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What Do You Believe That No One Else Here Does?
Peter Thiel is well-known for asking this question in interviews:
PETER THIEL: The intellectual question that I ask at the start of my book is, “Tell me something that’s true that very few people agree with you on.” This is a terrific interview question. Even when people can read on the Internet that you’re going to ask this question to everybody you interview, they still find it really hard to answer. And it’s hard to answer not because people don’t have any ideas. Everyone has ideas. Everyone has things they believe to be true that other people won’t agree with you on. But they’re not things you want to say.
He himself was unforthcoming when asked the question, though:
TYLER COWEN: Peter, tell me something that’s true that everyone agrees with you on.
PETER THIEL: Well there are lots of things that are true that everyone agrees with me on. I think for example even this idea that the university system is somewhat screwed up and somewhat broken at this point. This is not even a heterodox or a very controversial idea anymore. There was an article in TechCrunch where the writer starts with “this is going to be super controversial” and then you look through the comments — there were about 350 comments — they were about 70 percent in my favor. So the idea that the education system is badly broken is not even controversial. You know, the ideas that are really controversial are the ones I don’t even want to tell you. I want to be more careful than that.
So what do you believe that puts you at odds with everyone else? What do you believe that puts you at odds with Ricochet, in particular?
Published in General
(Apart from their making state spending 55% of GDP, their insane labour laws, and ridiculous tax system naturally – they can keep that to themselves)
I’d be very curious to know what you admire, and how you think it can be learned. I find many things about France admirably sensible and disciplined, but I suspect these aspects of French culture can’t be imported piecemeal. What are you thinking of specifically?
So why isn’t everyone expanding these ideas in the Member Feed? Who else thinks there’s about 150 outstanding potential posts on this thread?
Neither do I. I’ve never understood what the big deal is.
The LOTR trilogy was unreadable.
Ayn Rand was a terrible writer.
Atlas Shrugged reflected one good thought about private property with Rand’s sexual fantasies into an amateurishly anachronistic world.
It was so anachronistic that she could be regarded as a founder of the steampunk movement.
No, I think you’re right. If they nuke the Zionist entity, the plains of Persia become a pane of glass. They know that and like most apocalyptics, the leaders think somebody else should die for the cause, not themselves. And you’re also right that they want the nukes for something else — as an umbrella under which they can make all their mischief around the region and, ultimately, a lot of the rest of the world.
The idea of a nuclear power giving a bomb to a terrorist group or using it themselves in a container ship to blow of an American city is a ridiculous fantasy.
I also think we’ve crossed the line and are now living in a police state.
It’s not the teachers — about whom I agree with you — it’s the unions, which are across the board anti-social, anti-children disasters.
Hawaiian Pizza rocks.
I love John Lennon, in all his pretentious jerkiness.
What’s “out of the friend zone” mean?
It means a man moving from being friends with a woman to havin a romantic relationship. When a woman sees a man as their friend, it’s difficult for her to transition into viewing him romantically.
Or so the idea goes. I used to buy into it. I’m not as sure anymore. (Then again, I haven’t ha to deal with that conundrum for many years.)
Rand is a mediocre writer at best, with none of the insight of dime-store novels. But the sexual fantasy is a necessary consequence of her ideas about manly freedom.
This thread is starting to remind me of this scene from Friends.
(Off-topic, but do the Ricochetti prefer links or embeds for video clips? Or perhaps neither?)
None of your actual deeds, good or bad, makes any difference regarding salvation; the only thing that matters is whether or not you pay homage to God in the proper manner.
Women have as much a biological urge to constantly trade up mates as men do to have sex with as many women as possible.
Yeah, I think you’re right. It was late last night and there was gin involved.
Somebody was Base 60. Or maybe that was something to do with their calendar.
@Knotwise the Poet: Regarding teachers, teaching is a profession like any other. The conservative tendency to respond to any bad news from the public school system by yelling, “Home school,” is an insult to the good teachers. It’s like hearing about a medical malpractice case and deciding the proper response is to remove your kidney yourself. Some home schoolers do fine, yes, but it’s the, “Anybody can do this,” attitude that bugs me.
I also note, jumping off Cato’s point, that teachers seem to be the only group where we don’t make the distinction between the workers and the unions when it comes to condemnation. When the AFL-CIO does something obnoxious, nobody tries to pin it on factory workers writ large.
@Bruce Coward: I think it was the Sumerians. Also that they’re the ones we inherited the sixty minute hour from.
The AFL-CIO example is taking it up a notch too high. One does hear horror stories about both the UAW and individual workers. Just google “chrysler marijuana”.
Also, we have the individual fingerprints of the teachers on their work. when a part falls off your car, it does not have a label saying which worker applied it.
Relatedly, many effects of teachers are immediately seen such as when the kid brings back an absurd assignment or where the teacher manifests ignorance about her subject.
It is an observation. You decided it was a criticism.
Of course they are not! Man does not live by bread alone – but the non-bread things vary enormously.
I am not dodging at all. I refuse to put the world in a Socratic straightjacket.
Titus – We are speaking different languages, which means this cannot go anywhere.But I ask that you follow the CoC – suggesting I am dishonest is not playing the ball.
And, once again, I strongly recommend that instead of calling me names, that you actually consider examining your assumptions. READ THIS!
I believe that a useful heuristic is: “the truth of a proposition is most likely inversely related to its social acceptability.”
I am increasingly worried that the ethno-nationalists are the only people thinking clearly. I am also worried about the implications of that. They seem to be the only people who take diversity seriously as a concept. Everybody else seems to be saying: “We have to love and value everybody’s differences, by denying that differences exist or are meaningful.”
I believe more people are hardware limited than software limited, and the technocratic right wing trying to give hardware limited people software patches, to solve a large quantity of social problems is deeply cruel.
I believe that David Beckham promotes an unattainable and unhealthy body image, and the fact that he is rich, with a hot wife who is also successful and has attractive well behaved children disproves the existence of god and divine justice.
I believe that women are biblically required to cover their hair in church.
I believe conservatives should talk more about frivilous things like fashion.
When conservatives try to talk serious, they sound like a bad teenage drama where everything is SO-SUPER-SERIOUS.
That the other end of the internet is someones house.
Why do you think so? Would Iran or North Korea be unwilling to use nukes? Or do you believe things cannot be smuggled on containers?
Dear Sir / Madam, my calling it dishonest in you to bring up irrationality but refuse to think about that the status of rationality is also an observation. You do not seem to to think that a sufficient defense, if any were needed from the dreaded CoC.
Anyone can stand or refuse to stand for pretty much anything here, I suppose, with the CoC as a kind of limit. But no one can then turn around & claim immunity.
Whatever the reasons you are terrified by or adverse to the Socratic something or other–it remains the case that anyone who talks irrationality is also talking rationality, & anyone talking that is raising questions about human nature, because only people do talking.
This is what you called logical before; I take it you are now offering the Ricochet audience a good long look at that refusal to act logically or rationally you mentioned before–in the case of other people, of course.
Is it not implied in your ‘I can tell how irrational other people are’ act that there is rationality in human beings? Possibly, that rationality is not limited to mocking other people. Possibly, it offers a way do thoughtfully decide about the ‘non-bread things’. But if you’re not even willing or able to see what is implied in your voluntary–therefore honest, presumably–opinions, I do not see how you could reasonably approach human nature & natural law.
I agree with you Frank but Rotten Tomatoes ratings says otherwise. Now the second Avengers movie was horrible. The jury is still out on Avengers II but it is a Super Hero sequel, so it will most likely suck.
I believe that if Jesus hadn’t been celibate he wouldn’t have made it, and that we would all be in trouble. Especially if she got preggers.
I also don’t like the strong anti-public-school-teacher sentiment I see on a lot on conservative sites. And full-disclosure: I am a public school teacher.
Having homeschooled myself (with sorrowful effects on my children’s math skills—on the plus side, they all have terrific vocabularies!) then sent my kids back to school where they knew and loved some wonderful teachers… and having married a teacher who, though this is a cliche, made a huge difference in the lives of many children…can I just say THANK YOU, O’ Poet?
1+2>3.
I’m exactly with you, right up until the save part. Kind of dark over here.
Which Presidents were those?
I’d be very curious to know what you admire, and how you think it can be learned. I find many things about France admirably sensible and disciplined, but I suspect these aspects of French culture can’t be imported piecemeal. What are you thinking of specifically?
I’ve heard they don’t talk in movie theaters. That’s enough for me.