It is somewhat funny that nobody is talking about this. Thiel sounds like a gin addict on payday, why is he so insistent on this nonsense? The answer is much simpler than the article implies; it's eschatology.
Thiel understands that the main way you "use" religion is by leveraging dispensationalist narratives to reinforce the idea of "prophecy" and "truth" post-hoc. If you can create your own angel and devil (eg. "Russia vs Ukraine") then you can lead other people through your interpretation of faith. This is a documented phenomenon since Zoroastrianism, the reason the state embraces religion is to demolish secular identity and control thought.
It makes sense, when you think about it. The ultimate form of subversion is legitimizing your low-wage, uneducated burnouts and making the intelligentsia the new social underclass. Once you do that, everyone that matters will believe 2+2=5.
zzzeek•57m ago
in fact that is exactly the argument made by the interview here, so there you go
I agree it's weird nobody is talking about this. Post to a bunch of techs that they're going to spy on their chats you'll get thousands of outraged comments. Post that a prominent billionaire with deep inroads into many areas of the tech industry and governments around the world, not only but specifically including the area of mass surveillance and data collection, might be gearing up to bring planetary scale religious indoctrination online, yawns.
bigyabai•1h ago
Thiel understands that the main way you "use" religion is by leveraging dispensationalist narratives to reinforce the idea of "prophecy" and "truth" post-hoc. If you can create your own angel and devil (eg. "Russia vs Ukraine") then you can lead other people through your interpretation of faith. This is a documented phenomenon since Zoroastrianism, the reason the state embraces religion is to demolish secular identity and control thought.
It makes sense, when you think about it. The ultimate form of subversion is legitimizing your low-wage, uneducated burnouts and making the intelligentsia the new social underclass. Once you do that, everyone that matters will believe 2+2=5.
zzzeek•57m ago
I agree it's weird nobody is talking about this. Post to a bunch of techs that they're going to spy on their chats you'll get thousands of outraged comments. Post that a prominent billionaire with deep inroads into many areas of the tech industry and governments around the world, not only but specifically including the area of mass surveillance and data collection, might be gearing up to bring planetary scale religious indoctrination online, yawns.