Inside Peter Thiel’s Apocalyptic Worldview

According to the Washington Post, billionaire investor Peter Thiel has been giving secret off the record lectures in San Francisco that sound more like end times prophecy than tech talk. A leaked recording from four private sessions titled the Antichrist, a four part lecture series. Thiel warned that people who want to regulate artificial intelligence, including Greta Thunberg and AI safety advocate Eliezer Yukowsky, are actually legionnaires of the Antichrist. Yeah. He argued that restricting technology could destroy America and usher in global tyranny. Thiel, the PayPal co founder and early Facebook investor, has long embraced fringe ideas from blood transfusions from young men to reverse aging, to funding life extension cults and ocean micronations. But these latest sermons fuse religion, libertarianism and paranoia into one worldview where AI regulation equals spiritual evil. One protester outside the venue summed it up this way. This guy's not the Antichrist. He's at least auditioning for the role. Okay, so what's the real message here? What are we to make a Peter Thiel doing all these lectures on the Antichrist? Well, there are some who think that Peter Thiel is the Antichrist. I think that's a bunch of nonsense. Peter Thiel shows once again that you can be a smart individual, be brilliant in one thing he invested in PayPal and Facebook, and be a complete imbecile in many other aspects of life. Henry Ford, great at creating the assembly line, not so good on how to treat Jews. So let's go a little bit deeper here. You know, Peter Thiel was an atheist, I guess, most of his life, most of his adult life, suddenly had this radical transformation and became a Catholic of all things, and is going all in. And he's a bright guy, he's a smart guy, there's no doubt about it. But to suggest that anyone who gets in the way of American capitalism and technology is the Antichrist is so bizarre at multiple levels. First of all, he claims to be a Catholic. The Catholic Church didn't believe in interest until a few hundred years ago. That's right, our entire modern banking system, the entire system of having venture capital and making a return on your investment was considered satanic by the very Catholic Church he now purports to believe in. So let's look at some of these claims here, comparing just somebody he doesn't like. You know, this, unfortunately, is what we're seeing all across our political culture, especially from Washington. It used to be where individuals in government, in the private sector could say, okay, I hear you criticize my belief, my policy, my position. I'm listening to you. I respect your right to have that view. I differ with your premise here. I think your facts are wrong here. I don't think you analyze this giving enough weight to this argument. That's how people in Silicon Valley acted. That's how people in Washington D.C. acted. And in political capitals around the world, we don't have that anymore. Right now we have someone in Washington who says, if you ever, ever, ever disagree with me on anything, you are a radical far left extremist, you're a terrorist. So the only way to treat you is to essentially put you in jail or stamp you out. What Peter Thiel is doing here is essentially the same thing. You have an opinion. You're a young activist trying to get more regulation to protect the environment so we don't all bake at a 350 degree oven. He's not saying I disagree, Greta, with your climatologist report. I disagree with what you're saying, that the rate of carbon is. He's saying, no, you're the devil. And it's just very hard to have a constructive debate with anyone about everything. If we just go zoom right to ad hominem attack. If every single debate in our culture, political debate, debate about the environment, about the economy, about regulation, every single debate instantly devolves into you're the devil, you're Satan, you're evil, you're a terrorist, you're extreme. Therefore I don't have to listen to your arguments because that's really what it is. It is about shutting down arguments. You're the radical far left extremist. You're, you're terrorist. But why should I have to have a conversation with you? You're a representative of the Antichrist. Peter Thiel says to anyone who doesn't agree with him, well, why should you have to negotiate? Just attack and destroy. SSB says, is this life? Yes, we are live. So thank you so much for joining us today. This is filtered with TJ Walker and we look at the top stories of the day, discussing what this character Peter Thiel is up to. And I should point out, he's a billionaire. He's smart. He's made numerous, numerous really smart early investments in some of the top technology companies in the history of the world. It doesn't mean he really knows what's going on in the world of theology, which he now purports to be an expert in. So his claim again is limiting technology could lead to the destruction of the United States and the global. And a global totalitarian regime. Thiel said Only a religious argument could inspire people to resist government regulation. Okay, Peter, but we now live in a world where tens, if not 100 million Americans don't believe in religion. They think of your religion the way you think of Santa Claus or the way you think of ghosts and goblins at Halloween, or the way you think of voodoo, or they can be respectful of you wanting to have that belief, but it holds absolute zero sway. And if you want to point to the part of your religious text that says the earth is 5,000 years old and that's it, and then in fact, the sun revolves around the Earth, you're free to do that. You have the right to do that. But you're kind of deluding yourself if you think that is going to be a persuasive argument to most people in America or anyplace else. Now, this is also the guy who co founded Palantir. Full disclosure, I don't own any individual stocks in Palantir, but it's a pretty big presence in my index funds. So essentially, he's made me a lot of money. So you can factor that in if you want for my own conflict. It's a data mining firm with long term government and surveillance contracts, which is odd considering how much this guy rails against the government. He's the biggest beneficiary of government funds and welfare. Now, he mused. He also mused over whether Trump, Biden, she or Bill Gates could be the Antichrist. He ruled all out, but said Gates was a very awful person. Yes, Bill Gates is so awful because he spends his time trying to solve the problem of hundreds of millions of poor people dying from poor health care in America. Yeah, that really makes Bill Gates awful. He often praises Elon Musk and, and was a colleague of Musk in the early days in PayPal. The critics are saying that Thiel's blend of Christian nationalism and tech libertarianism shows how Silicon Valley's strangest mind is now playing the role of the Messiah. And that, my friends, is truly bizarre. SS Writes in and says with the way Thiel is handling himself, to Vance converting to become a Catholic and the Pope becoming an American, kind of tells me what the attempt to do within the next five years. You're now the current Pope is an American, was born in Chicago, was raised there. And there is a very strong connection between Peter Thiel and Vance. I believe the Vice President of the United States, J.D. vance, credits Thiel in converting him to Catholicism. And Thiel was the big financial backer of J.D. vance. He made J.D. vance. He gave him a job as an, as a venture capitalist, backed his companies. And then he gave tremendous backing to J.D. vance Senate campaign. And he was also, by all accounts, instrumental in convincing Trump to select J.D. vance as vice president. And there, there are many who fear that, you know, if something happens, I'm not wishing ill will on anyone, but if something were to happen to Trump and J.D. vance would instantly take over, as the Constitution calls for, that Peter Thiel would essentially be running the government. There are fears of that, that he has such a hole because J.D. vance does owe his entire career to Peter Thiel. I don't think any serious person doubts that. Am I saying he'd be homeless without Peter Thiel? No. But he would not be Vice President of the United States. He would not be a. Not have been a senator without Peter Thiel. So make no mistake about it. This guy is extraordinarily powerful and rich. And unfortunately, in our culture, that means people think you're smart on everything. And there's simply no evidence to suggest that he knows who the Antichrist is.