Is Peter Thiel the target of Pope Leo’s Gandalf quote? An investigation.
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If you told me 20 years ago I'd be taking the side of the rapey Catholic fucking church in a fight against pedo-fascist technologists, I would've never believed it.
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Peter Thiel believes it is about him and that's what matters. Clearly the message was sent and received.
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The biggest thing that Thiel and his ilk represent that the encyclical speaks out against is the notion of "effective altruism". Leo is clearly concerned with the ability of the rich and powerful to use harvested data to essentially determine who will live and who will die by picking and choosing what causes to support, diseases to cure, and picking those they deem useful or profitable while discarding the rest.
That viewpoint is fundamentally incompatible with Catholic social teaching on the inherent God given dignity of every single human person and the universal call to care for the least of us as ourselves. Love your neighbor as yourself applies to every single person, not just those that are deemed useful by an arbitrary bar, or somehow deemed as deserving of your love.
"Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” He answered, “The one who treated him with mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
Edit: I think I mixed in the concept of "utilitarianism" a bit with "effective altruism" there, but those two concepts have some overlap and I think the overall point still stands, these are concepts that Thiel and his ilk embrace and which fly in the face of respect for intrinsic human dignity
That viewpoint is fundamentally incompatible with Catholic social teaching on the inherent God given dignity of every single human person and the universal call to care for the least of us as ourselves. Love your neighbor as yourself applies to every single person, not just those that are deemed useful by an arbitrary bar, or somehow deemed as deserving of your love.
"Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” He answered, “The one who treated him with mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
Edit: I think I mixed in the concept of "utilitarianism" a bit with "effective altruism" there, but those two concepts have some overlap and I think the overall point still stands, these are concepts that Thiel and his ilk embrace and which fly in the face of respect for intrinsic human dignity
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ReadandShare
Ars Centurion
Might is Right versus Christ is Right - epic fight - both currently headed by Americans. Interesting times we live in.
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Peter Thiel is the antichrist. He ripped off Palantir from LOTR and turned it into a real-world authoritarian surveillance weapon.
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For people that don't know, Ross Douthat--mentioned interviewing Thiel--is a Catholic who leans in the anti-anti-Trump direction and is all the more aggravating for it. He could just realize his fondest dreams if he would just shuck that veneer of civilization and believe MAGA with all his blessed little heart.
These are the types that have ticked me off the most during the Trump era because they clearly know better and yet want to stay in the warm embrace of the right wing herd. I've lost friends and a faith community over this stuff and resent punks like Ross who hold business models over their integrity.
These are the types that have ticked me off the most during the Trump era because they clearly know better and yet want to stay in the warm embrace of the right wing herd. I've lost friends and a faith community over this stuff and resent punks like Ross who hold business models over their integrity.
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SirThoreth
Ars Centurion
Why only one target? It could not only be a criticism of Thiel, but based on timing, support of Stephen Colbert, a well-known Tolkien fan, practicing Catholic, former member of Second City Chicago, and thorn in the side of the Trump administration.
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But Thiel already worships at the feet of the Antichrist (aka Donald Trump), so he already believes in what he says he doesn't believe in (so, basically, he is what he's always been: a hypocrite).
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Perhaps it should also be noted, here, that J. R. R. Tolkien was a very convinced Catholic, conservative (he hated Vatican II) and convinced that his mother's early death was partly the result ostracism that followed her conversion. He who took his Catholic theology very seriously. After The Lord of the Rings was published, he discussed it with various priests, and both he and they noted how Catholic doctrine appeared in the work.
He wasn't a priest, but it makes sense for a Pope to quote the most noteworthy Catholic author of the modern age!
He wasn't a priest, but it makes sense for a Pope to quote the most noteworthy Catholic author of the modern age!
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It is quite scary that there are people like Thiel who takes seriously the idea of an "anti-Christ" and also have the means and influence to shape society around them.
People have the right to believe in whatever religious woo-woo they choose, but that right is limited at the point where it impacts the rest of us.
<edit> thoughtful article on religious freedom here https://ethics.org.au/religious-freedom-secular-law/
People have the right to believe in whatever religious woo-woo they choose, but that right is limited at the point where it impacts the rest of us.
<edit> thoughtful article on religious freedom here https://ethics.org.au/religious-freedom-secular-law/
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I initially read the first sentence as:
"I’m not suggesting that a man like Pope Leo—the Vicar of Christ, the Bishop of Rome, the Servant of the Servants of God—would stoop to anything quite so base as “trolling” the onetime PayPal co-founder and current Antichrist
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United States is a crazy place. Half the population there would be following the lunatics in power even if they where recorded live on TV killing a baby.
To be fair, there are many countries now in the same situation, and many more will be due to the apparently human need to find scape goats to the worsening of quality of life until folks see that capitalism is the problem.
To be fair, there are many countries now in the same situation, and many more will be due to the apparently human need to find scape goats to the worsening of quality of life until folks see that capitalism is the problem.
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Gnafu the Great
Ars Centurion
Peter Thiel's been looking more like Gollum as time goes on. Maybe there's something there.
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I was born into Catholicism and chose to leave because I cannot believe the fiction of the Sky Father and all attendant things the Church asks to believe and rules it wants people to obey.
I am one-hundred-percent with the Pope on this debate and I am glad that a figure of influence is taking the right side.
I am one-hundred-percent with the Pope on this debate and I am glad that a figure of influence is taking the right side.
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“I am asking people to show the bare minimum of consideration as to how a polluting technology designed for the purpose of replacing human writing and expression with inane inaccurate slop could actually affect people. Like, maybe don’t actively try and build a soulless dystopia for no further justification than wealth and power, that’s all I’m saying.”
Peter Thiel: “What’d he say fuck me for?”
Peter Thiel: “What’d he say fuck me for?”
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More like Wormtongue. Saruman if an evil genuis is needed. Gonna read unabbridged LOTR one more time before long.
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Between Thiel and Musk it seems the final outcome of the paypal mafia is to look like a melted wax figure
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Christ, these bloated ticks with god complexes (all of silicon valley) can not go to meet God fast enough in my opinion.
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Peter Thiel: The one world government and its exercises of power is the antichrist!
Also Peter Thiel: I'm building a panopticon for the might and glory of the empire wherever it seeks to extend its influence!
Also Peter Thiel: I'm building a panopticon for the might and glory of the empire wherever it seeks to extend its influence!
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Not a catholic, not even raised that way. But I applaud Pope Leo, he made a clear case of what wisdom looks like, in a way that is a strong challenge to anyone bordering on evil - no matter how nice they started out.
It is too simple to say that power corrupts - but it does, and the reality is that Trump and Thiel will fall for that wholeheartedly, (but) not as in Greek tragedy. Nothing unavoidable here, nothing that betrays real character. Trump does not have it and Thiel might have, but disdains after showing he could have embraced something better. Better would have required the desire to serve, rather than to rule, instead of to curse those who strive for peace and safety, a tillable world for generations to come.
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Best article among a lot of good articles - the depth and subtlety are really gripping.
It is too simple to say that power corrupts - but it does, and the reality is that Trump and Thiel will fall for that wholeheartedly, (but) not as in Greek tragedy. Nothing unavoidable here, nothing that betrays real character. Trump does not have it and Thiel might have, but disdains after showing he could have embraced something better. Better would have required the desire to serve, rather than to rule, instead of to curse those who strive for peace and safety, a tillable world for generations to come.
Edit:
Best article among a lot of good articles - the depth and subtlety are really gripping.
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For me "effective altruism" has never been credible. It always seems like "We are so smart, we are the only ones that realize that you must first make all of the money in the world, then you can start helping people." Anytime someone starts talking about it I start looking for their angle.
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"In Tolkien’s world, it is the “little people”—indeed, it is the wretched outcast Gollum—who finally save the world from the battles and technologies of the “great,” and thus it is in the limited world of the hobbits that the action begins and ends."
Tolkein famously despised the encroaching industrialization and urbanization of his beloved countryside. I can't help thinking he would be absolutely horrified by the current push to have AI run everything, and especially weapon systems of any kind. Like many of the survivors of his generation, he endured enough during his service in WW1 to fully appreciate the actual horror of war, and that comes through very clearly in his writing. Anyone who thinks Tolkien's work is an endorsement of current techno-corporate capitalism, is smoking something far, far worse than the Hobbit's pipeweed.
Tolkein famously despised the encroaching industrialization and urbanization of his beloved countryside. I can't help thinking he would be absolutely horrified by the current push to have AI run everything, and especially weapon systems of any kind. Like many of the survivors of his generation, he endured enough during his service in WW1 to fully appreciate the actual horror of war, and that comes through very clearly in his writing. Anyone who thinks Tolkien's work is an endorsement of current techno-corporate capitalism, is smoking something far, far worse than the Hobbit's pipeweed.
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It's interesting to me, how one could actually believe in the primacy and supremacy of the Christian God, and furthermore believe in the promised Armageddon as part of the preordained divine plan and a Good Thing both because it's God's Plan and also because it will bring about eternal bliss on Earth or whatever... Earnestly and totally believe and profess all that, and then in the same breath advocate for doing everything possible to somehow avert or postpone said Armageddon. Aside from the sheer chutzpah in presuming to personally influence or control divinely preordained destiny, how the hell is this not an act of outright rebellion against divine authority, not so dissimilar from that of Lucifer? 
(And I say all of the above as a hard-core Atheist...)
(And I say all of the above as a hard-core Atheist...)
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You have to judge people by their actions, and because of that there's a pretty compelling argument to be made that the current US president is actually the antichrist. There are bible passages about it.
It's also weird that Thiel appears to be putting himself into the role of Saruman. Did he read the books and really come away with that guy as being the hero?
It's also weird that Thiel appears to be putting himself into the role of Saruman. Did he read the books and really come away with that guy as being the hero?
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Thiel and his ilk are barely veiled dominionists. The real life equivalent of Fallout's Vault-tec. They'd burn the entire world to the ground if they thought it would get them "raptured".
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Because people like Peter Thiel will fund an actual apocolypse if they think it will "get them in to heaven". It's not about caring if any church is right. It's about Thiel and his disciples being actual religious fanatics with power and money.
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Josh Barro for me. Used to really enjoy the podcast he did/does with Ken White aka Popehat. Ken is a great listen, Josh is playing the "concerned centrist" whose lone move is always to say "it probably won't be as bad as you're imagining," and then be wrong nearly every time, but never cop to that.
In term 1 "the concerned centrist" was mostly annoying because things hadn't just totally flown off the rails, but it wore real thin after J6.
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Coincidentally, I busted out a Gandalf on my kid the day the day before Leo's encyclical came out. He was waiting a little longer than usual for me to pick him up after school and accused me of being late. I reminded him I am never late; I arrive precisely when I mean to.
He accurately pointed out I am not a wizard, as the good nerd I am raising him to be.
For the record, I do not expect Eru ever to resurrect me as whitelshaped.
He accurately pointed out I am not a wizard, as the good nerd I am raising him to be.
For the record, I do not expect Eru ever to resurrect me as whitelshaped.
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I haven't had time (yet) to read the entire encyclical, but did read the Vatican's summary which I took as the best choice for conveying the overall message.
I am in about 80-90% agreement with the Pope in his message, and the "meta" I took from it I am in complete agreement with. There are some details where I am less aligned and, as a former Catholic and now firmly agnostic, was never going to agree, but the overall takeaway I had was that this is a reminder to uphold the rights, freedoms, and dignities of every human on the planet, and to do so equally. Also, to lift up those less fortunate, not glorify the rich, etc. All very base level "Jesus Christ 101" material, honestly, but it's good for the leader of the Catholic Church to come out and say these things overtly, in modern language, tuned to modern sensititives.
No, the Church does not have a great history of equal treatment of others, not engaging in specious wars, and so on. However, it doesn't dilute the values espoused in the message.
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Well, not half... But probably a pretty solid 20-25% which is just as bad.
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Probably a very unhealthy combination of selective reading and cognitive bias. There are, broadly speaking, those who seem to believe Christians should be actively accelerating Armageddon, and those who believe Christians should be endeavouring to delay it. They'll happy cite verses in the Bible to support their view, ignoring or downplaying those that don't.It's interesting to me, how one could actually believe in the primacy and supremacy of the Christian God, and furthermore believe in the promised Armageddon as part of the preordained divine plan and a Good Thing both because it's God's Plan and also because it will bring about eternal bliss on Earth or whatever... Earnestly and totally believe and profess all that, and then in the same breath advocate for doing everything possible to somehow avert or postpone said Armageddon. Aside from the sheer chutzpah in presuming to personally influence or control divinely preordained destiny, how the hell is this not an act of outright rebellion against divine authority, not so dissimilar from that of Lucifer?
(And I say all of the above as a hard-core Atheist...)
(There are also those who don't believe in a literal Armageddon, but as Anglicans like to say, "It's a big tent").
Both extremes seem to trip over the same theological stumbling block, in that they both seem to be trying to force God's hand in the matter; and often, in the process, short-changing that whole "Love God and love one another" bit.
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