This is a real thing Peter Thiel told a group of tech professionals recently.

This is a real thing Peter Thiel told a group of tech professionals recently.

In a four-part series of religious lectures in San Francisco, Peter Thiel — yes, that Peter Thiel — has argued that the End Times are nigh and that a biblical Antichrist — yes, that Antichrist — will come to Earth in the form of onerous government regulations placed on science, technology, and AI.

These are, incidentally, areas where the tech billionaire, venture capitalist, and cofounder of Palantir has a vested financial interest. […]

Note: source uses a two-headline system; the submission uses the shorter of the two

Archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20250925211248/https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/785407/peter-thiel-antichrist-tech-regulation

  • tomkatt@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    12 hours ago

    in the Bible it’s very clear that all that stuff will happen… and that these things are necessary for Christ’s ultimate victory over Death and Evil. So why would you try to prevent the rise of the Antichrist? In the “best case” you’re just kicking the can down the road and delaying the Return of Jesus a little.

    You’ve put a lot more thought and consideration into it than these folks. That’s why they’re all “this bad, that bad, oh no Anti-Christ!”

    To be fair, the end times isn’t likely to be good for most. God’s people for salvation number only a few:

    Revelation 7:4 - Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel.

    That ain’t much. There are billions of people on the planet. At the end, the Christian God will only protect a small number from the events of the end times. The rest of us will have to just suck it up and live and suffer through the apocalypse, as it were.

    I’m not a believer so I can only guess. But my guess is, despite being “Christian” (in really big finger quotes), I think deep down, a lot of these folks know they are Hell-bound (according to their own system of belief), or at the very least, hell-on-Earth-bound. They’re far from Christ-like in their behavior and existence, and I can’t see why they’d be among the chosen few of God’s protection in the end days. Especially since many of them aren’t Jewish, and actively despise Jews (despite also supporting Israel? I dunno, these people confuse the hell out of me). So postponing the end serves to postpone their own damnation.

    • MBech@feddit.dkEnglish
      2·
      1 hour ago

      That is a pretty specific number. Any chance they reconsidered it at some point within the last 2000-ish years though? Like at some point, was god like “We gotta update those abduction rapture numbers guys. They’re super outdated”.

      Maybe they had a total capacity of 150.000 at the time, due to fire regulations and stuff, and then you have the staff and a bit of headroom in case a few people sneak in. But who knows, maybe the counsel has reconsidered fire code? Or did they at any point consider building an extension to heaven?

      • gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        1·
        20 minutes ago

        Any chance they reconsidered it at some point within the last 2000-ish years though?

        You’re right, these numbers should be updated.

        Since the world population increased from roughly 200 million people on earth at the time these texts were written to closely 8 billion today, that’s a roughly 40x increase in total population. So if we assume the same relative percentage, that’s gonna be 6 million people to be saved in total. xD