The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 26 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 1 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Thiel claims Kamala Harris will win a close election by cheating
“If it's like going to be a razor thin close election, then I'm pretty sure Kamala will win because they will cheat. They will fortify it. They will steal the ballots.”
Thiel: Defending Taiwan is not worth risking World War III
“It's not worth it's not worth World War III. And I still think it's quite catastrophic if it if it gets taken over by the communists.”
Thiel: Supports broad student debt forgiveness because students were ripped off
“I do think a lot of the students got ripped off. And so I think there should be some kind of broad student debt forgiveness at this point.”
Thiel predicts the 2024 presidential election will not be close
“My one contrarian view on the election is that it's not going to be close. You know, most presidential elections aren't, and you know, one side just breaks. You know, 20, twenty-sixteen, twenty-twenty, we're super close, but two-thirds of the elections aren't,…”
Thiel: Ukraine and Gaza conflicts are warmups to a China-Taiwan war
“You know, I think we're sort of sleepwalking into Armageddon with you know, the Ukraine and the conflict in Gaza are just sort of the warmups to the China-Taiwan war.”
Thiel: Declaring US won't defend Taiwan would prompt immediate Chinese invasion
“If you if you if you say we want some guardrails and we won't defend Taiwan, then they'd get invaded right away.”
Thiel calls Founders Fund's European venture investments vacation junkets
“We've probably tried to do too much investing in Europe. Over the years, it's always sort of a junket, sort of, it's a nice place to go on vacation as an investor.”
Thiel: 'Low-hanging fruit' stagnation theory is a Baby Boomer excuse
“I always think that was just a sort of baby boomer excuse for covering up for the failures of that generation.”
Thiel: Founders Fund hasn't invested heavily in AI due to dot-com bubble parallels
“My model is AI feels like it does feel uncomfortably close to the bubble of 1999. So I'm, we haven't invested that much in it.”
Thiel: No talented founders started semiconductor companies after 1993
“No, no talented people started semiconductor companies after 1993 because they all went into, you know, into software.”
Thiel confirms he will not donate money in the 2024 election
“I am still Very strongly pro-Trump, pro pro-JD. I've decided not to donate any money politically, but I'm supporting them in every other way every other way possible.”
Thiel predicts US will ban TikTok within 24 hours of Taiwan invasion
“TikTok will be banned, 24 hours after the Taiwan invasion.”
Thiel predicts US and Chinese economies will decouple
“My intuition for, you know, what is going to happen without making any normative judgments at all is it is going to decouple.”
Thiel: AI in 2024 is like the internet in 1999
“I keep thinking that AI in 20, 23, 24 is like the internet in 1999. It's really big, it's going to be very important, it's going to transform the world, not, you know, in six months, but in 20 years,”
Thiel: Nvidia earns over 100% of AI industry profits
“Nvidia is making over 100% of the profits. Everybody else is collectively losing money.”
Peter Thiel: Tax cuts and globalization cannot drive future US economic growth
“You can't do more globalization or more tax cuts here. That's not going to be the win.”
Thiel: Higher education bubble will end once baby boomers exit
“So I think the bubble will be done once the boomers have exited stage left.”
Thiel: Extreme optimism and pessimism are both excuses for laziness
“Extreme optimism, extreme pessimism, they're both excuses for laziness.”
Thiel: Western democracies use single-day voting with almost no absentee ballots
“At a minimum, you run them, you try to run elections the same way you do it in every other Western democracy. You have one day voting. You have practically no absentee ballots. You have and it's, you know, it's one day where everything happens. It's not this t…”
Thiel: Investing in domestic Chinese competitors is virtually impossible
“I certainly would not try to invest in a company that competed domestically inside China. I think that's virtually impossible.”
Thiel: Innovation no longer happens in universities or government
“It somehow, it doesn't happen in universities. It doesn't happen in government.”
Thiel: Pursuing applied engineering careers was a mistake since late 1980s
“In retrospect, any applied engineering field was a bad idea. It was a bad idea to become a chemical engineer, you know, a mechanical engineer. AeroAstro was terrible. Nuclear engineering.”
Thiel: 2009 college grads owed more debt 12 years later than at graduation
“If you take the people who graduated from college in 2009, and you fast forward 12 years to 2021, the median person had more student debt 12 years later than they graduated with.”
Thiel: 2005 laws prevent student debt bankruptcy discharge and garnish Social Security
“It's in 2005 it was under Bush 43 that the bankruptcy laws Got rewritten in the U.S. Where you cannot discharge student debt even if you go bankrupt, and if you haven't paid it off by the time you're 65, your Social Security wage checks will be garnished.”