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Peter Thiel's Antichrist Lectures
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- karel-3d 7mo ago> It's me, hi, > I'm the problem, it's me - Taylor Swift, 2022
- soco 7mo ago"Well of course I know him, he is me" (Obi-Wan Kenobi, 0 BBY)
- edgyquant 7mo ago[flagged]
- kibibu 7mo agoAlmost the entire article is about the response to the proposed delivery of his, frankly unhinged, antichrist lectures in Italy. There's some context at the end about Thiels connections to the Trump administration. This is normal for reputable news agencies line AP, not everybody is as keenly aware of Thiel's influence as hn readers.
- pknerd 7mo ago[flagged]
- m000 7mo agoDon't you find it problematic that the only reason Thiel can organize these lectures is because he is a billionaire? Is he a bona fide scholar on the subject? Would any tenured theology scholar be welcome to hold the same lectures at the Vatican? I guess that's what you get for electing an American as the Pope. /s
- graemep 7mo agoThe lectures were not given in the Vatican but somewhere nearby, and if you read the article you would see that all the Catholic institutions names denied involved with the lectures.
- clarionbell 7mo agoHe didn't give lectures at Vatican, not even at the Catholic university close to Vatican, and even Catholic University of America didn't have anything to do with it.
- ZiiS 7mo agoI am very much not a billionaire; but I can hire a village hall and give a lecture on the antichrist. I may have to work a little harder to get as much press coverage but that is not what is stopping me.
- donkey_brains 7mo ago“Who was the Antichrist? When would he arrive? What would he preach? What kind of SaaS offerings will he want to invest in?”
- mexicocitinluez 7mo agoThe funniest part about this is that he either IS or is good friends with the Antichrist he claims is returning. What sort of mental gymnastics would be required to not only convince yourself the end of days is here, but that it's not directly being caused by the guy who is indiscriminately bombing foreign countries and spends each morning have a group of evangelical zealots call him the chosen one while praying on him.
- actionfromafar 7mo agoFrom Zero to (1) Antichrist.
- buttlove69 7mo ago[flagged]
- rokkamokka 7mo agoThis is an attempt at a reverse Streisand effect, right? He didn't like people memeing that he was the antichrist, so he did all this so any searches would turn up his lectures rather than the memes/accusations.
- 3rodents 7mo agoNo, he has been ranting and raving about the antichrist for at least a decade. He and JD Vance bonded over it. https://www.wired.com/story/the-real-stakes-real-story-peter-thiels-antichrist-obsession/ https://www.wired.com/story/the-real-stakes-real-story-peter...
- graemep 7mo agoPossibly, but I think he does believe it. it fits. A Google search turns up the usual stuff (e.g. his Wikipedia page) and then a Youtube video accusing him of destroying democracy, so if that is what he is trying its not working: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=peter%20thiel&sei=tfWzadnDI7-kkdUP3szZwQ4 https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=peter%20thiel&sei=tfWzadnD...
- Gud 7mo agoNo, Peter Thiel is a nut job and these are his beliefs. Unfortunately, he also knows everything about you and everybody else in the so called free world.
- DonHopkins 7mo agoTakes one to know one.
- silexia 7mo agoAI is the Antichrist.
- DaedalusII 7mo agothe old saying goes that every entrepreneur wishes they were a philosopher, and every philosopher wishes they were an entrepreneur generally holds true soros marc rich bill gates musk thiel nassim taleb epstein etc
- benrutter 7mo agoI 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.
- walthamstow 7mo ago> Where are all the philosopher wannabe billionares? On Twitter, in my experience. The 'manosphere' is practically all philosopher-wannabe-billionaires.
- mariusor 7mo agoI 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.
- RichEO 7mo agoIt struck me as I was watching the new Louis Theroux Netflix documentary that the manosphere must love Nietzsche.
- walthamstow 7mo agoI don't take them seriously. They do see themselves philosophers though.
- DaedalusII 7mo agonassim taleb is primarily a philosopher who pretends to be a hedge fund guy, jordan peterson, robert kiyosaki, tim ferriss maybe, sam bankman fried, the tech lead yt archetype is people who sell their success as a model for you to follow while having none themselves, wrapped up as some kind of philosophical position, so they can make money lots of self help authors, failed vc funds, podcasts
- dgxyz 7mo agoIf he was on a park bench covered in his own piss no one would pay any attention to the same words.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- nisegami 7mo agoUnfortunately, he's not on a park bench covered in his own piss and is instead the puppet master behind the VP of the US and a large chunk of the tech sector.
- akimbostrawman 7mo agoHe's not the master merely another puppet controlling puppets. If you want to get closer to the masters read the epstein files.
- thrance 7mo agoAnd realistically, if we did live in a meritocracy, that's where he would be.
- nemo44x 7mo agoCorrect. We call that “credibility”. People can earn credibility in this world through their accomplishments. If your life accomplishment is sitting in your own piss you lack credibility.
- haunter 7mo agoIn this case it's more of Halo effect which is plaguing the tech world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect
- UncleMeat 7mo agoI believe it is a separate set of things. Thiel has an enormous amount of money. This makes him and his ideas have power, regardless of whether his ideas are crap. It further convinces people that his ideas aren't garbage even when these ideas are in different domains than his business.
- lukan 7mo ago“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 ideas who the new antichrist might be?
- mattkevan 7mo agoGreta Thunberg, according to Thiel (seriously).
- celdon25 7mo agoI personally think that when he mentioned her name during that interview, it was intended to be used as an archetypal proxy in place of someone else (another public figure) that he had personal dealings with. Yudkowsky checks those same boxes (mission focused on specific existential risk, gets a cult following) for example. That being said, I don’t care much for Christian prophecies. Better to talk why than who.
- mattkevan 7mo agoThere’s nothing Christian about what Thiel is talking about here, even if he does wrap it up in the bible. Whether you believe in Christianity or not, his views are deeply, deeply heretical. He’s so far out of pocket he’s in a completely different pair of trousers.
- celdon25 7mo agoI don't even think Christianity itself is authentic anymore, so we can just leave it at that. It essentially amounts to outsourcing your spirituality to a man who died thousands of years ago (as great as he was at the time), through whatever institutional filters decide which words of his to cherry-pick.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- gmerc 7mo agoHe’s appealing to the largest maga faction, fundamentalist christians because they are the kingmakers after Trump decays.
- rob74 7mo agoHe's not doing it directly, that's why his lectures are secr... er, invitation-only. Thiel is content to pull the strings from the background, he's not demen... er, fool..., er, courageous enough to actually accept a role with the Trump administration like Musk was.
- seanalltogether 7mo agoI 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.
- graemep 7mo agoIt 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 US?
- torben-friis 7mo ago>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.
- sklargh 7mo agoAmerican 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.
- trollbridge 7mo agoIt remains a fact, though, that the Catholic Church doesn’t teach these things about Armageddon.
- salad-tycoon 7mo agoAnyone got a bootleg?
- moffers 7mo agoAre these lectures available for anyone to look over or is it only for paying customers? I feel like if it was public it probably has the same weight as the Left Behind books did in the early 2000s.
- mattkevan 7mo agoBehind 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtR7ny9TuCY Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXhyx-vVG_Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXhyx-vVG_Y
- camillomiller 7mo agoGenuine questions: what can be done in a democratic setting to stop him? Who should take into their hands the job to stop him, and to what lengths should they push themselves?
- avidphantasm 7mo agoWhat would China do to such billionaires run amok?
- camillomiller 7mo agoThis is the only answer that has any reference to an actionable approach that has been proven to work.
- mattkevan 7mo agoNot agreeing as a society that money == speech would be a good start.
- JKCalhoun 7mo agoI like that. I also like a two-pronged approach which includes taxing the billionaires out of existence. I haven't heard any significant downside to doing that. All the more so when weighed against the possible upsides. I think what frustrates me above all else is that we, as a society, as a people, could have it so much better. We could all be living in such a better world but for the allowances we make for the most sociopathic and greedy among us.
- frereubu 7mo agoThe 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).
- assaddayinh 7mo ago[dead]
- hattmall 7mo ago>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 why though? If that's what you believe and there's nothing more, we know the sun is going to explode and destroy everything and an asteroid impact is likely to happen that destroys even sooner than that, so why does that matter?
- frereubu 7mo agoBecause we could cook the planet in a matter of decades or centuries rather than waiting ~5 billion years for the sun to explode, which would give us plenty of time to figure out how to explore space sustainably rather than some kind of delusional Musk-like sci-fi fantasy of bases on Mars in the next decade.
- JamesTRexx 7mo agoReligion is just one of the excuses/covers used to grab more power and/or shiny baubles by psychopatic people. And there are the ones who just want to see others suffer no matter what. Most of the people that are left don't feel like lifting a finger unless it directly endangers their own comfortable life. Call me cynical, but I haven't seen any improvement in human nature in 50 years.
- wnevets 7mo agolecture is doing a lot of lifting.
- dvh 7mo agoSo many believe that rupture or antichrist arrives in their generation, because it would make them feel special. If they die before, it makes them unimportant.
- piokoch 7mo agoKnowing what kind of business Peter Thiel is engaged in, it is not a big surprise that he does not like the religion started by a guy who was crucified for telling others that it would be great if people were nice to each others.
- fabian2k 7mo agoIt is disconcerting to see that quite a few of the well-known billionaires seem to have just outright insane beliefs. And those are people with real power and the ability to influence events on a larger scale.
- jatari 7mo agoIt doesn't seem that supprising. You need a certain level of narcissism/sociopathy to have the drive to become a billionaire in the first place.
- dandanua 7mo agoI would say it is natural that humans with so much power go crazy. What is not natural is allowing them to have that power in the first place. If a society allows that, it deserves anything that could happen to it, whether it's Armageddon, climate change, pollution, idiocracy, or whatever.
- Gravityloss 7mo agoHow does it work with dictators? I suggest it's a spectrum: the more powerful you are, the more you can surround yourself with yes-men. Of course there are a lot of different people, there's probably very grounded dictators and billionaires too, you probably don't hear much about them.
- tootie 7mo agoSome reporting on the contents of the speech from last year: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/10/peter-thiel-lectures-antichrist https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/10/peter-thiel-... It's suitably insane rambling nonsense. It actually seems to dovetail pretty well with Andreesen's manifesto in that evil is portrayed as anyone who opposed relentless technological progress at any cost. If you worry about the economic or human effects of tech oligarchs (Grete Thunberg is named as a candidate) then you are preparing your evil army for the final battle. Seeking to regulate AI also makes you a candidate.
- trollbridge 7mo ago“People who oppose what I want to do are the antichrist” is one step away from “I’m Jesus!”, which is something you normally hear in mental wards.
- sifar 7mo agoIronic that for someone so steeped in tech, his views on technology seem to be simplistic.
- kylecazar 7mo agoI've listened to several of his antichrist talks and remain confused by his stance. He's imprecise and rambles, but IMO it boils down to one of a few options: 1) These are actual good faith views that are inspired by his own piety 2) This is some chess game he thinks he's playing in which he erects the world government/ totalitarian state as signals of the antichrist, with Thunberg and other "woke" leaders as candidates, because they pose a risk to his business interests. "Peace and safety" is a guise and a front, but conveniently, are just bad for Palantir. 3) He is too disconnected for too long and has disappeared up his own ass For anyone considering investigating, I wouldn't advise it. He's given huge liberties by interviewers to give vague non-answers and is never (rarely) pressed about reconciling his actions as an investor with his alleged concern for humanity.
- d--b 7mo agoSouth Park season 28 has Peter Thiel as an exorcist trying to cure Cartman's devilish obsession with 6-7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Park_season_28 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Park_season_28
- aestetix 7mo agoThere were a few news outlets (I think maybe the Washington Post?) that got copies of recordings of these insane lectures when Peter Thiel did them in San Francisco. I think it would be in the public interest for them to release the lectures in full. Maybe people should put some pressure on these outlets to do so.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- lo_zamoyski 7mo ago“has proven so controversial that the Catholic universities initially associated with it have all denied official involvement” Journalists have a real knack for warping banal things into sensational, ominous nonsense. The implication here is that universities are monolithic coordinated machines with a single voice where all things are organized top-down. Some club here is hosting this event. That’s it. We had clubs at university that did the same thing. The quoted passages read like factual answers to questions posed by journalists to the Angelicum’s and CUA’s communications offices, not some frantic “distancing” or gotchas. They probably don’t care one way or another. “the Catholic magazine First Things” Not officially Catholic. Ecumenical is perhaps a better term. Even that word is not accurate, as there are plenty of contributions from Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, atheist, etc writers. “an ancient Christian concept of the order of love, received a famous slapdown from Pope Francis […] Prevost shared an article […] with the headline, ‘JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.’” Charitably, Francis and then-Prevost were critical of what they privately perceived as a misapplication or misunderstanding of this principle, not the principle itself. Prevost’s own Augustinian order draws heavily from St. Augustine who expounded the concept of ordo amoris/ordo caritatis. The concept isn’t an endorsement of national chauvinism, but merely that our love must be prioritized and ordered. It is a moral obligation and is simply part of and entailed by the natural law. In any case, I don’t see any relevance to the article. It’s like some mish-mash of disconnected propositions held together by dubious or meaningless associations to imply something significant has taken place. It would have sufficed to say “Peter Thiel lecturing on the Antichrist in Rome”.
- itsthecourier 7mo agothere was a Catholic reason for this, the Fatima Sheppards. there was an "apparition" of Virgin Mary and some "Prophecies" that were really imprinted on all Catholics over 50 years old. pretty much anti-russian propaganda. they silently pedal back from them in the last 25 years. but last time I visited sn important catholic monument internationally, most of the people in the bus knew about them, how they talk about the end of the world but never realized the Vatican already made them public all and it was a sham. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Secrets_of_F%C3%A1tima https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Secrets_of_F%C3%A1tima also end of the world prophecies are a Catholic meme my favorite is Pope Sylvester II in 1000 AD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_ap...
- tim-projects 7mo agoIt seems to me that the idea of Armageddon without clear evidence, is the lizard brain taking over. My point is that it's not crazy, it's survival. It's a feature not a bug. In other words this looks dangerous, but it's really just every day normality for all of us.
- josefritzishere 7mo agoThere are some good studies out there about the rates of Sociopathy among executives. But even among that group, Theil seems particularly deranged.
- thinkingemote 7mo agoI'm still trying to find the correct term for this, maybe you can help? I think it's built into our selves that we think this way, or it's a common fallacy or thinking error or perhaps conscious decision to state that the present is the most important time ever and so that position brings a sense of urgency and force to ones argument. We see it on every political side left, right and centre and I think it's more easily seen in environmentalism which uses it as a central point. It doesn't mean that the arguments are necessarily wrong, more like it's a (potentially manipulative) way to spur action. Looking at history and considering the past might be an antidote to manipulation. I'm still trying to find what the term is properly, Presentism and Chronocentrism seems to be on the right track? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(historical_analysis) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentism_(historical_analysi... Chronocentrism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronocentrism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronocentrism Anyhow these lectures feel to me to be ultimately based on this - to motivate change according to some desired end. To think of the end of the world happening soon, so you better get motivated. Like the Bene Gesserit in the Dune novels, long running institutions like the Church, I believe at its best understand humanity and measure time and weigh the present on a more universal scale. If you've gotten this far and are still puzzled, consider this thought experiment: "Today is the closest we are to nuclear Armageddon, we must do something!" Many would agree with this statement. Now, think of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 - its likely that was actually the closest we got to it, and so the statement about today is false and so the urgency to do something now is weakened. One can understand therefore that to counter this inherent bias or fallacy is not something that we generally want to do.
- 11101010010001 7mo agoSo reasoning from first principles is equivalent to doing it for the money?
- RickJWagner 7mo agoIt is interesting the article doesn’t mention that Thiel is gay. It’s especially relevant because the article is largely about Catholic interactions. It’s a natural point of interest. Very interesting they didn’t pick it up.
- 2001-wville 7mo agoRome is of interest to Republican power brokers because church-going White Catholics increased their voting for Trump by 5% (57-62%) from 2020-2024. Taxes for private schools is a right wing religious plan aimed at making the country conservative, “On a mission from God: inside the movement to redirect billions in taxpayer dollars to religious schools,” ProPublica, 1-13-2025. Reportedly, 80% of private school parents choose religious schools.
- Hikikomori 7mo agoJust a reminder that Garry Tan attends the dame church where Thiel held his anti christ lecture.
- 2001-wville 7mo agoInitial reporting about the Catholic prayer app, Hallow, identified the involvement of JD Vance in its founding. Hallow app is sponsoring Tucker Carlson’s program during Lent 2026. The timing of JD Vance’s conversion to Catholic (2019) was similar to his political opportunism in Ohio.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 7mo agoActual title: "Thiel brings his Antichrist lectures to the Vatican's doorstep, and Catholic institutions back away"
- amai 7mo agoPeter Thiel - anagram - the reptile.