Timeline for Is the quote "Your mind is software. Program it. Your body is a shell. Change it. Death is a disease. Cure it." attributable to Peter Thiel?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
24 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Sep 7, 2021 at 10:32 | comment | added | Will | Very meta! What's the policy on referencing key parties who verify that circumstantially-sourced answers on this site are correct? | |
| Sep 2, 2021 at 15:36 | comment | added | Eponymous | @JSLavertu here is the tweet where Eclipse Phase creators claim that they originated the quote. Its author, Adam Jury-Last, is not listed on the Drive-Thru RPG page as an author. However, he is the co-owner of Posthuman studios according to their about page. | |
| Aug 31, 2021 at 20:05 | comment | added | JS Lavertu | Aditionally, one of the authors of Eclipse Phase has explicitely stated that the quote originated from them (in a reply to the original tweet). | |
| Aug 28, 2021 at 17:14 | comment | added | Will | @AntalSpector-Zabusky you can say that no evidence exists to support attributing Thiel specifically in a far shorter answer. I'm specifically addressing your preferred explanation for why Business Insider believed the quote was Thiel's. This explanation is based on a colocation of words that is just as specific and selected from circular reasoning as any inference drawn from the two features of Eclipse Phase. I'm not saying either are right, just that the existence of both requires caution when stretching that far in explaining the claim. | |
| Aug 28, 2021 at 15:14 | comment | added | Antal Spector-Zabusky | Yes, there's no way to prove a negative; this quote could've originated with anybody from Shakespeare to Ursula K. Le Guin. But that's true of any other quote in English too. We don't continue to insist that the first person to say "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." could've been CS Lewis, not JRR Tolkien, just because they knew each other. He could've been, yes – there's no way to prove otherwise – but this isn't a justifiable claim. Likewise, continuing to insist that this quote might have come from Thiel specifically even without evidence isn't skepticism, it's contrarianism. | |
| Aug 28, 2021 at 15:05 | comment | added | Antal Spector-Zabusky | @Will: The only reason you've chosen Thiel is because the question asked about him – the same argument applies to anybody referenced in Eclipse Phase. We could equally well say it's possible that Lady Gaga originated the quote, since there's a character named after her. Or Edgar Allen Poe, since there's a character named Nevermore. Your mention of Thiel instead of anybody else is only because this question asks about him, which is circular. If you hadn't cherry-picked just him in your comment, I might not have objected. But nobody has ever linked this quote to Thiel via a source. | |
| Aug 28, 2021 at 11:54 | comment | added | Will | Indeed, the principal evidence we are dealing with is the fact that Thiel's name on the quote once appeared in the same vicinity despite no indication of the two being deliberately connected. The co-occurrence within the game is exactly that too. Everything else is a subjective evaluation of which is the bigger coincidence. | |
| Aug 28, 2021 at 11:52 | comment | added | Will | @AntalSpector-Zabusky I'm not saying that the theory proves that the claim in the question is true. I'm saying that the circumstantial evidence that it is false is also consistent with a scenario where it's true; in other words, the fact that this answer cannot prove a negative should not be overlooked or underestimated. | |
| Aug 28, 2021 at 6:31 | comment | added | Antal Spector-Zabusky | @Will: This suggestion commits the error of allowing the claim to prejudice your conclusions. There are many characters in Eclipse Phase; you could ask that question about any of them with a name similar to a real person. The only reason you've chosen Peter Thiel is because of connections to him that show up after publication that are then asked about here – and because this question mentioned his name. But we shouldn't let the question smuggle the answer in through the back door like that! There's no more reason to mention Peter Thiel in association with the quote than anybody else. | |
| Aug 26, 2021 at 14:46 | comment | added | Will | @JSLavertu okay, maybe not admirers then but fascinated by him as a malevolent figure. It would be strange for them to have been so directly acquainted with his words if he really had said them first though. Either Blake Masters has to have plagiarized the quote from Thiel's unpublished words separately, or lifted it unironically (since the game seems to use the quote for dystopian effect) from the game, which might have referenced Thiel independently and separately from Masters' own kinship with Thiel. | |
| Aug 26, 2021 at 14:20 | comment | added | JS Lavertu | @Will Considering the authors are fairly far-left, it would be highly surprising that they would admirers of an arch-capitalist. But then again... can't prove a negative. | |
| Aug 26, 2021 at 13:26 | comment | added | Will | In the context of "not proving a negative" the existence of this "Petra Thiel" character is a bit bothersome. Can we really be sure that the Eclipse Phase authors were not friends or admirers of Peter Thiel and were aware of his undocumented invention of the quote, choosing to feature both the quote in their game and a nod to their regard for him by naming a character, either in direct connection to the quote or a separate mark of respect?! | |
| Aug 25, 2021 at 16:51 | comment | added | Schmuddi | Thanks for the extensive edit – I withdraw any objection! :) | |
| Aug 25, 2021 at 13:29 | history | edited | Antal Spector-Zabusky | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Update the conclusion to reflect what I learned in the research
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| Aug 25, 2021 at 8:56 | comment | added | eis | wow. to say "this answer is useful" is quite an understatement... good job! | |
| Aug 24, 2021 at 19:07 | history | edited | Antal Spector-Zabusky | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Formatting; describe Eclipse Phase in the first paragraph
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| Aug 24, 2021 at 15:34 | history | edited | Antal Spector-Zabusky | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Add the timing of Thiel's Stanford course to my summary of the timeline
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| Aug 24, 2021 at 15:26 | history | edited | Antal Spector-Zabusky | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Curly quotes, one minor phrasing tweak
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| Aug 24, 2021 at 15:23 | comment | added | Antal Spector-Zabusky | I've gone through and documented the earliest uses of this quote and how it gradually became associated with Peter Thiel. (Also, I would like to point out that the original citation was from a published book that predates any claim that Thiel said this, so that plus the existence of things like copyright already provided a strong backing for the original stance.) | |
| Aug 24, 2021 at 15:19 | history | edited | Antal Spector-Zabusky | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Detailed research documenting where the association of the Eclipse Phase quote with Thiel came from
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| Aug 24, 2021 at 10:23 | history | edited | Schmuddi | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Removed unjustified strong claim
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| Aug 24, 2021 at 9:47 | comment | added | Benjamin | @Schmuddi we can't prove a negative. so unless somebody provides a previous source, we can assume this originates from Eclipse Phase | |
| Aug 24, 2021 at 0:05 | review | First posts | |||
| Aug 24, 2021 at 14:59 | |||||
| Aug 24, 2021 at 0:01 | history | answered | Antal Spector-Zabusky | CC BY-SA 4.0 |