I found a long Peter Thiel video for you to sift if your interested

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XRrLyckg8Nc


Let me know if you sift it, I will totally vote for it

@dystopianfuturetoday

Yeah, I'm sure most libertarians aren't high-IQ types, but I can't think of a strong counter-argument against the statement about averages. I think the argument for it is:

1. Libertarianism is described by advocates as contributing to the world through successful individualism in an economic meritocracy, whereas liberalism and conservatism are described by advocates as contributing to the world through collectivist goals and social tastes.

2. Liberalism and conservatism both have strong below average IQ segments. Among conservatives, it's in the form of hillbillies and the religious, and among liberals, it's in the form of educational achievement gaps among non-Asian minorities (with Asian minorities and Jewish minorities scoring above European-descended groups). I can't think of any below average IQ segment within libertarianism.


Personally, I haven't read much Milton Friedman, but the people I've been exposed to who seem to me to be the smartest people alive - Peter Thiel, Paul Graham, and Steven Pinker - are all libertarian.

It seems like a problem that Ron Paul is like 80 years old.

Since it's probably a safe bet that libertarians have the highest average IQ and net worth of the 3 major parties, why aren't there young, dynamic libertarian leaders on the national stage? For instance, here in Silicon Valley, we have young super-competitive hyper-intellectual libertarians like Peter Thiel.

Seems like the Libertarian Party should be grooming talented young libertarians (particularly women) for the national spotlight as part of their long-term strategy.

@dystopianfuturetoday

It really doesn't seem like you have the monopoly on legitimate sentiments that you believe you have.

All the points you accused Blankfist of apply equally to you:
-[Dystopianfuturetoday] does not like the information [from Reason].
-He cannot find any evidence to suggest that the damning information is false.
-He then tries to discredit the article [from Reason] on the basis that the site it was posted on has a political bias.

To paraphrase your words: that SourceWatch, the Huffington Post, and Reason are political media outlets isn't grounds to disqualify their arguments.

It's true that libertarians tend to become very economically successful, like Peter Thiel, who also donates to many libertarians causes, but being funded by rich philanthropists like Thiel or Al Gore doesn't disqualify arguments.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

ReasonTV isn't a news outlet, it's a corporate conservative front group. It's subscription and ad revenue are miniscule, sustaining itself almost entirely by donations from corporate benefactors - most notably war profiteer and Tea Party funder, David Koch.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Reason_Foundation>>

>> ^Enzoblue:

Basically saying the science and technology should be held accountable for failing to keep up with the advances in Wall Street's level of greed. Even his audience looks painfully incredulous.


Yeah, that is the 1st of the 4 theories Thiel covers in the larger video (this clip is set to start near the end), and he's definitely smart enough to admit multiple theories likely all play an important part in complex events.

His point here is that Wall Street and the government overestimated the rate of progress... if we had really made as much progress in the last 40 years as we thought we were going to, we wouldn't have seen the housing market collapse.


The people in his audience are happy to be there... Thiel is among the smartest people alive by many of the measures they most care about (see e.g. his early investment in Facebook and the performance of his hedge fund*) and among the most powerful people in the world. I think you might be reading in to their expressions.

*"From 2002 to 2008, [Thiel's] fund had an average annual return of 57.9%, which was significantly better than the average of -0.75% for hedge funds overall... [and experienced] losses of only 4.5% for 2008 compared to the average of 20% for other hedge funds." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarium_Capital

Hey imstellar, I wanted to recommend this video of Peter Thiel. He's a pretty passionate libertarian. http://www.videosift.com/video/Paypal-co-founder-Peter-Thiel-Singularity-Macroeconomics

I love that stuff. What do you think?