Peter Thiel Wants to be the next Bond Villain

It's Friday, August the 26th, 2011, so around these parts it must be Let's Once Again Make Fun of Pompous Social Darwinist Libertardians Day. Today's guest is Peter Thiel.


Now, Thiel is in the news because he just donated a whopping 1.25 million out of his billion plus fortune to the Seasteading Institute, which wants to build a floating complex of platforms out in international waters, where they can pursue the vision of a libertarian utopia unfettered by the binding chains of government.

Once completed it will join the ranks of other libertarian utopias, such as... well, can't really seem to think of a successful one right off hand, let alone one that wasn't pretty much of a joke from the get-go.

But obviously, it's worth a shot, because the wretched society that produced the likes of Peter Thiel is not worth a moldy turd. A rugged individualist, he espouses the rugged libertarian ideal that only individuals are worth trusting, but that groups of individuals bound together (like governments, but, I guess, not corporations) are wholly untrustworthy.

A "self-made billionaire", he chooses to ignore the fact that the most important coin-flip moments in his life were made for him - like the fact that he grew up in a socially tolerant (he's gay), median-household-income-of-$100,000 (he's never been on welfare), culturally vibrant and stimulating (he was never deprived of information) city such as Foster City, California. Peter Thiel also thinks our educational system here in the US sucks, and never mind that he attended a sub-par diploma mill like Stanford University. Never mind that his companies such as PayPal and Facebook were built upon the heavily federally subsidized backbone of the telecommunications and computer industries, or that it just happens to use a government handout called the Internet. It really is a wonder that he became the Ubermensch he is today, despite all the obstacles thrown in his path, all of his stifling experiences, and unfortunate origins.

So, like any good megalomaniac rationally self-interested intelligent free market agent, he has decided to run away Go Galt  pioneer a Brave New Waterworld in hopes of ridding the Earth of the moochers and looters, the parasite classes, once and for all, like any good James Bond villain would.

No beel-leeyon dollar ransoms to the UN here! Just build him a stylish comfortable Evil Lair, a tony weapons platform, a somehow self-sufficient, heavily-armed,  free of all those civilizing encumbrances, where he can act out his basest infantile fantasies, just like all the other Silicon Valley bloviators.

Mr. Thiel has been involved in all sorts of astroturf organizations, like the execrable Cato Institute, not to mention other libertarian-oriented institutions, such as:

The Club for Growth

The Chain Saw for Prosperity

(and, my favorite)


The Stainless Steel Razor Wire Whip for Quality of Life