Peter Thiel and Glenn Beck Babbling Like Morons

This post is further proof that climate change deniers, especially of the libertarian variety, are seriously unhinged.

If you don't know, Peter "I no longer believe freedom and democracy are compatible" Thiel is a billionaire venture capitalist, PayPal co-founder, and co-author of Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future. Glenn Beck, if you're the one remaining unaware person, is a conservative, on-air personality and the Internet's favorite running joke. Both are living proof that you don't need to be very intelligent to be obscenely wealthy.

Apparently, they recently decided to sit down, have a thoroughly mindless and unnecessary tête-à-tête, and record it. Here are the partial transcript and the video of the insipid exchange. The fun in the form of blithering stupidity begins at about the 2:22 mark. Their shared favorite word seems to be "monolithic," in case you wanted to make a drinking game out of it.

Peter Thiel: "We have all these monolithic debates about science or pseudoscience, like there's the climate change debate, and we're—"

Glenn Beck: "Is that science or pseudoscience?" (My note: It figures he has to ask...a libertarian venture capitalist, the best source on any scientific topic, dontchyaknow.)

Peter Thiel: "I think...ummm...I think very often...I think it's more pseudoscience, but, uh, it's often, uh, it's, again, whenever...whenever you can't have a debate, I often think that's...that's evidence that there's a problem. You know, when people use the word 'science,' it's, uh, it's often a 'tell,' like in poker, that you're bluffing. And, so, it's like, uh, you know, it's like we have 'social science,' we have 'political science.' We don't call it 'physical science,' or 'chemical science,' we just call them 'physics' and 'chemistry,' because we just know they're...they're right. And you can debate the periodic table of elements. No one will be upset if you ask questions about that. Call it 'climate science,' it's a 'tell' like in poker. It's telling you that, uh, that people are, um, are exaggerating and that they're bluffing a little bit."

Glenn Beck: "So..."

Peter Thiel: "But, um, but, uh...but I think...I think that, uh...you know, I think this monolithic, uh, culture is breaking down. People are asking questions. You know, the weather has not been getting warmer for the last 15 years. The hockey stick that Al Gore predicted, uh, in the early 2000's, um, on the...on the climate has not happened for the last decade. I think as this monolithic culture breaks down, you can have more real debates, and, and I think that's, that's...that, that would be a good thing on that."

These two dipshits actually thought it would be a good idea to record and upload this travesty of a pointless and vapid conversation? Oh, brother.

Let's forget Thiel's abysmally embarrassing mistake of thinking the "pause" that wasn't had the same timeline and therefore could be used to refute Mann's hockey stick graph (which stops before, not starts at or after, the year 2000, mind), and wrapping it all up together with a "lemme really confuse matters and blame it on Al Gore" bow on top. Instead, let's address Thiel's poker analogy that attaching the word "science" onto something somehow magically indicates you're bluffing or trying to exaggerate what you know.

Did rocket science somehow bluff its way to reaching the Moon and the other planets in our solar system?

Is Harvard trying to fool us all and inflate what it knows about medicine and health by naming its medical school "The Division of Medical Sciences?"

Is the entire field of neuroscience bluffing about its knowledge of the nervous system and the brain?

And, for fuck's sake, did computer science exaggerate the information and communication technology running on a worldwide network of machines that made your lucrative Web site and personal fortune possible, Thiel?

Jaezuz Cheeeeeroist, what an abject moron.

Using poker analogies to express ignorant, personal opinions about climate change is a clear sign someone's a science-denier idiot, bluffing about his understanding of legitimate climate research, and solipsistic and narcissistic behavior that could only be surpassed by being a Stanford graduate and part-time professor who dangles money in front of people to tempt them away from getting a higher education. Figure that one the fuck out, people. In fact, once you begin researching Thiel, you quickly become aware of a pattern of wanting to benefit as much as he can from a country's educational, economic, and political systems, only to fund efforts to undermine its taxation and regulation (without which those aforementioned personal gains probably could not have happened, mind), and then completely unplug into some bizarre, libertarian, anti-statist, seaborne utopia.

Peter, if you ever actually manage to make those ridiculous platforms work, can you do us all a favor and take Patrick Moore and Stefan Molyneux with you, please? Thank you. Oh yeah, by the way, if we're smart, we'll levy a massive exodus tax before you can sail off into the libertarian blue yonder. Do try not to cry too much about it, mmmmmkay?