Peter Thiel blasts "Greta and the autistic children crusade"

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The Oxford Union opened its bicentenary year on Monday with an address by Peter Thiel, the entrepreneur and investor who co-founded Paypal and Palantir. He spoke primarily on the culture war in the West, arguing for what he called “anti-anti-anti-anti-classical liberalism”.

Thiel began by asking the audience, “What is the antonym of diversity?” Someone shouted in reply, “University!” For the rest of the event, he delved into politically charged topics, declaring that “stagnation” is the greatest crisis of our time and to blame are universities, environmentalism, and the establishment.

Thiel characterised the study of humanities as “flaky” and pointless, while he described climate change as “one of the controversial subjects of the sciences.” He also described the modern environmentalist movement as “Greta and the autistic children’s crusade”. Later, he encountered pushback on his comments during the Q&A period, with one student staying, “I’ve met Greta and she’s actually quite lovely,” resulting in cheers.

Thiel is currently the Chairman of Palantir and presumed to be its largest shareholder. The company has been contracted by NHS England to provide data services; it is also the current front-runner to win an additional £360 million contract, despite pressure from a coalition of civil liberties groups concerned about privacy, data security, and Palantir’s track record as a “key enabler” of mass surveillance and Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policies. When questioned on how he would fix the NHS given his lack of faith in government, Thiel quipped, “The NHS makes people sick,” and said, “The first step is to get out of the Stockholm syndrome.”

In brief, Thiel described the current world as “stalled” and “deranged” due to the overwhelming influence of the “centre-left zombie straightjacket” has replaced bygone values of “classical liberalism.” “It is all stalled out beyond belief,” he emphasised. Part of the solution, he said, is shifting public opinion, which is why these talks are important to him.

A Union spokesperson acknowledged in a statement to Cherwell that some of its guest speakers may “hold views which are regarded as unacceptable”. However, the Union believes that it is central to their function as a debating society “to facilitate open and respectful discourse on controversial views and topics.” Thiel echoed this sentiment. He believes it is important to discuss contemporary issues in a public forum, arguing that many modern woes, including stagnation, can be partially solved by shifting public opinion.

Thiel also expanded on his contrarian views in a 2009 essay, saying, “I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. … Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

A prominent donor to Donald Trump’s electoral campaign in 2016, one member asked him once the floor was opened to questions, why he backed Trump. Thiel responded that it was based on a “very deep conviction that things were too far off track, too locked down, too stagnant.” As a member of the executive committee of Trump’s transition team, Thiel proposed that a top climate change skeptic be appointed to White House science advisor and that a bitcoin entrepreneur lead the Food and Drug Administration.

“I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. … Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

I agree on everything he said. We live in a time were we get all our comforts for granted and we feel entitled to them. We forget were our comforts come from. They come from classical liberal (libertarian in the U.S.) ideals. The freedom of the individual, the freedom of speech, the right to vote, the right to own property. Before that there was nothing but absolute monarchies and a society of aristocrats an peasants.Classical liberalism paved the way for women's suffrage, as well as the abolition of slavery, the LGBTQ rights and so on. Classical liberalism opposes the idea that the government can impose itself on the individuals. What we see today is a period of stagnation because of government over regulation. We need a new Reagan-Thatcherian revolution.

P.S His "autistic children crusade" reference is not targeting autistic people per se, but it is mentioned in order to emphasise that he is talking about Greta Thurnberg who is self described as autistic. The children's crusade was an actual crusade that was organised by the Pope, based on the belief that the previous crusades failed because of the sins of the adults. Therefore they organised a crusade with children who are pure and thus favored by God. Of course the crusade failed miserably with the muslims capturing the children and selling them as slaves. That hints at the absurdity the climate change cult has reached, by forwarding a child as a modern day crusader of climate activism. Pretty clever analogy.

Well his "autistic children crusade" reference was a little bit colorful.

This said, classical liberalism is unpopular on here. Most members posting are left-of-center or socialist and hate anything right-wing.

Yes, I've got that impression. But that will not stop me from speaking my mind. There are also some fellow right wingers here that I've seen. -It's funny how classical liberalism is considered right wing now. Originaly liberals (classical) were the left wing and the right wing were the monarchists.

Classical liberalism is dead. May it lie in pieces.

It was replaced by neo-liberalism, a la the Clintons, Obama, and Biden, who are not liberal, but corporate. In short, Big Money now rules, and we, the people, (or.should I say, peons), bought into the mantra “Greed is good” hook, line and sinker.

Translation: Democracy stands in the way of him becoming a supervillain.

Classical liberalism is pretty centrist to me.