He’s promoting Yarvin’s ideas and letting people know to read Yarvin’s “interesting perspectives” while offering a disagreement that allows him to maintain safe enough distance. Given his connections to Thiel, Thiel’s closer connections to Yarvin, it seems a ploy to get Yarvin “in the discussion”
Do you think that this is a reasonable theory? That he would name drop him once in a 90 minute podcast, and not mention him again (or at least, not more than once/year), as part of an insidious plot?
I will also concede that on its face, it’s not a reasonable theory, but the involvement of Peter Thiel can make the unreasonable sound reasonable, because he does seem to like plotting and elaboration, partly for the sake of it. Your theory makes more sense, but I can’t rule out weird plotting
Well, I see that was 2022, when there was a lot more interest in downplaying Vance’s connections to these types. This Politico article is I think fair in highlighting Vance’s loose connections, but also that Yarvin’s ideas are part of the environment Vance hangs in: www.politico.com/news/magazin...
But also, Thiel and his acolytes do love the “Straussian communication” bullshit about leaving breadcrumbs for initiates to direct them to “forbidden” ideas that the writer/speaker does not want to publicly endorse, so if anyone would actually try corny word game stuff..
Although I also concede that JD Vance is an empty suckup and might have been name-dropping for cred with the Silicon Valley types