[strong_silent_t]

Ok, I doubt I'll ever take an hour to listen to this, but I really enjoyed the book. It was very interesting to see the little particularities of the legal system and the participants that had a big impact. I basically read it straight through in one shot as the host said he did as well. I found the writing to be florid at times (there was a seamless segue between an anecdote of Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon and Hulk Hogan's decision to sue against the distribution of the hidden camera sextape that made me actually laugh out loud) but I found the asides were unobtrusive enough that it didn't affect the reading.

[ordak]

Bruh, Russ Roberts makes the hour worth it even if the subject itself doesn't.

Check out any of the econtalk episodes with Nassim Taleb or the ones with Cesar Hidalgo or Pedro Domingos.

EDIT: Hidalgo episode: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/10/cesar_hidalgo_o.htm...

[knuththetruth]

Yeah, in the interview with Holiday, he muses whether it might be good for a handful of billionaires to conspire to destroy public education in America, including planting stories about the evils of schools and teachers in the press[0]. Seems like a real stand-up guy...

[0] 40:52 for anyone interested. I’m not exaggerating, this is pretty much verbatim.

http://files.libertyfund.org/econtalk/y2018/Holidayconspirac...

[kbenson]

> Yeah, in the interview with Holiday, he muses whether it might be good for a handful of billionaires to conspire to destroy public education in America, including planting stories about the evils of schools and teachers in the press

Yes, he proposes a thought experiment, and them points out how it sounds interesting from an ends getting something accomplished point of view, but also specifically says he recognizes that if he were on the other side he might find it a lot more suspect, and questions (as in actually questions) whether this approach, which is the whole thing being discusses, as it's what Thiel did, is something we should support or not.

So yes, a pretty stand up guy that's willing to note that even if something works for an outcome that he supports the method about which it's achieved might be suspect and we should examine it much closer before supporting it wholeheartedly. What more do you want?

[knuththetruth]

He tosses in a couple of asides about how if you were on the receiving end of this atrocious idea, you might not like it so much, but your characterization is far too generous for something radically awful that he’s floating as a “thought experiment.”

And of course it’s not just a “thought experiment,” it’s something that right-wingers are doing across the country to aggregately awful and racist results (go look up the track record of Betsy DeVos’ charter school empire). It’s the same kind of dubious “just asking questions” nonsense these guys pull all the time.

[kbenson]

> but your characterization is far too generous for something radically awful that he’s floating as a “thought experiment.”

He's floating it as a thought experiment to bring up the question of whether a tactic like this, for whatever goal, should be considered good or bad, given that it relies on secrecy. His thoughts are that government should get out of education. He's not actually saying he thinks peopls should go about it this way, he's raising the question of should we be okay with a tactic like this? The extremity of the argument is to make you think critically about it.

The entire conversation is couched in this context. I'm not sure why you refuse to consider it in this one exchange.

> And of course it’s not just a “thought experiment,”...

So you think the person that's calling it out as possibly something people should be wary of or at least examine very closely because of all the possible unintended consequences (which is a point they both spend quite some time elaborating on) is the person that should be viewed negatively? It's not just that something was said, it's how it was said, why it was said, and the larger context. To me it feels like you're missing that.

[knuththetruth]

I’m not missing anything. He says specifically that he’s “often wondered” about this specific idea, goes into detail about how, if it were to happen, it should be enacted by the wealthy in secret to prevent any opposition, and proceeds to reveal himself favorable to a whole host of other fundamentally anti-democratic ideas (as well as not really push back against Holiday doing more of the same).

Yes, these kind of people are exactly the kind of people one should be wary of.

[lamarpye]

Or Mike Munger