Peter Thiel has more than a billionaire opinion. He is an influential figure in Silicon Valley, an investor on Paypal, Palantir and Facebook, and a philosophical outlier that he draws from the codes of political theory, markets, and darker veins.
Thiel has long praised Carl Schmidt, a legal theorist who argued that politics was fundamentally defined by the distinction between friends and enemies. Thiel has disputed his interpretation, but summoned Strauss to assert that he “no longer believes freedom and democracy are compatible.”
Thiel was also a student of cultural theorist René Girard, whose ideas about imitation and desire had a major influence on his thinking. He adopted Girard’s philosophy and supported his own “anti-mimic” thinking. This is a call to resist the instincts of modern culture flocks and accept the opposite belief. For Thiel, it often means monetizing the contradiction as the best bet for the market. Playing the cards correctly can result in unpopularity payback. Like criminal charges. Keep your poker face.
Thiel is the leader of JD Vance and a major financial sponsor, whose rise reflects the convergence of cultural dissatisfaction, apocalyptic rhetoric and political ambitions.
Although these are not common names, they help explain Thiel’s preference for the epic tales of civilised crisis, strong authority and decline. So when Thiel calls out AI as a kind of antichrist, it is not merely a provocation. It is a worldview, provided by capital weights and a strange kind of theological strength.
His recently outlined claim harddeserves more than curiosity or dismissal. They need responses based not on fear or future science, but on theology, political responsibility and an understanding of what we are still going to be.
Thiel warns that AI is a complete surveillance, resembling the anti-Christ of Christian eschatology. However, this comparison distorts the traditions that we are trying to invoke.
Antichrist is not a machine, a code system, or a network in Christian ideas. It’s a spiritual counterfeit. It is a false messiah, not a close spreadsheet. Apocalypse provides a ratiophor rather than predictive analysis. The beast is not housed in the database. The danger of AI is not in its divinity or damage, but in its old temptation to increase its power to human misuse, moral avoidance, and wisdom.
Thiel’s reading risks that theology will collapse into delusions. In other words, it encourages the symbolic depth of apocalyptic literature for its technology roadmap. This bypasses the actual drama of Christian eschatology. This is not about machines carrying out misguided worship, distorted desires, false sovereignty, not atmospheric.
This idea also poses a risk to the citizens. By casting AI as an unstoppable evil that requires the urgency of the Messianic, Tiel risks justifying the authoritarianism he claims to be afraid of. If technology is a beast, what empire will we build to curb it?
When fear becomes the premise of political action, democracy suffers. Rather than maintaining freedom, Strongman stands up to save people from his vulnerability. This is an excuse for power.
And for all that boldness, Thiel’s framing ultimately reflects a setback to fateism. The idea that technical destiny is trapped implies the very civic structure that can shape it.
What is lacking in Tiel’s vision is not a strong warning, but a deeper confidence. Christianity declares promises rather than uneasy hope. Empire, entropy, death, and there are no final words about creation.
The story doesn’t end with a collapse. It’s finished with the restoration. Christian imagination believes that what is broken is remade, what is hidden is revealed, and how flawed a man is never beyond grace. The last words are not a technological catastrophe, but a godly surprise. Resurrection, transformation, return to the source of everything.
Technology raises fundamental questions. It is a human product shaped by human hands. They demand caution, not vigilance. AI is not antichrist. It is a tool, densely packed into the wrong hands, but not out of reach of good.
The deeper Christian vision recognizes that it is sustained and perfected by beauty that does not create reality, rather than betting on the outcome. Its beauty cannot be surpassed by the code.
Regardless of sharing our Christian vision, we can agree that our own fear of invention is a poor excuse for our lack of moral clarity and political courage. If we still vote, and we can still talk, we’ll still build a coalition. Why act as if the future has already been decided?
When it sounds like it’s far away, it’s much less than it gives the deadly vision the ultimate power, making it another golden calf. Peter Thiel may have hedged his bet by investing in cryonics. Alcohol Life Extension Foundation).
Notes and reading
Karlschmitt (1888–1985) was a German political theorist who emphasized the centrality of conflict and the distinction between friends and enemies in politics. He is often associated with authoritarian legal theory and criticism of liberalism. Schmidt has been rediscovered and is thought to be relevant not only to the right, but also to the current discussion.
Leo Strauss (1899–1973) was a political philosopher who was obsessed with the crisis of modernity and the decline in its involvement with the fundamental issues of justice, virtue and goodness. Some of his followers interpret his work as a defense of hierarchy, tradition, and conservative politics, but his concerns are principle, It is not a program or policy. The strength of continued praise and criticism reflects his great influence on political philosophy and intellectual history.
René Girard (1923–2015), now known as the “Silicon Valley theologian,” contrary to his prejudices. Girard was a French theorist of culture and religion best known for his theory of “desibilities of imitation.” The idea is that humans learn what to want by imitating others, leading to rivals, scapegoats, and violence. Thiel studied under Girard at Stanford University and cites his work as formative. He had a major impact on JD Vance, intellectually and professionally, including financially supporting Vance’s political career.
The era of surveillance capitalism -Shoshana Zuboff (2019). A fundamental critique of how data-driven systems shape political and social forces. She is a professor emeritus and social psychologist at Harvard Business School, which bridges business, technology and social theory.
addition
Politics concept -Carl Schmitt (1932; 2007 edition includes a critical introduction by Tracy Strong, a well-known political theorist). A short but influential text that defines politics through the distinction between friends and enemies.
Violence and sacred -René Girard (1972). A basic text explaining how imitation rivalries are at the root of both myth and social order.
“Peter Thiel’s Apocalypse” – Jacob Howland, hard (May 29, 2025). Howland is the dean of the Intellectual Foundation and Professor of the Humanities at Austin University. – Also, Paradox: Peter Thiel and the pursuit of power in Silicon Valley (2021) – Max Chafkin. A definitive biographical work that links Thiel’s philosophical influences to his concrete business and political activities.
All being saved: heaven, hell, and universal salvation – David Bentley Hart (2019). A powerful, theologically rich vision of the ultimate restoration and inadequacy of sentimental “hope” in Christian eschatology. Hart is a well-known public theologian known for his theological commentary on contemporary cultural and philosophical discussions.
Alcohol Life Extension Foundation – Peter Thiel, investor. For full body cryopreservation, a minimum of $200,000 is required (Neuro storage reduces storage costs to $80,000) – a payment of the amount of time made at legal death, usually funded through a life insurance contract.
Tip #206 – Humanity’s death… Again
Coming soon #208 – Burnout Gospel
Approx. 2 + 2 = 5
Source: 2 + 2 = 5 – williamgreen.substack.com
