Thread by @docrussjackson

#THREAD

A handful of antidemocratic right-wing libertarian billionaires - not least, Peter Thiel - are primarily concerned with increasing their unimaginable wealth & power, & protecting it from Governments, democracy, & the people.

What's their strategy, & who is Peter Thiel?

Most people know how Big Tobacco denied the link between cancer for decades by deploying 'the dark arts', & most people are aware of how the Koch brothers spent $billions using the same techniques to promote climate change denial & support Right-libertarian political parties.

Most people know that billionaires Rupert Murdoch (Fox News, Times Radio, TalkRadio, Times, Sun (& soon to launch talkTV), the Barclays (Telegraph, Spectator) & Lord Rothermere (Mail) invest heavily in stoking a divisive culture war in order to keep voters distracted & divided.

However, far fewer people know about Peter Thiel (who in terms of individuals rather than ideas) represents of the biggest threats to democracy today.

He's the new darling of the hard/far/libertarian-Right, & he pioneered & got very rich from the ideology of 'disruption'.

A recent book, called The Contrarian, by Max Chafkin, focuses on Peter Thiel.

It reveals the extent of the threat from these individuals to our fragile democracies, & many of the recent developments & techniques resulting in dangerously authoritarian Govts & polarised societies.

This is a short #thread as @moiragweigel's review of Chafkin's book says almost everything I wanted to say.

Thiel pioneered #contrarianism, both as a media strategy & a business strategy: this is crucial to understanding the cultural logic of our time.

newrepublic.com/article/164768…

The book covers Thiel's formative years, his venture capitalism, & his links to Trump, Zuckerberg & the hard/far/libertarian right, as well as his significant role in the origins of the Silicon Valley culture wars, out of which Thiel has emerged as the best-known figurehead.

Thiel is is a German-American billionaire venture capitalist - a co-founder of PayPal & Palantir Technologies, & the first outside investor in Facebook.

Like the structure of contemporary media, the structure of contemporary venture capital rewards increasingly extreme behavior.

Venture capital investors are not avoiding risk, but managing it: out of every 100 bets, 99 will be wrong, but the one that's right will scale globally, & can pay for the rest & more.

This structure incentivizes more & more outrageous bids, but also maps onto political strategy.

In both the culture wars & investing, contrarianism is presented as heroic.

However, in both cases, if they play their cards right, the contrarian protects themself from risk: be outrageous - it may backfire, but when it works, you can use it to leverage your social capital.

At Stanford University Yhiel founded a magazine of right-wing provocation, which railed against what we would now call "wokeism".

His big successes have come mainly from venture capitalism: eg the early investments that he made in the likes of PayPal, Facebook, Airbnb & Spotify.

A vociferous opponent of 'liberal culture', Thiel was a prominent Trump backer, & is linked to some of Silicon Valley’s wackier concepts eg autonomous sea-based communities, & the anti-ageing therapy parabiosis (“transfusions of blood from young people to older ones”).

Thiel mentored Mark Zuckerberg in the techniques of disruption & libertarianism.

Thiel supported Trump, & found him appealing not only for his political views, but also because his anti-establishment attitude was right in line with how Thiel sees the world.

Peter Thiel is a key player in a global ecosystem of opportunist libertarianism which wants to bypass democracy, funds or supports sympathetic Govts, & invests in contrarian media, with a goal of protecting & enhancing their power by removing human & environmental protections.

There is a “weird personality cult” surrounding Thiel, composed mainly of young, right-wing men. Chafkin’s account suggests that Thiel isn’t a visionary at all, but someone defined only by what he (& other billionaire libertarians) is against: 'liberal elites' & multiculturalism.

Chafkin characterizes Thiel as unable to believe in any basis for human connection other than power, or in relationships that do not boil down to transactions: “Thiel’s life has been full of important relationships, but few that seem to transcend money or power.” Sound familiar?

Peter Thiel is one of the world's most important venture capitalists, with tentacles into everything from MAGA to Facebook to the military-industrial complex.

Max Chafkin's book is a great introduction to who Peter Thiel is, & why we should be very concerned about his influence.

Peter Thiel is of course linked to a wider global network of hard-right libertarians - manifested in the UK in the Tufton St libertarian think tanks - whose dark money poses a threat to democracies across the world - but especially America's & Britain's:

In his co-authored 2014 book 'Zero to One', Thiel emphasises the kind of rule he'd prefer: a heightened vision of what a single leader can do, the veneration for more ancient & direct forms of leadership, the praise for authoritative decision-making, & disdain for bureaucracies.

A network of academics influencing Govt policy on ‘free speech’ in universities is being steered by lobbyists & donors linked to billionaire venture capitalist Peter Thiel – Chair & co-founder of CIA-backed data analytics giant #Palantir Technologies.

bylinetimes.com/2021/12/10/pet…

Link to another #THREAD about the dangers to #democracy from the more libertarian strand of #neoliberalism, featuring Peter Thiel & Palantir.

Follow up article from @BylineTimes, warning how the 'free speech in Universities' debate, pushed by the Right, may be being used to rehabilitate Nazi-inspired pseudoscience & enable the uncritical promotion of far-right propaganda at Cambridge University.
bylinetimes.com/2021/12/23/cam…