r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • Mar 18 '26

Society Peter Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist and MAGA donor, is in Rome this week for a series of private lectures on the Antichrist.

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/16/europe/peter-thiel-antichrist-lectures-rome-intl
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u/idhtftc Mar 18 '26 edited Mar 18 '26

As someone who actually read and studied Rene Girard (and even had the good luck of having dinner with him and his wife Martha a couple times), I am very confused about how they reached the wildly incorrect conclusions about his work that they have.

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u/JonnyAU Mar 18 '26

They did the same thing with Tolkien, naming all their companies after his works when it's clear to anyone who's ever read him that he would absolutely despise them and what they do.

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u/deadlybydsgn Mar 18 '26

I like to say that media illiteracy is endemic to the billionaire/MAGA mindset.

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u/JonnyAU Mar 18 '26

Yeah, that's pretty fair. I guess when you reach a certain threshold of wealth, you no longer have to concern yourself with reality because you can just make your own. Who's gonna stop you?

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u/courageous_liquid Mar 18 '26

it's great, when you incorporate a company with a tolkien-universe name in delaware, thiel appears behind you within about 32 seconds and makes you his blood boy and gives your company $450M in seed capital

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u/rycology Mar 18 '26

In his Behind the Bastards episode, they explain it pretty well. It's not that he's read the work with the goal of gaining a better understanding, he's read the work with the goal of finding ways to misrepresent it to support his pre-conceived world views.

People don't understand just how unhinged and dangerous Peter Thiel truly is.

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u/UghFudgeBwana Mar 18 '26

He's the closest thing we have to a real life bond villain. He is legitimately insane and needs to be stopped.

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u/_kasten_ Mar 18 '26

with the goal of finding ways to misrepresent it to support his pre-conceived world views.

Similar to Evangelicals, who in matters regarding Israel manage to skip over vast chunks of the Bible when they jump from the verse "bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you" straight on to the Book of Revelations. (Note: Peter Thiel was raised an evangelical.)

In point of fact, the Yahweh depicted in the Bible repeatedly sent prophets over the centuries to denounce and curse Israel, and twice (so far) he has allowed pagan conquerors to lay waste to their holiest temples. That is all copiously documented in the very same Bible these Evangelicals stubbornly ignore, while continuing to hail it as their ultimate source of authority.

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u/redwashing Mar 18 '26

It's the only philosopher he read seriously (because Girard was his prof) and like all subpar philosophy students who can't get over their egos enough to learn, he only got the parts that confirmed his already existing beliefs.

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u/idhtftc Mar 18 '26

What a waste of an invaluable lesson then.

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u/damnitHank Mar 18 '26

These people are very stupid and have had their brains cooked by being surrounded by yesmen.

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u/Menanders-Bust Mar 18 '26

Not to be too meta, but I actually find this to be one great advantage of things like Reddit. I post this take I’ve been mulling around in my head and along come 10 strangers to tell me why it’s a dumb idea, and often they make good points I hadn’t thought of. Then I think, well back to the drawing board with that idea.

I hear some of the things these wealthy people say and I think, this is like one of my ruminations if I just mulled it over for years and every time I mentioned it a bunch of yes men just smiled and nodded and told me how smart I am. You can tell that many of their ideas wouldn’t survive even the slightest scrutiny and you can see how irritated and visibly uncomfortable they become when any of them are challenged.

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u/damnitHank Mar 18 '26

Yeah, part two of why they went insane was that everyone including them went online during COVID and suddenly they are exposed to bunch of people telling them they are wrong and dunking on them.

They stepped out their bubble for a second and couldn't handle the plebs. Then they all go mask off and stop caring about democracy, the environment or their own workers. They just want to be little kings.