Thiel's Contrarian Question - a few of my responses

Peter Thiel starts his thought-provoking book Zero to One with a question: What important truth do very few people agree with you on?

I have several answers to the question. Inherent to answering the question is the fact that the listener is likely to be offended by the answer. After all, these are the things that no one else believes.

As Thiel writes, it's a difficult question to answer because "anyone trying to answer must say something she knows to be unpopular. Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius."

"Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is even shorter supply than genius."
- Peter Thiel

You can read the excerpt where these quotes come from for free here:  http://fortune.com/2014/09/04/peter-thiels-the-challenge-of-the-future/

Or, you can buy the book (highly recommended) from Amazon here: http://amzn.to/2lgtkEM <---Affiliate link, thanks for clicking :)

Here's a brief rundown on some of the things I believe that very few agree with me on:

• American governments should not be in the business of marriage. Marriage should be a symbolic ceremony that a couple, any couple, can partake of in any forum they choose. The government should offer civil unions to any two or more people who want to enter into partnership agreements.
• The 2nd amendment of the Constitution was written for citizens to protect ourselves from the government, therefore American citizens have the right to the same weaponry as the government, up to and including nuclear weapons. Citizens must have the same safeguards in place as the government, for example, more than one person has to make the decision to use nuclear weapons and launch them. If citizens with nuclear weapons is a scary thought, so is a government with nuclear weapons. Perhaps fulfilling the intent of the 2nd amendment will force us to reevaluate our use and procurement of weaponry as a nation.
• Having children is a right and a responsibility, one of the greatest responsibilities a person can have. Often, parents have entered into this responsibility with no planning and no preparation. In a world where parents have the right to taxpayer's dollars, I believe taxpayers have a right to say who can have children. Parents should be required to obtain a license to have children. This license would be granted on grounds of financial, social, emotional, and physical stability.
• Drugs should be legal. Not just marijuana, all drugs. All drugs should be legal. What a person does in the privacy of their own home, to their own body, is not society's concern. It's only when that person's actions affect others that society has the right to limit activity. Drugs are dangerous and harmful, I don't encourage their use, but that's for each individual to decide for themselves. If someone wants to destroy their bodies with drugs, any drug, it's their choice.
• Citizens should be mandated to have health insurance. Government should not be in the business of providing insurance, free markets should. Every hospital is bound by law to treat any person who enters their doors. Since that is the case, every citizen should be required to have insurance to pay for it.
• Abortion is murder and it should be legal. Any clear and honest inspection of the evidence makes it plain that life begins at conception. I came to this conclusion through my own review of the facts. Millions of other people have looked at the very same facts and come up with a different conclusion. I believe they're wrong but when that many people in a democracy feel differently, their views should be respected. Legalizing abortion does force anyone to have one. Those who believe it's murder like I do, can still work to persuade others of that opinion without needing to have our opinion enshrined in law.

So, there it is, a brief look at some of the opinions I hold which are deeply controversial, likely even offensive.

Thiel goes on through the rest of the book to explain why the contrarian question is important. The future will be found in the secrets that haven't been discovered yet.