१३ डिसेंबर, २०२४

Peter Thiel talks to Piers Morgan about Daniel Penny and Luigi Mangione.

It's an interesting discussion, but many people are getting hung up on Thiel's very awkward, disfluent manner of speaking:


Morgan shows Thiel a clip that Luigi Mangione shared on social media. It's a clip of Thiel himself, and Thiel says it's the first time he's heard about the alleged killer's interest in him. In that clip, Thiel says:
"I think there's this uh this very strange phenomenon in Silicon Valley where uh where a lot of the most uh talented uh uh start startups — a lot of the great startups — seem to be run by people who are suffering from a mild form of Asperger's, and I think I think we need to always turn this fact around and uh view this as an indictment of our whole society because what does it say about our society when anyone who does not suffer from Asperger's — who is socially well adapted — will be talked out of all of their original creative ideas before they are even fully formed, who will sense this is a little bit too weird, that's a little bit strange, that sounds a little bit crazy — people are looking at me in a weird way,  um and I think this is uh this is something that we must all uh realize is is sort of the deeply endemic problem."

That's quite a sentence, and I'd have blogged it if I'd seen it, so what is there to think about anyone else sharing it? But the alleged assassin shared it, so maybe there's something to say about murder as an  original creative idea that's a little bit too weird, strange, and crazy. Morgan seems to be inviting Peter Thiel to think about how he may have inspired Mangione.

We see Thiel struggle — in real time — sweating and stuttering on camera. It's full of pauses, but in the transcript it's a torrent of words, seemingly one endless sentence:

There's always there's always a part of me that thinks um articulating certain views is is is is always very dangerous and it can you know obviously that there are there are all these anti-free speech arguments that uh you know we should restrict speech because it it's going to trigger people in all kinds of crazy ways uh but uh I I would have never thought that saying something like that would be would be that triggering and you know the the it was not by the way a pro-Asperger's comment it was uh it was more a commentary on how how there's there's something that's gone very haywire in in uh in a lot of the socialization processes that we have where uh if if people you know pick up on social cues they uh they somehow end up um going down these very conventional career tracks becoming MBAs you know going down these these these very very track jobs but uh but man I I I I I don't I do not straightforwardly understand how that's you know how that's connected to what what he did.... I I yeah I I I I I don't think that um I I don't think one should ever glamorize murder uh and uh and man it's it it probably just it tells us more about how how crazy some of these people are who who are saying these things that's that's you know I don't think it tells us that much about this case but it tells us man we are we're in a in a uh in a really crazy society where people and there there it's all sort of fake right it's like you know I I I don't think Taylor Lorenz is is willing to to do this herself or whatever — right? — and so it's it's it's it's just this it's this weird fake leftwing aesthetic of violence and uh and uh and so it's it's it's it's just yeah there's probably some very strange things you can say about uh about this but it's I don't know you know in some ways is isn't this what you know what the left was on some level doing with Trump for eight years where it was this is the second coming of Adolf Hitler and anything is justified to stop him and um and then again I I think people are free to say these things we should I believe we should have maximal freedom of speech um and then at the same time um you know there's there's a level um on on it that that I the thing that I find amazing is that it took them eight years to get one person in a country of 330 million people to try to assassinate Trump it it was um you know it's it's it's um it's in some you know I'm not not again I'm not in favor of of of of violence or anything like this but uh but perhaps the the shocking thing is how um how poorly this uh this rhetoric translates or how you know how how low testosterone the left actually is you know there's all sorts of ways you can you can connect these things but uh but uh it's uh if if if this is what they thought and what they've been telling people about the health care industry and the insurance industry and um and and things like that it's uh in some ways it's it's remarkable it's it's taken this long...."

So, yeah... weird... strange... sounds a little bit crazy... people are looking at him in a weird way... but he did wedge the conventional thing in there: "I don't think one should ever glamorize murder.... I'm not in favor of of of of violence or anything like this...."

५४ टिप्पण्या:

stlcdr म्हणाले...

A lot of people have an awkwardness when speaking. Transcribing that awkwardness makes them sound down right crazy.

Even when speaking eloquently, writing that eloquence often falls flat.

"short phrases make a statement" - Abraham Lincoln

mikee म्हणाले...

As John Belushi famously said to Gilda Radner in an SNL skit about Freud, "Sometimes a banana is just a banana."

Not every social post, shred of quotation, or web site visited by the alleged murderer has to be associated with his alleged motives or intents or influences to murder an insurance CEO.

Hitler, I am told, liked dogs. That part of his life, I suspect, had little to do with his genocidal behaviors. See the Son of Sam for a counterexample of the influence of dogs on a murder. And yes, I think my comment to this post is a counterexample to Godwin's Law, as the use of this Hitler anecdote is IMHO approproriate to thinking about the quote from Thiel by Luigi.

tim maguire म्हणाले...

That transcript reminds me of the truism that you can tell whether a journalist likes someone by whether they clean up their quotes or run them verbatim.

David53 म्हणाले...

“I don't think Taylor Lorenz is is willing to to do this herself or whatever”

Lorenz is as sick as Luigi is.

ron winkleheimer म्हणाले...

"Erick Erickson has been making the point over and over, that once a "but" is allowed, there will be no controlling it. It will be used against something you care about, and another side does not."

Once the murdering starts it never stays restricted to one side. See the Spanish Civil War for one example.

Dixcus म्हणाले...

Imagine if our founding fathers had taken violence off the table.

I am in favor of violence. Violence has lots of beneficial uses.

We need the right people to be scared. Of the violence we could inflict upon them, pushed far enough.

Ann Althouse म्हणाले...

"That transcript reminds me of the truism that you can tell whether a journalist likes someone by whether they clean up their quotes or run them verbatim."

There's no journalist involved. It's YouTube's automatic transcript. I cleaned it up a little, such as changing "Asbergers" to "Asperger's." I started adding punctuation but I gave up.

It's just YouTube. Not attributable to Morgan at all. Morgan is very respective to Thiel and gives him time to do his long pauses and to go stream of consciousness. It's podcast style. Not an effort to hurt him.

Quaestor म्हणाले...

"I don't think one should ever glamorize murder."

Glamorized murder. Isn't that what we expect from crime fiction? Crime movies? Horror movies? "Macbeth"?

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

How can you take this opinion (that under threat of violence, the "right" people will be scared) and supposedly defend free speech?

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

And yet, you (and Vance) are glamorizing Daniel Penny, who killed an unarmed, homeless, mentally ill man.

RCOCEAN II म्हणाले...

Again, I'm amazed at the reaction to the murder of this innocent health CEO. All the cold blooded analysis. So different from what we usually get. I suppose if the murdered man had been black or Jewish, then we would have lots of talk of racism or antisemitism, and "who caused this" but the dead man seems to have been "Just a white man", so its all just so....fascinating to the MSM's "Mr. Spocks".

RCOCEAN II म्हणाले...

I shudder to think what the MSM would've said if Trump had died (which he should have, 5 MM of head turn saved him). Its scary to think too much about what the Left and the MSM are really like - and what they would support if given a chance. Like some upthread, the Spainish Civil war comes to mind.

Lem Vibe Bandit म्हणाले...

Never give murder a chance. Murder is never the answer, no ifs or buts.

"Its a hell of a thing, killing a man. You take away everything he's got and everything he's ever gonna have." - Unforgiven.

Heartless Aztec म्हणाले...

A modern day Kerouac.

MadisonMan म्हणाले...

Who would you rather sit next to on a subway, Freder: Daniel Penny, or Jordan Neely?

Dixcus म्हणाले...

You're free to say whatever you like, Freder. But take my stuff and there's going to be violence. I am going to violate you. Our Founding Fathers were determined to use violence against their oppressors so that they would remain free men. Say whatever you want. Make your case. But trespass upon me and you will pay the price. A very violent price.

Dixcus म्हणाले...

We literally have the busts of men carved into mountainsides, because they "murdered" people ... the British. Their fellow countrymen. Our entire existence as a nation was only enabled because a group of people decided to murder others sent to rule over us.

This exhortation to abject Pavolovian passiveness in the face of aggression is designed to prevent the rulers from having their heads separated from them.

Another American Revolution is occurring whether they want it to or not because they have been careless with the way they are running our country.

wendybar म्हणाले...

An unarmed, homeless mentally ill man who was threatening to kill everybody, and shouted that he didn't care if he went to prison for the rest of his life. YOU would have sat there and let him kill, like the coward you are. I would take one Daniel Penny over a bunch of idiots like you.

Greg Hlatky म्हणाले...

Interesting that just 4 of the Group of 88 were in STEM departments. The rest were the usual humanities trash.

Kevin म्हणाले...

so maybe there's something to say about murder as an original creative idea

Murder is probably the least original or creative idea that mankind has ever had. It's literally the antithesis of an original or creative solution.

Dixcus म्हणाले...

Eh, Freder ... Jordan Neely had 43 prior arrests and had criminal charges for assaulting old people in the subway. He is not the poor, pitiful soul you and the media have tried to portray him as. He was a violent, repeat offender ... everything was done FOR him including providing him with free housing. He left it.

You can only fuck around for so long and then we're just going to kill you people.

Temujin म्हणाले...

I've listened to a number of long form talks and interviews with Peter Thiel. Listening to him takes some practice. He does 'Umm', and 'uhh' a lot. I mean...much more than anyone would typically do. But...that mind of his is levels beyond where most of us are. And while we all like to think our minds are racing, I think his is like a Ferrari next to my Volvo (or is it a Taurus?). His mind covers so many thoughts and angles, but with him it seems as if he's trying to keep up vocalizing this mass array of thoughts whereas a 'normal' person, a 'normal' mind holds off uttering things until something fully formed comes out.
Thiel speaking is sometimes like opening a fire hydrant with no hose. It's just a mass spraying of everything coming out at you, halted only by a large number of 'umm's. He says 'umm' more than any speaker I've ever heard. I suspect he's done that for his entire life.

Yet- when you listen to him fully, he has so much to say. I'll give this one a full listen when I have time. I suspect he's feeling a sense of having to deflect any influence he may have had in the killing- as I would, as anyone would. Imagine, Ann, if something you wrote was mentioned in a killers manuscript. Something about word usage, or...wearing shorts!. And that someone wearing shorts committed a heinous crime for which Piers Morgan came to you and asked how you felt about what you wrote. What would you say?
"Ummm...uhhh...Sartorially speaking, I was correct."

Aggie म्हणाले...

I hate to say it, but a lot of the misery that has been suffered, and is still being suffered, by the people that respect society and its premises, could have been prevented by a little old-fashioned ass-kicking. This whole lost decade of wokeism and critical theory could have been avoided entirely, as well as the death cult values that promote it. Violence has a place in our history and our society, and its polite absence has allowed these things to not only fester, but flourish and dare I say it, prosper. Confrontation is underrated.

loudogblog म्हणाले...

"Omit needless words!"
Said Strunk to White.
"You're right,"
Said White,
"That's nice
Advice.

- From the Shrinklits synopsys of The Elements of Style by Strunk and White

Will Cate म्हणाले...

Way too much is being made of this. For all his technical brilliance, all nerds know that Thiel is a notoriously poor speaker. I suspect that getting caught up in Mangione's quotation gallery is the last thing he'd rather be dealing with.

Narayanan म्हणाले...

from what I have seen Luigi shot from behind = did he even ascertain who it was?

Narayanan म्हणाले...

from what I have seen Luigi shot from behind = did he even ascertain who it was?

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

Considering he shot his intended target in a city of nearly nine million people, and did not shoot anyone else (unlike many of the times NYC cops hit innocent bystanders), I would assume he did.

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

Who would you rather sit next to on a subway, Freder: Daniel Penny, or Jordan Neely?

Is "neither" an option?

Freder Frederson म्हणाले...

You can only fuck around for so long and then we're just going to kill you people.

Yet, if a CEO for a health insurance company notorious for denying claims gets killed, the killer should hang?

Howard म्हणाले...

I can understand why people don't like the way Peter thiel speaks because he seems to be a stickler for accuracy in his communication of uncertainty.

MadisonMan म्हणाले...

'Neither' is certainly an option -- if you don't have to ride the subway, like many privileged people in NYC.

Saint Croix म्हणाले...

Ass burgers would have been funny.

jim म्हणाले...

In my 50+ years as a paid nerd, I never once thought about Peter Theil. People think these nerds turned plutocrats are influential in the nerd world. Wrong. They influence money people and politicians.

Two-eyed Jack म्हणाले...

As a service, here is an edit of Thiel's comments:

There is a part of me that thinks articulating certain views is always very dangerous. There are all these anti-free speech arguments--that we should restrict speech because it it's going to trigger people in all kinds of crazy ways--but I would have never thought that saying something like that would be that triggering.

It was not by the way a pro-Asperger's comment; it was more a commentary on how there is something that has gone very haywire in a lot of the socialization processes that we have, where if people pick up on social cues, they somehow end up going down these very conventional career tracks--becoming MBAs--. But, man, I do not understand how that's straightforwardly connected to what he did....

[Morgan: Taylor Lorenz came on my show on Monday and told me she felt joy when she heard that this healthcare executive had been gunned down and murdered. Separately, you have been seeing a very weird thing developing on social media, where he has been described as "The Hot Assassin."]

I don't think that one should ever glamorize murder, and it tells us more about how crazy some of these people who are saying these things are. I don't think it tells us that much about this case, but it tells us we are in a really crazy society. And it's all sort of fake. I don't think Taylor Lorenz is willing to do this herself — right?
It's this weird fake leftwing aesthetic of violence. There's probably some very strange things you can say about this but, isn't this what the left was, on some level, doing with Trump for eight years, where it was "this is the second coming of Adolf Hitler and anything is justified to stop him"?

I think people are free to say these things. I believe we should have maximal freedom of speech and then at the same time, the thing that I find amazing is that it took them eight years to get one person in a country of 330 million people to try to assassinate Trump. Again, I'm not in favor of violence or anything like this but perhaps the shocking thing is how poorly this rhetoric translates [into action], or how low testosterone the left actually is.

There's all sorts of ways you can connect these things but if this is what they've been telling people about the health care industry and the insurance industry and things like that, it's remarkable it has taken this long...."

Saint Croix म्हणाले...

Freder, he was acquitted of murder. You don't like juries? You don't like jury trials? You're presuming guilt? You think innocent people ought to go to prison anyway?

You want the innocent to go to prison and you want the killers to go free. What the fuck, son? Did the 2024 election break your brain?

It's not that hard to think for yourself. Try it! Quit regurgitating the worst impulses of the swarm. At least Dixcus is trying to be an original psychotic. You're like a broken robot stuck on repeat. Just write "swarm ditto" next time and save us all some time.

Ampersand म्हणाले...

Excellent editing job, 2-eyed Jack

Lindsey म्हणाले...

The original comment Thiel made deserves more discussion. I finished Isaacson’s biography of Elon Musk yesterday. Oh, boy! He is the poster child for this. Normal people could not accomplish what he has—they care too much what people think of them. Musk has been running around for years telling people he is flying to Mars, and they laughed at him. He did not care. Our society hammers down any individuality.

Jim at म्हणाले...

And yet, you (and Vance) are glamorizing Daniel Penny, who killed an unarmed, homeless, mentally ill man.

I do hope if/when you're confronted by 'an unarmed, homeless, mentally ill man' who's threatening to kill you, someone like Daniel Penny is nowhere to be found and you're left to fend for yourself.

And should you succeed? I hope you get charged just like Daniel Penny. Maybe that'll cause you to finally pull your head out of your ass.

FullMoon म्हणाले...

Freder Frederson
And yet, you (and Vance) are glamorizing Daniel Penny, who killed an unarmed, homeless, mentally ill man.


Daniel Penny was unarmed.

Mason G म्हणाले...

"Yet, if a CEO for a health insurance company notorious for denying claims gets killed, the killer should hang?"

Yes.

Mason G म्हणाले...

"Yet, if a CEO for a health insurance company notorious for denying claims gets killed..."

Reported by AP:

"The man charged with killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was not a client of the medical insurer and may have targeted it because of its size and influence, a senior police official said Thursday."

Suppose someone who had a beef with a company in the same business as the one you worked for killed you because of who you worked for. Would you be cool with that?

John म्हणाले...

People who are thinking take time to formulate the sentence. So all of the "uh"s etc are just the sign of a man thinking while he is talking. It is so different from someone who is just emitting platitudes without thought.

John म्हणाले...

Thanks for that information, Professor!

John म्हणाले...

A man shot in the back by a coward.

John म्हणाले...

I would just like to add that there is a difference between the social sciences, who are trying to do science in a world where causality is very difficult, and the humanities, who are just using obscure language to hide that there is nothing there. Signed, former social scientist who saw what happens when social science and humanities are combined into an "arts" faculty.

Rusty म्हणाले...

Freder. Busily cementing his reputation.

Bunkypotatohead म्हणाले...

I would like to have seen what that camera recorded prior to the shooting. Did they pass each other, then the killer turned and shot him from behind? Did he even get a look at the guys face before he fired?

effinayright म्हणाले...

"so maybe there's something to say about murder as an original creative idea"
************
I guess that means the first Creativity Workshop was held when Cain killed Abel.

effinayright म्हणाले...

@ Dixcus.
I think you would find that YOU would pay a very high price if you used physical violence against a person who merely took your "stuff". If I steal your car you cannot shoot me w/o winding up in the Big House for a long time.

Peachy म्हणाले...

Freder - this unarmed man you speak of was threatening death to the people in the subway car. You are fake news - Freder.

wildswan म्हणाले...

I know of a case where a new theory succeeded and the reasons for its success might answer the question Peter Thiel is asking: namely: why is progress from science now stultified.

I once knew a man who had a great deal to do with founding the science of geodesy which uses satellites to map the earth. The idea of using objects high in the sky to triangulate distances so that maps of different countries could be matched to each other was new back in the late Forties when this man was working. At that time distances were measured from central points within countries for each country by that country and inter-country maps were inaccurate. If you tried to run a road from the central point of two different countries with a common border to a point where the roads would meet according to the maps, the roads would be off by 13 or 20 feet or more. This did not matter with roads as they could just be matched up by a swerve. But when it came to firing artillery or sending balliistic missiles this small initial error became very large and could not be solved with sudden swerve at the end.

The solution was to unify mapping by using a point or points high above earth as GPS now does. GPS is based on this previous work which used the occultation of a star by the moon as the point high above the earth whereas now satellites are used. But there was a time when this way of mapping was a new, untried theory and then a time when the theory was tried and succeeded.

Proving that the technique of mapping by using a point high abov the earth would work involved three different groups of scientists on widely separated spots on the earth all measuring the time of the star's occulation. This meant novel problems in logistics. Needed supplies and authorizations had to be gotten from the US government which was just as bureaucratic then as now. The man leading the project was in his late twenties and didn't have a high GS number to help him through the bureaucracy. But he succeeded in making the theory work because of race segregation.

Due to race segregation there was at that time a very large group of extremely talented black women in government whose careers had stalled. They couldn't get above secretary because whites would not hire them even though in terms of skills and time on the job they were at the top of the list. Today such women are executive secretaries as they deserve but in the late Forties they were available to a young, obscure GS-nothing scientist with an idea, and he hired them. They were smart and highly motivated by a desire to show they were able to do more than routine and they understood the plan. So that when logistical difficulties arose (and there were many, many such difficulties) these women were always able to solve the problem and without them the initial success that launched geodesy would not have been.
TBC

wildswan म्हणाले...

This man used to tell this story and, in later years, he would add the comment that this strong backup would no longer be available to an obscure young scientist because women like those who helped him were now getting their just due in the form of promotions.. They were now executive secretaries as they always should have been, he said; yet he wondered where an obscure young man within the government scientific establishment would get the help he needed to turn an idea into a reality. He thought those young men wouldn't get it and that this would eventually prevent research science being translated into technology within the US government.

In short, It's my opinion that the conversion of science into technology has stalled within the government because the man (or woman) with an idea isn't able to get the logistical help or the lab they need. That's all reserved now for older men who have had successful careers because when they were young they told older men that their old ideas were right. This is a kind of blight that wipes out any good effect from the work of the smart, hard-working people aorund them.

Yet progress is still being made when a young man can get excellent help for a real idea because he is able to tap into the talent of a despised group working below their talent level and thus available to an obscure young man with a real idea. For example, Elon Musk has a similarly despised group helping him in his projects - scientists and engineers who can make it through a rigorous vetting process which looks solely for science and engineering talent.

Tina Trent म्हणाले...

Thiel did nothing wrong, as far as I read. Piers Morgan is often brilliant and often a shit.