sort of Schumpeterian “creative destruction” that could lead to a real boom. The decade that followed — the…

I find Falkvinge's libertarianism[1, 2] much more compatible with the idea of a pirate party than direct democracy; democracy can outvote individual freedom and create a majority rule over an individual[3]. Other pirate parties are a good example of how the core principles can get outvoted and diluted with off-topic issues. In 2015 Pirate Party of Iceland overthrew the blasphemy laws[41, which is a great success. I honestly hope they do not take the way of the modern left and introduce the concept of "hate speech" which limits free speech to only ideas the ruling group likes. It has happened over and over. Still, I see this victory as a positive move. I hope the party will succeed in passing a meaningful copyright and patent reform. [1] https://falkvinge.net/ [2] https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/ [3] https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertar… [4] https://www.rt.com/news/271645-iceland-pirates-blasphemy-law/

Sure. For clarification: by G-space I meant 'how to govern well' or 'how to solve problems about, with, or in governance'. This is obviously an enormous topic area. It is also a dangerous and highly contentious subject matter filled with many taboos, due to its nature and importance. That said political scholars, like economists, have come to many consensus realizations. This is kind of amazing since Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are clones from a political science perspective, there exists a great diversity of thought. This means that there is not as much of a gap between somebody like Francis Fukuyama and Moldbug as is popularly imagined. If you have a sincere interest in outcomes you find unexpected allies. Here is a good start: Volume 1: The Origins of Political Order by Francis Fukuyama Volume 2: Political Order and Political Decay by Francis Fukuyama Seeing Like a State by James Scott Exit, Voice and Loyalty by Albert Hirschman The Problem of Political Authority by Michael Huemer The Collapse of Complex Societies by Joesph Tainter The majority of the time these authors are interested in outcomes, not in winning for whatever their home team is. Outside of academia Silicon Valley itself is having a serious discussion on this topic from our perspective: Balaji Srinivasan : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOubCHLXT6A Peter Thiel : http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertari… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3EBfS9IcB4 Patri…

> Is there not a more contradictory thing to say? I don't know how Libertarians are okay with others using their moniker for something that doesn't seem libertarian. Its doublethink, yes. Thiel publicly proclaims he is a libertarian but his genuine, underlying belief is he can change the world and enforce his beliefs upon it. This is pretty much the antithesis of Gary Johnson who is very much the live and let live libertarian. http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertari… > I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years: to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good. I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. For all these reasons, I still call myself “libertarian.” > But I must confess that over the last two decades, I have changed radically on the question of how to achieve these goals. Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible. By tracing out the development of my thinking, I hope to frame some of the challenges faced by all classical liberals today. http://archive.is/pQc1F > He is now not so much a libertarian as a corporate Nietzschean, who believes in the power of gifted entrepreneurs to change the world through the sheer force of will and intellect.

Try the lead essay from Cato Unbound and see what you think. [0] There are a few more good short Shoup pieces linked at the bottom of that page. I have some personal experience here. I have done training and volunteered as a community organizer and worked with my city council and planning department. I have organized neighborhood groups involved in planning. I have studied urban planning and urban form. Nothing helped me to understand American cities and why they work the way they do more than Dr. Shoup's work in the 1990s that is collected in The High Cost Of Free Parking. Some of it is gritty and technical econometric research, but a lot of it is creative and insightful. It's not a single narrative, but a fun book to dip into in various places from time to time if you care about how cities work and how urban life can be made better for people. This short 1997 paper introduced me to Dr. Shoup's work (I read it in 1998) and was like a shining blaze of insight for many readers like me when it first appeared. [1] One key insight is that free parking required by law costs the USA about three times as much as all the money drivers spend on cars and gas plus public subsidies for roads and highways. When you read it, you start to see that parking policy drives urban form much more than zoning or free markets or highway and transit construction or public preferences or anything else at all. A lot of the book is like…

I definitely don't think the existing governments are fine, there's tons of things that make me rage about the state of things. My point was that if you want to (unpatriotically) give up on your country instead of trying to improve it, and you're rich, and you ignore language and culture (like the seasteading idea does), you have many other countries to pick from. Now if out of all the other countries in the world you can't find one that's even close to your ideals maybe there is a reason for that, maybe your utopia is not possible. Thiel as a CEO got to tell people what to do, he seems to have this idea that he will setup his government and people will just follow his rules. So I guess he's thinking of being some kind of benevolent dictator. In some other of his social writing* he has said he doesn't believe in democracy anymore. But even in a dictatorship you have to get consent from at least your security. In his effort to escape politics he doesn't seem to realize that politics is what happens when you get a lot of people together making decisions. What happens when charismatic socialist or conservatives leaders rise up in his country? What happens when special interests start competing with each other? If he were somehow able to solve the technical, economical, security and legal issues the whole thing would just devolve into the same political mess that every society goes through. How do I know? Because that's what happens everytime a government has been…

We just had a string of bank failures, like Silicon Valley Bank, but you will not see any impact in the macro-economic data (like unemployment), because the Fed kept nominal spending on track. In 2008 they didn't. Instead they actively tightened monetary policy by eg introducing interest on excess reserves. The ECB even hiked interest rates. Companies defaulting on debt doesn't need to bring down the economy. For the US, you can also see how the construction sector had been winding down for years (eg as measured in construction employment) without an impact on overall unemployment. The crisis was entirely avoidable. See https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/09/14/scott-sumner/real-problem-was-… for a bit more background.

This is an incomplete quote from a pro-freedom essay: https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertar…

https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertar… Read it yourself