Peter Thiel Speaks at the National Press Club | Hacker News Reader

Peter Thiel Speaks at the National Press Club

youtube.com

28 pointssergiotapia8 comments

" I think a lot of the voters who vote for Trump take Trump seriously but not literally. So when they hear things like the Muslim comment or the wall comment, or things like that, the question is not are you going to build a wall like the Great Wall of China, or how exactly are you going to enforce these tests. What they hear is we're going to have a saner, more sensible immigration policy." So you assume that he's lying and secretly agrees with you. There is no way that could possibly backfire.

Like it or not, they're voting for the "feeling" that something will get done on this measure or that measure, which has been studied frequently to be the primary driver of the majority of people at the voting booth. This just skips the middleman of having a coherent intellectual base. And if you think about it, so much of our economy is based on feelings rather than facts - "Market sentiment" is one of the larger economic indicators of future growth..

Of course, you have no way of knowing what someone will do, OTHER than to not betray the feelings that they've put out. If a large part of the country will not engage on hard facts and intellectualism, if you want them to come around to you you have to meet them where they are. They're not going to suddenly realize that everything they're constantly listening and engaging with isn't workable.

Thats why I think the actual left will start to rise again (taking some of the trump voters with them) - there really hasn't been a good hard villainizing of the wealthy in a long while, but there's a huge sentiment for it and it can only continue to grow.

Successful politicians are the ones who are able to gather a large enough group of people with differing and often directly opposing interests and convince them that it is "us" verse "them."

The part where someone "secretly agrees with you" is fascinating and gets really close to talking to an imaginary person. Trump is hardly unique in either matter.

> So you assume that he's lying and secretly agrees with you. There is no way that could possibly backfire.

That is what a lot of liberals (myself included) did with Obama's stance on same-sex marriage in 2008.

That said, I was banking on his past history (he was pro gay marriage in the 90s. The 90s!), personality, and the fact that civil unions were a politically expedient choice to appeal to the center, not the base.

And their frustration is that others do take him literally but not seriously.

As if I should take someone seriously whos literal ideas don't even show internally consistent thought or reasoning.

The major difference between trump and clinton is that she tells pretty lies and he tells ugly ones.

Thiel is an interesting that character I would like to know better, but he is not the best speaker. I wonder how comes is he so successful despite not looking very convincing, neither dominative or confident person.

When the (boring) interviewer asked about the Gawker sex tape, he was literally sweating and looking for water with his shaking hands. Other answers were kind of dull, it's difficult to understand his ideas.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com