Thiel had hoped his essay on the limits of politics would provoke reactions, and it did.
Unresolvable The public record could not settle it.
Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?
What would count as true or false
Thiel's hope is his own internal state and cannot be checked; judge the checkable part. True: his essay (The Education of a Libertarian, Cato Unbound, April 2009) drew substantial published reactions by 2009-05-01, such as response essays, press coverage or commentary (e.g. on his remarks about women's suffrage and democracy). Mostly true: there were reactions, but only a few. Mostly false: there was little reaction apart from Cato's own invited responses. False: no reactions to the essay were published by that date, and evidence shows this (e.g. a contemporary account noting it was ignored).
Set before the research began.
Evidence (3)
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E1 Facebook Investor Not Pleased With Women's Suffrage SFist · 28 April 2009
“recently penned an essay in which he suggests that the last time one could be "genuinely optimistic" about U.S. politics was just before dames got the right to vote.”
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E2 From Scratch: Libertarian Institutions and Communities Cato Unbound (Cato Institute) · 1 April 2009
“Brian Doherty argues that Patri Friedman is both right in some ways and wrong in others.”
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E3 Peter Thiel published essay questioning compatibility of freedom and democracy - GoodIndex GoodIndex · 13 April 2009
“In his April 2009 Cato Unbound essay "The Education of a Libertarian," Peter Thiel wrote that he "no longer believed that freedom and democracy are compatible."”
Reasoning
The evidence shows that at least one independent outlet reacted to the essay before 2009-05-01 [E1]. It does not show how many reactions there were, and the criteria separate true, mostly true and mostly false by that number. E2 concerns a different Cato response, and E4 only describes what the essay said.
Cite this claim
Peter Thiel, “Thiel had hoped his essay on the limits of politics would provoke reactions, and it did.” (said 1 May 2009). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_c5595d31e64e, method 0.1.0+3e03e2df, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_c5595d31e64e
This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.
Reply to this claim
More factual claims by Peter Thiel
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Mostly true
“My stagnation thesis was that progress had slowed since the 1970s.”
Thiel's stagnation thesis held that technological progress has slowed since the 1970s.
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Mostly true
“I was not arguing that people would lose their votes or that democracy would disappear.”
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Mostly true
“I was arguing for a certain depoliticization, a reduction in the intensity of politics.”
Thiel's 2009 article argued for depoliticization, a reduction in the intensity of politics.
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Resolved true
“I encouraged him to write his book, and I supported him financially when he ran for the Senate in 2022.”
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Mostly true
“I liked him. I watched the first season. My character died. I think eccentric is always better than evil.”
Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.