The host counters that a 'peace and safety' Antichrist scenario requires a prior burst of frightening technological progress (akin to Los Alamos) to make the fear concrete, plus AI capable of solving totalitarianism's classic knowledge problem—so you cannot reach permanent stagnant totalitarianism from the present without first accelerating, and the resulting tools might be the very surveillance/military technologies Thiel builds at Palantir.
causalpending
Speaker
Ross DouthatEvidence Quote
“one of the key failures of totalitarianism in the 20th century was it had a problem of knowledge. It couldn't know what was going on... the Antichrist would maybe be using the tools that you were... building.”
Source
A.I., Mars and Immortality: Are We Dreaming Big Enough? | Interesting Times with Ross Douthat— Interesting Times with Ross DouthatCreated: 6/18/2026, 2:32:27 PM
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