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Home » Transcript of Part II: Apocalypse Now? Peter Thiel on Ancient Prophecies and Modern Tech

Transcript of Part II: Apocalypse Now? Peter Thiel on Ancient Prophecies and Modern Tech

Read the full transcript of the second half of conversation with Peter Thiel titled “Part II: Apocalypse Now? Peter Thiel on Ancient Prophecies and Modern Tech” on Uncommon Knowledge 2024 premiered Dec 7, 2024.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

Introduction

INTERVIEWER: One of the most sophisticated men in America, brilliant or bane, an immensely successful entrepreneur, one of the most sophisticated men in America taking ancient prophecies seriously. Peter Thiel on Uncommon Knowledge now.

Welcome to Uncommon Knowledge. I’m Peter Robinson. Peter Thiel received his undergraduate and law degrees here at Stanford. He cofounded PayPal, became the first outside investor in Facebook, and cofounded Palantir and remains an important tech investor. He has also established himself as a remarkable thinker. A self-described contrarian, Peter Thiel has never proven more contrary than in taking seriously the biblical framework for probing the meaning of history and what ancient prophecies might help us to think, to understand about our predicament today.

I should note that although viewers will find this second conversation interesting enough on its own, I’m sure of that, the conversation may prove even more striking if they’ve already watched our first conversation, which you’ll be able to find on YouTube.

Peter, welcome back.

The Antichrist: Ancient Prophecy in Modern Times

INTERVIEWER: The Antichrist. Cardinal Newman, the great nineteenth century author and theologian, writes that it is the duty, that’s a quote from Newman, the duty of believers, quote, “ever to be watching for the end times,” and above all, to keep in mind the great and awful sign of which Saint Paul speaks to the Thessalonians. The emergence of, quote, “the very image of Satan, the fearful and hateful antichrist,” close quote.

As I understand your argument, you hold, one, that the prophecy of an antichrist in one way or another remains valid or at least useful. Two, that it remains our duty, again, Cardinal Newman’s word duty, to watch for the signs that it might emerge. And three, that that duty is now almost entirely neglected and forgotten. Fair?

PETER THIEL: Yes.

INTERVIEWER: Okay. Tell us, go ahead.

PETER THIEL: There’s so many different things one can say about it. I think it was Ivan Illich who said that in the time before Christ, there were many forerunners to Christ. In the time after Christ, there will be many forerunners of the antichrist. So in some sense, it’s a type. So Nero was a type of the antichrist, or maybe Napoleon was a type of the antichrist.

It’s someone which aspires for world domination, the creation of this sort of one world state. In some ways Alexander the Great was sort of a pre-Christ prototype of the antichrist. It’s very parallel to Christ. They both die at thirty-three. Alexander conquers the world. Christ saves us. It’s a sort of a compare and contrast.

But in some sense, the antichrist as an idea is something that really comes into being in the world after Christ. And there’s a lot of things about it that are mysterious. In some ways, the antichrist copies Christ. The antichrist pretends to be greater than Christ. Hyper-Christian, ultra-Christian, and then maybe only ultimately, deeply, deeply anti-Christian.

INTERVIEWER: So you point… Go ahead.

PETER THIEL: And then you can think of it as the system, where maybe communism is a one world system. So it can be an ideology or a system. And then of course, you can also think of it as Newman did, where it’s sort of the final dictator of one world state, where it’s still stressed more as a person.

You can leave it as a type, a system, a person. It has something to do in this post-Christian world. It is in some ways related to Christ in a very complicated way. So the theological question you can always ask is, is it possible to be too Christian? And in theory, no. But in practice, if you think you’re more Christian than Christ, you’re in trouble.

Fictional Portrayals of the Antichrist

INTERVIEWER: From a prophecy two thousand years old to our own times, you draw attention to two portrayals, fictional portrayals of an antichrist from about a century ago. Vladimir Solovyev, a Russian mystic, in 1900 wrote a novella, “A Short Tale of the Antichrist,” and then a 1905 novel by a Roman Catholic English priest called Robert Hugh Benson, and the novel is “Lord of the World.”

In both of these fictional accounts, the Antichrist emerges as a charismatic figure, a kind of Superman. Solovyev, quote, “There was a remarkable person. Many called him a superman. He believed in God, but in the depths of his soul, he preferred himself.”

In Benson, the Antichrist is portrayed again as a charismatic figure. He becomes president of Europe. Then in some mysterious way, he’s elected president of the world. But in both of those fictional accounts of a century ago, there’s a plot hole. We don’t we’re not given the mechanism by which this strange charismatic figure achieves dominance.

And your argument is, again, if I understand it correctly, that now, today, a century after Solovyev and Robert Hugh Benson, we can understand a mechanism. We could imagine a mechanism by which such a figure might emerge.

PETER THIEL: By the way, those are both fantastic books. I have a preference for the Solovyev one, but Benson and Solovyev are both terrific books. There are all these extraordinary ways that they still resonate one hundred years later.

So Solovyev envisions the United States of Europe, sort of a European Union, the super state. In Benson, the Antichrist is a Jewish socialist senator from Vermont. And I was a bit nervous about Bernie Sanders.

INTERVIEWER: Not too much on the nose.

PETER THIEL: There are elements of them where—by the way, you’re not quite the only person. I noticed in reading up on this, Benedict XVI several times mentioned approvingly the Robert Hugh Benson book, and Pope Francis over and over again has referred to it.