“EA as Antichrist: Understanding Peter Thiel” by Ben_West🔸

“The Antichrist probably presents as a great humanitarian, it's redistributive, it's an extremely great philanthropist, as an effective altruist, all of those kinds of things.” - Peter Thiel Effective altruism has more than its share of critics. But Peter Thiel, the billionaire cofounder of PayPal and Palantir, is unusual in that, when he describes us as the “Antichrist,” he does not mean this as a generic slur but rather as a specific claim that we oppose Jesus Christ in the Second Coming. This document is intended just as an explication of his views, I neither endorse nor critique them. My attempted summary of his argument: The Antichrist will claim to bring peace and safety while actually creating a stagnant global state. The only promising technology for avoiding stagnation is AI. So the Antichrist will try to slow down and regulate AI in the name of peace and safety. [...] ---Outline:(02:44) Background: Girardian Mimetic Desires and Scapegoating(03:05) Scott Alexander's Summary(09:50) Key Points(10:40) Background on the Antichrist(11:51) Thiel's Views(11:54) Stagnation(14:20) Totalitarianism(15:57) The Antichrist(17:27) Summary(17:57) FAQs(18:09) Is Thiel unaware of the dangers of AI?(19:31) How would his opinions change if he thought AI was more powerful?(20:42) Why doesn't Thiel think AI will be that transformative?(21:40) If Thiel is worried about totalitarianism, is he also worried that AI could enable totalitarianism?(22:42) I work in AI safety. What does Thiel think I should do?(23:01) Im not Christian. Is there anything that I should be learning from Thiels views?(24:26) How mainstream is Peter Thiels interpretation of the Bible?--- First published: August 6th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/hGwAohPbwCrDT5ynY/ea-as-antichrist-understanding-peter-thiel --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.