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Peter Thiel's Antichrist Lectures

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Re: Peter Thiel's Antichrist Lectures

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like that saying but those are all entrepreneurs right? Where are all the philosopher wannabe billionares? From my experience they seem pretty happy in relatively low paying professor jobs.

> Where are all the philosopher wannabe billionares? On Twitter, in my experience. The 'manosphere' is practically all philosopher-wannabe-billionaires.

I doubt that anyone could categorize the manosphere phenomenon as philosophy. Without empathy you can't really have philosophy. Or, at least not the kind that you can take seriously.

Re: Peter Thiel's Antichrist Lectures

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where are all the philosopher wannabe billionares? On Twitter, in my experience. The 'manosphere' is practically all philosopher-wannabe-billionaires.

I doubt that anyone could categorize the manosphere phenomenon as philosophy. Without empathy you can't really have philosophy. Or, at least not the kind that you can take seriously.

I don't take them seriously. They do see themselves philosophers though.

Re: Peter Thiel's Antichrist Lectures

#34
Behind 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

Re: Peter Thiel's Antichrist Lectures

#35
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>its not a common belief among Catholics, and its rarely discussed by them. I'll do you one further, as someone from a deeply catholic country: Considering the triggering of Armaggedon in daily politics is seen as batshit crazy.

American Catholics aren't really a monolith on this matter...or any. There are substantial differences between Catholics who seek out Jesuit parishes and those who seek out the Tridentine Mass and people who are just achieving physical presence and thinking about kickoff at 5:00 PM Sunday Mass to fulfill obligation and get out ASAP (no choir please, keep that sermon snappy). All of these are spiritually valid approaches imho.

Re: Peter Thiel's Antichrist Lectures

#36

I 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.

I grew up in a religious household as a Roman Catholic, in an extremely religious country(Poland) and I've never heard anyone talk about apocalypse as something that might happen soon or well...ever. From my point of view, the "christianity" that American Evangelicals practice is almost unrecognizable as having the same base with the religion I grew up with. Like the core tennets of Jesus have been twisted and warped to serve a very narrow political agenda. That's not to say Roman Catholics don't use religion for politics, but Evangelism is just.....next level?

Re: Peter Thiel's Antichrist Lectures

#37
The thing that really worries me about these kinds of beliefs in some kind of a god or gods is that they can provide a get-out clause for existential risks to humanity. If this physical universe is just one manifestation of existence, then there's less to worry about because there will be some kind of existence afterwards if you screw it up. But in my view the universe is all there is, and it very definitely doesn't "care" if humanity cooks the planet in a way that makes human life impossible. If that's your view, the first priority of every single person should be to work towards stabilising the climate and reduce our impact on the enviromnent, but instead we have shiny-eyed millenarians piling billions of dollars into things like AI that could be much more productively used in funding an energy transition. (And don't get me started on the idea that AI will help that transition - we already know what we need to do, that isn't complicated, even if the route is complex).

Re: Peter Thiel's Antichrist Lectures

#38
post #19

“Christians debated these prophecies for millennia. Who was the Antichrist? When would he arrive? What would he preach?” Maybe that we all need to surrender all our data to an intransparent global surveillance tool, that gets more and more connected to automatic killer drones? Oh and also despise democracy of course. Jesus Christ was on the side if the poor, so the antichrist would be on the side of the rich. Any ide…

Greta Thunberg, according to Thiel (seriously).

Re: Peter Thiel's Antichrist Lectures

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where are all the philosopher wannabe billionares? On Twitter, in my experience. The 'manosphere' is practically all philosopher-wannabe-billionaires.

I doubt that anyone could categorize the manosphere phenomenon as philosophy. Without empathy you can't really have philosophy. Or, at least not the kind that you can take seriously.

It struck me as I was watching the new Louis Theroux Netflix documentary that the manosphere must love Nietzsche.
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