Peter Thiel - anagram - the reptile.
Peter Thiel's Antichrist Lectures
151–160 of 160 posts
Re: Peter Thiel's Antichrist Lectures
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're missing the historical context of how the "life after death" idea served as an utility, in many religions. We today have laws and moral separated from religion and institutions that both teaches it to the young citizen and uphold it. But that wasn't the case for vast majority of the history. How would you convince a tribal person that can't perceive something beyond "good for me & my family/tribe is al…
This is a naive world view. Religion became a tool for the powerful to suppress the masses. I doubt it was ever "for the good of the tribal man", although it's a nice story. I believe most people have an innate spiritual side, questioning our roles in the universe and what life is really all about. But powerful people(like Peter Thiel) have throughout history enforced their own fucked up world views on the rest of us…
> This is a naive world view. Religion became a tool for the powerful to suppress the masses. I doubt it was ever "for the good of the tribal man", although it's a nice story.
It is hardly a naive world view. It is instead grounded in reality and the evolutionary luggage of humans and its various consequences on our cultures. We all probably agree, but there seems to be a misunderstanding of the grand parent's comment. Namely, you stated that "Religion became a tool ...", but what GP is referring to is "before it became such tool, what was it ?"
> "I doubt it was ever "for the good of the tribal man", although it's a nice story." I think both GP and I will agree. It is not "for the good of the tribal man", at the same time it does not imply the other alternative that you seem to suggest: "for the benefit of the ruler class".
For example, the selfish gene theory offers a compelling explanation that will not only fit both perspective ("good for tribal man / tribe", "good for ruler"), but also provide insight to similar cultural aspects such as religion, patriotism, to only cite a few. Namely, genes influence their containers, i.e. "survival machines" (SV) in their environment, and natural selection favors genes that induce behaviors leading to increasing the number of copies of said genes in the population. Compared to other animals, humans evolved a complex social dimension as part of their behavior.
Among the various "humans" populations (probably even more distant ancestors), the genes that led to the heuristic behavior of "follow the elders / leaders of the tribe" happen to grant a differential survival advantage to its carriers: indeed, the elder is an "elder" in virtue of having living long, and more generally, a "leader" is such in virtue of having lived long enough and gathered large social and "financial" capital. So "follow the elders / leaders of the tribe" is a useful rule for you to survive. Over time, the gene becomes spread through the general population.
Due to the inability of our ancestors to properly establish causal relationship, while passing "useful rules for survival of the group" , they also happened to pass a lot of superstition and irrational principles, namely because they failed at establishing causal relationship ("is the crop yield bad because I looked wrong at the sun god statue ?" and so on). Those rules are "simple", easy to follow for the tribal man, and to make matters worse, his genes have likely conditioned him to follow those rules (mostly) unquestioned anyway. Whether we like it or not, the rule of "behave well now for a better life after death" was useful at the time, at a surface level for both the "tribal man" but also his "powerful people / leader", and at a deeper level for their shared genes.
Like many other "heuristics" for decision-making that humanity has carried over, it is not immune from exploitation from "more selfish", "mutant" actor: snake oils salesman, politicians promising easy solution to what are actually difficult problems. Religion might have at some point been useful for the good of the tribal man, and incidentally his tribe leaders, which only reinforced the pattern, but the evolutionary blueprints these religion rides on now get exploited by what we nowadays call "powerful people", as you say: > But powerful people(like Peter Thiel) have throughout history enforced their own fucked up world views on the rest of us, via indoctrination and blunt force. It's still ongoing. > People are wired to follow their leaders. But it is not just a matter of indoctrination and blunt force, it is unfortunately a matter of predisposition of the human mind. But the leaders have not "wired" them, they are just plugging into already existing circuits, and channeling their current to enact their desired outcomes (however perverted they may be).
To leave on a optimistic note, by a chain of serendipitous events, despite religions dominating not so long ago, secularism has somehow emerged and helped us separate the wheat from the chaff in many aspects of our lives. As humans, we already have come a long way in untangling our messy evolutionary baggage and the various side effect of natural selection of genes and their extended behaviors (religion, culture, etc...) Just as how we have to upset the genes' goals through methods such as contraception, there is no reason why we couldn't free ourselves from their other machinations.
> I believe most people have an innate spiritual side, questioning our roles in the universe and what life is really all about.
I think this statement suggest a confusion / mix-match of philosophical, moral and ethical questions that are still grounded in the material world, and "spiritual" that are by most common definitions pertaining to super natural assumption (intangible human soul never measured so far). If anything, deeper examination suggests that religion hardly helps much when it comes to those grand questions either. Most people probably have the capacity to question the "why" and other such questions, but not all necessarily them have the luxury of exercising it.
Re: Peter Thiel's Antichrist Lectures
#153I grew up in a pretty religious household and my parents fully believed that Armageddon would happen in our lifetime. It wasn't until I was older that I realized there were a lot of American Christians that secretly held this belief, and that it has a meaningful influence on how voters want American politicians to deal with Israel and the Middle East in general.
It depends on the religion in the religious household. Its common among American evangelicals, but (unless American Catholics are very different from Catholics in the rest of the world) its not a common belief among Catholics, and its rarely discussed by them. Why is Thiel, whose parents were American evangelical and whose own beliefs are described as "heterodox", trying to sell this in Catholic packaging outside the…
I feel, his phrasing may come over as Catholic, but that is neglecting his history. His defining years as a child he lived in Swapokmund, today's Namibia, where a swastika flag was raised in celebration of Hitler's birthday.
Swakopmund was known for its continued glorification of Nazism after World War II, including the celebration of Hitler's birthday and "Heil Hitler" Nazi salutes given by residents.[13][14] In 1976, The New York Times quoted a German working in a Swakopmund hotel who described the city as "more German than Germany".[14] As of the 1980s, Nazi paraphernalia was available to buy in shops.[13]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swakopmund
His parents moved to the US when it became clear that with the opening the uranium mine the influx of black people was unavoidable.
His current ramblings are only the latest change in his views. There's a very good history of Peter Thiel video on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAeTKyY3LB4
To answer your question: I think his lectures being held in the backyard of the Vatican is a deliberate provocation. He is a philosophy student, after all and forcing the Angelicum and others to publicly deny involvement may be his goal.
Re: Peter Thiel's Antichrist Lectures
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
We defeated the incredibly rich southern slave owners. We can defeat these shitty traitors. If voting didn't work, they wouldn't poor money into it. If voting didn't work, they wouldn't be trying to force their horrible new ID poll tax laws.
It wasn't voting that "defeated" southern slave owners, it was a war. A war that leveled cities and killed more Americans than any before or since. Also, I'm pretty sure this man and everyone in his class control a larger percentage of the economy than any plantation owners. Saying we should just vote out way out of oligarchy ignores the history of every oligarchy in the world, and makes you at best and unwitting paw…
LOL. I'm no pawn. I'm at best a democracy supporting, western Liberal society loving American.
Spreading fear in this way since 9/11 has dramatically changed America into something worse. I'm sad you've lost faith in Liberal thought and are preaching replacing it with reactionary nothingness.
We literally defeated the people who owned the system AND owned the workers, because we elected the right people and we fought. If we had instead burnt the system down how the heck would we win the war? This system was build for people like us. The first of it's kind. We aren't going to get a better playing field. The oligarchy WANT it burnt down. Stop doing their work and put your effort/energy into useful change, don't be a tool for them.
It's sucks we have to fight, but it's idiotic to seed the best battlefield we are going to get to fight them on to some nebulous, reactionary unknown one like you seem to want. Don't give up! And fuck the anti-American traitors!
Re: Peter Thiel's Antichrist Lectures
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
It wasn't voting that "defeated" southern slave owners, it was a war. A war that leveled cities and killed more Americans than any before or since. Also, I'm pretty sure this man and everyone in his class control a larger percentage of the economy than any plantation owners. Saying we should just vote out way out of oligarchy ignores the history of every oligarchy in the world, and makes you at best and unwitting paw…
LOL. I'm no pawn. I'm at best a democracy supporting, western Liberal society loving American. Spreading fear in this way since 9/11 has dramatically changed America into something worse. I'm sad you've lost faith in Liberal thought and are preaching replacing it with reactionary nothingness. We literally defeated the people who owned the system AND owned the workers, because we elected the right people and we fought…
The purpose of a system is what it does. The purpose of capitalism is to enrich the capital owning class, people like Peter Thiel, who will do anything to gain power over the working class. The civil war is a great example of how voting in a leader who is perceived as being a danger to the owning class lead to an attempt to destroy the democracic process that threatened their power. It didn't work that time, but looks at Cuba, Panama, Venezuela, Chile, Iran, etc to see what happens when a democracy tries to oppose capital. This belief that people who gained their position by exploiting the deaths of millions of people will peacefully give up that power is naive, and American propaganda from both parties pushes it to silence any real chance at change.
Re: Peter Thiel's Antichrist Lectures
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
I like that. I also like a two-pronged approach which includes taxing the billionaires out of existence. I haven't heard any significant downside to doing that. All the more so when weighed against the possible upsides. I think what frustrates me above all else is that we, as a society, as a people, could have it so much better. We could all be living in such a better world but for the allowances we make for the most…
I sometimes think there should be a completion state to capitalism. When you reach an arbitrary score, like $100 million, you get presented with a cup that says ‘congratulations, you won capitalism’ and are given the choice of either playing again from the start but this time on hard mode (no emerald mine or parents that are friends with the IBM chairman this time), or keeping your winnings on the condition that you…
Repugnant it may be, but you're leaving better sells on the table: it is extremely wasteful of human capital, both because the winners after having taken all, tend to spin out and add only negative value to societies. Also the many pre-determined losers, having to waste so much of their energy on survival, mostly cannot contribute positively either, sometimes also drifting into serious negative value generation.
So yes: as a system, "wealth" is demonstrably extremely wasteful of capital, in wouldn't take much on both edges to improve it significantly.
Re: Peter Thiel's Antichrist Lectures
#157Behind the Bastards did a good two-parter on Thiel's lectures. He sounds dangerously insane. It'd be bad enough if he was just some random crank, but the fact he's got the level of power and influence needed to actually make his beliefs happen makes it exponentially worse. Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtR7ny9TuCY Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXhyx-vVG_Y
Is there some more concise and ideally written summary of Thiel's lectures? One that doesn't require sitting through 3h of video?
I've only got some superficial acquaintance with Thiel's ideas, but he's been objectively correct on enough contrarian stuff (Thiel fellowships) that I'd like to at least have some rough, non-distorted understanding of what the anti-christ stuff is about even if it sounds a bit crazy.
Re: Peter Thiel's Antichrist Lectures
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow thousands of years of theology all got it wrong, including Thomas Aquinas and some of the smartest people who ever lived. If only they had your brilliant HN thesis they could have saved so much time and understood so much more.
Owwie looks like I'm going to need some lotion for that sick burn.
Better to get used to the burning sensation
Re: Peter Thiel's Antichrist Lectures
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
I personally think that when he mentioned her name during that interview, it was intended to be used as an archetypal proxy in place of someone else (another public figure) that he had personal dealings with. Yudkowsky checks those same boxes (mission focused on specific existential risk, gets a cult following) for example. That being said, I don’t care much for Christian prophecies. Better to talk why than who.
There’s nothing Christian about what Thiel is talking about here, even if he does wrap it up in the bible. Whether you believe in Christianity or not, his views are deeply, deeply heretical. He’s so far out of pocket he’s in a completely different pair of trousers.
I don't even think Christianity itself is authentic anymore, so we can just leave it at that. It essentially amounts to outsourcing your spirituality to a man who died thousands of years ago (as great as he was at the time), through whatever institutional filters decide which words of his to cherry-pick.
Re: Peter Thiel's Antichrist Lectures
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
LOL. I'm no pawn. I'm at best a democracy supporting, western Liberal society loving American. Spreading fear in this way since 9/11 has dramatically changed America into something worse. I'm sad you've lost faith in Liberal thought and are preaching replacing it with reactionary nothingness. We literally defeated the people who owned the system AND owned the workers, because we elected the right people and we fought…
The purpose of a system is what it does. The purpose of capitalism is to enrich the capital owning class, people like Peter Thiel, who will do anything to gain power over the working class. The civil war is a great example of how voting in a leader who is perceived as being a danger to the owning class lead to an attempt to destroy the democracic process that threatened their power. It didn't work that time, but look…
"What it does" is a thing that can be changed.