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Peter Thiel's Religion

segfaultbuserr 7y ago
This article was recently submitted to Hacker News by a reader, I was interested, but other readers immediately flagged it to death. One reason was its confusing title and introduction, triggered reactions like "Peter Thiel is an entrepreneur, why should I care about his opinions of religion?!" and "As the disclamier said, the author had never met Peter Thiel, this article is useless!", the length of 15,000 words also made it even worse: a causal HN reader won't read it. Today I finally found two hours to carefully read through this article, and I highly recommend you to read it when you have time. You don't have to know who is Peter Thiel nor his religion, and I think you'll find an interesting tangential topic even if you already have an opinion on Peter Thiel agenda. This article is NOT religious preaching, startup evangelism, or biography. The author offers a (3rd-party) character analysis of Peter Thiel, how various ideas influenced him and affected his desicions, and how the same ideas can provoke thoughts for the readers, and reviewing human culture, business strategy, economics, and history through its lens. The following ideas are elaborated, (but my summary is incomplete, please read the original article). 1. A few simple concepts in Christianity, such as devoting one's life to God rather than idols or things in the world, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, the existence of a beginning and an end from the Genesis to the Revelation. 2. From which, those lead to the three big ideas discussed in the article. (a) Don’t Copy Your Neighbors The human brain is a gigantic imitation machine, and it plays a central role in human culture and civilization. A French philosopher, Rene Girard, who heavily influenced Thiel's worldview, is known for the theory of imitation - the Mimetic Theory. From this perspective, our desires are learned by imitating other peers in a social group. Human conflicts arises from similarities, not differences. Same desires can bring people together, but since everyone is imitating other people, as soon as two people cannot share an item they both desired, they would become the worst enemy. Even worse, even when resources are diverse and abundance, people would still end up fighting for the same thing/status because they are affected by the same "meme", "We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like". Therefore, Mimetic Competition ensures great violence and turns everything to a destructive zero-sum game. Competition distracts us from things that are more important, meaningful, or valuable. Good imitators copy a transcendent goal or figure. The author also argues that Peter Thiel believes a business should focus on uniqueness, not outpacing your competitors due to the reasons above, and also seems to advocate the creation of large monopolies like Google, instead of a market with near-perfect competition. I don't know what to say about it... But interesting indeed, I'm curious about your thoughts when you finished reading it. (b) Time Moves Forward In premodern time, time is often viewed as cyclical. The world spins along an endless cycle: creation, rise, decline, destruction, and rebirth. Even if the cycle repeats for millions of years, it will continue to spin forever. The circle of time closes where it opened. The Ancients assumed that humanity was doomed to cycles of pessimism. A cyclical notion of time removes human's control from the world. On the other hand, Christianity tells a story that begins from the Genesis, how the world went bad, the birth of Jesus, and how someday God will make all wrongs be right, hence the idea of a linear time, the idea that humanity can improve itself, step-by-step and stage-by-stage into an earthly paradise is introduced to the Western Civilization. Good imitators copy a transcendent goal or figure, and linear time helps forming the image of the transcendent goal. Linear time drives progress and long-term thinking. Rene Girard also believes the Scapegoat Mechanism is the center of human civilization. Due to the destructiveness of Mimetic Competition, all tribes would be plagued by serious conflicts and violence, eventually, the communitiy will find someone/something to be responsible for all the evils, and killed the scapegoat in a social event, then peace is restored. It is both violence and a resolution of violence. This Scapegoat Mechanism can also be viewed from the perspective of cyclical time: peace, violence, sacrificial, and restorable of peace. Nevertheless, in Christianity, a story of scapegoat is told, not from the point-of-view of the community, but the perspective from the victim. And according to Girard, this is the essence of biblical revelation. The Gospels classify Jesus as a scapegoat. The death of Jesus, like a scapegoat ritual, is a collective and community murder, and reveals the radical injustice of the scapegoat phenomenon. It avoids problems of cyclical time. (c) The Future will Be Different From the Present Technological progress has slowed down or became stagnate. The only major exceptions are semiconductors, DNA sequencing, and communications technology. Side effects of slow growth plague the economy. Real median wages haven’t risen since 1973. Meanwhile, the costs of housing, healthcare, and education are rising faster than inflation. As a result, people lowered their expectation, and shifted from an optimist view of the future of great public projects to pessimism. The Empire State Building was built in 15 months from 1931-1932. 80 years later, The Freedom Tower took more than 12 years to build. We’ve narrowed the definition of technology to Angry Birds and goofy SnapChat filters. That’s why Thiel longs for the days when technology alluded to space, airplanes, and rockets that generated more energy than a small atomic bomb. In everyday life, the speed of technology and the hyperconnectivity of society have placed us in a “never-ending now.” Like hamsters running on a wheel, we live in an endless cycle of ephemeral content consumption — a merry-go-round that spins faster and faster but never goes anywhere. People are also shifted from long-term great goals to short-term thinking and "pursue optionality". Rather than taking risks or working on important projects, students acquire options. In theory, these safety nets give them freedom. Bolstered by the confidence of security, they can jump head-first into ambitious projects. In practice, they become habitual acquirers of safety nets and never work on anything of substance. In Christianity, the Book of Revelation paints two outcomes for the future of humanity: catastrophic apocalypse or a new heaven and a new earth. The probability of a civilization-ending apocalypse is increasing. Peter Thiel worries that the world is becoming more Mimetic. Worse, globalization is raising the threat of runaway Girardian violence and an apocalyptic world. That though, a lack of progress leads straight to a bleak, ravaged, and apocalyptic world, so we shouldn't stop innovating. To offer solutions, Thiel turns to the Christian value of hope. Our beliefs about the future impact our thoughts about the present. The more we can turn our attention away from the ephemeral present and towards the eternal future, the more we can pursue grand visions and persist through the challenges of the day.

This article was recently submitted to Hacker News by a reader, I was interested, but other readers immediately flagged it to death. One reason was its confusing title and introduction, triggered reactions like "Peter Thiel is an entrepreneur, why should I care about his opinions of religion?!" and "As the disclamier said, the author had never met Peter Thiel, this article is useless!", the length of 15,000 words also made it even worse: a causal HN reader won't read it. Today I finally found two hours to carefully read through this article, and I highly recommend you to read it when you have time. You don't have to know who is Peter Thiel nor his religion, and I think you'll find an interesting tangential topic even if you already have an opinion on Peter Thiel agenda. This article is NOT religious preaching, startup evangelism, or biography. The author offers a (3rd-party) character analysis of Peter Thiel, how various ideas influenced him and affected his desicions, and how the same ideas can provoke thoughts for the readers, and reviewing human culture, business strategy, economics, and history through its lens. The following ideas are elaborated, (but my summary is incomplete, please read the original article). 1. A few simple concepts in Christianity, such as devoting one's life to God rather than idols or things in the world, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, the existence of a beginning and an end from the Genesis to the Revelation. 2. From which, those lead to the three big ideas discussed in the article. (a) Don’t Copy Your Neighbors The human brain is a gigantic imitation machine, and it plays a central role in human culture and civilization. A French philosopher, Rene Girard, who heavily influenced Thiel's worldview, is known for the theory of imitation - the Mimetic Theory. From this perspective, our desires are learned by imitating other peers in a social group. Human conflicts arises from similarities, not differences. Same desires can bring people together, but since everyone is imitating other people, as soon as two people cannot share an item they both desired, they would become the worst enemy. Even worse, even when resources are diverse and abundance, people would still end up fighting for the same thing/status because they are affected by the same "meme", "We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like". Therefore, Mimetic Competition ensures great violence and turns everything to a destructive zero-sum game. Competition distracts us from things that are more important, meaningful, or valuable. Good imitators copy a transcendent goal or figure. The author also argues that Peter Thiel believes a business should focus on uniqueness, not outpacing your competitors due to the reasons above, and also seems to advocate the creation of large monopolies like Google, instead of a market with near-perfect competition. I don't know what to say about it... But interesting indeed, I'm curious about your thoughts when you finished reading it. (b) Time Moves Forward In premodern time, time is often viewed as cyclical. The world spins along an endless cycle: creation, rise, decline, destruction, and rebirth. Even if the cycle repeats for millions of years, it will continue to spin forever. The circle of time closes where it opened. The Ancients assumed that humanity was doomed to cycles of pessimism. A cyclical notion of time removes human's control from the world. On the other hand, Christianity tells a story that begins from the Genesis, how the world went bad, the birth of Jesus, and how someday God will make all wrongs be right, hence the idea of a linear time, the idea that humanity can improve itself, step-by-step and stage-by-stage into an earthly paradise is introduced to the Western Civilization. Good imitators copy a transcendent goal or figure, and linear time helps forming the image of the transcendent goal. Linear time drives progress and long-term thinking. Rene Girard also believes the Scapegoat Mechanism is the center of human civilization. Due to the destructiveness of Mimetic Competition, all tribes would be plagued by serious conflicts and violence, eventually, the communitiy will find someone/something to be responsible for all the evils, and killed the scapegoat in a social event, then peace is restored. It is both violence and a resolution of violence. This Scapegoat Mechanism can also be viewed from the perspective of cyclical time: peace, violence, sacrificial, and restorable of peace. Nevertheless, in Christianity, a story of scapegoat is told, not from the point-of-view of the community, but the perspective from the victim. And according to Girard, this is the essence of biblical revelation. The Gospels classify Jesus as a scapegoat. The death of Jesus, like a scapegoat ritual, is a collective and community murder, and reveals the radical injustice of the scapegoat phenomenon. It avoids problems of cyclical time. (c) The Future will Be Different From the Present Technological progress has slowed down or became stagnate. The only major exceptions are semiconductors, DNA sequencing, and communications technology. Side effects of slow growth plague the economy. Real median wages haven’t risen since 1973. Meanwhile, the costs of housing, healthcare, and education are rising faster than inflation. As a result, people lowered their expectation, and shifted from an optimist view of the future of great public projects to pessimism. The Empire State Building was built in 15 months from 1931-1932. 80 years later, The Freedom Tower took more than 12 years to build. We’ve narrowed the definition of technology to Angry Birds and goofy SnapChat filters. That’s why Thiel longs for the days when technology alluded to space, airplanes, and rockets that generated more energy than a small atomic bomb. In everyday life, the speed of technology and the hyperconnectivity of society have placed us in a “never-ending now.” Like hamsters running on a wheel, we live in an endless cycle of ephemeral content consumption — a merry-go-round that spins faster and faster but never goes anywhere. People are also shifted from long-term great goals to short-term thinking and "pursue optionality". Rather than taking risks or working on important projects, students acquire options. In theory, these safety nets give them freedom. Bolstered by the confidence of security, they can jump head-first into ambitious projects. In practice, they become habitual acquirers of safety nets and never work on anything of substance. In Christianity, the Book of Revelation paints two outcomes for the future of humanity: catastrophic apocalypse or a new heaven and a new earth. The probability of a civilization-ending apocalypse is increasing. Peter Thiel worries that the world is becoming more Mimetic. Worse, globalization is raising the threat of runaway Girardian violence and an apocalyptic world. That though, a lack of progress leads straight to a bleak, ravaged, and apocalyptic world, so we shouldn't stop innovating. To offer solutions, Thiel turns to the Christian value of hope. Our beliefs about the future impact our thoughts about the present. The more we can turn our attention away from the ephemeral present and towards the eternal future, the more we can pursue grand visions and persist through the challenges of the day.