Peter Thiel's Antichrist Lectures

I believe it is a separate set of things.

Thiel has an enormous amount of money. This makes him and his ideas have power, regardless of whether his ideas are crap. It further convinces people that his ideas aren't garbage even when these ideas are in different domains than his business.

I'm still trying to find the correct term for this, maybe you can help?

I think it's built into our selves that we think this way, or it's a common fallacy or thinking error or perhaps conscious decision to state that the present is the most important time ever and so that position brings a sense of urgency and force to ones argument. We see it on every political side left, right and centre and I think it's more easily seen in environmentalism which uses it as a central point. It doesn't mean that the arguments are necessarily wrong, more like it's a (potentially manipulative) way to spur action.

Looking at history and considering the past might be an antidote to manipulation. I'm still trying to find what the term is properly, Presentism and Chronocentrism seems to be on the right track?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(historical_analysi... Chronocentrism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronocentrism

Anyhow these lectures feel to me to be ultimately based on this - to motivate change according to some desired end. To think of the end of the world happening soon, so you better get motivated.

Like the Bene Gesserit in the Dune novels, long running institutions like the Church, I believe at its best understand humanity and measure time and weigh the present on a more universal scale.

If you've gotten this far and are still puzzled, consider this thought experiment: "Today is the closest we are to nuclear Armageddon, we must do something!" Many would agree with this statement. Now, think of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 - its likely that was actually the closest we got to it, and so the statement about today is false and so the urgency to do something now is weakened. One can understand therefore that to counter this inherent bias or fallacy is not something that we generally want to do.

I'm not Christian, but I think that any argument which takes the concept of the Antichrist seriously but removes it from the context of Christianity has no merit.

The Antichrist only makes sense within the framework of Christian eschatology. Invoking the archetype but reframing it as a secular political and cultural force that opposes AI and technological progress seems like meaningless sophistry meant to grant some greater profound scope to what is in essence just basic anti-leftist, pro accelerationist rhetoric, but which only works with a facile understanding of what the Antichrist is supposed to represent, which is opposition to Christ.

And in that sense, Peter Thiel and Donald Trump fit the criteria far more than, say, Greta Thunberg.

Well said. The Antichrist becomes, in Francis Schaeffer's term, a "contentless label". It becomes just something that the speaker thinks is bad. But people (even non-Christians) still have some memory of it meaning something, so it's still an effective term for "something bad".

By the way, "Jesus" also has the same issue. That name is used at times to support positions that are explicitly contrary to what Jesus taught.

It is interesting the article doesn’t mention that Thiel is gay. It’s especially relevant because the article is largely about Catholic interactions.

It’s a natural point of interest. Very interesting they didn’t pick it up.