6 ms·
Its really easy to read this and be scared without being given any context, not everyone in the room knows who you are referring to and if your reading of their
by giancarlostoro 1y ago
Its really easy to read this and be scared without being given any context, not everyone in the room knows who you are referring to and if your reading of their remarks are accurate.
You got a name and a raw source?
- ants_everywhere 1y agoPeter Thiel. He says "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible." The beginning of the essay > I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years: to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good. I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. For all these reasons, I still call myself “libertarian.” > But I must confess that over the last two decades, I have changed radically on the question of how to achieve these goals. Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible. By tracing out the development of my thinking, I hope to frame some of the challenges faced by all classical liberals today. The full essay https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/education-libertarian/ https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...
- tiahura 1y ago“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
- schmidtleonard 1y agoHaha I like that quote, but to her unintentional credit Ayn Rand did force me to think about why she was wrong, whereas if my main exposure to capitalist propaganda were the plausibly apolitical econ classes offered in school I might never have even realized that they were propaganda.
- bpt3 1y agoThese sound like the exact reasons we don't have a direct democracy. “A democracy will continue to exist up until the time voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.” - not Peter Thiel
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- _Algernon_ 1y agoThat's exactly how it works already, albeit through the middlemen representatives figuring out what block of voters is cheapest to buy. The only meaningful difference in a representative democracy is that the representatives can choose not to deliver on their promises (in other words: lie), thereby consolidating real power in a smaller group of people.
- hn_throwaway_99 1y agoExcept somehow it's the opposite? The Big Beautiful Bill is one of the most regressive bills in decades - the vast majority of the benefits went to the richest while the biggest cuts went to the poorest. The MAGA base is definitely not on the richer end of that spectrum. I.e. they didn't really even get anything for their undying loyalty besides "owning the libs" I guess.
- schmidtleonard 1y agoThe market already exponentially concentrates wealth, just piggy back on that. There will always be a market for promoting the self-serving politics of the rich.
- bpt3 1y agoThe idea is that smaller group of people actually have some integrity and sense of duty to the people they represent and the country at large, rather than just pulling the lever for the thing that benefits them the most in the immediate term. That idea has always been tested, with the current times being the largest test in several decades at least.
- rayiner 1y agoHe's expressing more or less the same sentiment as the American founders themselves expressed.
- miltonlost 1y agoMore or less, "I don't believe in democracy" is the same as the people who founded the country? Ok, you have no idea of nuance.
- bpt3 1y agoThat's not what Thiel said, and not what the parent poster said. How familiar are you with the writings of the founding fathers? The ones who very intentionally avoided creating a system based on direct democracy?
- FireBeyond 1y agoA few things: The founding fathers were often in their (often early) 20s. They were not infallible, nor was the system they created. That's why they created mechanisms for evolving that system. Except we rarely do. "But Constitutional Amendments", people say. Actually, one of the doctrines of the founding fathers was that the whole system should be reviewed, head to toe, every 10-20 years. Everything is very selective. Infallible when we want it to be. "Oh they didn't mean that/like that" when we want. And completely ignore other parts as inconvenient.
- bpt3 1y agoThey certainly were not infallible, but the question is whether they were unwavering advocates for democracy. All of the restrictions they put in place, such as the electoral college and who was able to vote at all, along with the writings we have, suggests as a group they were not.
- dragonwriter 1y ago> The founding fathers were often in their (often early) 20s. The youngest delegate to the Constitutional convention was Johnathan Dayton of New Jersey, who was 26, and there were three more under 30. There were more over 60 than than under 30. The people that are frequently cited as being "Founding Fathers" in their "early 20s" (or "between 19 or 21, because we're not sure exactly when he was born", in Hamilton's case) are people who were that age in 1776 and ended up playing an important role. But the Constitution was drafted more than a decade later -- there was a war, plus time under the first system of government under the Articles of Confederation in between. > Actually, one of the doctrines of the founding fathers was that the whole system should be reviewed, head to toe, every 10-20 years., No, that was not a "doctrine of the founding fathers", it was a belief of Thomas Jefferson expressed later in a letter to, as I recall, John Adams, specifically (the upper limit of the period at which he held any law or constitution needed to expire was actually 19 years, based on actuarial data and a set of assumptions he had about what was necessary and acceptable in terms of avoiding the living being ruled over by the dead.) You can tell it was not a widely held "doctrine of the founding fathers" (or, more to the point, of the Framers, who are the ones actually relevant to the Constitution, though the two groups have considerable overlap) because instead of expiring by its own terms in 19 years or less, the Constitution was permanent, with a very difficult method of amendment, and that method of amendment was specifically barred from changing certain parts. There weren't really very many widely shared "doctrines" of the Founders or the Framers. They weren't a hive mind or a cult or even a group as ideologically aligned as the coalition that makes up either of the US's current major political parties. The idea of shared doctrines or a single unifying vision behind the Constitution are mythologies created after, and requiring deliberate disregard of, the facts.
- grafmax 1y agoI mean, he’s not wrong. Libertarianism is freedom - for the rich. And concentrated wealth is antithetical to democracy because it’s concentrated power. He’s just taking libertarianism to its logical extreme by repudiating democracy. Is it any wonder that he has helped fund our decline into authoritarianism? We now have concentration camps, abrogation of the constitution, judicial capture, and the military turned increasingly against American citizens.
- betaby 1y ago> We now have concentration camps, abrogation of the constitution, judicial capture, and the military turned increasingly against American citizens. Other countries got those without paying Palantir billions.
- grafmax 1y agoThis is part of the fundamental contradiction of libertarianism. Why would those with the power and the purse strings curtail the government (including spending) when it doesn’t suit them? Instead it’s things like environmental regulations and social programs that get cut, tipping society’s imbalances further.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- anonfordays 1y ago> We now have concentration camps Immigration detention facilities are not concentration camps.
- grafmax 1y agoThey’re not death camps. But mass detention without due process - that’s a concentration camp.
- 1y ago
- bdisl 1y agoHe’s right. You can see it every time people vote to restrict their individual freedoms, which in the west doesn’t stop happening.
- Y-bar 1y agoI have knowingly voted for less freedoms for myself multiple times and I know it, for example I have voted: - to have less freedom to pollute the environment. - to have less freedom where I am able to defraud my customers. - to have less freedom to have less ability to lie about medical "benefits" of fake cures. I am also a big proponent of freedom-limiting legislation like GDPR which prevents myself and my employer from secretly collecting and processing your personal information. And I am currently part of the "Stop Killing Games" initiative which will hopefully restrict the freedom of games companies to sunset and withdraw purchases without a clear roadmap or similar remedy.
- bdisl 1y agoThat is a lot of typing for a massive strawman that is more likely to belong in Reddit than here.
- Y-bar 1y agoI understood your comment as restricting my own freedoms was a fully bad thing, and I therefore tried to provide examples of positive freedoms being afforded to you by restricting my own negative freedoms. Explain why that is a straw-man.
- shazbotter 1y agoIt's not, you refuted their obviously poorly constructed argument directly. They just have an ideological axe to grind.
- dfxm12 1y agoThanks in part, no doubt, to massive funding from Peter Thiel (and of course others) on issues/candidates that lead to restricting freedom.
- hshdhdhj4444 1y agoAh yes, because of the vast freedoms enjoyed by the people of all those non democratic nations throughout history. The freedom to own a slave. The freedom to treat women as property. The freedom to kill somebody who may have wronged you. Just an array of freedoms.
- keernan 1y agoWhat so many seem to be overlooking is the very, very strong belief by the top 0.01% is that science is about to - or already has - found a way to eliminate natural causes of death. Hence the quote from Peter Thiel: >I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual Assume for one moment that it is true that science will be able to eliminate natural causes of death in the very near future. If you are a multi-billionaire, what does that mean for you? What is the biggest danger to you moving forward? Can the earth support the current population expanding at an ever increasing pace if everyone lives forever? Is it feasible that the wealthiest 3,000 people on earth can 'control' who has access to the ability to never die a natural death?
- estearum 1y agoThat's on the tame end of Peter Thiel's rather demented belief system. Another tidbit: he believes Greta Thunberg is very possibly the actual antichrist. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Ao_umPlSV6o https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Ao_umPlSV6o
- gyanchawdhary 1y ago[flagged]
- estearum 1y agoSure. There's a big difference between believing a 20 year old climate activist is a clown versus a harbinger of the apocalypse as foretold in an ancient text 2000 years ago.
- gyanchawdhary 1y ago[flagged]
- nancyminusone 1y agoThat sounds like something the real antichrist would say
- ImJamal 1y agoI think he was saying the antichrist would be more likely to be a person like Greta, not Greta herself, but the clip cuts off the context at the beginning so it is hard to say.
- Jtsummers 1y agohttps://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/opinion/peter-thiel-antichrist-ross-douthat.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/opinion/peter-thiel-antic... https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/opinion/peter-thiel-antichrist-ross-douthat.html?unlocked_article_code=1.X08.AIXW.Ys9hZ4ICyby_&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/opinion/peter-thiel-antic... - Gift link https://archive.is/mPjPq https://archive.is/mPjPq - Archive link So yes, he does say it's more likely to be Greta Thunberg than an "evil tech genius", but does not outright say she's the Antichrist. I still find it strange that he's afraid of her creating a one world government.
- hnhg 1y agoYou can also sign up to Curtis Yarvin's Substack and read the kind of thinking that Thiel likes to surround himself with: https://graymirror.substack.com/ https://graymirror.substack.com/
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- indoordin0saur 1y agoReally interesting stuff! Thanks for sharing
- ilikehurdles 1y agoYou can just listen to or read thiel directly.
- _DeadFred_ 1y agoOr watch Peter Thiel's interview on the anti-chris and if he thinks humanity should survive (uhhh, well, ughh, ummm, you see). Wild scary stuff. Go watch the whole interview but a taste: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0NkYxjE23JA https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0NkYxjE23JA
- ilikehurdles 1y agoHere’s a more contextual excerpt of the transcript which features the 5 questions prior to this and his answer. When I listened to it, to me it seemed like he was thinking about how to weave answers to those into his response, which he does after the exerpt. It’s an entertaining memed clip but we owe it to intellectualism to understand the full context and not simply consume YouTube shorts as the be-all, end-all. ———- Douthat: … It seems very clear to me that a number of people deeply involved in artificial intelligence see it as a mechanism for transhumanism — for transcendence of our mortal flesh — and either some kind of creation of a successor species or some kind of merger of mind and machine. Do you think that’s all irrelevant fantasy? Or do you think it’s just hype? Do you think people are raising money by pretending that we’re going to build a machine god? Is it hype? Is it delusion? Is it something you worry about? Thiel: Um, yeah. Douthat: I think you would prefer the human race to endure, right? Thiel: Uh —— Douthat: You’re hesitating. Thiel: Well, I don’t know. I would — I would —— Douthat: This is a long hesitation! Thiel: There’s so many questions implicit in this. Douthat: Should the human race survive? Thiel: Yes. Douthat: OK.
- belter 1y agoWealthy, powerful, but weak, conflicted, terrified individuals: https://youtu.be/NX3wH5t7D0g?t=84 https://youtu.be/NX3wH5t7D0g?t=84 https://youtu.be/NX3wH5t7D0g?t=202 https://youtu.be/NX3wH5t7D0g?t=202