cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/46219073
Lecture attendees started trickling out around 8:30 p.m., carrying mousses, cookies, and various other desserts to their awaiting Ubers. Most of the audience members were hesitant to provide their thoughts on the record, for fear of being disinvited from future events, but a few shared their opinions on condition of anonymity.
The consensus was that the talk largely repeated the points Thiel had made in previous interviews on the subject — namely, that the Antichrist would use the threat of Armageddon, or some looming crisis, in order to consolidate control and create a “one-world government.”
One attendee recalled Thiel specifying that this figure could not be a state figurehead like Chinese President Xi Jinping, because it needs to be more global. He couldn’t recall if Thiel suggested Thunberg would make the cut.
One attendee recalled that Thiel’s discussion of the Antichrist was more about a scenario than an individual. Thiel’s Antichrist scenario is one in which a unified government suppresses technology to impose order, or armageddon, wherein AI takes over and ushers in the end of the world.
"We’ll either have the one government that destroys technology and takes over, or you have the AI that destroys everything,” he said.
Another guest, when asked about the talk, shot back a single word: “Mid.”
A group of three French men, all living in SF and working in tech, gave the talk a 7 out of 10 because of its repetitiveness. But they did appreciate some of Thiel’s jokes — including, apparently, saying it would be a travesty for Elon Musk to go to therapy because it would make him less productive.
"He was really anti-introspection,” one recalled. “[He said] we are very selfish and we care a lot about ourselves as individuals, and that therapy and yoga and stuff like that is not good for the world. We should not care so much about ourselves and care more about the world.”
Another attendee said the talk revealed a less well-known, more scholarly side of Thiel. He noted that Thiel is different from his expectations of a tech investor, pointing to the billionaire’s “cynical” view of technology’s impact on the world.
The thing is, he seems to be setting up a future where technology and progress becomes his ultimate scapegoat.
The future he describes is where we’re headed if we continue down the path he’s leading us.
Once he becomes the centralized figure controlling all the nodes of authoritarian easy buttons he created across the globe, he will just claim that he tried to prevent it, but ultimately it’s just the inevitable result of progress. Like it was going to happen one way or another.
I wrote a very long comment about this, but essentially, dystopia is not an inevitable result of progress. That is why regulations exist. Look at the fears of dystopia following mapping of the human genome and the regulations that were created that have kept modern society from becoming Gattaca (although I know Thiel actually believes this too has led to “stagnation”).
Basically, there is the reality of what can and will happen when you cut the brake lines in a speeding car, and the fantasy of people like Thiel who believe that cutting the brakes will allow you to go much faster, and as long as he’s steering, his fantasy where the car suddenly flies instead of crashing might come true.
When it inevitably crashes he can claim it would have happened one way or the other, but at least he tried.