January 21, 2026 • 75 mins
Amid the rarefied air of tech billionaires, Peter Thiel carves a larger-than-life figure in the modern world. To some, he's a philosopher king. To others, a supervillain. One thing's for sure: pretty much everyone is baffled by his continual rhetoric about the 'antichrist' -- so, what exactly does he mean? In the first part of this two-part series, Ben, Matt and Noel dive into the deep, Biblical waters surrounding a man who, according to critics, seeks to upend democracy as we know it.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Name is Noah.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
They call me Ben. We're joining with our guest super
producer Max the Freight Trade Williams. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. And friends and neighbors, children and
olds alike. Who doesn't love progress? You guys like progress?
Speaker 5 (00:51):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I think so. I think that's why I like video
games so much, because thats per section that you're making progress,
either in a character or in a world.
Speaker 5 (01:00):
Gamify progress where you're actually just sitting in the same
place the whole time.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
I love it. True story, guys, I'm sure this has
happened to a lot of us in the crowd tonight.
But I was playing a game called Ghost of Yo Tie,
which is good, Yeah, like love it, a descendant of
Ghost of Tushima, and I reached a moment where playing
the game was just soothing to me, especially on mute.
(01:24):
As I was doing qas for various shows, and I
realized I was dragging my feet at the game because
when it was over, my sense of progress would be done.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
I would leave that universe.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah, yeah, tell you.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
That's why I've really been loving Monster Hunter Wilds again,
because the game loop of it is just constant striving
and improving and making new armor and finding new monsters
and then rinse and repeat, so there's never an end
to it. It's like an Infinity game where progress is
always just out of.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Reach and no microw reach. Yeah, no micro tres actions
on that one, right.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
No, no no.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
And honestly I hadn't played it in months, and since
in that time they've updated it incredibly robustly.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
There's like all new.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
Content, all new monsters, all new stuff, Batman armor.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Set, oh, a new Batman armor set.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
Batman arms, and there's a new monster that's apparently tied
in with the Final Fantasy universe, and the game play
mimics that of like a turn based Final Fantasy style thing.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
It's just it's an incredible series. Sorry, Gusha.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
And the great thing about these games and the reason
why well it's playing Minecraft when i QA is because uh,
it comes without all the crushing consequences of.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Right oh, I was thinking about that too. I was
in well, I guess I can be clear about it.
I was in a little bit of a car chase
a while back, and it hit me. Everything's fine, medium
speed speed speed. It hit me. You guys, that unlike
you know, Grand Theft Auto, or unlike so many other
imitations of real life, uh, a video game keeps giving
(03:01):
you second chances, unless it's the infamous Captain Planet video game.
We love this idea of progress. It's as American as
apple pie. Right oh. Also, apples are originally from Kazakhstan.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Pi is surely from France, and pie is.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Probably one of those parallel technologies. Let's put stuff in bread,
Let's put stuff in more stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Butter, bread, sugar, What is this? Oh my god, it's
short bread?
Speaker 4 (03:29):
And what can go in it? You know? That's why
we love exhibit and Pimp my Ride. It's a very
ancient tradition.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
Can I ask really quickly this car chase that you
were in, if it were in Grand Theft Auto, how
many stars would you have been awarded for your mischievous ways?
Speaker 4 (03:47):
Not too many?
Speaker 6 (03:48):
This was this was a two and a half stars
where you have deployed or being pursued again, is this
illegal inquiry? Never pursuit pursuit because car chases always practiced
Newtonian physics, so you will shoot?
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Do you know more?
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Oh? I love that you say hector though, and I
like that name too. It's name, that's a verb. Anyway, guys, remember,
not too long ago, in October of twenty twenty five,
on our weekly Strange News segment, which you can find
wherever you find your favorite podcast, we talked about a
headline that grabbed the news just for a second, about
(04:31):
a guy named Peter Thiel t hi e L. I'm
Sath Barsom. Yeah, one of the world's most wealthy, influential men.
I think for a while he was the one hundred
and third most wealthy person on the planet. He is
a power behind the throne of American politics. He's been
(04:53):
warning people about the fall of civilization for years now.
He's made billions and billions US dollars. He is fundamentally
changing the United States and the planet. And he really
wants to talk to you about the Antichrist.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
Is this like an actual Christian anti Christ? Is this
a theoretical techno Antichrist?
Speaker 3 (05:15):
So what are we talking about here, Ben.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
Oh, that's a great question. Let's get into it.
Speaker 7 (05:20):
Okay, here are the facts.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Let's learn about Pete. Who is Peter Tiel.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
He once was a small German boy, just like me.
Speaker 5 (05:33):
Born October the eleventh of nineteen sixty seven in Frankfurt
in West Germany at the time across that old Berlin Wall.
Peter Andreas Teel is one of the world's most successful
and wealthiest human tech giants in history.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Truly.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
Yeah, and i'd like to you say a small German
boy because his parents and therefore his family, they immigrate
to the United States when Pete is only one year old,
and this is so that his father can continue pursuing
studies in engineering. They become what we will call upper
middle class in a lot of ways. His family moves
(06:12):
around frequently in those days, internationally and domestically. And Pete himself,
in multiple conversations, has noted he attended seven different elementary schools.
He was what we would call kind of a nerd,
and we are very pro nerd here.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, that is a tough thing to go through, and
really I imagine shaped the way he thought. Attending seven
different elementary schools wait, you really think about that.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
Hard to be in one place long enough to make
any meaningful friends, so therefore your friends become numbers.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Well, I mean that's six years of your life, so yeah,
you probably wouldn't have solid friendships for sure. And you're
also accustomed to learning from so many different teachers, Like
think about that like that. I don't know, I just
wonder how much how deep that goes in the way
he thinks about the world and how he takes an information.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Yeah, and in addition to the idea of befriending people
or being unable to have long term childhood relationships, you
see a lot of different systems at play. A particular
interest is one of the schools he was at required
the students to wear uniforms and they were pretty harsh
with corporate punishment. This made him This was in South Africa,
(07:31):
and it made him very much resent the idea of
overall like top down authoritarianism in that way, which is
going to be ironic later.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
So now he's got to get back at him.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
So he's true, right, we don't read too many tea
leaves of.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Personal story getting back at the bullies.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Yeah, but sometimes the origin is there.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I think about it a lot, just how much these
early life situations affect a person later in life. Right,
we talked about it on true crime shows, and we've
talked about it a lot here.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:07):
Yeah, And look, nobody is saying that Pete is a knucklehead. Right,
Pete has always been a sharp student, He's a deep thinker,
and what we would call his self ascribed conservative libertarian values.
They begin to coalesce when he's in San Mateo High
(08:28):
School in California, where he graduates valedictorian. He reads pretty
much everything, and eventually he enrolls in Stanford University where
he studies philosophy, and then he starts making even more waves. Now.
Usually typically there's this stereotype about American higher education that says, hey,
(08:53):
people will tend to become a little more left leaning
when they go to institute of higher education, possibly because
they're meeting people they might not have met otherwise. They're
being exposed to ideas they didn't see in their hometown.
But not so with PD.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
What can I also to say that initially, on first blush,
you hear this dude majored in philosophy at Stanford, and
you're like, that's an odd thing for like such a
you know, mega entrepreneur to major in. But I was
actually talking with friend of the show Frank the other day.
He took a lot of philosophy classes, one of which
was philosophical logic, which is like a bridge from language
(09:33):
to deep deep mathematics, and which describes a lot of
the systems that are used in computer coding, like if
and or if then logic X or logic. There's all
of these like logical fallacies, things that can create like
the blue Screen of death kind of situations. That's really interesting,
that bridge between philosophy and science and math.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
One hundred percent. Yeah, you get real arcane, real quick
with that kind of thinking and those schools of thought.
Peter isn't just dedicated to his studies at Stanford, however,
He's a go getter. He's an entrepreneur if nothing else.
And so Pete goes on to found something called the
Stanford Review as while he's an undergrad. The Review is
(10:17):
an oppositional contrarian force for this Ivory Tower. It's critical
of what feel and others in his circle see as
the dangers of political correctness and yeah, and this extends
to the idea that they think the university is coming
(10:38):
down too hard on allegations of sexual misconduct or indeed assault.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Oh wow. Yeah, it is interesting because it is an
anti conformist view right to be against political correctness, because
whatever is considered to be political politically correct in any
era is kind of the general view, right, the general
view that this is the right thing.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
Sure, or the whims of the authorities.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Right.
Speaker 5 (11:08):
Then oftentimes you see political anti political correctness being weaponized
to galvanize folks against each other.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Yeah, one hundred percent. I think the point we're making here,
folks is that political correctness can be a fluid term.
So political correctness in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
is very different from the political correctness or the policies
of an American university like Stanford.
Speaker 5 (11:37):
True, but you would have had very liberal type views
of political correctness.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Yeah for the time. You know, we're talking eighties nineties.
Despite the fact that obviously this guy had so many
objections or such strong objections that he created a paper
about them, he did stay with Stanford throughout his academic
life on to their law school. He graduated in nineteen
(12:02):
ninety two. And look this guy when he gets a
hold of something. He's like a moray Eel, and I
think you would agree with us there, because a little
bit after he graduates grad school, he teams up with
a guy named David Sachs and together they write a
book called Get This The Diversity Myth, and it's all
about what he sees and his co author Saxey as
(12:25):
a political intolerance at Stanford.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
So is this almost like I mean, it sounds like
a precursor to ideas opposing things like diversity and inclusion
efforts within government, within hierarchies of society, things like confervative action.
I would imagine they would be very against.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
A DEI diversity quality or equity inclusion. It's you nailed
it there, Noel. If we fast forward just a few years,
let's say it's nineteen ninety eight, So here we are
welcome to nineteen ninety eight. Everybody, our buddy Pete gets
together with some friends and some investors and he creates
a company called Confinity. Confinity is originally designed as a
(13:11):
convenient way to handle payments on Palm pilots, which were
a very big deal at the time. PDAs Yes, yeah, yeah,
It's funny because in later interviews Pete himself. Will will
talk openly about how this company was called one of
the worst companies or dumbest companies to be founded at
(13:35):
the time.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
It's a niche, right, it's very niche.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Not everybody as a palm pilot, you know, that's true.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
But it is pning in on a very important issue
or not issue maybe, but a very important need that
would become a greater need, which is servicing payments on
mobile devices.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
And that is something the early early early days of that.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
Kind of thinking, which is something that would obviously balloon
into massive profits and competition.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Flick at the page just before the iPhone came around.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
Yeah, it's press it. If nothing else, the guy.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
Whoever holds the keys to the payments, you know, and
the more people, the more this technology saturates, those people
are getting the cut of like every payment that's made.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
If you're early to market with that kind.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Of stuff, actual seems like a good idea, great idea.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
The guys just ahead of the curve and way to
put it. And just a year later it's nineteen ninety eight.
The bones of confinity are merged in a cauldron of
investment and startup that creates something we call PayPal. Peter
serves as both the CEO and chairman of PayPal, and
(14:43):
most of us have heard of PayPal these days. That's
why we're calling it press it. This revolutionizes fundamentally, not
even fundamentally. It puts the gas in the tank of
Internet money transfers, and it originally seeking not just to
make it easy for you to pay for stuff online.
(15:04):
It's trying to create what they call a new world currency.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Okay, let's not get ahead of ourselves PD.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
Yeah, I think big.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
That didn't exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Pan out, well not yet, right, but there are certainly
folks out there that are banking their reputations and you know,
hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars on the
idea that there will be a digital currency that is
accepted worldwide.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Which are cryptocurrency.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Yes, that is a big play right now. Isn't it
weird that you put something in the notes here, Ben
that I think is very interesting and kind of connects
the worlds of two of the billionaire oligarchs out there
right now. What is this about? Something with an X ah?
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Yes, yeah, yeah, that X train since the beginning.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Yeah, so merges forces or possees up with Elon Musk
from Earth, and that also shows us that there's a
lot of parallel thinking. It reminds me of Western Europe's
practice of having salons back in the day, where you
(16:14):
would just get a dinner party of interesting people from
various backgrounds to have them share concerns, information, speculation, dreams.
The so called tech bros are really no different, except
that their ideas are increasingly transmuted into action, transmuted into finance,
(16:35):
and ultimately they transform into policy. So we're talking about
Prescient's right. This shows us there's a neat step here,
which is the online marketplace eBay, also from earlier. I
haven't used Eba in a while, have you, Guys?
Speaker 3 (16:53):
No, I haven't.
Speaker 5 (16:55):
You can't really find deals on it anymore. I it
used to be like this online thrift experience where you could, like,
you know, find rare things and get some sort of alarming,
you know, insane scoop of a deal on it. But
that those days are long gone, so I'm not really
sure what people use it for. I guess for you know,
selling jonk or whatever. But there's other places where you
can get better deals and much quicker local pickups for things.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
Like that yeah, and eBay uh probably still functions off
of the sandbox phenomena, So a lot of people were
already in that eBay ecosystem are continuing to use it.
eBay didn't have its ecosystem perfected in the late nineties
early two thousands. They needed an easier way for transactions
(17:40):
to occur as seamlessly as possible, and they saw the
potential for what we call PayPal, and so it came
to pass, using some biblical language, that in two thousand
and two they used old existing currency to acquire this
company that wanted to make a new world. So they
(18:00):
paid for it with old money one point five billion
US dollars. This makes Teal Peter Teel a multi millionaire
several times over, he's like maybe thirty five and at
this point, cards on the table, folks, A lot of
us would have been pleased as punch to just clock
(18:22):
out of the rat race that we call capitalism. Retire
in your mid thirties, get a weird, expensive hobby like
sail boats or.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Something falconing, perhaps falconing.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
Oh man, I love you for the.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
But like people like this, though oftentimes it's not about
the money, it's about the power. It's about the pursuit,
it's about the acquisition, and uh, you know, and not
to like make it entirely about greed or some sort
of like control thing, although it's certainly part of it.
A lot of times they just have a vision and
they really, really really want to see that vision executed
(18:56):
in as large as scale as humanly possible.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
You know, profits world money.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
They like money to Yeah, I mean Black Monday Murders
one of the best graphic novels ever written. Spoiler it's
not done yet. It teaches us that money is only
a manifestation of power, which is a more uh a
more high drama way of saying that money is value
of labor over time.
Speaker 5 (19:21):
That's why you get the whole True Detective Season one
aspects of it all, the whole Epstein Island aspects of
it all. But when money will no longer satisfy, you
gotta go weird.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Yeah, you gotta when when you're you're tolerance, you're addicted
to power, but your tolerance keeps going up, so you
have to find more and more concentrated forms of power.
I like that analogy, but it does frighten terrifying. So, uh,
Pete's not terrified. You know, he's got the bug. At
this point, he could have retired, and surely there were
(19:53):
people in his life who were saying, great job, ped
you made it, you won monopoly, you won capitalism, And
he says, no, no, no, no no, I've begun a new game.
I'm investing heavily in startups. He's an angel investor for
Facebook in two thousand and four, and he also creates
(20:14):
a hedge fund, Clarium Capital Management. So like you're saying,
he's in it, he's in it. It's bigger than money
for him. It's bigger than hip hop.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Oh yes, it, guys. Reminded me of that show Silicon
Valley on HBO. The Peter Gregory is the character that
Peter Tiel is formed after as this angel investors slash
venture capitalist guy that invests in very strange things that
always seem to pan out.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
M m yeah, even if they sound a little whackadoo
at the top, right, Because that's the same question people
were asking with Confinity. They were saying, who needs this?
Like this provides this provides a solution to a problem
that I I don't have. But as time would prove,
(21:03):
a lot of people did end up having that problem
and did need something like that solution later, and Teal
is not just selling to individuals or trying to make
one to one transactions easier for people while he takes
a slice of the pie in the process. That same year,
he co founds Palateer Technologies, a diplomatically put data analytics firm.
(21:31):
We've talked about Palenteer in the past, you guys, and
I pause it that we make an episode entirely about Pallentteer.
After we make this episode, it's just creepy.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
We need to know about as much as we can
about the company that is striving to know every single
thing about.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
All of us.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
I know, right, and this is so Palateer data Analytics. Yes,
is an accurate phrase, but it is intensely cartoonishly diplomatic
to call it that and stop there. Long time listeners,
fellow conspiracy realist, you've heard us discuss Palenteer in episodes
(22:11):
like Our Exploration Governments and AI. You've also heard us
talk about it on Strange News and listener mail. We
can't wait to do our Palanteer episode. That might be
the one that goes that comes back to bite us
after all these years.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Sure, especially considering you know, when we're thinking about future currencies.
As we've discussed previously on our audio show, the new
currencies are data, attention, time spent right, eyes on, and
clicks made. That is really the money, that the money
is in that stuff, but it is also becoming just
(22:52):
the source of money.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
The first currency was and always has been time, right,
That's why we describe money as value of labor over time.
The second currency is going to be information. Both very
old currencies that exist through many different forms, but kind
of like the old Pries says in The Exorcist, it's
(23:15):
the same thing, you know what I mean. The deep
in might change, it might possess different people, but it's
the same thing since the beginning of time. And I
think Pete agrees with us on that because a year
after he founds Volunteer, he creates another venture capital investment
outfit called Founder's Fund, which I behind the scenes here
(23:39):
folks originally misspelled our notes as Founder's Fun which is
actually a way better name.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
Because those founding fathers were getting down in those back
rooms yeh up, drinking enough, having a good old time.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
This is why I think he should have called it
Founders Fund instead of founders fund because Founder's fund invest
overwhelmingly in defense industry startups. What's more fun for a founder?
Speaker 3 (24:06):
They love blowing stuff up.
Speaker 5 (24:07):
It's sort of like the super fund sites we often
mistook for super fun sites. Yeah, like toxic waste dumb sites.
They're not very fun at all, but you know it
certainly would be a good branding opportunity.
Speaker 4 (24:19):
So so far we can all agree. The only misstep
that Peter has made, the only thing he's ever done wrong,
is to not call it founder's Fun.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
There we go.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
He just cares too much.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
That's his weakness that he talks about in job interviews.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
He's got such a big word.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Let's talk about how important this is, this type of thing,
the Founder's Fun, how important it is to the machine
that is American capitalism, because it really is, like, this
is vital when you have a good idea in this
country and you have done the right moves to make
sure it's your idea, and somebody else can't just come
along and say, yoink mine if you take that investors,
(25:00):
or you'd make these presentations right, just like on Shark Tank,
but in closed rooms without cameras, and you can you
can interest somebody like a Peter Teel or you know,
the one hundreds and hundreds of people that are at
his level, not exact level, but at that level of
injecting millions of dollars of funds into a startup, you
are going to not only create a lot of wealth
(25:23):
for yourself, but potentially for let's say a country or
a state within the United States, or for some firm,
and especially for those founder's fund folks who are giving
you that initial cash injection.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Yeah. Those angel investors, right are not functioning through pure altruism.
You'd also here in the States have to avoid something
we call the Invention Secrecy Act of nineteen fifty one.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Good luck.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
Yeah, check out that episode, because they will get you.
No camera be push it on me. They will get you.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Okay, holy crap, you have a camera b day.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
I'm just you know, I'm pretended we're going to be
a multi camera show in the future. I'm just manifesting
it like Peter did. And weirdly enough, this for any
student of Pallanteer and large scale data acquisition and analysis.
Weirdly enough, Peter is very concerned about his own privacy.
(26:23):
We talked about this briefly. In two thousand and seven,
he went to war against an online sort of celeb
reporting news site called Gawker gawk.
Speaker 7 (26:37):
R because they dismantled those fools. They outed his they
outed his sexual orientation. So he he said, no, this
is not going to fly. This is a violation of
my privacy and my rights. But he didn't just go
out and make a statement and sue them himself. He
(27:00):
went around and he bited his time, steepled his fingers
right money burn style, and he waited for other lawsuits
to come against Gawker. And he not only financed those lawsuits.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Hul Cogan being one of them, right.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
Holgan being one of the primary ones. He provided guidance,
He helped find good lawyers all this stuff. Hulk Holgan
was the feather on the camel's back here. Eventually Pete
drove Gawker to the ground. It was a whole thing.
It was very well calculated, and it was at a
(27:36):
level of retribution that a lot of people wouldn't do.
Even if they had the means, they would maybe eventually
lose interest, or they would win one court case and
they'd be fine. Not so with Pete.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Seems like some vengefulness is at play there, a bit
of old testament, well, old testament wanted to get back
at the people that have wronged you. I think there's
something in the deadly sins about that.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
I'm not sure. Rath I become Raths an eye for
an eye, right, So this is the blog and short.
There are great looks at the entirety of Peter Thiel's biography,
his early days, and his rise in the world of
(28:24):
business and tech. But now our question becomes, Okay, we
did that, we got all that stuff and tally ho,
very very good show. What do you do now? Exactly?
We got to pause. We've got to take stock for
a second. More than anything, this is an individual, I
think we can agree, who is driven to bring his
(28:45):
vision of a better world to reality by hook or
by crook. And yeah, he does occupy rarefied socioeconomic air. Right, guys,
he's worth And if we checked at Forbes today, as
we record on Tuesday, January thirteenth, we would see his
estimated worth is something like twenty nine point four billion
(29:05):
US dollars as the stock market, right stays, Okay, yeah,
estimate indeed. But despite his standing at the Tippity top
of society's current pyramid. It's not unique to have a
vision of a better world. He's not the first guy
(29:26):
who's been called the philosopher king of something. He is
called the philosopher king of Silicon Valley. But come on,
who doesn't have a vision of a couple of notes
for civilization? Who doesn't look around at various injustices or
inequalities or problems and say, I think would be better
(29:47):
if we all agree to do this thing.
Speaker 5 (29:49):
Yeah, but the problem being like these whale type individuals
that actually have the means to enact those things depending
on whether or not the rest of us agree and
that's the.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Direction we should go, is sort of up for debates.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
And riddle me this, Why do so many, as you
call them Wales, why do so many of their visions
of a better world also just happen to be visions
of a world where they are at the top, en
immune from criticism.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Top top. I'm just going to make a timestamped note here.
It is Tuesday, January thirteenth, twelve nine pm Eastern time,
and Greenland is still a part of Denmark.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
Still currently good Danes. We love legos. Just put that
out there, Yeah, so this breaks us to another thing.
All right again, voracious reader is old Pete. We're not
saying he's a knucklehead at all. He does have the
means to push some of his vision into policy and action.
That's what worries critics, just like we're worried about Cuba
(30:52):
and Greenland, in the future of Venezuela and also Iran,
as we record on the thirteenth, why are critics wor Okay,
worried is under selling it. There are a lot of
people who are deeply concerned that Peter Thiel has positioned
himself as a prime behind the scenes mover in America's
(31:12):
political far right for one purpose, not to make a
better democracy, but to upend democracy as we know it. Yeah,
he's been called a monster, He's been called a crypto fascist.
He's been called a savior. People are saying the call
is coming from inside the house. He also has a
(31:33):
lot to say about the past, present and future. Folks,
downright biblical stuff. What if we pause for word from
our sponsors and introduce everybody to Peter and the anti Christ.
Here's where it gets crazy. Side note, We're still working
(31:54):
on a fog machine and some lasers. Here's where it
gets crazy, so stay with us. Uh Okay, Peter does
see himself as a religious man self reported what's he
called himself a small o orthodox Christian.
Speaker 5 (32:09):
That's interesting too, because I guess, and I don't know
this because from personal experience with tech billionaires, but it
seems like a little bit of an a religious position.
For the most part, people that are like Mega focused
on futurism and technology and things. Doesn't seem like there's
always a place for religion in that type of worldview.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Yeah, there's something to especially in Christianity from my experience,
there's something to the act of giving and the act
of humbleness, and a lot of other things that are
considered christ like that are a bit antithetical to the
hoarding of billions of dollars and the wielding of power
(32:50):
in whatever way you wield it.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
I think you nailed it.
Speaker 5 (32:53):
That must be the thing that makes it a little
just like inherently the Spidey sense giving counterintuitive.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
Yeah, Yeah, cabbles through the eye of the needle, right, bud,
warning about wealth and the love of money being the
root of all evil, and.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
I've counter to that right now, there's a massive political
and religious movement that is intertwined that you know, puts
holiness and wealth and all of that somewhere together, which
is a bit strangealism.
Speaker 5 (33:23):
Yeah, I don't know if I buy that there's actual
belief there. I feel like it's a method of control
rather than an actual, you know, tried and true belief system.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
I just have a hard time with that.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
I would just say I've been in a church pretty recently,
and there's something to it and the messages that are
being spoken. Maybe it is just something that the pulpit,
the person in charge of that believes or is choosing
to espouse, but there is something to it.
Speaker 4 (33:50):
Oh yeah, And we're fans of prosperity theology as a
fascinating concept, yes, and through apological fans of prosperity theology.
And I cannot recommend it enough. If you are a
budding public speaker or an orator, cast your ethics to
the side and check out a speech by Kreflo Dollar.
(34:13):
I'm just in love with the rhetoric. I'm in love
with the moves he does, these moves, his language is
so cool. He's not a good person. I can I
say that I'm.
Speaker 5 (34:23):
A satire of all of this kind of stuff. We
also recommend checking out the Righteous Gemstones.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
Sure, yeah, I got your worker in there.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
I guess My only point here, guys, is that there
is a difference between that prosperity thing right that we're
describing here in some of these megachurch folks, and then
the Baptist Church, this is down the street from wherever.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
You live, no question about it, and very very different.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
In the Methodist Church and the Denominational Jury all of
these things. Yeah, there's you know, there's a difference between
those things, and then the same message is kind of
finding its way through to everybody. It's few and far
between where you really see, at least in my experience,
and that's just my you know, experience, it's few and
far between. It's not very often that you see somebody
(35:09):
really preaching against wealth in that way exactly.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
Yeah, especially here in the United States, in the argument
is being with wealth, we can spread this message.
Speaker 5 (35:21):
With wealth, we can convert the masses and hell therefore
and help people.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
And wealth wealth as a blessing. Because you have functioned
in the Holy path, therefore, you are further empowered as
an operative of Christ or Christendom to spread the good news,
spread the good word, and also to help people.
Speaker 5 (35:43):
I think one of my favorite bits and righteous gemstones
is the opening of I Think It's Season two, where
they're in China baptizing Chinese citizens in a way a
giant wave pool and it goes horribly awry.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
That's yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
I also love Uncle Baby Billy's phenomenal poolside rendition of
there Will Be a Payday, which we're talking.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
About inside the He's all.
Speaker 5 (36:16):
In Atlantic City, teen Just we can't wait, We can't
wait for the director's cut of teen Just.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
Uh So. For several years, as we record again Tuesday,
January thirteenth, our pal Pete has been on or He's
held a series of fascinating speaking tours. He's also pretty
prolific writer, and you can read a bunch of his
essays and his critical thoughts online. Towards the end of
(36:48):
last year, he gave a four part off the record
series of lectures about nothing other than the anti Christ
in San Francisco. Now that we're protests outside. If you've
got a ticket, you had to sign up for all
four of these. You couldn't just drop by one because
Pete had some stuff to say and you also could
(37:09):
not talk about it in too much detail because it
was again off the record. It was organized by do
you guys see this? It's organized by a fascinating nonprofit
called Acts seventeen, collective.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
That sounds cool.
Speaker 5 (37:24):
Acts like the body spray or acts like the Book
of the Bible.
Speaker 4 (37:28):
So acts like the Book of the Bible.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
Okay, cool? Coo cool.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
Their manifesto is we'll give you a brief part of
those folks. You can go to their website. It's active now.
They're not work because they're nonprofit. A manifesto for the curious,
the creators, and the culture's shapers. As humans, we are
all made to worship and will worship something If we
don't worship God, So what are you putting your faith in?
(37:51):
What are you worshiping?
Speaker 3 (37:53):
AI?
Speaker 4 (37:56):
Right right, our own digital Jesus.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
Act seventeen in the Bible, by the way, is sort
of the adventures of the Apostle Paul in his missionary
journey forth to convert like the Heathens in Thessalonika, Beria
and Athens.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
Yeah. This lecture organized by Acts seventeen. This lecture series
takes place at a outfit called the Commonwealth Club in
San Francisco, And if you go to if you go
to the Commonwealth Club, or you even just you know,
do the right google incantations into your browser choice, you
(38:35):
will still see the invite page up for this lecture series.
And when they describe what's going to happen in this series,
they're relatively vague. They say, Okay, legendary Peter Thiel will
be quote addressing the topic of the Biblical Antichrist and
its theology, history, literature, and politics.
Speaker 5 (38:57):
Can we all just agree here, maybe that this all
is very fascinating stuff. We love the Antichrist mythology and
the way it's manifested throughout history. We've talked about it
a lot on this show.
Speaker 4 (39:08):
Yeah. Yeah, the Antichrist has been very good to our show.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
I agree.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
It is just odd to have this gentleman in particular
come forward and talk about it. Just that on the surface, right,
it is kind of weird that you're still.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
Pet subject for a guy like that.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (39:23):
And he's not a seminarian, right, he's not theologian by degree,
but this very much occupies front of mind for.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
Him for sure.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
And and then it gets levels several levels weirder once
you see the content of some of this information that
was leaked.
Speaker 4 (39:42):
Oh one hundred percent, and it was leaked, which we'll
definitely have to get to. The Antichrist that he's talking
about is, yes, as far as you can tell, the
biblical end of Day's figure the inverse of the returning
in Christ, a figure that unifies humanity temporarily under a
central global governance before ushering the world into apocalypse. Sort
(40:06):
Of the best way to say it going to some
of the so the previous interviews and essays we've read,
and some of the leaked notes from his talks, is
to go to the man himself. Let's see how Peter
describes the Antichrist.
Speaker 5 (40:19):
He says, a basic definition of the anti Christ. Some
people think of it as a type of very bad person.
Sometimes it's used more generally as a spiritual descriptor of
the forces of evil. What I will focus on is
the most common and most dramatic interpretation of Antichrist, an
evil king or tyrant or anti Messiah who appears in
(40:41):
the end times. Guys, has anyone seen I think it's
the Omen part three where Damien grows up and he's
played by Sam Neil and he becomes the president mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
Yes, that's what we're talking about here.
Speaker 5 (40:54):
We're talking about that level of antichrist, an individual ascending
to the highest position of power in the land and
then wielding some you know, ungodly influence on.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
The world and doing stuff Pete doesn't like. And yet
that's a big part of it.
Speaker 5 (41:11):
Feels like he's yeah, we'll get to it. Feels like
he's doing everything he can to usher that very thing in.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (41:17):
With that definition, it's arguably less a matter of divinity
or literalism as much as it is a highly stylized,
high dramatic stakes framing for the fall of known civilization.
Pete goes on to speak about this Antichrist through various
examples and perspectives, as well as something called catacot the
(41:40):
idea or the things that could prevent the Antichrist from
reaching success, the little things you can do to speed
bump the road or walllet off. Entirely, it dates back,
you know, if we mentioned this in Strange News. There
was a great article wired by a journalist named Laura
(42:00):
Bullard who talked about what she calls Pete's doomsday road show.
One example of this titular example, I think a quintessential
example takes place in Paris at the Catholic University in
twenty twenty three. Now, as we said, we're pro nerd,
this is a very pro nerd conference. It is a
(42:23):
bunch of folks who got together from various disciplines to
debate and explore the work of a French American Catholic
theorist named Renee Gerrard. He is we said, he's one of,
if not the most influential figures to Teal. But in
the world of theory and philosophy, Gerard is probably the
(42:46):
big tent for Peter Teal's mind.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
The polarizing figure right, Yes, oh very much so.
Speaker 4 (42:52):
This guy's writing and his thoughts are really prime movers
for Pete's actions. He creates something called mimetic theory. Why
don't we describe it just in a quick nutshell?
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Isn't it about scapegoating and then killing a scapegoat basically
to make all things good? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (43:14):
I mean you can see how that calls out to
adherence of certain religions.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
So that's a sacrificial lamb type scenario.
Speaker 4 (43:21):
Yeah, just so. Gerard's big idea, like his bangor breakout
single from his album, is the concept that human beings
imitate one another's desires, which leads to rivalry. And then
when you have the rivalry that leads you to the crisis,
that crisis is resolved through discovering or creating a scapegoat,
(43:42):
an arbitrarily chosen victim upon whom all blame is based
exact he sacrifice the scapegoat, whomever that might be. Across time,
peace is restored, and the horrible broken cycle begins anew.
Speaker 5 (43:57):
And I'm joking, I said, I'm not joking, But immigrants
have often been this exact thing throughout history, the easiest
target to other and to place blame in.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
We see it throughout recorded history of the.
Speaker 5 (44:10):
World, absolutely being a political hot taker right this second.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
This is just a pattern that we see repeated time
and time again.
Speaker 4 (44:17):
And that's also a structural error of fascism, which is
why fascism will never be long term successful. At this point,
Fascism needs an other the same way a car needs
the same way an internal combustion engine needs gas basically,
and so fascism will always seek to find some quality
(44:39):
of a population to other, to exoticize, to vilify. And
this is Gerard's big idea is what we call mimetic theory.
It has impacted so much stuff from psychology to theology,
of course, but also to economics, to public policy, and
of course did a real number Pete reading Gerard. So
(45:03):
he is all about this conference again. It's twenty twenty three.
He travels out to Paris, not hard for a billionaire,
but he is traveling exclusively because he's clearing his schedule
to talk Gerard and the metic theory with other people
who can understand what he's saying. He is ten toes
down about it, and he spends like an hour on
(45:25):
the Diaz just holding court on his thoughts about armageddon,
capital a armageddon, end of the world, fall of civilization.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
The end is nine.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
It's really weird, you guys, just to look back at
depictions of the Antichrist, because there is not one. Right,
we're taking Gerard as our primary, like, as one of
our primary series because that's when Teal uses right, you
go all you go back to the Bible, you go
back to twelve hundred CE or twelve hundred's. You look
at all the different writing that's been done on this
(46:00):
character that is the Antichrist as a possibility. Often kind
of based around actual rulers of the time, just as
like a little wink and nod, like that jerk over
there across the water.
Speaker 4 (46:12):
Yeah, just like Dante's Inferno is kind of a mixtape
dis about people he doesn't care for politically, yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
Or you know, written from folks who see it as
a negative thing that countries are working together and trade
is beginning to you know, move towards globalization. Not anywhere
near there at that point, but you know, cultures and
state different states trading a lot more and getting along
a lot more and think and it's cool. But then
there's some folks who really want the empire thing to
(46:42):
kind of stay the empire thing, and then they imagine
there's an Antichrist on the way, or they you know,
they talk about the dangers of someone who might rabble
too many folks that would be loved by the people,
but is antithical to the thing that we want.
Speaker 4 (46:58):
And the other thing too that point, Matt, because the
other eight is so weird when you look back on
evenings of your and someone is genuinely saying the path
to hell is continuing trade with the dirty flems Flemish,
you know flems. Yeah, it's so it's so silly when
(47:21):
you look at that kind of discrimination. But I think
are our point holds because okay, by teals telling, By
Pete's telling, the modern world is way too scared of progress,
especially technological progress. He calls the current age listless, a
zombie age, and he says you can see clear warning
(47:44):
signs a growing hostility to innovation. That's like his big one.
That's when it really grinds his gears, plummeting fertility rates.
And I had to put this in here just for you, nol.
He complains that there's too much yoga. He really said this, Yeah,
he really said it. U. And he also said the
culture over all in the West is mired in the
(48:05):
quote endless groundhog Day of the world Wide Web, which
is a great turn of phrase, and I agree with
that completely.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
Yeah, Okay, now here's the problem.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
It's just the web.
Speaker 5 (48:16):
It's easy to get into a loop, into a feedback loop.
I think, is the groundhog Day of it on. I
think that's a smart way of putting it.
Speaker 4 (48:22):
I remember to leave us a review and a couple
of stars on your favorite platform of choice. It thumbs up,
you could double thumbs up on here on Netflix, which
means you don't just like us, but you love us.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Oh that's it. Do that. We've talked previously about how
dangerous it is when you're listening to an order somebody
who's highly influential, and you will agree with like, yeah,
like seventy five percent of the stuff that's being said,
and then that twenty starts hitting and you're like, I
don't know, but I did like what he was talking
(48:56):
about with that thing. I don't know, you know.
Speaker 5 (49:00):
It's similar to James Cameron is a good example of that.
Like the director, he's, you know, a well known technologist,
futurist and stuff like He's done some podcast interviews recently
where taken out of context, some of the things he
says can sound really dystopian, but then sort of the
antithesis of what you're talking about when you actually read
the full text of what he's saying, he's pretty level
(49:20):
headed about it. So he's an interesting kind of antithetical version.
Speaker 3 (49:24):
Of what we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
That's that tangled web. Guys.
Speaker 4 (49:27):
It's important to have the full spectrum there of the
pendulum and the way oratory magic works. And I'm blushing
a little bit because I've definitely been guilty of doing it,
like writing a do it a speech, like writing a
sneaky contract. You know, get people to agree on three
things and then get make sure the fifth thing is
(49:47):
something everyone can agree in or upon, and then slide
the fourth when in there real quick, it's beautiful.
Speaker 5 (49:55):
Those are sort of the tenets of like winning in
a debate, right, You're sort of suppose is to be
have have things that like everyone can agree on, and
then sort of like do your checkmate. There at the
end is the thing that you really want.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
Got to know your rules of power? Boys, come on.
Speaker 4 (50:10):
Now, I can I can? I can hear it in
like a in a college debate, society and stuff like that.
It's there. There's a good case to be made to
think of debate, despite the etymology of it, to think
of debate more as a dialogue or sharing of ideas.
If we're all coaking with gas, then everybody wins. But
unfortunately that's not the way a lot of rhetoric goes today.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
I got to bring Socrates into it, ben to democratic method. Baby,
you got to actually learn when you hear different opinions,
which is not learn, you have to at least take
them into account.
Speaker 5 (50:48):
The jubilee of it all, which is really just like
a grudge match, like a battle royale, where you're pitting
these you know, completely antithetical opinions against one another in
the hopes that someone will quote unquote win.
Speaker 4 (50:59):
It's like do like the Highlander game for it. But
the other I think another important aspect here that is
related and should always be mentioned more often any public
discourse is that if you disagree with something, you owe
it to yourself to understand it as much, if not
(51:21):
more than the supporters of that thing understand it. So,
for instance, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
Way things operate these days, I would seem.
Speaker 4 (51:28):
Yeah, because you know, it's a big currency investment of
time and attention and analysis and synthesis. And Peter has
done the work. From his perspective, he distinguishes between technological
armageddon all the hits, climate catastrophes, out of control, large
language models quote unquote AI which I still think is
(51:51):
a BS term nuclear war of course, the big hit,
and then he says there's a more old school armageddon,
the anti Christ, someone who plays on our fears of
technology and seduces us into decadence with the slogan peace
and safety.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
That's what it's always said. Like when there was that
whole revelation thing that got written down in the Bible,
they were all talking about, Oh, the technology, the anti technology, folks,
that's what's going to cause the beast to hang around.
Speaker 3 (52:20):
Right.
Speaker 4 (52:21):
The number of the beast is anti technology.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
They're not into these bad dad batteries and all the
cool tech we've got. We need to get rid of them.
Speaker 5 (52:29):
Well, but I will say that, you know, the whole
golden calf thing, like that's a kind of weird technology
or like idols or something like that. It is a
stand in for this worship of something that is not
of God.
Speaker 4 (52:43):
Oh yeah, yeah. Ideology is technology. I would be very
clear about that. It's it's a it's sometimes not called
technology because it doesn't necessarily have a physical apparatus, right
the same way that Archimedes, screw or lever would. But
it is technology the way that language is technology. Ideology
(53:04):
creates action through belief.
Speaker 2 (53:07):
Yeah, and idolatry is I think you're talking about also,
like any symbol that you put above God, any device,
let's say, any service or technology.
Speaker 4 (53:18):
Again, memetic theory rears, it's rears, it's crowned head this
is to Pete's mind, this Antichrist pitch is an infernal
classic scam. I'm taking control of the world by promising
to rescue it. But I'm only saying I'm going to
rescue it because that control is my avenue to ultimately
(53:40):
destroy the world as you know it. Right. Let me
into the house, this says the vampire.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
And create something anew yes, where there is no privacy,
where all we do is recorded and I can see it.
Speaker 7 (53:56):
I know the eye, the eye.
Speaker 4 (54:01):
So I don't know why I love this character.
Speaker 5 (54:04):
Now, creation through destruction is a huge part of the Bible.
I mean sure, it's a big, big theme.
Speaker 4 (54:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're very interesting themes in the Okay,
I'm getting distractive, but yes, they're very interesting themes in
the Bible. One of my favorites being you know, the
Cross and the Tree of Life's that's a really good
bookend kind of thematic playthrough. So this is another question
question we asked a little bit earlier in the show.
(54:32):
Is Peter well We asked whether he genuinely believes what
he's saying, But before then, maybe we ask is he
speaking in philosophical theoretical terms and metaphor or is this
a literal belief of his. He goes on to elaborate
with some examples of potential candidates for anti christiandom, which
(54:55):
I think is a term we just made up.
Speaker 2 (54:57):
Oh wow, I got so confused when I was looking
at the notes here for a second, because I keep
thinking about the about Peter from the Bible and then
Peter Teal, and I'm like, wait, are we talking about
like in the Bible, they're talking about technology, And I
got so confused, like, oh no, wait, that was Paul
talking about that other stuff. But no, this is Teal
talking about this. Sorry, guys, that's perfect.
Speaker 3 (55:20):
I think it's a good clarification. Matt I think we
were all with you there.
Speaker 4 (55:23):
Well, it's just I love calling him Pete though.
Speaker 3 (55:25):
Yeah for sure.
Speaker 2 (55:26):
So many kids got named after Biblical figures, says Matthew.
Speaker 5 (55:30):
Oh yeah, well Nicholas, I suppose.
Speaker 4 (55:35):
Oh yeah, Nick Bostrom, yeah, we can recall the name.
He's an example that Pete has a Pete two point
zero has raised in the past. We all remember Nick,
he is an ai philosopher. He's spent a lot of
time thinking about ethics, technology in the future, and spoiler,
(55:55):
like most of the folks in this field, including our
good friend doctor Day, Me and Patrick Williams. Hey, Damien,
thanks for tuning in. Nick Bostrom is very concerned about AI,
and we talked about this in the past. Twenty nineteen,
Boston wrote a paper that made so many waves in academia.
It's called the Vulnerable World Hypothesis.
Speaker 5 (56:16):
If I'm not mistaken, our buddy Josh Clark talked to
Bostrom and his incredible limited series The End of the
World Yes, one hundred percent about existential threats, of which
AI is Professor Bostrom's primary focus.
Speaker 4 (56:31):
One hundred percent Yeah, and the Vulnerable World Hypothesis. You
can read this in full on Nick Bostrom's website. It's
it's kind of a clarion call for regulation and it
says we need to build a global emergency system that
can do stuff like predictive policing and conscious mindful restrictions
(56:52):
on technology. And this reminds me, I'm sure it reminds
a lot of us of the Doune universe and the
long standing ban on thinking machines our terminator too.
Speaker 2 (57:05):
Sure, or insert all sci fi movies from the nineties, or.
Speaker 4 (57:13):
Or insert that meme of tech Bro saying, yeah, it's
a huge sci fi fad. When I'm excited. We finally built, uh,
the star eating machine, inspired by that awesome novel never
build the star eating machine the Death Star.
Speaker 2 (57:31):
Guys, we finally have a feasible way to achieve it, and.
Speaker 4 (57:36):
We were inspired, of course. But we were inspired, of
course by the shocking series of short stories about how
terrible it is to ever build the Death Star.
Speaker 2 (57:46):
Here Robot. We loved the movie, but we wanted to
go further.
Speaker 4 (57:53):
The company is really named Palanteer, by the way. We
talked about that. But do for chapter two. One policy
note that probably from Nick Bostrom's papers, that probably got
Peter two point zeros dander up was the following quote,
Technology policy should not unquestioningly assume that all technological progress
(58:18):
is beneficial, or that complete scientific openness is always best,
or that the world has the capacity to manage any
potential downside of a technology after it is invented.
Speaker 2 (58:30):
Yeah. Sure hasn't worked out for us with nukes yet,
not yet, Maybe soon.
Speaker 4 (58:34):
Early days we're figuring it out. You know, humanity still
doesn't really understand television. I don't know if we're equipped
for it.
Speaker 5 (58:41):
And I guess I guess we're talking about with the
AI stuff is things like guardrails, which right here thrown
around a term we hear thrown around a lot. But
the problem is that the AI with the least amount
of guardrails are the ones that make the most noise
and get the most attention and are the most popular.
And it just seems like what we're seeing is I
think we all can agree that AI or large language
models used in a certain way is fascinating and excellent
(59:05):
technology you used as a tool, But unfortunately the powers
that beast seem just so keen, that is, roll it
out without a second thought to these existential threats, and
then you can't really put the genie back in the bottle,
try as you.
Speaker 4 (59:18):
Might, can't put the badger's back in the bag. Also,
there's a huge issue with transparency. I've been thinking about that,
you know, talking with the different instructors and colleagues in
academia and in writing entertainment. Yeah, using chat GPT, personally
don't think it's the best idea, but it gets really
(59:39):
sticky when people refuse to be open about it. And
that transparency is a huge deal.
Speaker 2 (59:44):
Did you see the National Weather Services using AI predictive
models to show what the weather's going to be like.
So what human beings used to look at weather patterns
and everything and have the stuff that the NWS provided
and a lot of other satellite imagery and information provide. Well,
they're using AI now, and that AI is like making
up town names and doing all kinds of silly stuff.
(01:00:08):
And I'm just imagining, gosh, if we become so reliant
on a lot of these systems that are still in
their infancy, it is literally like we're going to be
getting our information from infants and we're all just gonna go, oh,
I guess that's how it is.
Speaker 4 (01:00:21):
And you know, Teel would ultimately argue that humans will
evolve in step with that technology, that both sides of
that coin are in their own kind of infancy.
Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
They'll evolve into infants again.
Speaker 4 (01:00:35):
I mean that's more than devolves, more like the eloy
right in HG. Well's Time Machine. People living in ideal
like existence, but with you know, their knowledge base has
been crippled.
Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
That's possible, shiny thing, flashing lights, what you've got my attention?
I feel like an infant often when I look at
my phone.
Speaker 4 (01:00:57):
The weird bell is going off. I guess some of
us going to get eaten again. Okay, yeah, that luck marching.
Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
That's it. Here we go.
Speaker 4 (01:01:10):
So Peter goes on and in a couple of other
lectures throughout the years post Paris twenty twenty three, he
points to other people as potential Antichrist candidates. He hit
the headlines later on by mentioning the climate activist Greta Thunberg. Oh,
(01:01:30):
in general, all of the folks that he mentions in
this perspective or this theoretical framework, they have one thing
in common to Pete. These are individuals and institutions that
stymy and prevent progress.
Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
That's so crazy to me, just from what I learned
about the Antichrist, and then what I learned through popular
culture about depictions of the Antichrist, and then when I
went back to my Bible, when I was feeling biblical
as a young man, looking at the Antichrist, It's all
in there, at least in most of the writings and
a lot of the accepted versions of what the Antichrist
(01:02:06):
would be, even from the twelve hundreds. It's just the
antithesis of Christ. Right, So what is the opposite of Christ,
a unifying figure that is the opposite of that guy Jesus.
And you know, it has nothing to do with technology,
has nothing to do with wealth, or actually there's a
little bit about wealth in there. Yeah, And I think
(01:02:29):
maybe the only I'm sorry to interrupt her, but the
only way to like, for me to frame it and
think about it is to think about what is antithetical
to Christ. What is the opposite of Christ. Humble service
is a way you would describe someone or Christ or
someone who is Christ like purity, love, forgiveness, compassion, humility, kindness,
(01:02:51):
generous generosity or generous giving, endurance, submission, holiness, and righteousness.
Those are the ways that are Christ is described, the characteristics, right,
the traits, And so when I imagine an Antichrists, it's
somebody who was opposite of all of that stuff. It's
not someone who like Greta Thunberg, who appears to display
(01:03:13):
a lot of those things in her efforts to, you know,
to be an activist for the earth. It's just really
surprising to me that Peter Teele has put Greta Funberg
in that position as a potential Antichrist, and then for
the reasons he puts her in that category.
Speaker 4 (01:03:32):
Yeah, I think that's surprising to quite a few people,
quite a lot of people. And I appreciate and Duel's
earlier note about Cameron and context, because a lot of
the stuff that Peter tele is saying, yes, it'll get
some folks stand her up, but it's also being just
snapshotted and pulled out frankin bitten into a thing that
(01:03:55):
makes a good headline, and folks aren't looking at the
full context. The context of some of the statesments indeed,
can make the little boot pulls even more disturbing in general. Again,
as I had said earlier, and anti Christ, to his opinion,
is anything that he sees standing in the way of progress,
(01:04:17):
whether that be an individual or indeed an institution.
Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
Yeah, it is weird to think that global government or
a global new world order was synonymous with Antichrist for
a long time, like all of the powers that would
make up the thing that wants to take over the world.
Speaker 3 (01:04:33):
That was a problem.
Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
But then somehow also Antichrist is not that for Peter.
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (01:04:40):
It's interesting because look, we can't talk about global governance
as though it's one flavor of ice cream, or as
the aquarly flavor, because well we'll get to his second here, right,
So his worries are twofold. There's a careful needle to
thread in Pete's mind. He says civilisation has to avoid
(01:05:01):
technological disaster or armageddon, while at the same time avoiding
falling under the sway of one anti christ Ish figure
or another. So he's arguing from Girardian theory, and he
says anti Christian modes of government are going to inevitably
lead to tremendous chaos. That's the flavor of global governmental
(01:05:22):
ice cream. He doesn't care for. That's the kind he
says collapses civilization. But what he does appear to like
is his own flavor of a technocracy, right of corporate governance,
that private company. So that's a different flavor of ice
cream to him. And he's also, to be fair, he
(01:05:44):
is quick to clarify in his q and as and
in some of his deeper conversations that his primary goal
is to repel the Antichrist, and he sees the problem.
But he says, I don't have a ton of practical
advice for you, you know, again, to be objective. He's
saying this in a conference that is talking about theory,
(01:06:06):
not nuts and bolts of policy, but philosophy leads to
policy and practice. That's the next question. I mean, guys,
what does old PD actually want?
Speaker 2 (01:06:19):
What? He just wants to get Cartman to the White
House so they can That's perfect, that's all he wants. Dude,
it's pretty simple. Or at least get him to you know,
get the other guy to Cartman.
Speaker 4 (01:06:35):
Yeah, here's his flavor of ice cream. But simply progress,
progress in a way that the ends justify the means.
His vision of progress, his favorite flavor of the ice cream.
Here is a society where corporate institutions grow with little
to no restraint. Government institutions and all regulations that are
(01:06:57):
part and parcel of that are diminished, eroded, or not existent,
and authoritarianism through these largely private entities becomes the rule
of the day. This is shades of iron rand. I
know this guy must love Atlashrugt.
Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
Interesting. Yeah, well, if you look at the Bible, if
you look at the teachings of Christianity, there is a king, right,
the king of kings. There is an authoritarian power that
says what's good and what's bad and what you can do,
or rather what you should do, what you shouldn't do,
and there are punishments if you don't do the good things.
Speaker 4 (01:07:32):
No one gets to vote in heaven. Yeah, they don't
talk about that, but that's that's the truth. That's heavily implied.
Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
It is god democracy, but there's also no profit motive
in heaven. I don't think. I don't remember seeing that anywhere,
or at least in the teachings of Jesus. Hmm. I
wonder how those two worlds collide right in both Peter's
mind and anyone who's trying to wrap their head around
whatever their the philosophical theosophical take is on, you know,
(01:08:00):
the workings of heaven and sometimes hell which came later,
and then how the world functions. Weird, gosh, this is
too much to even think about. Ben Sometimes, Well, here's
here's a question. This stood out. This stood out to
me as well.
Speaker 4 (01:08:17):
Okay, if progress and unfettered innovation is so gosh darn awesome,
if democracy is truly the enemy of progress and saving
the earth or evolving civilization, then why are you off
the record talking about it? My guy? Why are you
punishing people who leak notes? Why are you coming down
(01:08:39):
so hard on Folks like Kashi Kulkarni, who attended the
first night of that four part lecture series in San Francisco,
published notes about it and they got smacked down so
so hard. Thank you for the beat there, Max Dyllan.
This takes us to the future, right. We've got that
full episode on Palatiner coming soon. Please tune in check
(01:09:01):
out our earlier episode on governments and AI to learn
how this stuff is being used on you right now,
regardless of your consent. Also got a note all the
high faluting theory and very interesting abstract concepts aside, Pete
has met with great success grooming, funding and guiding political candidates,
(01:09:22):
kind of like the Koch brothers, especially in the United States.
He has the American population decision treed. He's moving the
overt window. He's not a fan of democracy, which is
weird for a guy who is so deeply involved with
parts of American politics. I mean, jd. Vance is one
(01:09:47):
of Pete Teel production.
Speaker 2 (01:09:49):
Oh we're going to get into that, we can. That's
that genuinely makes me a little nervous. Yes, boss, Sorry,
I've been watching too much of South Park. H It
makes me wonder how different some of the some of
the concepts like democracy. Let's take as an example, what
(01:10:10):
what does democracy mean in your mind's eye when you
are somebody like us versus when you're somebody like Peter
Teel or you know, some other billionaire technocrat. What does
democracy actually mean?
Speaker 4 (01:10:25):
And we you know, political correctness being in North Korea
or maw era China versus the modern United States.
Speaker 2 (01:10:32):
Yeah, Stanford back in the eighties or whatever. But like, really,
truly we know the facts about how democracy functions, even
in the best case scenario. We know we understand corruption
and how that system can provide that kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (01:10:46):
We know that mob rule could historically be a disaster.
Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
Oh yeah, we know that the collective intelligence versus one
person that just knows their specific niche you know, of expertise.
The different is between those short scenarios. It's just I
wonder what I would think of democracy if I could
truly see through Peter Teel's eyes, you know, for that moment,
(01:11:11):
Like how what taste would I have in my mouth
when I think about that word.
Speaker 4 (01:11:15):
It'd be very Randian. It would be get out of
the way and let me, for Christ's sake, help you
help yourselves. That's where they go and this is I mean,
that's the thing that worries me. This is why it's
a There's a chapter two ahead, folks, US politics are
and have been compromised for quite some time. That makes sense.
(01:11:37):
The US is not unique in that regard money talks,
bs walks. It's one of the old rules of this
country and one of the primary puppet masters of the
literal Vice President genuinely does not want democracy as we
understand it to be a thing. So lastly, Pete love's
(01:11:59):
biblical language. If you see him after hearing this, you know,
I him some macha tea over a cupa. Just ask
him about the Antichrist. I'm sure he'd love to talk
about it. Make sure to write to us. We would
love to hear his thoughts.
Speaker 2 (01:12:13):
Ask him about the tribe of Dan and does that
come into play from you know, Genesis.
Speaker 4 (01:12:18):
Not the band, And then ask him, you know, if
you're feeling froggy, why not rivet and leap Ask old
Pete if he genuinely believes the philosophies and the concerns
he's selling to America's decision makers, or is he just
window dressing to rationalize the overthrow of democracy? And the
institution of neo feudalist techno fascism I mean Antichrist and
(01:12:45):
a brand new currency. Yes, the Antichrist headlines are perfect
for grabbing attention. They're perfect for making a distraction. And
there's no denying that Pete and his followers and his
colleagues have made great strides transmuting through dark financial philosophical
alchemy their beliefs into policy funding an action. Those actions,
(01:13:09):
for now are the stuff they don't want you to do.
But we want to know what you think, folks, especially
if you happen to be Peter tele and you're checking
out the episode. Thanks for hanging out Pete. If you
want more about Peter's early life while you're waiting for
our second chapter of this series to come out, please
do check out our good friend of the show. The
(01:13:31):
legendary journalist Robert Evans did a multi part series on
Peter Teal in his show Behind the Bastards. If you
dig Us, you will love Robert Evans.
Speaker 2 (01:13:43):
Gus, how much attention do you think this whole thing
would have gotten if it was just a big press
release that Peter put out with all of his talking points,
rather than making it a secret thing, and then you know,
getting upset with people that leaked the secret information.
Speaker 4 (01:14:03):
I think it's partially calculated too.
Speaker 3 (01:14:05):
It's very clever, that's right, weird.
Speaker 4 (01:14:09):
So we want to hear from you. You can tell
us if it's order off the record. We got your back.
We do our best to protect anonymity while that's still
a thing. You can call us on a telephone line.
You can always send us an email, and you can
sip the social meets with us on your platform of choice.
Speaker 5 (01:14:28):
And if you want these social needs to flow, you
can find us on any of the platforms of note
at either Conspiracy Stuff or Conspiracy Stuff Show depending.
Speaker 2 (01:14:37):
Yes, we have a phone number and you can call it.
It's our voicemail system one eight three three std WYTK.
Turn those letters into numbers, use your phone, give it
a call, and then use your mouth to speak for
three minutes. Give yourself a cool nickname, and let us
know if we can use your name and message on
one of our listener mail episodes that you'll find on
(01:14:57):
our audio podcast. If you like to send us an email,
you could do that too. We are let's pause there.
Speaker 4 (01:15:03):
This is one of the best ways to reach out
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Just meet us out here in the dark conspiracy at
(01:15:25):
iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:15:45):
Stuff they Don't want you to Know is a production
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Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Name is Noah.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
They call me Ben. We're joining with our guest super
producer Max the Freight Trade Williams. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. And friends and neighbors, children and
olds alike. Who doesn't love progress? You guys like progress?
Speaker 5 (00:51):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I think so. I think that's why I like video
games so much, because thats per section that you're making progress,
either in a character or in a world.
Speaker 5 (01:00):
Gamify progress where you're actually just sitting in the same
place the whole time.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
I love it. True story, guys, I'm sure this has
happened to a lot of us in the crowd tonight.
But I was playing a game called Ghost of Yo Tie,
which is good, Yeah, like love it, a descendant of
Ghost of Tushima, and I reached a moment where playing
the game was just soothing to me, especially on mute.
(01:24):
As I was doing qas for various shows, and I
realized I was dragging my feet at the game because
when it was over, my sense of progress would be done.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
I would leave that universe.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah, yeah, tell you.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
That's why I've really been loving Monster Hunter Wilds again,
because the game loop of it is just constant striving
and improving and making new armor and finding new monsters
and then rinse and repeat, so there's never an end
to it. It's like an Infinity game where progress is
always just out of.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Reach and no microw reach. Yeah, no micro tres actions
on that one, right.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
No, no no.
Speaker 5 (02:01):
And honestly I hadn't played it in months, and since
in that time they've updated it incredibly robustly.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
There's like all new.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
Content, all new monsters, all new stuff, Batman armor.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Set, oh, a new Batman armor set.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
Batman arms, and there's a new monster that's apparently tied
in with the Final Fantasy universe, and the game play
mimics that of like a turn based Final Fantasy style thing.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
It's just it's an incredible series. Sorry, Gusha.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
And the great thing about these games and the reason
why well it's playing Minecraft when i QA is because uh,
it comes without all the crushing consequences of.
Speaker 4 (02:38):
Right oh, I was thinking about that too. I was
in well, I guess I can be clear about it.
I was in a little bit of a car chase
a while back, and it hit me. Everything's fine, medium
speed speed speed. It hit me. You guys, that unlike
you know, Grand Theft Auto, or unlike so many other
imitations of real life, uh, a video game keeps giving
(03:01):
you second chances, unless it's the infamous Captain Planet video game.
We love this idea of progress. It's as American as
apple pie. Right oh. Also, apples are originally from Kazakhstan.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Pi is surely from France, and pie is.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Probably one of those parallel technologies. Let's put stuff in bread,
Let's put stuff in more stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
Butter, bread, sugar, What is this? Oh my god, it's
short bread?
Speaker 4 (03:29):
And what can go in it? You know? That's why
we love exhibit and Pimp my Ride. It's a very
ancient tradition.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
Can I ask really quickly this car chase that you
were in, if it were in Grand Theft Auto, how
many stars would you have been awarded for your mischievous ways?
Speaker 4 (03:47):
Not too many?
Speaker 6 (03:48):
This was this was a two and a half stars
where you have deployed or being pursued again, is this
illegal inquiry? Never pursuit pursuit because car chases always practiced
Newtonian physics, so you will shoot?
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Do you know more?
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Oh? I love that you say hector though, and I
like that name too. It's name, that's a verb. Anyway, guys, remember,
not too long ago, in October of twenty twenty five,
on our weekly Strange News segment, which you can find
wherever you find your favorite podcast, we talked about a
headline that grabbed the news just for a second, about
(04:31):
a guy named Peter Thiel t hi e L. I'm
Sath Barsom. Yeah, one of the world's most wealthy, influential men.
I think for a while he was the one hundred
and third most wealthy person on the planet. He is
a power behind the throne of American politics. He's been
(04:53):
warning people about the fall of civilization for years now.
He's made billions and billions US dollars. He is fundamentally
changing the United States and the planet. And he really
wants to talk to you about the Antichrist.
Speaker 5 (05:10):
Is this like an actual Christian anti Christ? Is this
a theoretical techno Antichrist?
Speaker 3 (05:15):
So what are we talking about here, Ben.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
Oh, that's a great question. Let's get into it.
Speaker 7 (05:20):
Okay, here are the facts.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Let's learn about Pete. Who is Peter Tiel.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
He once was a small German boy, just like me.
Speaker 5 (05:33):
Born October the eleventh of nineteen sixty seven in Frankfurt
in West Germany at the time across that old Berlin Wall.
Peter Andreas Teel is one of the world's most successful
and wealthiest human tech giants in history.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Truly.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
Yeah, and i'd like to you say a small German
boy because his parents and therefore his family, they immigrate
to the United States when Pete is only one year old,
and this is so that his father can continue pursuing
studies in engineering. They become what we will call upper
middle class in a lot of ways. His family moves
(06:12):
around frequently in those days, internationally and domestically. And Pete himself,
in multiple conversations, has noted he attended seven different elementary schools.
He was what we would call kind of a nerd,
and we are very pro nerd here.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, that is a tough thing to go through, and
really I imagine shaped the way he thought. Attending seven
different elementary schools wait, you really think about that.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
Hard to be in one place long enough to make
any meaningful friends, so therefore your friends become numbers.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Well, I mean that's six years of your life, so yeah,
you probably wouldn't have solid friendships for sure. And you're
also accustomed to learning from so many different teachers, Like
think about that like that. I don't know, I just
wonder how much how deep that goes in the way
he thinks about the world and how he takes an information.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
Yeah, and in addition to the idea of befriending people
or being unable to have long term childhood relationships, you
see a lot of different systems at play. A particular
interest is one of the schools he was at required
the students to wear uniforms and they were pretty harsh
with corporate punishment. This made him This was in South Africa,
(07:31):
and it made him very much resent the idea of
overall like top down authoritarianism in that way, which is
going to be ironic later.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
So now he's got to get back at him.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
So he's true, right, we don't read too many tea
leaves of.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Personal story getting back at the bullies.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
Yeah, but sometimes the origin is there.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
I think about it a lot, just how much these
early life situations affect a person later in life. Right,
we talked about it on true crime shows, and we've
talked about it a lot here.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:07):
Yeah, And look, nobody is saying that Pete is a knucklehead. Right,
Pete has always been a sharp student, He's a deep thinker,
and what we would call his self ascribed conservative libertarian values.
They begin to coalesce when he's in San Mateo High
(08:28):
School in California, where he graduates valedictorian. He reads pretty
much everything, and eventually he enrolls in Stanford University where
he studies philosophy, and then he starts making even more waves. Now.
Usually typically there's this stereotype about American higher education that says, hey,
(08:53):
people will tend to become a little more left leaning
when they go to institute of higher education, possibly because
they're meeting people they might not have met otherwise. They're
being exposed to ideas they didn't see in their hometown.
But not so with PD.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
What can I also to say that initially, on first blush,
you hear this dude majored in philosophy at Stanford, and
you're like, that's an odd thing for like such a
you know, mega entrepreneur to major in. But I was
actually talking with friend of the show Frank the other day.
He took a lot of philosophy classes, one of which
was philosophical logic, which is like a bridge from language
(09:33):
to deep deep mathematics, and which describes a lot of
the systems that are used in computer coding, like if
and or if then logic X or logic. There's all
of these like logical fallacies, things that can create like
the blue Screen of death kind of situations. That's really interesting,
that bridge between philosophy and science and math.
Speaker 4 (09:53):
One hundred percent. Yeah, you get real arcane, real quick
with that kind of thinking and those schools of thought.
Peter isn't just dedicated to his studies at Stanford, however,
He's a go getter. He's an entrepreneur if nothing else.
And so Pete goes on to found something called the
Stanford Review as while he's an undergrad. The Review is
(10:17):
an oppositional contrarian force for this Ivory Tower. It's critical
of what feel and others in his circle see as
the dangers of political correctness and yeah, and this extends
to the idea that they think the university is coming
(10:38):
down too hard on allegations of sexual misconduct or indeed assault.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Oh wow. Yeah, it is interesting because it is an
anti conformist view right to be against political correctness, because
whatever is considered to be political politically correct in any
era is kind of the general view, right, the general
view that this is the right thing.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
Sure, or the whims of the authorities.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Right.
Speaker 5 (11:08):
Then oftentimes you see political anti political correctness being weaponized
to galvanize folks against each other.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Yeah, one hundred percent. I think the point we're making here,
folks is that political correctness can be a fluid term.
So political correctness in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea
is very different from the political correctness or the policies
of an American university like Stanford.
Speaker 5 (11:37):
True, but you would have had very liberal type views
of political correctness.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Yeah for the time. You know, we're talking eighties nineties.
Despite the fact that obviously this guy had so many
objections or such strong objections that he created a paper
about them, he did stay with Stanford throughout his academic
life on to their law school. He graduated in nineteen
(12:02):
ninety two. And look this guy when he gets a
hold of something. He's like a moray Eel, and I
think you would agree with us there, because a little
bit after he graduates grad school, he teams up with
a guy named David Sachs and together they write a
book called Get This The Diversity Myth, and it's all
about what he sees and his co author Saxey as
(12:25):
a political intolerance at Stanford.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
So is this almost like I mean, it sounds like
a precursor to ideas opposing things like diversity and inclusion
efforts within government, within hierarchies of society, things like confervative action.
I would imagine they would be very against.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
A DEI diversity quality or equity inclusion. It's you nailed
it there, Noel. If we fast forward just a few years,
let's say it's nineteen ninety eight, So here we are
welcome to nineteen ninety eight. Everybody, our buddy Pete gets
together with some friends and some investors and he creates
a company called Confinity. Confinity is originally designed as a
(13:11):
convenient way to handle payments on Palm pilots, which were
a very big deal at the time. PDAs Yes, yeah, yeah,
It's funny because in later interviews Pete himself. Will will
talk openly about how this company was called one of
the worst companies or dumbest companies to be founded at
(13:35):
the time.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
It's a niche, right, it's very niche.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Not everybody as a palm pilot, you know, that's true.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
But it is pning in on a very important issue
or not issue maybe, but a very important need that
would become a greater need, which is servicing payments on
mobile devices.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
And that is something the early early early days of that.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
Kind of thinking, which is something that would obviously balloon
into massive profits and competition.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Flick at the page just before the iPhone came around.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
Yeah, it's press it. If nothing else, the guy.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
Whoever holds the keys to the payments, you know, and
the more people, the more this technology saturates, those people
are getting the cut of like every payment that's made.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
If you're early to market with that kind.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Of stuff, actual seems like a good idea, great idea.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
The guys just ahead of the curve and way to
put it. And just a year later it's nineteen ninety eight.
The bones of confinity are merged in a cauldron of
investment and startup that creates something we call PayPal. Peter
serves as both the CEO and chairman of PayPal, and
(14:43):
most of us have heard of PayPal these days. That's
why we're calling it press it. This revolutionizes fundamentally, not
even fundamentally. It puts the gas in the tank of
Internet money transfers, and it originally seeking not just to
make it easy for you to pay for stuff online.
(15:04):
It's trying to create what they call a new world currency.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
Okay, let's not get ahead of ourselves PD.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
Yeah, I think big.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
That didn't exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Pan out, well not yet, right, but there are certainly
folks out there that are banking their reputations and you know,
hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars on the
idea that there will be a digital currency that is
accepted worldwide.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Which are cryptocurrency.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Yes, that is a big play right now. Isn't it
weird that you put something in the notes here, Ben
that I think is very interesting and kind of connects
the worlds of two of the billionaire oligarchs out there
right now. What is this about? Something with an X ah?
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Yes, yeah, yeah, that X train since the beginning.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
Yeah, so merges forces or possees up with Elon Musk
from Earth, and that also shows us that there's a
lot of parallel thinking. It reminds me of Western Europe's
practice of having salons back in the day, where you
(16:14):
would just get a dinner party of interesting people from
various backgrounds to have them share concerns, information, speculation, dreams.
The so called tech bros are really no different, except
that their ideas are increasingly transmuted into action, transmuted into finance,
(16:35):
and ultimately they transform into policy. So we're talking about
Prescient's right. This shows us there's a neat step here,
which is the online marketplace eBay, also from earlier. I
haven't used Eba in a while, have you, Guys?
Speaker 3 (16:53):
No, I haven't.
Speaker 5 (16:55):
You can't really find deals on it anymore. I it
used to be like this online thrift experience where you could, like,
you know, find rare things and get some sort of alarming,
you know, insane scoop of a deal on it. But
that those days are long gone, so I'm not really
sure what people use it for. I guess for you know,
selling jonk or whatever. But there's other places where you
can get better deals and much quicker local pickups for things.
Speaker 4 (17:17):
Like that yeah, and eBay uh probably still functions off
of the sandbox phenomena, So a lot of people were
already in that eBay ecosystem are continuing to use it.
eBay didn't have its ecosystem perfected in the late nineties
early two thousands. They needed an easier way for transactions
(17:40):
to occur as seamlessly as possible, and they saw the
potential for what we call PayPal, and so it came
to pass, using some biblical language, that in two thousand
and two they used old existing currency to acquire this
company that wanted to make a new world. So they
(18:00):
paid for it with old money one point five billion
US dollars. This makes Teal Peter Teel a multi millionaire
several times over, he's like maybe thirty five and at
this point, cards on the table, folks, A lot of
us would have been pleased as punch to just clock
(18:22):
out of the rat race that we call capitalism. Retire
in your mid thirties, get a weird, expensive hobby like
sail boats or.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Something falconing, perhaps falconing.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
Oh man, I love you for the.
Speaker 5 (18:35):
But like people like this, though oftentimes it's not about
the money, it's about the power. It's about the pursuit,
it's about the acquisition, and uh, you know, and not
to like make it entirely about greed or some sort
of like control thing, although it's certainly part of it.
A lot of times they just have a vision and
they really, really really want to see that vision executed
(18:56):
in as large as scale as humanly possible.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
You know, profits world money.
Speaker 4 (19:01):
They like money to Yeah, I mean Black Monday Murders
one of the best graphic novels ever written. Spoiler it's
not done yet. It teaches us that money is only
a manifestation of power, which is a more uh a
more high drama way of saying that money is value
of labor over time.
Speaker 5 (19:21):
That's why you get the whole True Detective Season one
aspects of it all, the whole Epstein Island aspects of
it all. But when money will no longer satisfy, you
gotta go weird.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
Yeah, you gotta when when you're you're tolerance, you're addicted
to power, but your tolerance keeps going up, so you
have to find more and more concentrated forms of power.
I like that analogy, but it does frighten terrifying. So, uh,
Pete's not terrified. You know, he's got the bug. At
this point, he could have retired, and surely there were
(19:53):
people in his life who were saying, great job, ped
you made it, you won monopoly, you won capitalism, And
he says, no, no, no, no no, I've begun a new game.
I'm investing heavily in startups. He's an angel investor for
Facebook in two thousand and four, and he also creates
(20:14):
a hedge fund, Clarium Capital Management. So like you're saying,
he's in it, he's in it. It's bigger than money
for him. It's bigger than hip hop.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Oh yes, it, guys. Reminded me of that show Silicon
Valley on HBO. The Peter Gregory is the character that
Peter Tiel is formed after as this angel investors slash
venture capitalist guy that invests in very strange things that
always seem to pan out.
Speaker 4 (20:41):
M m yeah, even if they sound a little whackadoo
at the top, right, Because that's the same question people
were asking with Confinity. They were saying, who needs this?
Like this provides this provides a solution to a problem
that I I don't have. But as time would prove,
(21:03):
a lot of people did end up having that problem
and did need something like that solution later, and Teal
is not just selling to individuals or trying to make
one to one transactions easier for people while he takes
a slice of the pie in the process. That same year,
he co founds Palateer Technologies, a diplomatically put data analytics firm.
(21:31):
We've talked about Palenteer in the past, you guys, and
I pause it that we make an episode entirely about Pallentteer.
After we make this episode, it's just creepy.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
We need to know about as much as we can
about the company that is striving to know every single
thing about.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
All of us.
Speaker 4 (21:51):
I know, right, and this is so Palateer data Analytics. Yes,
is an accurate phrase, but it is intensely cartoonishly diplomatic
to call it that and stop there. Long time listeners,
fellow conspiracy realist, you've heard us discuss Palenteer in episodes
(22:11):
like Our Exploration Governments and AI. You've also heard us
talk about it on Strange News and listener mail. We
can't wait to do our Palanteer episode. That might be
the one that goes that comes back to bite us
after all these years.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Sure, especially considering you know, when we're thinking about future currencies.
As we've discussed previously on our audio show, the new
currencies are data, attention, time spent right, eyes on, and
clicks made. That is really the money, that the money
is in that stuff, but it is also becoming just
(22:52):
the source of money.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
The first currency was and always has been time, right,
That's why we describe money as value of labor over time.
The second currency is going to be information. Both very
old currencies that exist through many different forms, but kind
of like the old Pries says in The Exorcist, it's
(23:15):
the same thing, you know what I mean. The deep
in might change, it might possess different people, but it's
the same thing since the beginning of time. And I
think Pete agrees with us on that because a year
after he founds Volunteer, he creates another venture capital investment
outfit called Founder's Fund, which I behind the scenes here
(23:39):
folks originally misspelled our notes as Founder's Fun which is
actually a way better name.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
Because those founding fathers were getting down in those back
rooms yeh up, drinking enough, having a good old time.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
This is why I think he should have called it
Founders Fund instead of founders fund because Founder's fund invest
overwhelmingly in defense industry startups. What's more fun for a founder?
Speaker 3 (24:06):
They love blowing stuff up.
Speaker 5 (24:07):
It's sort of like the super fund sites we often
mistook for super fun sites. Yeah, like toxic waste dumb sites.
They're not very fun at all, but you know it
certainly would be a good branding opportunity.
Speaker 4 (24:19):
So so far we can all agree. The only misstep
that Peter has made, the only thing he's ever done wrong,
is to not call it founder's Fun.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
There we go.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
He just cares too much.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
That's his weakness that he talks about in job interviews.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
He's got such a big word.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Let's talk about how important this is, this type of thing,
the Founder's Fun, how important it is to the machine
that is American capitalism, because it really is, like, this
is vital when you have a good idea in this
country and you have done the right moves to make
sure it's your idea, and somebody else can't just come
along and say, yoink mine if you take that investors,
(25:00):
or you'd make these presentations right, just like on Shark Tank,
but in closed rooms without cameras, and you can you
can interest somebody like a Peter Teel or you know,
the one hundreds and hundreds of people that are at
his level, not exact level, but at that level of
injecting millions of dollars of funds into a startup, you
are going to not only create a lot of wealth
(25:23):
for yourself, but potentially for let's say a country or
a state within the United States, or for some firm,
and especially for those founder's fund folks who are giving
you that initial cash injection.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Yeah. Those angel investors, right are not functioning through pure altruism.
You'd also here in the States have to avoid something
we call the Invention Secrecy Act of nineteen fifty one.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Good luck.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
Yeah, check out that episode, because they will get you.
No camera be push it on me. They will get you.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Okay, holy crap, you have a camera b day.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
I'm just you know, I'm pretended we're going to be
a multi camera show in the future. I'm just manifesting
it like Peter did. And weirdly enough, this for any
student of Pallanteer and large scale data acquisition and analysis.
Weirdly enough, Peter is very concerned about his own privacy.
(26:23):
We talked about this briefly. In two thousand and seven,
he went to war against an online sort of celeb
reporting news site called Gawker gawk.
Speaker 7 (26:37):
R because they dismantled those fools. They outed his they
outed his sexual orientation. So he he said, no, this
is not going to fly. This is a violation of
my privacy and my rights. But he didn't just go
out and make a statement and sue them himself. He
(27:00):
went around and he bited his time, steepled his fingers
right money burn style, and he waited for other lawsuits
to come against Gawker. And he not only financed those lawsuits.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Hul Cogan being one of them, right.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
Holgan being one of the primary ones. He provided guidance,
He helped find good lawyers all this stuff. Hulk Holgan
was the feather on the camel's back here. Eventually Pete
drove Gawker to the ground. It was a whole thing.
It was very well calculated, and it was at a
(27:36):
level of retribution that a lot of people wouldn't do.
Even if they had the means, they would maybe eventually
lose interest, or they would win one court case and
they'd be fine. Not so with Pete.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Seems like some vengefulness is at play there, a bit
of old testament, well, old testament wanted to get back
at the people that have wronged you. I think there's
something in the deadly sins about that.
Speaker 4 (28:03):
I'm not sure. Rath I become Raths an eye for
an eye, right, So this is the blog and short.
There are great looks at the entirety of Peter Thiel's biography,
his early days, and his rise in the world of
(28:24):
business and tech. But now our question becomes, Okay, we
did that, we got all that stuff and tally ho,
very very good show. What do you do now? Exactly?
We got to pause. We've got to take stock for
a second. More than anything, this is an individual, I
think we can agree, who is driven to bring his
(28:45):
vision of a better world to reality by hook or
by crook. And yeah, he does occupy rarefied socioeconomic air. Right, guys,
he's worth And if we checked at Forbes today, as
we record on Tuesday, January thirteenth, we would see his
estimated worth is something like twenty nine point four billion
(29:05):
US dollars as the stock market, right stays, Okay, yeah,
estimate indeed. But despite his standing at the Tippity top
of society's current pyramid. It's not unique to have a
vision of a better world. He's not the first guy
(29:26):
who's been called the philosopher king of something. He is
called the philosopher king of Silicon Valley. But come on,
who doesn't have a vision of a couple of notes
for civilization? Who doesn't look around at various injustices or
inequalities or problems and say, I think would be better
(29:47):
if we all agree to do this thing.
Speaker 5 (29:49):
Yeah, but the problem being like these whale type individuals
that actually have the means to enact those things depending
on whether or not the rest of us agree and
that's the.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Direction we should go, is sort of up for debates.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
And riddle me this, Why do so many, as you
call them Wales, why do so many of their visions
of a better world also just happen to be visions
of a world where they are at the top, en
immune from criticism.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
Top top. I'm just going to make a timestamped note here.
It is Tuesday, January thirteenth, twelve nine pm Eastern time,
and Greenland is still a part of Denmark.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
Still currently good Danes. We love legos. Just put that
out there, Yeah, so this breaks us to another thing.
All right again, voracious reader is old Pete. We're not
saying he's a knucklehead at all. He does have the
means to push some of his vision into policy and action.
That's what worries critics, just like we're worried about Cuba
(30:52):
and Greenland, in the future of Venezuela and also Iran,
as we record on the thirteenth, why are critics wor Okay,
worried is under selling it. There are a lot of
people who are deeply concerned that Peter Thiel has positioned
himself as a prime behind the scenes mover in America's
(31:12):
political far right for one purpose, not to make a
better democracy, but to upend democracy as we know it. Yeah,
he's been called a monster, He's been called a crypto fascist.
He's been called a savior. People are saying the call
is coming from inside the house. He also has a
(31:33):
lot to say about the past, present and future. Folks,
downright biblical stuff. What if we pause for word from
our sponsors and introduce everybody to Peter and the anti Christ.
Here's where it gets crazy. Side note, We're still working
(31:54):
on a fog machine and some lasers. Here's where it
gets crazy, so stay with us. Uh Okay, Peter does
see himself as a religious man self reported what's he
called himself a small o orthodox Christian.
Speaker 5 (32:09):
That's interesting too, because I guess, and I don't know
this because from personal experience with tech billionaires, but it
seems like a little bit of an a religious position.
For the most part, people that are like Mega focused
on futurism and technology and things. Doesn't seem like there's
always a place for religion in that type of worldview.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Yeah, there's something to especially in Christianity from my experience,
there's something to the act of giving and the act
of humbleness, and a lot of other things that are
considered christ like that are a bit antithetical to the
hoarding of billions of dollars and the wielding of power
(32:50):
in whatever way you wield it.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
I think you nailed it.
Speaker 5 (32:53):
That must be the thing that makes it a little
just like inherently the Spidey sense giving counterintuitive.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
Yeah, Yeah, cabbles through the eye of the needle, right, bud,
warning about wealth and the love of money being the
root of all evil, and.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
I've counter to that right now, there's a massive political
and religious movement that is intertwined that you know, puts
holiness and wealth and all of that somewhere together, which
is a bit strangealism.
Speaker 5 (33:23):
Yeah, I don't know if I buy that there's actual
belief there. I feel like it's a method of control
rather than an actual, you know, tried and true belief system.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
I just have a hard time with that.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
I would just say I've been in a church pretty recently,
and there's something to it and the messages that are
being spoken. Maybe it is just something that the pulpit,
the person in charge of that believes or is choosing
to espouse, but there is something to it.
Speaker 4 (33:50):
Oh yeah, And we're fans of prosperity theology as a
fascinating concept, yes, and through apological fans of prosperity theology.
And I cannot recommend it enough. If you are a
budding public speaker or an orator, cast your ethics to
the side and check out a speech by Kreflo Dollar.
(34:13):
I'm just in love with the rhetoric. I'm in love
with the moves he does, these moves, his language is
so cool. He's not a good person. I can I
say that I'm.
Speaker 5 (34:23):
A satire of all of this kind of stuff. We
also recommend checking out the Righteous Gemstones.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
Sure, yeah, I got your worker in there.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
I guess My only point here, guys, is that there
is a difference between that prosperity thing right that we're
describing here in some of these megachurch folks, and then
the Baptist Church, this is down the street from wherever.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
You live, no question about it, and very very different.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
In the Methodist Church and the Denominational Jury all of
these things. Yeah, there's you know, there's a difference between
those things, and then the same message is kind of
finding its way through to everybody. It's few and far
between where you really see, at least in my experience,
and that's just my you know, experience, it's few and
far between. It's not very often that you see somebody
(35:09):
really preaching against wealth in that way exactly.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
Yeah, especially here in the United States, in the argument
is being with wealth, we can spread this message.
Speaker 5 (35:21):
With wealth, we can convert the masses and hell therefore
and help people.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
And wealth wealth as a blessing. Because you have functioned
in the Holy path, therefore, you are further empowered as
an operative of Christ or Christendom to spread the good news,
spread the good word, and also to help people.
Speaker 5 (35:43):
I think one of my favorite bits and righteous gemstones
is the opening of I Think It's Season two, where
they're in China baptizing Chinese citizens in a way a
giant wave pool and it goes horribly awry.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
That's yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
I also love Uncle Baby Billy's phenomenal poolside rendition of
there Will Be a Payday, which we're talking.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
About inside the He's all.
Speaker 5 (36:16):
In Atlantic City, teen Just we can't wait, We can't
wait for the director's cut of teen Just.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
Uh So. For several years, as we record again Tuesday,
January thirteenth, our pal Pete has been on or He's
held a series of fascinating speaking tours. He's also pretty
prolific writer, and you can read a bunch of his
essays and his critical thoughts online. Towards the end of
(36:48):
last year, he gave a four part off the record
series of lectures about nothing other than the anti Christ
in San Francisco. Now that we're protests outside. If you've
got a ticket, you had to sign up for all
four of these. You couldn't just drop by one because
Pete had some stuff to say and you also could
(37:09):
not talk about it in too much detail because it
was again off the record. It was organized by do
you guys see this? It's organized by a fascinating nonprofit
called Acts seventeen, collective.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
That sounds cool.
Speaker 5 (37:24):
Acts like the body spray or acts like the Book
of the Bible.
Speaker 4 (37:28):
So acts like the Book of the Bible.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
Okay, cool? Coo cool.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
Their manifesto is we'll give you a brief part of
those folks. You can go to their website. It's active now.
They're not work because they're nonprofit. A manifesto for the curious,
the creators, and the culture's shapers. As humans, we are
all made to worship and will worship something If we
don't worship God, So what are you putting your faith in?
(37:51):
What are you worshiping?
Speaker 3 (37:53):
AI?
Speaker 4 (37:56):
Right right, our own digital Jesus.
Speaker 5 (37:58):
Act seventeen in the Bible, by the way, is sort
of the adventures of the Apostle Paul in his missionary
journey forth to convert like the Heathens in Thessalonika, Beria
and Athens.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
Yeah. This lecture organized by Acts seventeen. This lecture series
takes place at a outfit called the Commonwealth Club in
San Francisco, And if you go to if you go
to the Commonwealth Club, or you even just you know,
do the right google incantations into your browser choice, you
(38:35):
will still see the invite page up for this lecture series.
And when they describe what's going to happen in this series,
they're relatively vague. They say, Okay, legendary Peter Thiel will
be quote addressing the topic of the Biblical Antichrist and
its theology, history, literature, and politics.
Speaker 5 (38:57):
Can we all just agree here, maybe that this all
is very fascinating stuff. We love the Antichrist mythology and
the way it's manifested throughout history. We've talked about it
a lot on this show.
Speaker 4 (39:08):
Yeah. Yeah, the Antichrist has been very good to our show.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
I agree.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
It is just odd to have this gentleman in particular
come forward and talk about it. Just that on the surface, right,
it is kind of weird that you're still.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
Pet subject for a guy like that.
Speaker 2 (39:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (39:23):
And he's not a seminarian, right, he's not theologian by degree,
but this very much occupies front of mind for.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
Him for sure.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
And and then it gets levels several levels weirder once
you see the content of some of this information that
was leaked.
Speaker 4 (39:42):
Oh one hundred percent, and it was leaked, which we'll
definitely have to get to. The Antichrist that he's talking
about is, yes, as far as you can tell, the
biblical end of Day's figure the inverse of the returning
in Christ, a figure that unifies humanity temporarily under a
central global governance before ushering the world into apocalypse. Sort
(40:06):
Of the best way to say it going to some
of the so the previous interviews and essays we've read,
and some of the leaked notes from his talks, is
to go to the man himself. Let's see how Peter
describes the Antichrist.
Speaker 5 (40:19):
He says, a basic definition of the anti Christ. Some
people think of it as a type of very bad person.
Sometimes it's used more generally as a spiritual descriptor of
the forces of evil. What I will focus on is
the most common and most dramatic interpretation of Antichrist, an
evil king or tyrant or anti Messiah who appears in
(40:41):
the end times. Guys, has anyone seen I think it's
the Omen part three where Damien grows up and he's
played by Sam Neil and he becomes the president mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (40:52):
Yes, that's what we're talking about here.
Speaker 5 (40:54):
We're talking about that level of antichrist, an individual ascending
to the highest position of power in the land and
then wielding some you know, ungodly influence on.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
The world and doing stuff Pete doesn't like. And yet
that's a big part of it.
Speaker 5 (41:11):
Feels like he's yeah, we'll get to it. Feels like
he's doing everything he can to usher that very thing in.
Speaker 2 (41:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (41:17):
With that definition, it's arguably less a matter of divinity
or literalism as much as it is a highly stylized,
high dramatic stakes framing for the fall of known civilization.
Pete goes on to speak about this Antichrist through various
examples and perspectives, as well as something called catacot the
(41:40):
idea or the things that could prevent the Antichrist from
reaching success, the little things you can do to speed
bump the road or walllet off. Entirely, it dates back,
you know, if we mentioned this in Strange News. There
was a great article wired by a journalist named Laura
(42:00):
Bullard who talked about what she calls Pete's doomsday road show.
One example of this titular example, I think a quintessential
example takes place in Paris at the Catholic University in
twenty twenty three. Now, as we said, we're pro nerd,
this is a very pro nerd conference. It is a
(42:23):
bunch of folks who got together from various disciplines to
debate and explore the work of a French American Catholic
theorist named Renee Gerrard. He is we said, he's one of,
if not the most influential figures to Teal. But in
the world of theory and philosophy, Gerard is probably the
(42:46):
big tent for Peter Teal's mind.
Speaker 3 (42:48):
The polarizing figure right, Yes, oh very much so.
Speaker 4 (42:52):
This guy's writing and his thoughts are really prime movers
for Pete's actions. He creates something called mimetic theory. Why
don't we describe it just in a quick nutshell?
Speaker 2 (43:06):
Isn't it about scapegoating and then killing a scapegoat basically
to make all things good? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (43:14):
I mean you can see how that calls out to
adherence of certain religions.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
So that's a sacrificial lamb type scenario.
Speaker 4 (43:21):
Yeah, just so. Gerard's big idea, like his bangor breakout
single from his album, is the concept that human beings
imitate one another's desires, which leads to rivalry. And then
when you have the rivalry that leads you to the crisis,
that crisis is resolved through discovering or creating a scapegoat,
(43:42):
an arbitrarily chosen victim upon whom all blame is based
exact he sacrifice the scapegoat, whomever that might be. Across time,
peace is restored, and the horrible broken cycle begins anew.
Speaker 5 (43:57):
And I'm joking, I said, I'm not joking, But immigrants
have often been this exact thing throughout history, the easiest
target to other and to place blame in.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
We see it throughout recorded history of the.
Speaker 5 (44:10):
World, absolutely being a political hot taker right this second.
Speaker 3 (44:14):
This is just a pattern that we see repeated time
and time again.
Speaker 4 (44:17):
And that's also a structural error of fascism, which is
why fascism will never be long term successful. At this point,
Fascism needs an other the same way a car needs
the same way an internal combustion engine needs gas basically,
and so fascism will always seek to find some quality
(44:39):
of a population to other, to exoticize, to vilify. And
this is Gerard's big idea is what we call mimetic theory.
It has impacted so much stuff from psychology to theology,
of course, but also to economics, to public policy, and
of course did a real number Pete reading Gerard. So
(45:03):
he is all about this conference again. It's twenty twenty three.
He travels out to Paris, not hard for a billionaire,
but he is traveling exclusively because he's clearing his schedule
to talk Gerard and the metic theory with other people
who can understand what he's saying. He is ten toes
down about it, and he spends like an hour on
(45:25):
the Diaz just holding court on his thoughts about armageddon,
capital a armageddon, end of the world, fall of civilization.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
The end is nine.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
It's really weird, you guys, just to look back at
depictions of the Antichrist, because there is not one. Right,
we're taking Gerard as our primary, like, as one of
our primary series because that's when Teal uses right, you
go all you go back to the Bible, you go
back to twelve hundred CE or twelve hundred's. You look
at all the different writing that's been done on this
(46:00):
character that is the Antichrist as a possibility. Often kind
of based around actual rulers of the time, just as
like a little wink and nod, like that jerk over
there across the water.
Speaker 4 (46:12):
Yeah, just like Dante's Inferno is kind of a mixtape
dis about people he doesn't care for politically, yeah.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
Or you know, written from folks who see it as
a negative thing that countries are working together and trade
is beginning to you know, move towards globalization. Not anywhere
near there at that point, but you know, cultures and
state different states trading a lot more and getting along
a lot more and think and it's cool. But then
there's some folks who really want the empire thing to
(46:42):
kind of stay the empire thing, and then they imagine
there's an Antichrist on the way, or they you know,
they talk about the dangers of someone who might rabble
too many folks that would be loved by the people,
but is antithical to the thing that we want.
Speaker 4 (46:58):
And the other thing too that point, Matt, because the
other eight is so weird when you look back on
evenings of your and someone is genuinely saying the path
to hell is continuing trade with the dirty flems Flemish,
you know flems. Yeah, it's so it's so silly when
(47:21):
you look at that kind of discrimination. But I think
are our point holds because okay, by teals telling, By
Pete's telling, the modern world is way too scared of progress,
especially technological progress. He calls the current age listless, a
zombie age, and he says you can see clear warning
(47:44):
signs a growing hostility to innovation. That's like his big one.
That's when it really grinds his gears, plummeting fertility rates.
And I had to put this in here just for you, nol.
He complains that there's too much yoga. He really said this, Yeah,
he really said it. U. And he also said the
culture over all in the West is mired in the
(48:05):
quote endless groundhog Day of the world Wide Web, which
is a great turn of phrase, and I agree with
that completely.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
Yeah, Okay, now here's the problem.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
It's just the web.
Speaker 5 (48:16):
It's easy to get into a loop, into a feedback loop.
I think, is the groundhog Day of it on. I
think that's a smart way of putting it.
Speaker 4 (48:22):
I remember to leave us a review and a couple
of stars on your favorite platform of choice. It thumbs up,
you could double thumbs up on here on Netflix, which
means you don't just like us, but you love us.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Oh that's it. Do that. We've talked previously about how
dangerous it is when you're listening to an order somebody
who's highly influential, and you will agree with like, yeah,
like seventy five percent of the stuff that's being said,
and then that twenty starts hitting and you're like, I
don't know, but I did like what he was talking
(48:56):
about with that thing. I don't know, you know.
Speaker 5 (49:00):
It's similar to James Cameron is a good example of that.
Like the director, he's, you know, a well known technologist,
futurist and stuff like He's done some podcast interviews recently
where taken out of context, some of the things he
says can sound really dystopian, but then sort of the
antithesis of what you're talking about when you actually read
the full text of what he's saying, he's pretty level
(49:20):
headed about it. So he's an interesting kind of antithetical version.
Speaker 3 (49:24):
Of what we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
That's that tangled web. Guys.
Speaker 4 (49:27):
It's important to have the full spectrum there of the
pendulum and the way oratory magic works. And I'm blushing
a little bit because I've definitely been guilty of doing it,
like writing a do it a speech, like writing a
sneaky contract. You know, get people to agree on three
things and then get make sure the fifth thing is
(49:47):
something everyone can agree in or upon, and then slide
the fourth when in there real quick, it's beautiful.
Speaker 5 (49:55):
Those are sort of the tenets of like winning in
a debate, right, You're sort of suppose is to be
have have things that like everyone can agree on, and
then sort of like do your checkmate. There at the
end is the thing that you really want.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
Got to know your rules of power? Boys, come on.
Speaker 4 (50:10):
Now, I can I can? I can hear it in
like a in a college debate, society and stuff like that.
It's there. There's a good case to be made to
think of debate, despite the etymology of it, to think
of debate more as a dialogue or sharing of ideas.
If we're all coaking with gas, then everybody wins. But
unfortunately that's not the way a lot of rhetoric goes today.
Speaker 2 (50:32):
I got to bring Socrates into it, ben to democratic method. Baby,
you got to actually learn when you hear different opinions,
which is not learn, you have to at least take
them into account.
Speaker 5 (50:48):
The jubilee of it all, which is really just like
a grudge match, like a battle royale, where you're pitting
these you know, completely antithetical opinions against one another in
the hopes that someone will quote unquote win.
Speaker 4 (50:59):
It's like do like the Highlander game for it. But
the other I think another important aspect here that is
related and should always be mentioned more often any public
discourse is that if you disagree with something, you owe
it to yourself to understand it as much, if not
(51:21):
more than the supporters of that thing understand it. So,
for instance, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
Way things operate these days, I would seem.
Speaker 4 (51:28):
Yeah, because you know, it's a big currency investment of
time and attention and analysis and synthesis. And Peter has
done the work. From his perspective, he distinguishes between technological
armageddon all the hits, climate catastrophes, out of control, large
language models quote unquote AI which I still think is
(51:51):
a BS term nuclear war of course, the big hit,
and then he says there's a more old school armageddon,
the anti Christ, someone who plays on our fears of
technology and seduces us into decadence with the slogan peace
and safety.
Speaker 2 (52:06):
That's what it's always said. Like when there was that
whole revelation thing that got written down in the Bible,
they were all talking about, Oh, the technology, the anti technology, folks,
that's what's going to cause the beast to hang around.
Speaker 3 (52:20):
Right.
Speaker 4 (52:21):
The number of the beast is anti technology.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
They're not into these bad dad batteries and all the
cool tech we've got. We need to get rid of them.
Speaker 5 (52:29):
Well, but I will say that, you know, the whole
golden calf thing, like that's a kind of weird technology
or like idols or something like that. It is a
stand in for this worship of something that is not
of God.
Speaker 4 (52:43):
Oh yeah, yeah. Ideology is technology. I would be very
clear about that. It's it's a it's sometimes not called
technology because it doesn't necessarily have a physical apparatus, right
the same way that Archimedes, screw or lever would. But
it is technology the way that language is technology. Ideology
(53:04):
creates action through belief.
Speaker 2 (53:07):
Yeah, and idolatry is I think you're talking about also,
like any symbol that you put above God, any device,
let's say, any service or technology.
Speaker 4 (53:18):
Again, memetic theory rears, it's rears, it's crowned head this
is to Pete's mind, this Antichrist pitch is an infernal
classic scam. I'm taking control of the world by promising
to rescue it. But I'm only saying I'm going to
rescue it because that control is my avenue to ultimately
(53:40):
destroy the world as you know it. Right. Let me
into the house, this says the vampire.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
And create something anew yes, where there is no privacy,
where all we do is recorded and I can see it.
Speaker 7 (53:56):
I know the eye, the eye.
Speaker 4 (54:01):
So I don't know why I love this character.
Speaker 5 (54:04):
Now, creation through destruction is a huge part of the Bible.
I mean sure, it's a big, big theme.
Speaker 4 (54:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're very interesting themes in the Okay,
I'm getting distractive, but yes, they're very interesting themes in
the Bible. One of my favorites being you know, the
Cross and the Tree of Life's that's a really good
bookend kind of thematic playthrough. So this is another question
question we asked a little bit earlier in the show.
(54:32):
Is Peter well We asked whether he genuinely believes what
he's saying, But before then, maybe we ask is he
speaking in philosophical theoretical terms and metaphor or is this
a literal belief of his. He goes on to elaborate
with some examples of potential candidates for anti christiandom, which
(54:55):
I think is a term we just made up.
Speaker 2 (54:57):
Oh wow, I got so confused when I was looking
at the notes here for a second, because I keep
thinking about the about Peter from the Bible and then
Peter Teal, and I'm like, wait, are we talking about
like in the Bible, they're talking about technology, And I
got so confused, like, oh no, wait, that was Paul
talking about that other stuff. But no, this is Teal
talking about this. Sorry, guys, that's perfect.
Speaker 3 (55:20):
I think it's a good clarification. Matt I think we
were all with you there.
Speaker 4 (55:23):
Well, it's just I love calling him Pete though.
Speaker 3 (55:25):
Yeah for sure.
Speaker 2 (55:26):
So many kids got named after Biblical figures, says Matthew.
Speaker 5 (55:30):
Oh yeah, well Nicholas, I suppose.
Speaker 4 (55:35):
Oh yeah, Nick Bostrom, yeah, we can recall the name.
He's an example that Pete has a Pete two point
zero has raised in the past. We all remember Nick,
he is an ai philosopher. He's spent a lot of
time thinking about ethics, technology in the future, and spoiler,
(55:55):
like most of the folks in this field, including our
good friend doctor Day, Me and Patrick Williams. Hey, Damien,
thanks for tuning in. Nick Bostrom is very concerned about AI,
and we talked about this in the past. Twenty nineteen,
Boston wrote a paper that made so many waves in academia.
It's called the Vulnerable World Hypothesis.
Speaker 5 (56:16):
If I'm not mistaken, our buddy Josh Clark talked to
Bostrom and his incredible limited series The End of the
World Yes, one hundred percent about existential threats, of which
AI is Professor Bostrom's primary focus.
Speaker 4 (56:31):
One hundred percent Yeah, and the Vulnerable World Hypothesis. You
can read this in full on Nick Bostrom's website. It's
it's kind of a clarion call for regulation and it
says we need to build a global emergency system that
can do stuff like predictive policing and conscious mindful restrictions
(56:52):
on technology. And this reminds me, I'm sure it reminds
a lot of us of the Doune universe and the
long standing ban on thinking machines our terminator too.
Speaker 2 (57:05):
Sure, or insert all sci fi movies from the nineties, or.
Speaker 4 (57:13):
Or insert that meme of tech Bro saying, yeah, it's
a huge sci fi fad. When I'm excited. We finally built, uh,
the star eating machine, inspired by that awesome novel never
build the star eating machine the Death Star.
Speaker 2 (57:31):
Guys, we finally have a feasible way to achieve it, and.
Speaker 4 (57:36):
We were inspired, of course. But we were inspired, of
course by the shocking series of short stories about how
terrible it is to ever build the Death Star.
Speaker 2 (57:46):
Here Robot. We loved the movie, but we wanted to
go further.
Speaker 4 (57:53):
The company is really named Palanteer, by the way. We
talked about that. But do for chapter two. One policy
note that probably from Nick Bostrom's papers, that probably got
Peter two point zeros dander up was the following quote,
Technology policy should not unquestioningly assume that all technological progress
(58:18):
is beneficial, or that complete scientific openness is always best,
or that the world has the capacity to manage any
potential downside of a technology after it is invented.
Speaker 2 (58:30):
Yeah. Sure hasn't worked out for us with nukes yet,
not yet, Maybe soon.
Speaker 4 (58:34):
Early days we're figuring it out. You know, humanity still
doesn't really understand television. I don't know if we're equipped
for it.
Speaker 5 (58:41):
And I guess I guess we're talking about with the
AI stuff is things like guardrails, which right here thrown
around a term we hear thrown around a lot. But
the problem is that the AI with the least amount
of guardrails are the ones that make the most noise
and get the most attention and are the most popular.
And it just seems like what we're seeing is I
think we all can agree that AI or large language
models used in a certain way is fascinating and excellent
(59:05):
technology you used as a tool, But unfortunately the powers
that beast seem just so keen, that is, roll it
out without a second thought to these existential threats, and
then you can't really put the genie back in the bottle,
try as you.
Speaker 4 (59:18):
Might, can't put the badger's back in the bag. Also,
there's a huge issue with transparency. I've been thinking about that,
you know, talking with the different instructors and colleagues in
academia and in writing entertainment. Yeah, using chat GPT, personally
don't think it's the best idea, but it gets really
(59:39):
sticky when people refuse to be open about it. And
that transparency is a huge deal.
Speaker 2 (59:44):
Did you see the National Weather Services using AI predictive
models to show what the weather's going to be like.
So what human beings used to look at weather patterns
and everything and have the stuff that the NWS provided
and a lot of other satellite imagery and information provide. Well,
they're using AI now, and that AI is like making
up town names and doing all kinds of silly stuff.
(01:00:08):
And I'm just imagining, gosh, if we become so reliant
on a lot of these systems that are still in
their infancy, it is literally like we're going to be
getting our information from infants and we're all just gonna go, oh,
I guess that's how it is.
Speaker 4 (01:00:21):
And you know, Teel would ultimately argue that humans will
evolve in step with that technology, that both sides of
that coin are in their own kind of infancy.
Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
They'll evolve into infants again.
Speaker 4 (01:00:35):
I mean that's more than devolves, more like the eloy
right in HG. Well's Time Machine. People living in ideal
like existence, but with you know, their knowledge base has
been crippled.
Speaker 2 (01:00:49):
That's possible, shiny thing, flashing lights, what you've got my attention?
I feel like an infant often when I look at
my phone.
Speaker 4 (01:00:57):
The weird bell is going off. I guess some of
us going to get eaten again. Okay, yeah, that luck marching.
Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
That's it. Here we go.
Speaker 4 (01:01:10):
So Peter goes on and in a couple of other
lectures throughout the years post Paris twenty twenty three, he
points to other people as potential Antichrist candidates. He hit
the headlines later on by mentioning the climate activist Greta Thunberg. Oh,
(01:01:30):
in general, all of the folks that he mentions in
this perspective or this theoretical framework, they have one thing
in common to Pete. These are individuals and institutions that
stymy and prevent progress.
Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
That's so crazy to me, just from what I learned
about the Antichrist, and then what I learned through popular
culture about depictions of the Antichrist, and then when I
went back to my Bible, when I was feeling biblical
as a young man, looking at the Antichrist, It's all
in there, at least in most of the writings and
a lot of the accepted versions of what the Antichrist
(01:02:06):
would be, even from the twelve hundreds. It's just the
antithesis of Christ. Right, So what is the opposite of Christ,
a unifying figure that is the opposite of that guy Jesus.
And you know, it has nothing to do with technology,
has nothing to do with wealth, or actually there's a
little bit about wealth in there. Yeah, And I think
(01:02:29):
maybe the only I'm sorry to interrupt her, but the
only way to like, for me to frame it and
think about it is to think about what is antithetical
to Christ. What is the opposite of Christ. Humble service
is a way you would describe someone or Christ or
someone who is Christ like purity, love, forgiveness, compassion, humility, kindness,
(01:02:51):
generous generosity or generous giving, endurance, submission, holiness, and righteousness.
Those are the ways that are Christ is described, the characteristics, right,
the traits, And so when I imagine an Antichrists, it's
somebody who was opposite of all of that stuff. It's
not someone who like Greta Thunberg, who appears to display
(01:03:13):
a lot of those things in her efforts to, you know,
to be an activist for the earth. It's just really
surprising to me that Peter Teele has put Greta Funberg
in that position as a potential Antichrist, and then for
the reasons he puts her in that category.
Speaker 4 (01:03:32):
Yeah, I think that's surprising to quite a few people,
quite a lot of people. And I appreciate and Duel's
earlier note about Cameron and context, because a lot of
the stuff that Peter tele is saying, yes, it'll get
some folks stand her up, but it's also being just
snapshotted and pulled out frankin bitten into a thing that
(01:03:55):
makes a good headline, and folks aren't looking at the
full context. The context of some of the statesments indeed,
can make the little boot pulls even more disturbing in general. Again,
as I had said earlier, and anti Christ, to his opinion,
is anything that he sees standing in the way of progress,
(01:04:17):
whether that be an individual or indeed an institution.
Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
Yeah, it is weird to think that global government or
a global new world order was synonymous with Antichrist for
a long time, like all of the powers that would
make up the thing that wants to take over the world.
Speaker 3 (01:04:33):
That was a problem.
Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
But then somehow also Antichrist is not that for Peter.
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (01:04:40):
It's interesting because look, we can't talk about global governance
as though it's one flavor of ice cream, or as
the aquarly flavor, because well we'll get to his second here, right,
So his worries are twofold. There's a careful needle to
thread in Pete's mind. He says civilisation has to avoid
(01:05:01):
technological disaster or armageddon, while at the same time avoiding
falling under the sway of one anti christ Ish figure
or another. So he's arguing from Girardian theory, and he
says anti Christian modes of government are going to inevitably
lead to tremendous chaos. That's the flavor of global governmental
(01:05:22):
ice cream. He doesn't care for. That's the kind he
says collapses civilization. But what he does appear to like
is his own flavor of a technocracy, right of corporate governance,
that private company. So that's a different flavor of ice
cream to him. And he's also, to be fair, he
(01:05:44):
is quick to clarify in his q and as and
in some of his deeper conversations that his primary goal
is to repel the Antichrist, and he sees the problem.
But he says, I don't have a ton of practical
advice for you, you know, again, to be objective. He's
saying this in a conference that is talking about theory,
(01:06:06):
not nuts and bolts of policy, but philosophy leads to
policy and practice. That's the next question. I mean, guys,
what does old PD actually want?
Speaker 2 (01:06:19):
What? He just wants to get Cartman to the White
House so they can That's perfect, that's all he wants. Dude,
it's pretty simple. Or at least get him to you know,
get the other guy to Cartman.
Speaker 4 (01:06:35):
Yeah, here's his flavor of ice cream. But simply progress,
progress in a way that the ends justify the means.
His vision of progress, his favorite flavor of the ice cream.
Here is a society where corporate institutions grow with little
to no restraint. Government institutions and all regulations that are
(01:06:57):
part and parcel of that are diminished, eroded, or not existent,
and authoritarianism through these largely private entities becomes the rule
of the day. This is shades of iron rand. I
know this guy must love Atlashrugt.
Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
Interesting. Yeah, well, if you look at the Bible, if
you look at the teachings of Christianity, there is a king, right,
the king of kings. There is an authoritarian power that
says what's good and what's bad and what you can do,
or rather what you should do, what you shouldn't do,
and there are punishments if you don't do the good things.
Speaker 4 (01:07:32):
No one gets to vote in heaven. Yeah, they don't
talk about that, but that's that's the truth. That's heavily implied.
Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
It is god democracy, but there's also no profit motive
in heaven. I don't think. I don't remember seeing that anywhere,
or at least in the teachings of Jesus. Hmm. I
wonder how those two worlds collide right in both Peter's
mind and anyone who's trying to wrap their head around
whatever their the philosophical theosophical take is on, you know,
(01:08:00):
the workings of heaven and sometimes hell which came later,
and then how the world functions. Weird, gosh, this is
too much to even think about. Ben Sometimes, Well, here's
here's a question. This stood out. This stood out to
me as well.
Speaker 4 (01:08:17):
Okay, if progress and unfettered innovation is so gosh darn awesome,
if democracy is truly the enemy of progress and saving
the earth or evolving civilization, then why are you off
the record talking about it? My guy? Why are you
punishing people who leak notes? Why are you coming down
(01:08:39):
so hard on Folks like Kashi Kulkarni, who attended the
first night of that four part lecture series in San Francisco,
published notes about it and they got smacked down so
so hard. Thank you for the beat there, Max Dyllan.
This takes us to the future, right. We've got that
full episode on Palatiner coming soon. Please tune in check
(01:09:01):
out our earlier episode on governments and AI to learn
how this stuff is being used on you right now,
regardless of your consent. Also got a note all the
high faluting theory and very interesting abstract concepts aside, Pete
has met with great success grooming, funding and guiding political candidates,
(01:09:22):
kind of like the Koch brothers, especially in the United States.
He has the American population decision treed. He's moving the
overt window. He's not a fan of democracy, which is
weird for a guy who is so deeply involved with
parts of American politics. I mean, jd. Vance is one
(01:09:47):
of Pete Teel production.
Speaker 2 (01:09:49):
Oh we're going to get into that, we can. That's
that genuinely makes me a little nervous. Yes, boss, Sorry,
I've been watching too much of South Park. H It
makes me wonder how different some of the some of
the concepts like democracy. Let's take as an example, what
(01:10:10):
what does democracy mean in your mind's eye when you
are somebody like us versus when you're somebody like Peter
Teel or you know, some other billionaire technocrat. What does
democracy actually mean?
Speaker 4 (01:10:25):
And we you know, political correctness being in North Korea
or maw era China versus the modern United States.
Speaker 2 (01:10:32):
Yeah, Stanford back in the eighties or whatever. But like, really,
truly we know the facts about how democracy functions, even
in the best case scenario. We know we understand corruption
and how that system can provide that kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (01:10:46):
We know that mob rule could historically be a disaster.
Speaker 2 (01:10:50):
Oh yeah, we know that the collective intelligence versus one
person that just knows their specific niche you know, of expertise.
The different is between those short scenarios. It's just I
wonder what I would think of democracy if I could
truly see through Peter Teel's eyes, you know, for that moment,
(01:11:11):
Like how what taste would I have in my mouth
when I think about that word.
Speaker 4 (01:11:15):
It'd be very Randian. It would be get out of
the way and let me, for Christ's sake, help you
help yourselves. That's where they go and this is I mean,
that's the thing that worries me. This is why it's
a There's a chapter two ahead, folks, US politics are
and have been compromised for quite some time. That makes sense.
(01:11:37):
The US is not unique in that regard money talks,
bs walks. It's one of the old rules of this
country and one of the primary puppet masters of the
literal Vice President genuinely does not want democracy as we
understand it to be a thing. So lastly, Pete love's
(01:11:59):
biblical language. If you see him after hearing this, you know,
I him some macha tea over a cupa. Just ask
him about the Antichrist. I'm sure he'd love to talk
about it. Make sure to write to us. We would
love to hear his thoughts.
Speaker 2 (01:12:13):
Ask him about the tribe of Dan and does that
come into play from you know, Genesis.
Speaker 4 (01:12:18):
Not the band, And then ask him, you know, if
you're feeling froggy, why not rivet and leap Ask old
Pete if he genuinely believes the philosophies and the concerns
he's selling to America's decision makers, or is he just
window dressing to rationalize the overthrow of democracy? And the
institution of neo feudalist techno fascism I mean Antichrist and
(01:12:45):
a brand new currency. Yes, the Antichrist headlines are perfect
for grabbing attention. They're perfect for making a distraction. And
there's no denying that Pete and his followers and his
colleagues have made great strides transmuting through dark financial philosophical
alchemy their beliefs into policy funding an action. Those actions,
(01:13:09):
for now are the stuff they don't want you to do.
But we want to know what you think, folks, especially
if you happen to be Peter tele and you're checking
out the episode. Thanks for hanging out Pete. If you
want more about Peter's early life while you're waiting for
our second chapter of this series to come out, please
do check out our good friend of the show. The
(01:13:31):
legendary journalist Robert Evans did a multi part series on
Peter Teal in his show Behind the Bastards. If you
dig Us, you will love Robert Evans.
Speaker 2 (01:13:43):
Gus, how much attention do you think this whole thing
would have gotten if it was just a big press
release that Peter put out with all of his talking points,
rather than making it a secret thing, and then you know,
getting upset with people that leaked the secret information.
Speaker 4 (01:14:03):
I think it's partially calculated too.
Speaker 3 (01:14:05):
It's very clever, that's right, weird.
Speaker 4 (01:14:09):
So we want to hear from you. You can tell
us if it's order off the record. We got your back.
We do our best to protect anonymity while that's still
a thing. You can call us on a telephone line.
You can always send us an email, and you can
sip the social meets with us on your platform of choice.
Speaker 5 (01:14:28):
And if you want these social needs to flow, you
can find us on any of the platforms of note
at either Conspiracy Stuff or Conspiracy Stuff Show depending.
Speaker 2 (01:14:37):
Yes, we have a phone number and you can call it.
It's our voicemail system one eight three three std WYTK.
Turn those letters into numbers, use your phone, give it
a call, and then use your mouth to speak for
three minutes. Give yourself a cool nickname, and let us
know if we can use your name and message on
one of our listener mail episodes that you'll find on
(01:14:57):
our audio podcast. If you like to send us an email,
you could do that too. We are let's pause there.
Speaker 4 (01:15:03):
This is one of the best ways to reach out
to us. No word limits. Send us the links, send
us the uh send us the hi KuPS, send us
the manifestos, send us the jokes. Ask us for a
random fact and we'll give you one. Did you ever
wonder why you can't eat Polar Bear's liver? We'll tell you.
Just meet us out here in the dark conspiracy at
(01:15:25):
iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:15:45):
Stuff they Don't want you to Know is a production
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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