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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
Claire Berlinski
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?
I’ve done my part:
http://ricochet.com/no-fred-cole-fresh-pineapple-is-better/
http://ricochet.com/tom-meyer-meet-the-tape-measure-of-your-dreams/
Spewed coffee.
Too lazy.
Do you pen & paper with you? What do you mean who? James–every other guy who assumes the office can take it easy–Buchanan. & a close second is Franklin–the only reason anyone should know who I am is, Lincoln named me as part of the famous conspiracy–Pierce.
I think home schooling sounds almost overwhelmingly hard. I don’t have any direct experience with it, but it kind of amazes me to think much of anybody does it well. It sure must require one heck of a commitment from the parents.
And I don’t think everyone blames all teachers for their unions. I’m sure the criticism shades over sometimes, but I think most fair people can see the difference. Course the ones who joined the angry sit-ins in Madison, and the ones they bus here in Illinois to Springfield to demand higher taxes, maybe they deserve to be tarred with the same brush as their union leaders.
Fair enough, but there are incompetents and clowns in every profession. Nothing unique about teachers in that.
I did too when I first read that comment yesterday. Almost made me do it again.
Going to have to make a post about this. I think you’re both completely off base.
Well, I see this as a parsimonious way to state an obvious truth. The natural conditions of men and women, with particular regard to the way men and women interact, are the leading cause of violence and war. And the exact same thing is also the cause of enlightenment and art.
What man hasn’t looked at a woman and thought: “I would raze a village to see her smile.”*
We are not rational creatures. We are recursive brainhiccups blinking hard, struggling to comprehend, wondering why the Serengeti looks so different.
*Presumably she would not be smiling about the village. Best not to mention it.
I think a lot of the difference between fat and thin is epigenetic, and staying thin is just easier for some people than others.
Fair enough, by half. Just wanted to see if you were going to slag Lincoln; the stupid man’s dissent. While there is an argument that the Civil War was unnecessary given certain facts aligning at different times, the fact seems to me that it was baked into the Constitution. The Civil War was the unpaid freight of the 3/5 compromise.
Like any deferred payment scheme, 3/5 allowed much to be done at once that would otherwise not have been possible at all, and exacted an horrific interest in the fullness of time.
Them’s fighting-with-words words. It’s dueling posts at dawn, Mr. Soto–no limit on words there, I remind you.
My good man, people who dare disagree with Lincoln are not worth mentioning in print. It was not inevitable that war come–if Andrew Jackson had made Calhoun president, things would have gone better.
If the Civil War is the price, was the Revolution worth it?
Absolutely. The question is whether the 3/5 compromise can be borne morally. But I suppose that is another post.
I admit accepting unprovable assumptions regardless of the necessity. I am picky about which ones I accept. In the end, even in a morally relative world, might doesn’t make right. It just creates inarguable facts.
Get to it, then. There’s a weekend coming up…
Captain Hikaru Sulu should also get an honourable mention.
“Miffed” ain’t the word!
First the fact that no one disagreed with my assertion that the CFL is superior to the NFL means you all tacitly agreed with me.
Second, I disagree that all bands named after geography suck. All the bands citied were pretty awesome. Thus I escape my own rule.
Third another fact. The British Strategic Bombing campaign despite many problems, was in fact a net plus for the war effort. That it shortened things down considerably. And that if anyone people had something like that coming to them it was the Germans. (Reading about the Holocaust again).
Well, in the sense that all energy is renewable as it can neither be created nor destroyed, sure. Heck, I’ll even give you one up from that, as we can clearly understand that processes which generate oil did not magically stop once we started using it. But I do feel we currently use it faster than available stocks replenish.
By this logic, the problem with solar energy is not that it is insufficient to satisfy demand, but that we are unfairly prohibited from running a deficit.
This is why I love Ricochet. Interesting, civil discussion about very different views. Mine? I think Texas should secede from the Union.
Can it give lifelong republican voters a “right of return?”
How about: Giving women the vote was a terrible idea.
Oh, we have this conversation regularly, actually.
That deserves its own thread.
But in the event of any term limits, the last term always displays this problem. Since all men are mortal, the problem also exists in the absence of term limits. Therefore we can only compound the problem, without compensation, by unfettering a man who is willing to do whatever it takes to get whatever he wants.
Finally, I suspect that the crotch-sniffing media would not be questioning Harf or Psaki to the miniscule degree that they are even now, were it not for the impending curtain.
#YGDR
You’ll frighten the horses.
I was just going to add this very thing! I was reading through all the pages just to catch up first.
I could not believe that somebody else would think to include it. And that it would be one of my heroes!
Ever since I read Thomas Gold’s “The Deep Hot Biosphere”, I have always thought that this was at least likely. Wish someone would figure out how to test his ideas from that book, about the true nature of petroleum (“fossil fuel”? – ha!) and about the existence of a life form deep underground that forms the majority of the biomass of Earth, which goes on about its business unaware of the thin layer of green stuff that coats parts of the inhospitable surface (us).
While I see some arguments here, I’ve considered the purpose of this thread to be Claire’s stated purpose — to say things you believe that no one else here believes. Hence, in my view, the only reasons to comment are: (1) to agree with a point, thereby proving that the poster was incorrect in thinking he was alone in his belief; or (2) to make a humorous, pithy, or otherwise informative comment for the general edification of the Ricochetti.
Thus, the absence of any response proves that you are, indeed, alone in your belief that the CFL is superior to the NFL.
Actually, I didn’t even know that Connecticut had its own football league.