Peter Thiel is a perfect example of what Walter says to Donny in The Big Lebowski, which is "Donny, you're out of your element." Thiel believes higher education has "brainwashed" younger engineers, scientists, and math oriented majors who work in Silicon Valley. He blames it on what he would not like to call a liberal-higher education conspiracy, but his words belie that denial. He is saying, whether he likes it or not, there is a conspiracy among the educated elite in higher education to mislead the people he sees working in Silicon Valley.
Sorry, Pete. There is a perfectly good reason why engineers in Silicon Valley moved from a moderate Republican-libertarian stance to a more liberal-left stance, and that reason is based upon two trends Thiel would never want to admit...because his worldview largely crashes down when those two trends are considered and recognized:
1. The Goldwater-Reagan-Gingrich-Trump right wing attack on higher education in general, and then the attack on science and engineering itself, beginning in the 1990s. In the 1960s, many engineering, science, and math majors were hostile to the student movement, supportive of the Vietnam War, and generally voted Republican, including for people like Goldwater and Reagan because the two political leaders had to be more stealth when stoking anti-science beliefs--for it was necessary to push science and math against the Communist ideology dominated Russians. Indeed, even in the early 1980s, when Gingrich was a rising star in the Republican Party, Gingrich called for more science and math teaching to promote classic Cold War militarism (see the link to Gingrich above; and here is Gingrich, after he realized his days of power politics were waning, suddenly realizing that maybe we should do something about the effects of climate change--funny how that happens...). With the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, however, the anti-higher education rhetoric no longer had to hide, and in fact needed to be promoted, as the Republican Party began to push hard against any idea of anthropomorphic climate change. This dovetailed with the Republican efforts to promote right wing, often Southern and Midwestern religious voters, which made it almost mandatory for Republican candidates to show they either rejected or had problems with basic evolutionary biology, and nearly anything related to science in general. The Republicans' efforts to appeal to those left behind in the global economy the Republican politicians largely ended up supporting and promoting (to please corporate donors) frustrated the Democratic Party's New Deal contingent as those of us in that latter contingent saw the rise of once "moderate Republicans" dominating the thinking of the Democratic Party, i.e the rise of Clinton Democrats. But back to the Republicans' descent into anti-intellectualism: If one goes back and reads or hears the Republican Party candidates' rhetoric starting in the mid to late 1990s, that rhetoric began to call scientists "liberal" and eventually "leftist" for positing anthropomorphic reasons for climate change, which made the highly educated teachers and students in the engineering, science, and math departments blanch with shock and then derision against Republicans in general. To use an oft made quote in its proper place for once, many of these engineers, scientists, and mathematics majors began saying, "I didn't leave the Republican Party, the Party left me."
2. The high cost of education starting in the 1990s made more and more younger people aware of societal needs, societal costs, and the problem and burdens that arise when putting social costs on individuals. This, combined with the hostility of the Republicans to "education" and "science," was the final push for younger engineers, scientists, and math majors to go "liberal-left." Some are still "libertarians," but even then, they are still on board with scientific reasoning regarding climate change and evolution, tend to be atheists, or strong agnostics, and are against the Empire Goldwater, Reagan, Gingrich loved. They reluctantly vote Republican, and often don't vote for major party candidates in November elections because they have a hard time voting for nearly any Democrats, even when Clinton-Obama Democrats reach out to them with charter school/anti-public school rhetoric, high tech support, lessening regulations during the derivatives land-go-go years, etc. Those who were libertarian who voted for Trump were hopeful when Trump talked a good game against the Empire at certain points in the 2015-2016 campaign for the presidency, but have grown disappointed in Trump for having shown no fealty to that rhetoric in any way other than with destructive, erratic behavior in office.
Perhaps Thiel needs to speak to a libertarian such as David Brin, who would largely agree with what I have just written. Brin gives a pass to Reagan and Goldwater I refuse to do, however, but taking Thiel back to reality is, I suppose, a step-by-step process. Brin also recognizes there is an anti-science left, which falls in with the right against vaccines and even fluoridation, but is more often the home of most anti-GMO fervor (I myself am skeptical about GMOs, but only on the basis that true, detailed over time epidemiological studies are relatively scant, and I wonder about why scientists in other nations than ours share my skepticism. Unlike those who are loudly anti-GMO, I respect the work of Pam Ronald at UC Davis, for example, and find myself blanching at various anti-GMO beliefs and "analyses," though food politics critic Michael Pollan is someone I respect, too.).
But bottom line, Pete: It's not "brainwashing" which has turned engineering, science, and math departments, and their incoming students, more "liberal" and even "left." To believe that, Pete, you are only insulting these very highly educated people who are, for the most part, decent people, too. No one group has a monopoly on ethics, politics, or kindness/decency, but I would say that group of people Thiel attacks, including the libertarians among them, are mentally healthier than some other sociological defined groups who make up Traitor Trump's base. In Thiel-world, Thiel has to sit with some pretty dumb, addled characters. Yet, Thiel appears to never stop to ask himself, "Maybe it's me who's missing something? Anything?" Pete, my advice, again, is: Call up David Brin and ask him to lunch. He can help you.
Me? I'll just end up calling you an overrated, rich jerk who proves my larger sociological point that rich people have overwhelming power to unduly influence the discourse on corporate media, and promote a propaganda that is undermining our nation, a nation that, on issue after issue, consists of a majority who believe in what Bernie Sanders says about funding public education tuition free, $15 an hour minimum wage, raising taxes on rich people and corporations, and Medicare/Medicaid for All, just for starters. Let me put it to you in more harsh terms, since most people around you are afraid to do so: Pete, I am so much more knowledgeable than you about politics, political history, and literature, for example, but it is you who gets to expound in corporate media journals and television, well beyond your technical and business expertise, to millions simply because you have amassed a boatload of money. For me, I would like to put your beloved sociopath Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged to a test. Let's put you and all your rich friends, even the ones who agree more with me than you would--for we really want to test the Ayn Rand theory here--into a spaceship, send you all to Mars and say, "Here! Create some jobs, 'job-creators'!" And then, you know what happens back here on earth when all of you are off the planet--and I mean, all, including the good CEOs and executives of the 1% and their trust fund friends? Well, the janitors still show up in the buildings across America, including places like Amgen and other Big Pharma places, and open the doors. The workers come filing in over the next few hours of the morning, and work gets done. Eventually, people realize they need some management, so people volunteer to take the jobs, but for 1/10,000th of the money you greedy, overrated jerks get paid, and life goes on, research goes on, arguments over policy go on, etc. It is the very opposite of the Ayn Rand sociopathic ideology. So yeah, better call David, and not me.
