Benefactors and bad philosophy
The LeftThere’s a reason I don’t often turn to Slate: Jacob Weisberg. Too often he approaches a great idea only to turn from it in revulsion.
Take his current profile of Peter Thiel. “Having given up hope for American democracy, [Thiel] writes that he has decided to focus ‘my efforts on new technologies that may create a new space for freedom.’ Both his entrepreneurship and his philanthropy have been animated by techno-utopianism. In founding PayPal, which made his first fortune when he sold it to eBay for $1.5 billion in 2002, Thiel sought to create a global currency beyond the reach of taxation or central bank policy. He likewise sees Facebook as a way to form voluntary supra-national communities.” Thiel’s current project, which Weisberg calls his “worst yet,” is a plan to pay “would-be entrepreneurs under 20 $100,000 in cash to drop out of school. In announcing the program, Thiel made clear his contempt for American universities which, like governments, he believes, cost more than they’re worth and hinder what really matters in life, namely starting tech companies. His scholarships are meant as an escape hatch from these insufficiently capitalist institutions of higher learning.”
Weisberg’s view of the world is par for the course from a Yale grad, so narrow …
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