the rules of this game are: "Invent a controversial political idea and pretend that it is the idea Peter Thiel is trying to hide."
Who's saying to pretend that Thiel actually holds whatever idea some particular person thinks he does? Why would anyone take such idle speculation seriously?
You get points for the idea being controversial; you don't lose points if it is not Thiel's idea. So why not simply post the most controversial idea you have?
Judging by the distribution of likes in over other comments here, the most controversial (by which I mean "NRx-y" for now) ideas don't seem to be great point-winners. So I think the community itself should be credited with posessing some common sense.
We are invited to abuse the man's name as a pretext to publish our controversial ideas. Why not use our own names then? ... They will just use Thiel's name to add status to their own ideas.
Again I think you're selling short the capacity of others to avoid frivolously drawing spurious conclusions. Crediting others with basic powers of reason is, I think, a necessary starting point in order to have any kind of rationalist community whatsoever.
Internet is a public place. So even if all LW readers would understand what this is all about (creating a place to post mostly NRx-y ideas, while pretending to talk about Peter Thiel), a random visitor would see Peter Thiel in the title and the ideas below. Most people are not driven by the power of reason, but by the power of associations, which is what we are creating in this thread. If the man did not present the ideas as his own, then his name should not be in the title.
Also, Peter Thiel happens to be a sponsor of MIRI, which makes it seem more credible when people talk about "his" ideas on a website associated with MIRI.
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....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. I gave you these halfway, in-between ideas that are a little bit edgier.
But I will also go a little bit out on a limb: I think the monopoly idea, that the goal of every successful business is to have a monopoly, that’s on the border of what I want to say. But the really good ideas are way more dangerous than that.
Full interview. HT Quora.
What are some good answers and your guess as to his answer? Please exclude issues relating to race and gender.