Peter Thiel, the tech oligarch who believes in the Antichrist

I have a theology background. The key feature of the Antichrist, at least in Catholic Theology, is that he stands as an alternative Messiah to Jesus: a different way by which humanity may be saved or may save itself. Ironically, if you listen to Accelerationists like Peter Thiel, they talk about AGI and Superintelligence in bluntly messianic terms. For them the only way to save humanity is for humanity to put all its energy into giving birth to a Superintelligence, and that Superintelligence will fix everything and usher in an era of peace and prosperity.

Like it is honestly hard for me to put into words how absurdly on-the-nose it is. I'm not saying AI is the Antichrist: the/an Antichrist isn't necessarily a single thing or entity. But it is as probably a good candidate as anything we've thought up in our history.

If AI is his Christ (as in Messiah), then it really is just intellectually consistent for him to label anyone critical of AI as Antichrist.

Further reading, nos. 675-677 at the bottom of this page: https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1V.HTM

Every time Thiel gets mentioned, people heap scorn. Even more than Mark Zuckerberg.

I find Thiel interesting. His views on stagnation are widely influential and seem to have presaged a broad revaluation of rules and regulations that have accumulated over the years (including zoning rules).

Listening to Thiel feels like opening a complicated mechanical device while running and looking at the mechanism that makes it tick. Its so raw, its beautiful in its own way. It removes the spell on so many things, it gives you the "I understand why those people do what they do now" kick. It relieves you from emotional baggage.

I wonder when he will obtain bunch of thermonuclear warheads and ICBM.

Some ideas of Thiel seem to be good. Everything is fine until you harm the lives of other people.

Everyone can have their own opinions and beliefs and we should be working towards the best technology for humanity.

My belief is the if we did not spend huge budgets on military and put it to developing science and if we did not have nations and if all the nations acted as one then we would have been hundered or years ahead by now in technological progress.

I guess he owns a mirror

Here is the full interview for anyone interested in what it's all about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV7YgnPUxcU

I'm reading the book "The Nerd Reich" and the book dives deep into the various ideas circling Thiel. I highly recommend this book.

People should realize that this isn't isolated to Thiel and his idiosyncratic views on the antichrist: he's actively trying to evangelize his social and intellectual circles. For example, one of his Antichrist lectures was hosted by The Acts 17 Collective and is in cohoots with them.

This shouldn't be seen as "eccentric tech CEO's strange view on the Antichrist" but rather, "tech elites turning to Christianity as a blueprint for civilizational hierarchy". I don't have a good feeling about this at all.

Is taking leave of one’s intellectual powers and good sense a common end-stage pathway for billionaires?

I probably have a few orders of magnitude less material wealth than many of these characters; but if it’s down to a Faustian bargain I’ll hang onto my cognitive abilities, such as they are.

Which one of them is the antichrist again? Is it Thiel or Musk?

It's fun to make fun of rich weirdos because they always have their money to comfort them, but the current crop of tech weirdos, because of their excessive influence, are bad for the tech industry as a whole.

Their support of Trumpism has made US tech toxic outside the US, when historically half the revenue of a tech company you start in the US ends up being earned outside the US. If that stops being true, you can discount the value of US startups by half.

But that's not all. Normies don't like the rich tech weirdos. Normies know Putin is bad. They know shutting off your satellites in the middle of a battle costs lives.

I don't think he believes in Antichrist, the same way Elon Musk doesn't believe we'll go to Mars. I think these are calculated statements to manipulate people. (The U.S. oligarchs find some of the more gullible fundamentalist evangelicans to be a useful ally.)

That being said, I think his straussian worldview is probably his own.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delusions_of_grandeur

Peter Thiel knows about the antichrist

> “He has an unhealthy obsession with the Antichrist, the figure around which his personal theology revolves,” says Gil Durán. “It is anti-Christian, and his sermons accuse all his political enemies of being possible vectors of the Antichrist. He encourages people to view our current politics as an existential battle between good and evil. He accuses Greta Thunberg, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, critics of AI and even the Pope of being possible Antichrists. It’s pure gibberish, but it’s also a kind of confession. If Silicon Valley billionaires want to see the face of evil, they should look in the mirror.”

IIRC, for Thiel, the "Antichrist" is disagreement with or opposition to his techno-libertarian ideas.

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