What are "the really good ideas" that Peter Thiel says are too dangerous to mention?

Ooh ooh I have one:

That Thiel's real reason for saying such things is pure self-promotion.

The kinds of things which an upper-class American is prone to believe (which would not garner him favour with other members of society), I suppose. I mean, I'm not expecting him to be secretly yearning for a Communist workers' paradise. Also he is an entrepreneur with transhumanist sympathies, therefore a forward-thinking guy, so probably the internet crusaders from the opposite camp aren't bashing his ideas yet -- because they haven't yet conceived of them; you can count on people like him to think in an original way -- but probably will be in 20 years from now.

HOWEVER. I take issue with the thing you're attempting to do with this post. Obviously none of us are Thiel himself; obviously the attempt to guess what Thiel meant is a classic case of grasping at straws; whatever the community can come up with probably isn't even in the same ballpark as Thiel's secret heresies. Besides, if I were him, I'd personally be bothered by some random people's attempts to guess at beliefs I don't want to make public, for reasons relating to the telephone game that ensues and the risk of other people from other websites misinterpreting those positions as my own. Alas, that is but my own take on this, because I'm not Peter Thiel. Obviously.

I regard this kind of challenge as inflammatory. Even though I remember having made a case for more political discussion on LessWrong, time and again I get reminded how awfully LessWrongers handle political topics, and how badly I had overestimated people's aptitude at not causing political discussions to degenerate into flame wars. This is worse than the average political discussion. This is an open invitation for people to fill in the blanks with their pet thoughtcrimes, as long as they consider themselves roughly on the same side of the political spectrum as Thiel. It's going to attract the worst sort of people, and it can harm participants, onlookers, and Thiel himself.

You're a smart guy, you don't need me to tell you that we cannot run an accurate simulation of Thiel, and I know from your article publication history that you're not doing this for inquisitorial purposes, which leaves the intention of drawing attention to his "really good ideas". However, the man himself (ostensibly) wants the opposite. Which he is in full right to do. So how about we leave him be and refrain from making wild guesses as to what he meant?

What are some good answers and your guess as to his answer? Please exclude issues relating to race and gender.

Hmmm.

THRASYMACHUS: Give us an answer yourself, and tell us what you think justice is. And don't tell me that it's duty, or expediency, or advantage, or profit, or interest. I won't put up with nonsense of that sort.

SOCRATES: You ask someone for a definition of twelve, and add "And I don't want to be told that it's twice six, or three times four, or six times two, or four times three; that sort of nonsense won't do." You know perfectly well that no-one would answer you on those terms. He would reply "What do you mean, Thrasymachus; am I to give none of the answers you mention? If one of them happens to be true, do you want me to give a false one?"

From The Republic), by Plato.

I would guess he's thinking of some anti democratic ideas.

I think this thread needs a lot more context. In Zero to One, which they are discussing in this exchange, Thiel is not so much talking about political ideas, as business ideas. One of his ideas is that startups are based around "secrets" - that the way to start a business is to know something that few know, and profit from that. But the flipside is that these ideas are dangerous, not necessarily because they will cause opprobrium to be heaped on you, but because it's hard to get traction for ideas that most people think are wrong. They are risky, and if successful can change the world in unanticipated ways.

So (pace buybuyanddavis) I don't think Thiel is talking about antidemocratic ideas - or at least, not simpliciter. Indeed, it's a cliche that "Washington is broken," even more so than that it's a cliche that the university system is broken. There are a thousand organisations in the MOOC space, but there must be a million in the "change the government" space - even more crowded. I think the exchange on charter cities is instructive.

Naturally, if I had what I considered "secrets" in the Thielian sense, I would not be sharing them on this board. I would be trying to turn them into cash. But let me give you a candidate "secret" that I don't think I can exploit:

"Disruptive innovation often works only by leveraging political splits within regulatory battles. If Uber were just another taxi firm, the Powers That Be would have come down on them with the full force of the law. But really, Uber is just another taxi firm. Their success is based solely on the fact that they are not treated as such, and so can escape from the pro-incumbent regulations that would crush any other insurgent. And the reason they are not treated as such is a combination of:

• Woo from the fact that they use the internet.
• The fact that free-market political forces have some purchase in taxi regulation.
• Uber's own lobbying.

Given the constantly increasing regulatory reach, startup opportunities are increasingly limited. Consequently, a startup aiming to make a huge splash needs to be a political organisation as much as a business one, along the lines of Uber."

Let's say I believe that "secret" to be 60% true.

EDITED TO ADD: The rough draft version of Zero To One can be read, for free here.

1. Notice how Thiel mentions his idea about the importance of monopoly right before he alludes to something edgier. That's a bit odd, as talking about monopoly as a goal isn't very edgy at all.
2. Thiel is a libertarian. Libertarians often complain that government is able to misbehave because it is monopolistic.
3. Remember that Thiel is a known supporter of Seasteading--he initially funded Patri Friedman's Seasteading Institute.
4. Thiel has also been known to criticize democracy.
5. Thiel is a known Straussian.

My guess would be that Thiel's edgy idea has to do with something like Charter Cities (often criticized as a form of colonialism/imperialism) or new country projects.

In a totally different direction, I've long wondered whether NASA might be suppressing promising designs for advanced propulsion systems fearing their potential for extremely risky weaponization.

I doubt Thiel is thinking of this in particular however.

EDIT: Since some people below seem confused, I'm not saying I think think it is likely that NASA is really suppressing anything, I'm just saying that I have wondered about it in the past.

I haven't really looked into it, but there was an odd message that he left in his IAMA in regards to Girardian philosophy: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2g4g95/peter_thiel_technology_entrepreneur_and_investor/ckfn9rj?context=3 . Would love for anyone who knows more to jump in.

The question was for something that’s true that everyone agrees with you on, but everyone here ignored that. The point of the monopoly example is that everyone agrees that they want their businesses to be monopolies, but they aren't allowed to say it. And this is quite explicit in business school, although they usually use the phrase "barriers to entry." They talk about building barriers to entry to reduce competition and defend profit margins. Pretty clear. The difference between a normal class and Thiel's class is that he used the word "monopoly." And then Thiel gave an example with a very different interpretation, an idea where people generally believe A, but believe that there is a consensus going the opposite direction.

I think the monopoly idea, that the goal of every successful business is to have a monopoly, that’s on the border of what I want to say.

What's better than having a monopoly? Having control of the state. My guess would be that he means something silicon-reichy not unlike some other Silicon Valley figures.

There are likely answers that related to what Palantir is doing that he doesn't want to give publically.

I don't remember if it was Thiel or another libertarian longevity-oriented fellow like Thiel, but someone of his type said basically that longevity can be an incredibly incisive social issue, because initially it will be expensive, and if rich people can live to 200 and poor people die at 70 this can easily lead to the pitchforks. Of all privileges, the privilege to be alive could get those who don't have it the most enraged.

Maybe he's secretly a creationist, its unlikely but it would be more interesting/controversial than he standard internet contrarian ideas.

http://www.xenosystems.net/abstract-thought-crime/

The Enlightenment's social project has started to collapse because it conflicts with human nature?

This old thread is possibly relevant.

I have no idea what Thiel is thinking of, but I'll volunteer to get a brainstorm started:

Male to female love is 70% physical attraction. Yes, love.

Edit: I guess this related to race and gender, but I don't want to hold back one of my edgiest beliefs.

The neoreactionaries are more-or-less correct about the nature of government, Cthulhu, leftism, etc.

They have a lot of dangerous ideas and race/gender is only a special case of some of them.