Matt Damon and Ben Affleck Acquire 'Killing Gawker' Screenplay (techcrunch.com) 113
"Ben Affleck and Matt Damon have acquired a screenplay called Killing Gawker," reports TechCrunch, for a film which "presumably delves into billionaire VC Peter Thiel's campaign to bury the media outfit for posting excerpts from a Hulk Hogan sex tape."
The film is based on a book that details the 2016 court case in which Hogan won a $140 million judgment against a Gawker editor, Gawker founder Nick Denton, and Gawker itself, whose Valleywag site long chronicled Silicon Valley personalities and routinely zeroed in on Thiel.
While casting hasn't been announced, it's "been rumored" Hulk Hogan will be played by Ben Affleck, writes Variety. "Gus Van Sant, who previously helmed Affleck and Damon's Good Will Hunting, is set to direct".
The script was adapted from the book Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker and the Anatomy of Intrigue, they report — though the movie currently "has no formal start date or production schedule."
While casting hasn't been announced, it's "been rumored" Hulk Hogan will be played by Ben Affleck, writes Variety. "Gus Van Sant, who previously helmed Affleck and Damon's Good Will Hunting, is set to direct".
The script was adapted from the book Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker and the Anatomy of Intrigue, they report — though the movie currently "has no formal start date or production schedule."
Thiel did not care about Hulk Hogan (Score:5, Informative)
"Peter Thiel's campaign to bury the media outfit for posting excerpts from a Hulk Hogan sex tape"
That is not the reason he financed the case. Gawker had outed Thiel as gay, which is the reason he wanted revenge. The Hogan sex tape was just the tool for exacting revenge.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Outing someone against their will is NOT cool.
Re:Thiel did not care about Hulk Hogan (Score:5, Insightful)
Outing someone against their will is NOT cool.
I'm a gay man so I feel I've got a dog in this fight. This isn't nearly as cut and dry as you might want to imagine it. If you were talking about a 14-year-old gay teen living with his conservative parents? Yeah, that'd be very not cool to out him.
However, in Thiel's case, we've got a billionaire who absolutely could've been using his wealth and influence to speak up for the marginalized members of the LGBTQ+ community, but instead was cowardly pretending he was part of the white, hetero, and cisgender club so his rich buddies wouldn't think less of him. How you feel about this situation likely hinges upon how much you believe the ultra-wealthy have an inherent obligation to pay it forward back into the society which granted them their success in the first place. Thiel shirked his obligation, so it was just karma when society pushed back.
Re:Thiel did not care about Hulk Hogan (Score:4, Insightful)
How you feel about this situation likely hinges upon how much you believe the ultra-wealthy have an inherent obligation to pay it forward...
Well, that's a contentious issue, isn't it? There are plenty people who would say people *don't* have any obligation to pay society back for their success. Even if you don't agree with them, is there any limits on what someone who self-deputizes themselves as the enforcer of the ideal of paying forward can do with that role? If so how do those limits get applied?
My suspicion of "fair game" arguments stems from this: whenever you find yourself making one, you are bound to be completely sure -- in other words uncritical -- of the impulse to do something that you yourself normally would condemn. You *might* be right, but you have no way of telling because you're too emotionally involved. I think it's far safer to set ground rules for yourself: I will not use someone's private sexual orientation against them. Perhaps you can add some provisos to that, e.g. "... unless they do that to someone else." As long as you're clear ahead of time. You should never just wing it when you're violating one of your personal principles. What does doing the wrong thing feel like? Usually it feels exactly like being totally certain you're doing the right thing. In fact I consider that feeling of self-righteous satisfaction a red flag.
it was just karma when society pushed back.
It sounds kind of abstract when you lay the blame on some amorphous entity like "society". But the reality is that actual individuals made the conscious decision to weaponize his sexual orientation against him. Thiel may be a billionaire, but we don't necessarily know all his motivations for not being public. They may well be venal and contemptible, but that's *conjecture* on our part.
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
Thiel may be a billionaire, but we don't necessarily know all his motivations for not being public. They may well be venal and contemptible, but that's *conjecture* on our part.
He was (and still is) actively supporting the political party which seeks to roll back LGBTQ+ rights. I'd say the rest of us should know when one of our own happens to be a turncoat billionaire.
There's that old expression "If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen." If someone can't handle a life of scrutiny in the public eye, they should stay out of the limelight. If the money isn't going to help you sleep well at night because the entire world knows you're sleeping with, you always have the c
Re: Thiel did not care about Hulk Hogan (Score:2, Insightful)
He was (and still is) actively supporting the political party which seeks to roll back LGBTQ+ rights. I'd say the rest of us should know when one of our own happens to be a turncoat billionaire.
If he's anything like me, he finds no political party he can adequately align himself with, so he simply chooses one that is either least opposed or most in favor of his preferred views. I can't speak for any LGBT people when I say this, but is it possible that some of them simply don't consider their sexuality to be a pressing concern outside of their own lives? I personally know a self-described Orthodox Jew who doesn't vote for politicians that advance the views of his religion, even though he considers
Re: (Score:1)
And finally, I also don't believe how much money somebody brings in means they are obligated to surrender any of their rights.
Billionaires aren't victims of circumstance, though. They all made a conscious decision to keep acquiring wealth well beyond what any person needs to earn for a lifetime of comfortable living. No one forced Thiel to become a billionaire in the public eye, instead of becoming for example, an unknown truck driver who hooks up with guys on Grindr and goes home to an unhappy heterosexual marriage.
Re: Thiel did not care about Hulk Hogan (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
And who gets to define what "comfortable" means?
Against my better judgement, I once watched a MrBeast video where he sampled a bunch of obscenely overpriced foods. After a certain point, the foods actually stopped being worth the money and actually tasted worse than the cheaper fare.
I'm certainly not saying there should be a hard limit on anyone's earning potential, but above a certain point you've basically broken the social contract with the rest of your fellow humans and we are going to "gawk" at your follies. Sometimes that will be things like watc
Re: Thiel did not care about Hulk Hogan (Score:2)
I'm certainly not saying there should be a hard limit on anyone's earning potential, but above a certain point you've basically broken the social contract with the rest of your fellow humans
How?
Re: Thiel did not care about Hulk Hogan (Score:2)
Billionaires aren't victims of circumstance, though. They all made a conscious decision to keep acquiring wealth well beyond what any person needs to earn for a lifetime of comfortable living. No one forced Thiel to become a billionaire in the public eye, instead of becoming for example, an unknown truck driver who hooks up with guys on Grindr and goes home to an unhappy heterosexual marriage.
I still don't see how this means they should feel some sort of obligation to give up certain rights.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
literally injecting himself with the blood of young people.
There's no evidence that he ever did that.
What he did was fund research into whether injecting young blood was beneficial.
Young blood transfusion [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
I can't speak for any LGBT people when I say this, but is it possible that some of them simply don't consider their sexuality to be a pressing concern outside of their own lives?
Most people "simply don't consider their sexuality to be a pressing concern outside of their own lives", but that becomes a real problem when the state starts to intervene and restrict what you can do in your own life. Thiel supports the party of state intervention and is simply relying on being rich and powerful enough that the law
Re: Thiel did not care about Hulk Hogan (Score:2)
But being a colossally rich arsehole means you surrender the moral right for people to not be arseholes right back to you.
If you remove "colossally rich", does the argument change?
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
so that the lives of the less fortunate fellow citizens whose backs you stepped on to get where you are are improved
The debt Thiel owes for his success stretches beyond the grave. If it wasn't for the sacrifices made by LGBTQ+ activists throughout history to get us to the point where being outed is a mere inconvenience, Thiel could've easily suffered the same fate as Alan Turing. [wikipedia.org]
It certainly is Thiel's choice to turn around and say "fuck you, I got mine", but history will judge him for it.
Re: Thiel did not care about Hulk Hogan (Score:2)
The debt Thiel owes for his success stretches beyond the grave.
Who doesn't this apply to? Though few of us consider the benefits afforded by past actors to be debts that need owing.
Re: Thiel did not care about Hulk Hogan (Score:2)
Do you support the party who wants you to be slightly less disgustingly rich so that the lives of the less fortunate fellow citizens whose backs you stepped on to get where you are are improved? Or do you support the party who wants to restrict your rights or better yet not exist at all, simply because of who you're attracted to? Decisions, decisions...
It seems you've described both of the major political parties in the united states.
Re: Thiel did not care about Hulk Hogan (Score:1)
It seems you were dropped on your head at an impressionable age.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
That's the Barney Frank rule in action: he vehemently opposed outing someone who didn't want to be outed, unless they were using their power and influence to make life worse for gays. Then they were fair game.
Re: (Score:2)
Why is this moderated Troll? Just because you don't like it?
Here's my documentation. [nytimes.com]
Re: (Score:2)
> But the reality is that actual individuals made the
> conscious decision to weaponize his sexual
> orientation against him.
But no one did that. Thiel may have not been out to the press. But his orientation was common knowledge in the valley before Gawker published a word. Hell... I'm a nobody with no direct connection to him and definitely not a part of the billionaire set. And I don't even know how or when I first heard. But even I knew, and when Gawker "outed" him, I just shrugged and though
Re: Thiel did not care about Hulk Hogan (Score:1)
Okay, letâ(TM)s say that is true (it is not), you then would feel free to post names etc of Iranian wealthy gays, and Saudi gays etc. They are wealthy after all, whether they have butt sex is irrelevant.
Re:Thiel did not care about Hulk Hogan (Score:5, Insightful)
1) What Gawker did to Hulk Hogan was not cool.
2) Peter Thiel is basically a horrible person.
3) Peter Thiel did something good when he funded the lawsuit, even though he's basically a bad person.
There's no one who is purely good or purely evil, even though we tend to think of them that way. It's not logical to do so.
Re:Thiel did not care about Hulk Hogan (Score:5, Insightful)
Except it wasn't "good" at all. It was flaunting his wealth to destroy independent media because he was grumpy that they ran a story about something everyone already knew.
Thiel is an authoritarian conservative who has spent a fortune funding right wing attempts at denying the rights to a private life unhindered by the interfering control of big government for gay folks, all the while being gay himself. He's a rotten hypocrite, and Gawker merely exposed that hypocracy.
They did the public a great service (although most of us where aware he was likely gay anyway). Gawker should not have been destroyed for merely having the nerve to act in the public interest. The destruction of independent press should *never* be commended.
Re:Thiel did not care about Hulk Hogan (Score:5, Insightful)
Except it wasn't "good" at all. It was flaunting his wealth to destroy independent media.
I'm not a fan of Thiel, not at all. But he didn't destroy Gawker. Did he bribe the judge, or buy the verdict? Nope. Gawker destroyed itself. The only thing Thiel did was giving money to Hulk Hogan, and this was not a destructive move. He saw that Gawker had placed itself in a precarious position, by playing with the injunctions against it. He saw that Gawker's legal strategy against Hulk Hogan and probably other individuals was to entangle them in costly lawsuits, where it could outspend them. His money enabled Hulk Hogan to get justice from the court. Because getting justice apparently is something only people with money can afford. What Thiel did was not a bad thing per se, although he obviously had selfish motives.
I can see people accusing Thiel of buying the verdict. Well, if such a thing is possible in the USA, then that country has way bigger problems than billionaires suppressing free speech.
Re: Thiel did not care about Hulk Hogan (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Honest question: why does Thiel get all of the blame/credit when it was the courts who ultimately rendered their decision?
Think what you want of Thiel, but do we really believe that Thiel is able to buy a verdict? If Gawker was in the right, wouldn't they have been acquitted? If the damages were really overblown, wouldn't the courts have ruled otherwise?
I'm not particularly invested in the Gawker/Hulk Hogan case. I'm also indifferent to Peter Thiel. I wouldn't care if he lives or dies. But I'm also not in t
Re: (Score:2)
...which would suggest this entire thing is just an exercise is in gaslighting, trying to paint the Gawker network as somehow the innocent victim of a slavering right wing crazy when in fact, they (for politics, probably) revealed deeply personal and private information for laughs.
Casting 101. (Score:4, Interesting)
it's "been rumored" Hulk Hogan will be played by Ben Affleck.
Sorry guys, but the Good Will Hunting dynamic duo does magically not turn an actor into fucking Hulk Hogan.
If this actually happens with casting, know that a dozen or seven Hulk Hogan impersonators (who can probably actually wrestle too) were passed up on behalf of Ben’s ego. Hulk Hogan himself is probably in better shape to do this, and that’s saying a lot.
Re: (Score:3)
a dozen or seven Hulk Hogan impersonators (who can probably actually wrestle too)
You should know that wrestling skill isn't required to be a professional wrestler.
Re: Casting 101. (Score:2)
They do need to be in very good physical shape, and be very good at pulling punches while making them appear to hit hard.
Re: Casting 101. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
To say that wrestling skill isn't required to be a professional wrestler is downright bizarre. That's exactly what it takes.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Casting 101. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I like a good pedantry here and there but this is just silly. Football (Soccer) players play Football, and Football (American Football) players play Football.
Just because the same word is used for two different things doesn't make it incorrect.
Professional Wrestlers for the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) are wrestling when they go out there, and NCAA Wrestling tournaments are wrestling as well.
Examples from Merriam-Webster about wrestling:
https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com]
Pro wrestling has always been
Re: Casting 101. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No, Football (American) players play football, and Football (Soccer) players play Football.
You renaming it to make it seem like its not two words for the same thing doesn't make you correct.
Wrestlers (NCAA) wrestle.
Wrestlers (Pro WWE) wrestle.
Words can have multiple meanings.
That bird is a Crane.
They used a Crane to lift that heavy object.
I have an ant bite on my arm.
It's important to arm yourself with a solid education.
I enjoyed watching a clip from that video.
My mom is going to clip my hair.
The boat is mo
Re: Casting 101. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You still don't think it requires a certain level of skill and expertise to do "Choreography" in a way that makes it look like you punched your opponent in the face but actually didn't hurt them? Or piledrove them into a canvas mat without breaking their neck and crushing their spine?
If you got 100 random people and choreographed a routine where they attempted the piledriver, they would maybe do it twice before one of them got badly injured.
But I suspect you al
Re: Casting 101. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The pretending part doesn't come into the definition of words.
Wrestling is defined in at least two ways. First would be the way NCAA wrestling is, the second would be the way WWE Wrestling is. Both are wrestling, but since the definition is different for the use of the word both fit the definition of wrestling.
WWE is not pretending to NCAA wrestle. They're WWE wrestling.
They're two different things, and if someone doesn't give enough context clues it's likely confusion can occur.
It's like people who get
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Casting 101. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, I've got to say, I really didn't find his performance all that convincing. He really didn't inhabit the role, and he never achieved suspension of disbelief for me.
:-P
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So...they need to be good actors?
LOL. You could turn 100 wrestlers into actors before you could get one actor to become a WWE star.
It ain't hard to read lines and play pretend. Social media is full of it. Some better than Hollywood at this point. You sure as hell don’t see too many actors switching careers to become wrestlers. Seen plenty the other way ‘round. Tends to prove what is true.
Heres what’s also true. Ben Affleck looks more like Joe Biden than Hulk Hogan. Stupid casting, is stupid casting.
Re: (Score:2)
LOL. You could turn 100 wrestlers into actors before you could get one actor to become a WWE star
Which pays more? Shows how much you know.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Heather Clem (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Who will play Heather Clem, the woman whose sex acts in her own home Gawker broadcast to the world?
Well, Ben Affleck is going to play a huge 300-pound blond haired wrestler named “Hulk”.
With casting like that, I’d expect Heather to be played by Hillary Clinton.
It wasn't about the Hogan sex tape (Score:5, Interesting)
Thiel's grudge against Gawker began when Gawker outed Thiel. [wired.com] Personally, I wonder what goes through the mind of someone who'd rather hide an immutable fact about who they are, rather than perform some introspection upon their political views, but cognitive dissonance is a hell of a drug.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Being gay and donating money to the republican party is a real head scratcher. I guess he thinks the party won’t eventually turn on him when the funding stops.
Re:It wasn't about the Hogan sex tape (Score:5, Interesting)
There's always gotta be one of you. Here's where I'll show my work:
1. Empower American Families
Republicans will promote a Culture that values the Sanctity of Marriage, the
blessings of childhood, the foundational role of families, and supports
working parents. We will end policies that punish families.
Source (Page 18): The official RNC2024 platform (warning, PDF file) [gop.com]
Translated from Republican-ese, it means that they intend to roll back laws to a time when the only sort of marriages recognized were the traditional kind. So, if you're someone like Thiel who is in a same-sex marriage [wikipedia.org], supporting a political party with such a platform is strongly against your own best interests. But we're humans, not Vulcans, so there's always going to be at least some people doing some damned illogical things and then performing mental gymnastics to justify their choices.
Re: (Score:2)
Your translation doesn't seem to make sense, unless you assume a whole lot that isn't included in the text.
You seem to think that a homosexual couple isn't capable of being a "family", which is not included in your quote. It's rather difficult to "show your work" when you don't bother to include the facts that back it up.
Re:It wasn't about the Hogan sex tape (Score:4, Informative)
Your translation doesn't seem to make sense, unless you assume a whole lot that isn't included in the text.
You can infer it from the text, because "sanctity" is a religious term. The word "sanctity" comes from the Latin word sanctus, which means "holy" or "sacred". The GOP platform is explicitly stating that marriage is only to be legally recognized as defined by the bible.
A secular marriage would instead be referred to as "the institution of marriage".
Re: It wasn't about the Hogan sex tape (Score:2)
The bible doesn't really seem to define it. If it does, it doesn't seem to be compatible with how it's practiced today.
Re: (Score:2)
The bible doesn't really seem to define it. If it does, it doesn't seem to be compatible with how it's practiced today.
A quick Google search would've told you that yes, the bible does define marriage. Though, you are correct that the literal interpretation of "to death do us part"* isn't upheld as far as the state is concerned. You're not the first to point out that conservatives probably wouldn't be too pleased if divorce was off the table, but none of that changes how they feel about same-sex marriage. The important thing to remember is that once religion has become part of policymaking, logic has gone completely out t
Re: It wasn't about the Hogan sex tape (Score:2)
But is it consistent?
https://www.biblestudytools.co... [biblestudytools.com]
Re: (Score:2)
But is it consistent?
It isn't. But again, you're not going to get very far arguing the finer points of someone's own religion against them. There are many other examples of contradictions between Christianity as it is written and as it is practiced.
Re: (Score:2)
* Mark 10:8,9: When a man and a woman marry, they are joined together by God and no one should break what God has joined
Sorry that's not a definition of marrige. That's just a clause added for a marriage between a man and a woman. It does not exclude marriage between a man and a man, or a woman and a woman - except perhaps that those are not joined by god?
Re: (Score:2)
That was about divorce, but you're missing the point: those who get to define marriage as a religious institution are also the same people who interpret the bible, and they've also already made up their minds that they oppose-same sex marriage. You can argue whether the bible allows same-sex marriage or not until you're blue in the face and at the end of the day it doesn't matter, because the problem is that the GOP's political platform wants marriage to revert to its religious definition.
Which, again, is
Re: (Score:2)
Which, again, is decided by religious leaders, not logically-minded individuals who will carefully weigh all the facts and come to a rational decision. It will simply be "no, because I say so."
Strange that you would blanket-accuse "religious leaders" of not being "logically-minded individuals". By your logic, any belief in what you consider "religion" removes that person from "logically-minded", therefore, their opinion should be considered void. Is that because "you say so"? What if a religious person is a homosexual? Does that make them illogical?
Your argument is much like some people who argue that black people must be liberal, because that's the "only way they're allowed to be."
Re: (Score:2)
Outside of maybe #3-#10 of the commandments (which are borrowed from other codes of ethics anyways) - 99.9% of the old testament should be discarded except as historical interest
NT needs to be read as a product of its time - discard most of the Pauline epistles. Kick revalations to the realm of horror films and treat Acts as a quasi-historical document
As for the Gospels - we had a saying in back NT202
Re: (Score:2)
By your logic, any belief in what you consider "religion" removes that person from "logically-minded", therefore, their opinion should be considered void.
Religion is, by its very nature, about accepting dogma on the basis of faith even when faced with contradictory facts. You're more than welcome to pick up a history book and read about the many times humans have decided that killing each other would be preferable to altering their religious beliefs. It also should go without saying, that mentality still persists to this day.
If you're trying to make the argument that over long periods of time religions can evolve and change, yes, they do. Most of what ave
Re: (Score:2)
By your logic, any belief in what you consider "religion" removes that person from "logically-minded"
I mean there's not a whole lot logical about religion. Atheists are perfectly capable of being illogical of course, but religion is somewhat predicated on it.
What if a religious person is a homosexual? Does that make them illogical?
Depends on the religion and the person.
Re: It wasn't about the Hogan sex tape (Score:2)
Had a conversation with a southern Baptist about a year ago. The person was annoying me with their persistence on preaching to me so I asked if they even knew the original language of the Bible. They answered english... I called the person an idiot and walked away. At that point I didn't feel like explaining the difficulty in getting exact interpretations between two languages let alone whatever word salad was goi
Re: It wasn't about the Hogan sex tape (Score:1)
You seem to do a whole lot of inferring, when it was Republicans that got this whole free the slaves, women equality and civil rights movement going. It was Obama who said that marriage should be between man and woman and Hillary that abortion should be rare.
Freedom is freedom, a stable household where children, adopted or born into the family is good for society, thatâ(TM)s the whole premise of the pages you posted. Go to any church with the exception of a few fundamentalist cults and you will find on
Re: (Score:2)
Hm then Republicans did a massive about face, swapped positions with the democrats and decided to be the party of racism and religious oppression.
Basically, stop living off former glories. No one from the Republican party of the anti-salvery movement is left alive any more. "I'm not shitty because a dead guy 150 years ago in the same organisation did something good" is not the defence you seem to think it is.
Hillary that abortion should be rare.
What's wrong with that? You know what massively sucks? Having a
Re: (Score:1)
Well, we know Joe Biden is still from that era, because he is the one who wrote the bill that punished blacks disproportionally for cocaine use and eulogized a grand cyclops of the KKK who fought his whole career against the civil rights bill. Plenty of politicians (sadly) are in their 70s and have had a career of 30+ years, so that about-face position swap would have to have happened early 2000s?
Fact is the left has become significantly more hardcore due to Obama and (Bill) Clinton to a lesser extent, thei
Re: (Score:2)
Not just marriage either. The "blessings of childhood" mean they want to keep kids ignorant and naive, to make child abuse easier to get away with. If you don't teach them it's wrong, they will believe priests who tell them it's okay.
Re: (Score:2)
Ending policies that punish families has 101 interpretations.
The problem, as I've already said, is that it's written using religious terminology. It is implying a de-facto intertwining of religion and political policy. They're literally stating that they want to defer to religious doctrine for the definition of marriage and what constitutes a "family".
Anyone opposed to blurring the lines between the separation of church and state should find this abhorrent, not just LGBTQ+ folks who fear the potential loss of their marriage rights.
Re: (Score:2)
How about we just get government out of the marriage business completely?
The government recognizes marriage with tax benefits and other various rights. It also intermixes the ownership rights of the two people involved, which does tend to complicate things somewhat when a marriage ends in divorce, but I digress. As long as you have the government giving legal recognition to the institution of marriage, then the act itself must be defined by law. There's no way around that.
I suppose you could simply have the government ignore marriage completely, with no legal recognition what
Re: (Score:2)
Being gay and donating money to the republican party is a real head scratcher. I guess he thinks the party won’t eventually turn on him when the funding stops.
Ya, but Thiel will always have his friendship with JD Vance to fall back on. :-)
Re: (Score:1)
It wasn't getting outed that pissed him off (Score:5, Interesting)
Paying for real journalism with muckracking is as old as for profit journalism.
Re: (Score:2)
it wasn't exactly a secret that Theil was gay. The problem was Gawker had real journalists on staff and they kept digging up real dirt on Theil's questionable business practices.
I hadn't heard that angle before, and TBH it seems like it'd be kind of difficult for readers to have taken their real journalism seriously when it's surrounded by celebrity trash articles. You generally assume news outlets will stay in their lane.
Besides, these days it seems like having shady business dealings is a prerequisite to gaining favor among Republicans, not a dealbreaker. Heck, the former president actually bragged about how many times he's filed for bankruptcy. Do enough sketchy things and a
It gets picked up by other outlets (Score:2)
It's like how a musician will spend hours a day practicing and never really make a dime doing it. Journalists are like that except for publishing important stories. Every single one of 'em dreams of taking down someone powerful Woodward & Bernstien style
Re: (Score:2)
Personally, I wonder what goes through the mind of someone who'd rather hide an immutable fact about who they are
Immutable?
If putting on a dress and just wishing real hard can change your gender, then there can't be much that's actually "immutable".
Re: (Score:2)
If putting on a dress and just wishing real hard can change your gender, then there can't be much that's actually "immutable".
You could always ask Thiel if he would've popped the ex-gay pill, had such a thing existed. It doesn't though, so while trans folks can change their clothing, pronouns and (if desired) have surgery on their genitals, us gay folks have to just learn to accept ourselves for who we are.
Superficially, it does seem like there is a bit of a contradiction going on, but it all makes sense when you realize that current medical understanding can't change things that are "in the head". There'd also be significant et
Re: (Score:2)
I have no real idea what Thiel's political views are. You don't get to decide when other people disclose things about themselves. They get to decide that. And outing someone is not a nice thing to do.
But in this particular case, hiding that you are gay does make sense quite a bit. Gay people do get persecuted for who they are. They get declined jobs. They get declined service. They get attacked more.
And while a lot of things have gotten better for queer people in the last 20 years, Peter Thiel is in his mid
Said it before, say it again (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
It's OK, we're on slashdot, so you can say "couch fucker" all you like.
Somehow that reminded of a particular site from the mid 90s. It's still up! Maybe he visited it.
http://www.furnitureporn.com/ [furnitureporn.com]
Re: (Score:3)
It's OK, we're on slashdot, so you can say "couch fucker" all you like.
I tried, but the damn lameness filter foiled my plans.
Liar (Score:1)
So you're gonna keep pushing the couch thing even though it's an easily debunked lie? If only you had the intellectual honesty to read the source material, and admit you are lying. You won't because you don't care about the truth, rsilvergun. You only care about victory, and you are willing to act immorally to get it. We see right through you.
Gamergate also cost Gawker seven figures (Score:2)
Yeah yeah go ahead and downvote me, but their advertizing head at the time said so himself. https://www.politico.com/media... [politico.com]
For all that is wrong with supervillain Peter Thiel and his vision for the world, this is pretty low on the list.
I miss Deadspin and Jezebel (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
"Best sites on the internet"?
They were cringingly left-biased, and deserved their fate. Good riddance.
"Right Time to Thiel" - ZDF Magazin Royale (Score:2)
RuPaul to play Peter Thiel (Score:2)
poor Thiel (Score:2)
You should never out anybody as gay. .... But if you do, do it to a conservative libertarian who supports right wing causes, founded Palantir, funded Facebook, bought himself a NZ citizenship, published books about the "myth" of diversity in education and how affirmative action is wrong, does not believe democracy and freedom are compatible, and - you guessed it - donated to Trump's campaign and is one of the largest Republican Party donors.
Re: (Score:2)
"stuff that matters" (Score:1)
Nadir of Slashdot.