Trying to make sense of Thiel's obsession with the Antichrist and Armageddon? This article has the answers. Parts 1 and 2 lay the foundations, and parts 3 and 4 offer an explanation. (4,100 words.)
At the end of the day, all these Transhumanists and Effective Altruists who push both the Utopia and Doom of AGI/ASI without truly every explain how it’ll happen are just the same as Christians, Muslims, and Jews. The only difference is that their “God” is made of Silicon. Supposedly anyway. One can only hope that sooner rather than later people will realize that this race towards AGI/ASI will go nowhere and finally allows us to leave behind this weird Techno-Religious period of history.
Let's assume that all thought has power. I happen to believe that this is true.
If humanity has been fantasising apocalypses and anti-christs for 2,000 years then those thoughts could manifest spectacularly.
I fainted during a Billy Graham visit to London because the mass hysteria that he generated in the crowd was overwhelming. This was in the 1960s and I was a very young teenager at the time.
One of my church elders claimed that the reason I had fainted was because I was full of sin.
I never went back to that church.
It is for this reason that evangelists frighten me and if they are all 'raptured' off this planet on the 23rd as they are hoping, I will be very happy to see the back of them.
This is as cogent an explanation of "end times" beliefs as I have ever seen, bringing together the world views of Thiel and the Silicon Valley crowd, fundamentalist Christians, Muslim terrorists and the likes of the Branch Davidians and many others under a single, easy to understand umbrella. I was raised a fundamentalist Christian and their dispensationalist/millenium end of the world nonsense is precisely what drove me to atheism. They all have similar goals - the end of the world. And they all view ANYONE who doesn't believe as they do as evil. Men, women, children have no value outside of and apart from their explicit belief system, and can therefore be discarded, ignored and destroyed without a second thought. It is in fact, according to their "faith" an act of service to their god. Thank you for writing this series of articles!
At the end of the day, all these Transhumanists and Effective Altruists who push both the Utopia and Doom of AGI/ASI without truly every explain how it’ll happen are just the same as Christians, Muslims, and Jews. The only difference is that their “God” is made of Silicon. Supposedly anyway. One can only hope that sooner rather than later people will realize that this race towards AGI/ASI will go nowhere and finally allows us to leave behind this weird Techno-Religious period of history.
Let's assume that all thought has power. I happen to believe that this is true.
If humanity has been fantasising apocalypses and anti-christs for 2,000 years then those thoughts could manifest spectacularly.
I fainted during a Billy Graham visit to London because the mass hysteria that he generated in the crowd was overwhelming. This was in the 1960s and I was a very young teenager at the time.
One of my church elders claimed that the reason I had fainted was because I was full of sin.
I never went back to that church.
It is for this reason that evangelists frighten me and if they are all 'raptured' off this planet on the 23rd as they are hoping, I will be very happy to see the back of them.
This is as cogent an explanation of "end times" beliefs as I have ever seen, bringing together the world views of Thiel and the Silicon Valley crowd, fundamentalist Christians, Muslim terrorists and the likes of the Branch Davidians and many others under a single, easy to understand umbrella. I was raised a fundamentalist Christian and their dispensationalist/millenium end of the world nonsense is precisely what drove me to atheism. They all have similar goals - the end of the world. And they all view ANYONE who doesn't believe as they do as evil. Men, women, children have no value outside of and apart from their explicit belief system, and can therefore be discarded, ignored and destroyed without a second thought. It is in fact, according to their "faith" an act of service to their god. Thank you for writing this series of articles!