@light it suggests that in the absence of institutions that work to combine and balance information to come up with tentative truths—however flawed and biased those institutions may be (they always are, but degrees do matter)—we'll somehow, naturally converge upon the truth. that is what a lynch mob is, a convergence on "truth" without any sort of institutional structure that would prevent, say, information cascades. that's the institution Thiel implicitly endorses. 1/

@light if he thought simply tearing down flawed institutions of analysis and consensus lead to the real, true truth, he'd be an idiot. but he's not actually an idiot. his actual project is to build institutions whose conclusions he finds more agreeable, "truer" perhaps from his perspective. 2/

@light but the thing about truth is its always contested. if Thiel openly said he means to replace "media organisations, bureaucracies, universities and government-funded NGOs" with his own successors, which he does in fact mean, it would invite scrutiny, backlash. So he pretends magically the truth emerges if you just take away these things. He pretends the lynch mob is courtroom enough. /fin