A.I., Mars and Immortality: Are We Dreaming Big Enough? | Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
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Ross Douthat interviews billionaire entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel about technological progress, institutional decay, and civilization's trajectory. The conversation ranges across AI, space exploration, life extension, and political economy, anchored by Thiel's provocative thesis that the West has experienced severe technological stagnation since around 1970—not because innovation is impossible, but because regulatory and cultural machinery have been deliberately reconfigured to enforce caution. The episode opens with definitions of stagnation and moves through Thiel's assessment of whether current AI and longevity research represent genuine breakthroughs or incremental refinement within a broader period of creative exhaustion.
The discussion extends into territory both historical and speculative. Thiel argues that progress in atoms (transportation, energy, infrastructure) effectively halted after the Apollo program, while progress in bits (computation, software) continued; he attributes this divergence to top-down policy choices visible in the global off-ramping of nuclear power rather than bottom-up cultural shifts. On AI specifically, Thiel is skeptical that sufficiently smart algorithms will automatically unlock progress in the physical world, suggesting instead that conformist intelligence may deepen stagnation rather than break it. The conversation turns explicitly theological when Douthat and Thiel debate whether the gravest existential risk is uncontrolled technological catastrophe or, paradoxically, a mild, globally enforced "peace and safety" order that locks in permanent mediocrity—a scenario Thiel frames using apocalyptic Christian language as rule under the Antichrist. Douthat pushes back at several points, particularly challenging whether such permanent totalitarianism is reachable without first accelerating capabilities that might enable both surveillance and liberation.
Thiel argues that Western society has entered a period of technological and economic stagnation since the 1970s, and that escaping this stagnation requires taking substantial risks on disruptive technological and political projects, though such disruption risks enabling totalitarian control if driven by fear-based narratives around existential risks.
- Economic living standards, technological progress, and institutional innovation have slowed dramatically since 1970 compared to the 1750-1970 acceleration period
- Stagnation is not inevitable but results from cultural risk-aversion and institutional degradation, making disruption necessary for societal survival
- The greatest long-term danger is a totalitarian one-world state justified by fear of existential risks, which Thiel frames as the 'Antichrist' scenario
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Conventionally smart, conformist AI may itself deepen stagnation rather than break it—producing infinite mediocre output like a Netflix algorithm and displacing workers—because breaking stagnation may require heterodox, non-conformist smart people willing to run crazy experiments, whereas 'woke' (conformist) intelligence cannot make the difference.
“if you just define it as conformist, maybe that's not the kind of smartness that's going to make a difference.”
Thiel is skeptical of the superintelligence cascade theory—that sufficiently smart AI will automatically unlock progress in the world of atoms (curing dementia, building factories and rockets)—because the gating factor on progress has not been IQ; we have had many smart people and things stayed stuck for other, deeper societal reasons.
“people are really fixated on IQ in Silicon Valley and that it's all about smart people. And if you have more smart people, they will. Do great things. And then the economics antique argument is that people actually do worse. The smarter they are, the worse they do... that suggests that the gating factor isn't IQ, but something that's deeply wrong with our society.”
The middle class is best defined as the people who expect their children to do better than themselves; when that expectation collapses, a middle-class society ceases to exist, and because all our institutions and budgets are predicated on growth, sustained stagnation causes society to unravel.
“I would define the middle class as the people who expect their kids to do better than themselves. And when that expectation collapses, we no longer have a middle class society.”
From 1750 to 1970, over 200 years, the Western world experienced relentlessly accelerating technological change where ships, railroads, cars, and planes all became faster, culminating in the Concorde and Apollo missions, but this acceleration has since slowed dramatically.
“From 1750 to 1970, 200 plus years, were periods of accelerating change where we were, relentlessly. We're moving faster. The ships were faster, the railroads were faster, the cars were faster, the planes were faster. It culminates in the Concorde and the Apollo missions.”
The West entered a period of technological stagnation around 1970; the rapid accelerating progress of 1750-1970 (faster ships, railroads, cars, planes, culminating in the Concorde and Apollo) slowed dramatically in the world of atoms, with progress continuing only in the world of bits (computers, software, internet, crypto, AI).
“From 1750 to 1970, 200 plus years, were periods of accelerating change where we were, relentlessly. We're moving faster. The ships were faster, the railroads were faster, the cars were faster, the planes were faster. It culminates in the Concorde and the Apollo missions. And then that in all sorts of dimensions, things had slowed.”
Stagnation has two competing explanations: a bottom-up cultural transformation of humanity into a more docile species, or a top-down account in which the machinery of government was reconfigured to enforce stagnation—evidenced by nuclear power, which was supposed to be the power of the 21st century but was off-ramped worldwide.
“the cultural answer can be a bottom up answer, that it was just some transformation of humanity into the more docile kind of a species, or it can be at least partially top down that there is this machinery of government that got changed into this stagnation thing... nuclear power was supposed to be the power of the 21st century. And it somehow has gotten off, ramped all over the world”
If society does not find a way to return to dynamic progress ('back to the future'), it will unravel because the Western social model—particularly the middle class—is predicated on the expectation that each generation will do better than the previous one, and when that expectation collapses, the institutional consensus breaks down.
“if we don't find a way back to the future, I do think the society. I don't it unravels. It doesn't work. The way middle the middle class. I would define the middle class as the people who expect their kids to do better than themselves. And when that expectation collapses, we no longer have a middle class society.”
The Christian view of history is anti-Calvinist: God is not behind or causing everything (citing John 15:25, 'they hated me without cause'), so attributing too much causation to God scapegoats Him; instead history leaves great scope for human freedom and action, and God will not abandon humanity eternally to stagnation under a mild Antichrist.
“The Christian view is anti-calvinist. God is not behind history. God is not causing everything... I'll give you John 1525 where Christ says, they hated me without cause... God will not leave us eternally staring into screens and being lectured by Greta Thunberg”
A society's dynamism can be measured by whether a 30-year-old's living standards exceed those their parents had at the same age, and by the returns to scientific research—which now show diminishing returns, requiring ever more investment for the same output, making research feel like a 'sociopathic, Malthusian' institution that eventually collapses.
“There certainly are diminishing returns to going into science or going into academia generally. And then maybe this is why I'm so much of it feels like this sociopathic, Malthusian kind of an institution, because you have to throw more and more and more at something to get the same returns. And at some point, people give up and the thing collapses.”
The New Dealers, whatever their faults, pushed science hard and scaled funding, whereas today an equivalent of Einstein's letter to the White House would get lost in the mailroom and the Manhattan Project would be unthinkable; the word 'moonshot' has degraded from meaning an achievable goal (going to the moon) to meaning something fictional that will never happen.
“if there was an equivalent of Einstein and he wrote a letter to the White House, it would get lost in the mail room, and the Manhattan Project is unthinkable. If we call something a moonshot... A moonshot now means something completely fictional. That's never going to happen.”
We are arguably already living under a moderate, mild rule of the Antichrist: the entire world has submitted for 50 years to a regime of 'peace and safety' in which the FDA de facto regulates drugs worldwide and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission effectively governs nuclear power globally because other nations defer to US regulators, off-ramping nuclear power and enforcing stagnation top-down.
“the entire world has submitted for 50 years to peace and safety. This is a first Thessalonians 5' 3. The slogan of the anti-christ is peace and safety... The FDA regulates not just drugs in the US, but facto in the whole world... The Nuclear Regulatory commission effectively regulates nuclear power plants all over the world.”
The default political solution to every existential risk (nuclear weapons, AI, climate) is one-world governance—a UN with real teeth, global compute governance logging every keystroke—but this 'cure' may be worse than the disease: a one-world totalitarian state is itself a 'bad singularity,' framed religiously as the Antichrist versus Armageddon dilemma ('one world or none').
“the default political solution people have for all these existential risks is one world governance... we need global compute governance. We need a one world government to control all the computers, log every single keystroke... And the Christian framing... is Antichrist or armageddon? You have the one world state of the Antichrist, or we're sleepwalking towards Armageddon.”
The plot hole of how the Antichrist takes over the world (via demonic hypnotic speeches) is resolved by inverting the old model: rather than an evil tech genius inventing a doomsday machine, the modern Antichrist gains power by talking about Armageddon and existential risk non-stop and demanding we 'stop science'—so the figure with real political resonance today is a Greta Thunberg, not a Doctor Strangelove.
“The way the Antichrist would take over the world is you talk about Armageddon non-stop, you talk about existential risk non-stop. And this is what you need to regulate... The thing that has political resonance is we need to stop science... In our world, it's far more likely to be Greta Thunberg.”
Early modernity (17th-18th century) was characterized by a vision of curing diseases and achieving radical life extension and even immortality through science, as articulated by Francis Bacon and Condorcet, possibly as a Christian-influenced project competitive with Christian promises of physical resurrection.
“what I imagine it looks like is early modernity where people Yeah, they thought we would cure diseases. They thought we would have radical life extension. Immortality that was part of the project of early modernity. It was Francis Bacon, Condorcet it was and maybe it was maybe it was anti-Christian, maybe it was downstream of Christianity. It was competitive. If Christianity promised you a physical Resurrection science was not going to succeed unless it promised you the exact same thing.”
The word 'nature' does not appear once in the Old Testament, and thus Judeo-Christian inspiration is fundamentally about 'transcending nature' and 'overcoming things,' with 'nature' in the Christian sense referring to the fallen state of humanity, which we are supposed to transcend with God's help.
“I think the word nature does not occur once in the Old Testament. And so if you and there is a word in which a sense in which the way I understand, the judeo-christian inspiration is it is about transcending nature. It is about overcoming things. And the closest thing you can say to nature is that people are fallen and that that's the natural thing in a Christian sense, is that you're messed up.”
Early modernity's promise of curing disease and achieving radical life extension or immortality was a competitive response to Christianity: because Christianity promised physical Resurrection, science had to promise the same thing to succeed, making the transhumanist project downstream of Christian eschatology.
“maybe it was downstream of Christianity. It was competitive. If Christianity promised you a physical Resurrection science was not going to succeed unless it promised you the exact same thing.”
The Judeo-Christian tradition is fundamentally about transcending and overcoming nature, not conforming to it—evidenced by the claim that the word 'nature' does not occur once in the Old Testament—so a properly understood Christianity is a friend, not an enemy, of scientific and technological ambition.
“I think the word nature does not occur once in the Old Testament. And so... the way I understand, the judeo-christian inspiration is it is about transcending nature. It is about overcoming things.”
After September 11, 2001, neoconservative foreign policy elites believed the U.S. had been decadent and that the crisis represented an opportunity for civilizational renewal through a 'new crusade' to remake the world, which ultimately failed badly.
“after September 11. There was this whole mentality among foreign policy conservatives that we had been decadent and stagnant, and now is our time to wake up and launch a new crusade and remake the world. And obviously that ended very badly.”
Charles Manson's murders in the late 1960s were connected to his use of LSD and his reading of Dostoevsky—he believed that under LSD, he had learned that 'everything is permitted' like a Dostoevsky anti-hero, but importantly, not everyone who took LSD became 'as deranged as Charles Manson' or committed murders.
“When Charles Manson took LSD in the late 60s and started murdering people, what he saw on LSD, what he learned was that you could be like Dostoevsky, an anti-hero in Dostoevsky, and everything was permitted. And of course, not everyone became Charles Manson, but Charles Manson did not become the Antichrist and take over the world. I'm just. I'm just. We're ending. We're ending in the apocalyptic. No, but you're my telling of the. My telling of the history of the 1970s is the hippies did win”
The primary economic measure of progress is whether a 30-year-old's living standards are better than their parents' living standards were at the same age, and by this metric, millennial progress has stalled compared to their Boomer parents.
“the economic number would just be what are your living standards compared to your parents. If you're a 30-year-old millennial or how are you doing versus when your parents, your Boomer parents were 30 years old, how did they do at that time”
Cultural transformation occurred in the Western world around the 1970s, where people became anxious about the environmental and resource costs of growth, leading to a widely shared belief that society is 'rich enough' and that further growth would cause planetary degradation.
“there is a kind of cultural change that happens in the Western world in the 1970s, around the time you think things slow down and stagnate, where people become very anxious about the costs of growth, the environmental costs, above all. And the idea being end up with a widely shared perspective that we're rich enough. And if we try too hard to get that much richer, the planet won't be able to support us.”
Thiel shifted from supporting seasteading (building new independent polities) in the 2000s to becoming a venture capitalist for disruptive politics in the 2010s, supporting Donald Trump in 2016 and selected Republican Senate candidates, hoping to redirect society through political disruption.
“you were one of the few prominent, maybe the only prominent Silicon Valley supporter of Donald Trump. In 2016, you supported a few carefully selected Republican Senate candidates. One of them is now the vice president of the United States. And my view as an observer of what you were doing was that you were basically being a kind of venture capitalist for politics. You were saying, here are some disruptive agents who might change the political status quo, and it's worth a certain kind of risk here.”
Both Reagan-era 'consumer capitalism' (borrowing rather than saving) and Obama-era 'low tax socialism' are oxymoronic and deeply unstable; eventually either taxes must rise or the socialism ends, because such arrangements are predicated on unsustainable growth.
“Reagan was consumer capitalism, which is oxymoronic. It was borrow you don't save money as a capitalist. You borrow money. And Obama was low tax socialism, just as oxymoronic... At some point you either the taxes go up or the socialism ends. So it's deeply, deeply unstable.”
To escape decadence, society should take much more risk; in biotech specifically, there has been essentially zero progress on dementia and Alzheimer's in 40-50 years because researchers are stuck on the beta amyloid hypothesis, which is obviously not working and amounts to a self-reinforcing racket.
“If we look at biotech, something like dementia, Alzheimer's, we've made zero progress in 40 to 50 years. People are completely stuck on beta amyloid. It's obviously not working. It's just some kind of a stupid racket where the people are just reinforcing themselves.”
An accelerating AI military revolution could either deter China from invading Taiwan (because they have effectively already lost the race) or accelerate an invasion (because they realize it is 'now or never' before they fall irreversibly behind)—an under-analyzed but pivotal geopolitical consequence of AI.
“does it change the calculus for China invading Taiwan, where we have an accelerating AI revolution in the military... on the optimistic side, it deters China because they've effectively lost. And on the pessimistic side it accelerates them because they know it's now or never. If they don't grab Taiwan now they will fall behind.”
AI is roughly on the scale of the internet in the late 1990s—more than a nothing-burger but less than a total transformation of society; the internet added perhaps 1 percentage point to GDP growth for 10-15 years, so AI may create great companies and modest productivity gains but is probably not enough by itself to end the broader stagnation.
“my placeholder is that it's roughly on the scale of the internet in the late 90s, which is I'm not sure it's enough to really end the stagnation. It might be enough to create some great companies. And the internet added maybe a few points, percentage points to the GDP, maybe 1 percent to GDP growth every year for 10, 15 years.”
Rich, comfortable societies become risk-averse and decadent, and it is hard to escape decadence into something new without a crisis—which creates a dangerous incentive where those who want to break stagnation become eager for crises (e.g., post-9/11 neoconservative foreign policy) to justify radical redirection.
“in rich societies you hit a certain level of wealth. People become very comfortable, they become risk averse, and it's just hard. It's hard to get out of decadence, into something, into something new, without a crisis.”
Even if the internet did not deliver the cornucopian explosion of ideas libertarians fantasized about in 1999 (and arguably contributed to conformity and wokeness), it was counterfactually better than the alternative of having no internet at all—and the same logic supports pursuing AI despite its risks, because the alternative is total stagnation.
“counterfactually, I would argue that it was still better than the alternative, that if we hadn't had the internet, maybe it would have been worse. I bet it's better than the alternative. And the alternative is nothing at all.”
The built environment provides common-sense evidence of stagnation: someone time-traveling across the 80 years from 1890 to 1970 would find a completely transformed world, whereas the world of 1985 looks fairly similar to 2025 apart from phones and minor car differences.
“if you put someone in a time machine from various points, they would recognize themselves to be in a completely different world if they left 1860 or 18 90 to 1970... But the world just to my kids, even as children of 2025, looking at 1985, it's like the cars were a little different. And no one has phones, but the world seems fairly similar.”
If history were deterministic one might as well passively accept doom ('have some yoga and prayerful meditation and wait while the lines eat you up'), but because there is great scope for human freedom, the correct response to the threat of the Antichrist is active resistance with hope of success.
“If I thought these things were deterministic, you might as well maybe just accept it. The lines are coming. You should just have some yoga and prayerful meditation and wait while the lines eat you up. And I don't think that's what you're supposed to do.”
Silicon Valley is 'always bad at what the meaning of tech is' and conversations devolve into microscopic technical debates about AI scores and definitions of AGI, missing 'intermediate level' questions about what AI means for budget deficits, macroeconomic growth, and geopolitics.
“If I had to give a critique of Silicon Valley, it's always bad at what the meaning of tech is and the conversations, they tend to go into this microscopic thing where it's O.K, it's like, what are the IQ, Helo scores of the AI. And exactly how do you define AGI. And we get into all these endless technical debates. And there are a lot of questions that are at an intermediate level of meaning that seem to me to be very important, which is like, What does it mean for the budget deficit. What does it mean for the economy. What does it mean for geopolitics.”
A critical but under-discussed geopolitical question is whether accelerating AI military capability creates a deterrent to Chinese invasion of Taiwan (because China perceives it has already lost the race), or creates an acceleration incentive (because China believes it must act before it falls irreversibly behind)—either way, AI and geopolitics are entangled in strategically important ways not thoroughly analyzed.
“One of the conversations, we had recently was and I had was, does it change the calculus for China invading Taiwan, where we have an accelerating AI revolution in the military. Is China falling behind. And will this and maybe on the optimistic side, it deters China because they've effectively lost. And on the pessimistic side it accelerates them because they know it's now or never. If they don't grab Taiwan now they will fall behind. And either way, this is a pretty important thing. It's not thought through. We don't think about what AI means for geopolitics.”
The world of bits—computers, software, internet, mobile internet, and over the last 10-15 years crypto and the AI revolution—are exceptions to stagnation, but the question remains whether this progress is enough to escape the generalized sense of stagnation across physical dimensions.
“I always made an exception for the world of bits. So we had computers and software and internet and mobile internet. And then the last 10, 15 years you had crypto and the A.I. revolution, which I think is in some sense pretty big. But the question is: Is it enough to really get out of this generalized sense of stagnation?”
Silicon Valley consistently fails to grapple with the meaning of technology, retreating into microscopic technical debates (IQ/Elo scores of AI, the precise definition of AGI) while neglecting crucial intermediate-level questions—what AI means for the budget deficit, the macroeconomy, and geopolitics (e.g., whether it changes China's calculus on invading Taiwan).
“If I had to give a critique of Silicon Valley, it's always bad at what the meaning of tech is and the conversations, they tend to go into this microscopic thing where it's O.K, it's like, what are the IQ, Helo scores of the AI. And exactly how do you define AGI... what does it mean for the budget deficit. What does it mean for the economy. What does it mean for geopolitics.”
From an orthodox Christian standpoint, transhumanism is not too ambitious but pathetically unambitious—merely changing the body (analogous to a transsexual changing sex organs)—whereas the real demand is to transform the whole self: body, heart, mind, and soul, which only God's grace can accomplish.
“the critique is not that it's weird and unnatural. Man, it's so pathetically little. And we want more than cross-dressing or changing your sex organs. We want you to be able to change your heart and change your mind and change your whole body and then orthodox Christianity... Transhumanism is just changing your body. But you also need to transform your soul, and you need to transform your whole self.”
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.
“you need one of the accelerationist apocalyptic scenarios to start to play out to get your peace and safety anti-christ, you need more technological progress. Like 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.”
Elon Musk and other AI investors in 2024 expressed optimism about a partnership with the Trump administration to pursue 'technological greatness' through deregulation and public-private partnerships, framing populism and Trump 2.0 as a potential vehicle for technological dynamism.
“Elon Musk expressed a lot of I mean, he expressed some apocalyptic anxieties about how budget deficits were going to kill us all. But he came into government and people around him came into government basically saying, we have a partnership with the Trump administration, and we're pursuing technological greatness.”
God will step in against eternal stagnation under the Antichrist because Christianity teaches that God entered history through Jesus Christ, and God will not abandon humanity to 'staring into screens and being lectured by Greta Thunberg'—at some point, God will act to intervene.
“You're scapegoating God, but God is your scapegoat. But God is behind Jesus Christ entering history because God was not going to leave us in a stagnation as decadent Roman empire, right. Well, so at some point, at some point, no, no, at some point God is going to step in. I am not, I am not, I am not that Calvinist. And that's not Calvinism, though. That's just Christianity. God God will not leave us eternally staring into screens and being lectured by Greta Thunberg, right. He will not abandon us to that fate.”
Trump 2.0 populism remains by far the best available option for technological dynamism, not because it will necessarily build the new (the Manhattan Project, the moonshot), but because the status quo institutions cannot make things worse and disruption is needed—populism's primary value is in tearing away the veils and illusions that hid the fakeness of institutional 'progress.'
“It's still by far the best option we have... Is Harvard going to cure dementia by just puttering along, doing the same thing that hasn't worked for 50 years... It can't get it, can't get worse. Let's do disruption.”
We should take substantially more risk in biomedical research, particularly in areas like Alzheimer's and dementia where 40-50 years of research has produced zero progress and researchers remain stuck on the beta-amyloid hypothesis, suggesting the current approach is 'just some kind of a stupid racket where the people are just reinforcing themselves'.
“If we look at biotech, something like dementia, Alzheimer's, we've made zero progress in 40 to 50 years. People are completely stuck on beta amyloid. It's obviously not working. It's just some kind of a stupid racket where the people are just reinforcing themselves.”
Silicon Valley figures like Mark Zuckerberg were not deeply ideological but defaulted to liberalism; when liberal approaches failed, the institutional response was always to 'up the dose'—spend more, go more woke—until the strategy's obvious failure forced a pivot, which explains the 2024 shift toward Trump rather than any genuine pro-Trump conviction.
“for year after year after year, it was do more if something doesn't work, you just need to do more of it. And you up the dose and you up the dose and you spend hundreds of millions of dollars and you go completely woke and everybody hates you. And at some point, it's like, O.K, maybe this isn't working. So they pivot.”
Risk tolerance in medical research could mean FDA deregulation allowing experimental treatments to be sold on the open market, or allowing researchers to pursue heterodox approaches without institutional gatekeeping.
“Yeah you would take you would take a lot more risk. If you have disease, there probably are a lot more risks. You can take. There are a lot more risks the researchers can take. Culturally, what I imagine it looks like is early modernity where people Yeah, they thought we would cure diseases.”
The critique of Silicon Valley populism is that populists don't actually care about science or want to fund it; they want to 'kill funding to Harvard just because they don't like Harvard,' preventing the necessary large-scale investments in scientific breakthroughs that Silicon Valley needed from government.
“the critique of populism right now would be Silicon Valley made an alliance with the populists. But in the end, the populists don't care about science. They don't want to spend money on science. They want to kill funding to Harvard just because they don't like Harvard. And in the end, you're not going to get the kind of investments in the future that Silicon Valley wanted.”
In rich, comfortable societies, people become risk-averse and it is structurally difficult to escape decadence without a crisis that breaks the pattern and allows radical societal redirection.
“in rich societies you hit a certain level of wealth. People become very comfortable, they become risk averse, and it's just hard. It's hard to get out of decadence, into something, into something new, without a crisis.”
The 1970s stagnation can be dated to a specific cultural turning point: progress effectively stopped when the moon landing of July 1969 was followed three weeks later by Woodstock, marking the moment 'the hippies won' and Baconian science ended at Los Alamos.
“we landed on the moon in July of 1969. Woodstock started three weeks later. And with the benefit of hindsight, that's when progress stopped and the hippies won.”
In a declining Europe, the only three visions of a future different from the present on offer are green environmentalism, Islamic Sharia, and the Chinese-style Communist totalitarian state—and the green vision is by far the strongest and the only thing many Europeans still believe in.
“it's the only thing people still believe in Europe. They believe in the green thing more than Islamic Sharia law or more than in the Chinese Communist totalitarian takeover... The only three on offer in Europe are green, Sharia and the totalitarian Communist state. And the green one is by far the strongest”
The fact that we've had many smart people throughout history but things have remained stuck suggests that the problems are either unsolvable (e.g., no cure for dementia or mortality exists) or that the bottleneck is cultural—whether society tolerates 'heterodox smart people' who do crazy experiments rather than conformist intelligence.
“I think you probably have limits. It's hard to prove one way. It's always hard to prove these things. But I until we have the superintelligence, I share your intuition because I think we've had a lot of smart people and things have been stuck for other reasons. And so maybe the problems are unsolvable, which is the pessimistic view. Maybe there is no cure for dementia at all. And it's a deeply unsolvable problem. There's no cure for mortality. Maybe it's an unsolvable problem, or maybe it's these cultural things. So it's not the individually smart person, but it's how this fits into our society. Do we tolerate heterodox smart people. Maybe it's maybe you need heterodox smart people to crazy experiments and if the AI is just conventionally smart, if we define wokeness, again, wokeness is too ideological, but if you just define it as conformist, maybe that's not the kind of smartness that's going to make a difference.”
Elon Musk effectively stopped believing in Mars as a political project in 2024—not as a science venture—because he came to believe the socialist US government and 'woke AI' would simply follow humanity to Mars, meaning escape via colonization is impossible and the political/cultural battles must be won on Earth first.
“2024 is the year where Elon stopped believing in Mars. Not as a silly science tech project, but as a political project. Mars was supposed to be a political project. It was building an alternative. And in 2024, Elon came to believe that if you went to Mars the socialist US government, the woke A.I., it would follow you to Mars.”
There are existential risks that can be framed in terms of runaway dystopian science fiction: nuclear war, environmental disaster/climate change, bioweapons, and AI-related risks, but these framings create a political problem because the default political response to all existential risks is 'one world governance' to regulate and control the dangerous technologies.
“there's always a question, how do we articulate some of these existential risks, some of the challenges we have. And they're all framed in this runaway dystopian science text. There's a risk of nuclear war. There's a risk of environmental disaster. Maybe something specific like climate change. Although there are lots of other ones we could come up with. There's a risk of I don't know, bioweapons. You have all the different sci-fi scenarios. Obviously, there are certain types of risks with A.I. But I always think that if we're going to have this frame of talking about existential risks, perhaps we should also talk about the risk of another type of a bad singularity, which I would describe as the one world totalitarian state”
The 17th-18th century Baconian vision imagined an evil scientist/tech genius as the Antichrist, but in the modern world, the Antichrist would more plausibly be represented by a Greta Thunberg figure—someone who argues against technological progress on grounds of safety and environmental protection.
“It's the opposite of the picture of baconian science from the 17, 18th century, where the Antichrist is like some evil tech genius, evil scientist who invents this machine to take over the world. People are way too scared for that. In our world, the thing that has political resonance is the opposite. It is. It is. The thing that has political resonance is we need to stop science. We need to just say stop to this. And this is where O.K. Man, the cryonics thing that seems like a retro thing from 1999. There isn't that much of that going on. So they're not transhumanists on a physical body. And then, O.K, well, maybe it's not about cryonics, maybe it's about uploading. O.K, well, it's not quite. I'd rather have my body. I don't want just a computer program that simulates me. So that uploading seems like a step down from cryonics, but. But then even that's it's part of the conversation. And this is where it gets very hard to score. And I don't want to say they're all making it up and it's all fake, but I don't think you think some of it's fake. I don't think it's fake implies people are lying. But I want to say it's not the center of gravity. Yeah and so there is. Yeah, there is a cornucopian language. There's an optimistic language. A conversation I had with Elon a few weeks ago about this was, he said, we're going to have a billion humanoid robots in the US in 10 years. And I said, well, if that's true, you don't need to worry about the budget deficits because we're going to have so much growth. The growth will take care of this. And then. Well, he's still worried about the budget deficits. And then this doesn't prove that he doesn't believe in the billion robots. But it suggests that maybe he hasn't thought it through or that he doesn't think it's going to be as transformative economically or that there are big error bars around it. But yeah, there's some way in which these things are not quite thought through. If I had to give a critique of Silicon Valley, it's always bad at what the meaning of tech is and the conversations, they tend to go into this microscopic thing where it's O.K, it's like, what are the IQ, Helo scores of the AI. And exactly how do you define AGI. And we get into all these endless technical debates. And there are a lot of questions that are at an intermediate level of meaning that seem to me to be very important, which is like, What does it mean for the budget deficit. What does it mean for the economy. What does it mean for geopolitics. One of the conversations, we had recently was and I had was, does it change the calculus for China invading Taiwan, where we have an accelerating AI revolution in the military. Is China falling behind. And will this and maybe on the optimistic side, it deters China because they've effectively lost. And on the pessimistic side it accelerates them because they know it's now or never. If they don't grab Taiwan now they will fall behind. And either way, this is a pretty important thing. It's not thought through. We don't think about what AI means for geopolitics. We don't think about what it means for the macro economy. And those are the kinds of questions I'd want us to push more. There's also a very macroscopic question that you're interested in that, will pull on the religion thread a little bit here. You have been giving talks recently about the concept of the Antichrist, which is a Christian concept, an apocalyptic concept. What does that mean to you. What is the antichrist? How much time do we have. We've got as long. As much time as you have to talk about the Antichrist. All right, well, I have A.I. could talk about it, but we're near time. I mean, but no, I think there's always a question, how do we articulate some of these existential risks, some of the challenges we have. And they're all framed in this runaway dystopian science text. There's a risk of nuclear war. There's a risk of environmental disaster. Maybe something specific like climate change. Although there are lots of other ones we could come up with. There's a risk of I don't know, bioweapons. You have all the different sci-fi scenarios. Obviously, there are certain types of risks with A.I. But I always think that if we're going to have this frame of talking about existential risks, perhaps we should also talk about the risk of another type of a bad singularity, which I would describe as the one world totalitarian state because I would say the political solution, the default political solution people have for all these existential risks is one world governance. What do you do about nuclear weapons. We have a United Nations with real teeth that controls them. And it's they're controlled by an international political order. And then something like this is also, what do we do about A.I. and we need global compute governance. We need a one world government to control all the computers, log every single keystroke to make sure people don't program a dangerous A.I. And I've been wondering whether that's going from the frying pan into the fire. And so the atheist philosophical framing is one world or none. That was a short film that was put out by the Federation of American Scientists in the late 40s, starts with a nuclear bomb blowing up the world. And obviously you need a one world government to stop it, one world or none. And the Christian framing, which in some ways is the same question, is Antichrist or armageddon? You have the one world state of the Antichrist, or we're sleepwalking towards Armageddon. One world or none. Anti-christ or Armageddon. On one level are the same. Question now, I have a lot of thoughts on this topic, but one question is and this was a plot hole in all these Antichrist books people wrote, how does the Antichrist take over the world. He gives these demonic, hypnotic speeches and people just fall for it. And so it's this plot hole. It's this demonic. It's totally it's implausible. It's a very implausible plot hole. But I think we have an answer to this plot hole. The way the Antichrist would take over the world is you talk about Armageddon non-stop, you talk about existential risk non-stop. And this is what you need to regulate. It's the opposite of the picture of baconian science from the 17, 18th century, where the Antichrist is like some evil tech genius, evil scientist who invents this machine to take over the world. People are way too scared for that. In our world, the thing that has political resonance is the opposite. It is. It is. The thing that has political resonance is we need to stop science. We need to just say stop to this. And this is where O.K. Man, the cryonics thing that seems like a retro thing from 1999. There isn't that much of that going on. So they're not transhumanists on a physical body. And then, O.K, well, maybe it's not about cryonics, maybe it's about uploading. O.K, well, it's not quite. I'd rather have my body. I don't want just a computer program that simulates me. So that uploading seems like a step down from cryonics, but. But then even that's it's part of the conversation. And this is where it gets very hard to score. And I don't want to say they're all making it up and it's all fake, but I don't think you think some of it's fake. I don't think it's fake implies people are lying. But I want to say it's not the center of gravity. Yeah and so there is. Yeah, there is a cornucopian language. There's an optimistic language. A conversation I had with Elon a few weeks ago about this was, he said, we're going to have a billion humanoid robots in the US in 10 years. And I said, well, if that's true, you don't need to worry about the budget deficits because we're going to have so much growth. The growth will take care of this. And then. Well, he's still worried about the budget deficits. And then this doesn't prove that he doesn't believe in the billion robots. But it suggests that maybe he hasn't thought it through or that he doesn't think it's going to be as transformative economically or that there are big error bars around it. But yeah, there's some way in which these things are not quite thought through. If I had to give a critique of Silicon Valley, it's always bad at what the meaning of tech is and the conversations, they tend to go into this microscopic thing where it's O.K, it's like, what are the IQ, Helo scores of the AI. And exactly how do you define AGI. And we get into all these endless technical debates. And there are a lot of questions that are at an intermediate level of meaning that seem to me to be very important, which is like, What does it mean for the budget deficit. What does it mean for the economy. What does it mean for geopolitics. One of the conversations, we had recently was and I had was, does it change the calculus for China invading Taiwan, where we have an accelerating AI revolution in the military. Is China falling behind. And will this and maybe on the optimistic side, it deters China because they've effectively lost. And on the pessimistic side it accelerates them because they know it's now or never. If they don't grab Taiwan now they will fall behind. And either way, this is a pretty important thing. It's not thought through. We don't think about what AI means for geopolitics. We don't think about what it means for the macro economy. And those are the kinds of questions I'd want us to push more. There's also a very macroscopic question that you're interested in that, will pull on the religion thread a little bit here. You have been giving talks recently about the concept of the Antichrist, which is a Christian concept, an apocalyptic concept. What does that mean to you. What is the antichrist? How much time do we have. We've got as long. As much time as you have to talk about the Antichrist.”
A 'plot hole' in traditional Antichrist literature is how the Antichrist actually takes over the world—he supposedly relies on 'demonic, hypnotic speeches' that are obviously implausible—but Thiel believes he has identified the answer: the Antichrist takes over not through promises of power but through fear-mongering about existential risks, constantly talking about Armageddon to justify accepting totalitarian control.
“And this was a plot hole in all these Antichrist books people wrote, how does the Antichrist take over the world. He gives these demonic, hypnotic speeches and people just fall for it. And so it's this plot hole. It's this demonic. It's totally it's implausible. It's a very implausible plot hole. But I think we have an answer to this plot hole. The way the Antichrist would take over the world is you talk about Armageddon non-stop, you talk about existential risk non-stop. And this is what you need to regulate. It's the opposite of the picture of baconian science from the 17, 18th century, where the Antichrist is like some evil tech genius, evil scientist who invents this machine to take over the world. People are way too scared for that. In our world, the thing that has political resonance is the opposite. It is. It is. The thing that has political resonance is we need to stop science. We need to just say stop to this.”
Transhumanism and sexual/gender transition are both forms of bodily transformation, but the critique from traditional Christianity is not that transformation is 'weird and unnatural' but that it 'doesn't go far enough'—transforming your sex organs or clothes is 'pathetically little' compared to the radical transformation of body, heart, mind, and soul that traditional Christianity and transhumanism both promise.
“There's a critique of let's say, the trans people in the sexual context or I don't transvestite is someone who changes their clothes and cross-dresses, and a transsexual is someone where you change your I don't penis into a vagina. And we can then debate how well those surgeries work, but we want more transformation than that. It's the critique is not that it's weird and unnatural. Man, it's so pathetically little. And we want more than cross-dressing or changing your sex organs. We want you to be able to change your heart and change your mind and change your whole body and then orthodox Christianity. By the way, the critique orthodox Christianity has of these things don't go far enough like that.”
Thiel interprets 1 Thessalonians 5:3 ('peace and safety') as the slogan or sign of the Antichrist in Christian theology, and argues that the 50-year period of global stagnation under the 'peace and safety' framing represents a fulfillment of this biblical prophecy.
“This is a first Thessalonians 5' 3. The slogan of the anti-christ is peace and safety. And we've submitted to. The FDA regulates not just drugs in the US, but facto in the whole world.”
Attributing too much causation to God creates theological problems, but Thiel cites John 15:25 ('they hated me without cause') to argue that ultimate causation should not be attributed to God—if God causes all persecution of Christ, then God is the 'scapegoat,' which contradicts Christian anti-Calvinism.
“It's attributing too much causation to God is always a problem. I know there are different Bible verses I can give you, but I'll give you John 1525 where Christ says, they hated me without cause and so as all these people that are persecuting Christ have no reason, no cause for why they're persecuting Christ, and if we interpret this as a ultimate causation verse, they want to say, I'm persecuting because God caused me to do this. God is causing everything. And the Christian view is anti-calvinist. God is not behind history. God is not causing everything.”
The very difficulty of determining whether we are in stagnation or acceleration—because hyperspecialization creates ever-narrower groups of experts who guard their own fields—is itself evidence of stagnation.
“the fact that it's so hard to answer that we have ever narrower groups of guardians guarding themselves is itself cause for skepticism”
The fact that AI is the only exception people can point to when discussing progress is itself an implicit acknowledgment that we are otherwise in almost total stagnation.
“The fact that we're only talking about I feel, is always an implicit acknowledgment that. But for we are like in almost total stagnation.”
Silicon Valley is 'fixated on IQ' and assumes more intelligent people will automatically do great things, but empirically 'the smarter they are, the worse they do,' suggesting that very high intelligence may be maladaptive in a dysfunctional society.
“people are really fixated on IQ in Silicon Valley and that it's all about smart people. And if you have more smart people, they will. Do great things. And then the economics antique argument is that people actually do worse. The smarter they are, the worse they do. And, it's just they don't know how to apply it or our society doesn't know what to do with them and they don't fit in.”
Determining whether society is in stagnation or acceleration is extremely difficult because of hyperspecialization—you cannot assess overall progress without devoted expertise in every field (string theory, quantum computers, cancer research, biotech), and the weightings you assign to progress in different domains are inherently contestable.
“How do we even know whether we're in stagnation or acceleration? Because one of the features of late modernity is that people are hyperspecialized. And so, can you say that we're not making progress in physics unless you've devoted half your life to studying string theory? Or what about quantum computers? Or what about cancer research and biotech and all these verticals? And then how much does progress in cancer count versus string theory? So you have to give weightings to all these things.”
One of the key failures of 20th-century totalitarianism was an epistemic problem: totalitarian states 'couldn't know what was going on all over in the world,' but modern AI and surveillance technology would enable 21st-century totalitarianism to achieve the comprehensive surveillance and control necessary for stable totalitarian rule.
“Like 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. All over in the world. So you need the A.I. or whatever else to be capable of helping the peace and safety totalitarian rule.”
Thiel invests in AI companies, Palantir (surveillance and military technology), and other technologies, so there is an apparent contradiction or irony in his warning about Antichrist totalitarianism powered by these same technologies—is he accelerating the arrival of the Antichrist?
“you are you're an investor in A.I. You're deeply invested in Palantir, in military technology and technologies of surveillance and technologies of warfare and so on. And it just seems to me that when you tell me a story about the Antichrist coming to power and using the fear of technological change to impose order on the world, I feel like that Antichrist would maybe be using the tools that you were, that you were building. Wouldn't the Antichrist be like, great we're not going to have any more technological progress. But I really like what Palantir has done so far right. I mean, isn't that a concern. Wouldn't that be the irony of history would be that the man publicly worrying about the Antichrist accidentally hastens his or her arrival.”
Nuclear technology and the power it represented ended at Los Alamos and the Manhattan Project; baconian science ended then, and there was no appetite for continuing the trajectory of accelerating technological power post-1970.
“by the 1970s, one account of the stagnation is that the runaway progress of technology had gotten very scary and that baconian science, it ended at Alamos. And then it was O.K. It ended there. And we didn't want to have any more.”
Thiel's support for Donald Trump in 2016 functioned like venture capital for politics—backing a disruptive agent worth a calculated risk—but his realistic aim was modest: not that Trump would deliver positive progress, but that for the first time in 100 years a Republican rejected 'syrupy Bush nonsense' and could at least open a national conversation about American decline.
“I didn't have great expectations about what Trump would do in a positive way. But I thought, at least for the first time in 100 years, we had a Republican who was not giving us this syrupy Bush nonsense. And that was not the same as progress, but we could at least have a conversation.”
Diminishing returns characterize research and academic institutions, where you must invest more money and resources to achieve the same returns, creating a Malthusian dynamic where institutions eventually collapse when funding becomes unsustainable.
“There certainly are diminishing returns to going into science or going into academia generally. And then maybe this is why I'm so much of it feels like this sociopathic, Malthusian kind of an institution, because you have to throw more and more and more at something to get the same returns. And at some point, people give up and the thing collapses.”
All major Western political and economic institutions are predicated on growth: budgets require growth, Reagan's consumer capitalism required borrowing (not saving), and Obama's low-tax socialism also required growth, making the current system unsustainably unstable because either taxes will rise or the system will collapse.
“All of our institutions are predicated on growth. Our budget, our budgets are certainly predicated on growth. Yeah if you say, I don't Reagan and Obama Reagan was consumer capitalism, which is oxymoronic. It was borrow you don't save money as a capitalist. You borrow money. And Obama was low tax socialism, just as oxymoronic as the consumerist capitalism of Reagan. And yeah, I low tech socialism way better than high tax socialism, but I worry that it's not sustainable. At some point you either the taxes go up or the socialism ends.”
The fascination with AI is connected to a specific vision of transcending limits and achieving a form of immortality or transcendence different from the scientific life extension beliefs of earlier generations.
“I think there are some people who believe in a different kind of immortality, though, right now. I think part of the fascination with A.I. is connected to a specific, a specific vision of transcending limits.”
The New Deal pushed science hard by funding researchers and scaling science, whereas under contemporary governance, if a figure equivalent to Einstein wrote to the White House, the letter would be lost in the mail room, and the Manhattan Project is unthinkable—what people now call a 'moonshot' is understood to mean something that will 'never, ever happen'.
“We have to go back to this question of, how well is this. Is the science working in the background. This is where the new dealers. Whatever was wrong with them. They pushed science hard and you funded it, and you gave money to people and you scaled it. And whereas today, if there was an equivalent of Einstein and he wrote a letter to the White House, it would get lost in the mail room, and the Manhattan Project is unthinkable. If we call something a moonshot the way this is the way Biden talked about, let's say, cancer research, a moonshot in the 60s still meant that you went to the moon. A moonshot now means something completely fictional. That's never going to happen.”
In a conversation Thiel brokered between Elon Musk and Dennis Hassabis (DeepMind AI researcher), Hassabis said 'I'm working on the most important project in the world. I'm building a superhuman A.I.', to which Musk responded 'I'm working on the most important project in the world. I am turning us into an interplanetary species', and then Hassabis said 'my A.I. will be able to follow you to Mars'.
“This is an A.I. company. Yeah this was the rough conversation was Dennis tells Ellen, I'm working on the most important project in the world. I'm building a superhuman A.I. And Ellen responds to Dennis, well, I'm working on the most important project in the world. I am turning us into an interplanetary species. And then Dennis said, well, my A.I. will be able to follow you to Mars and. And then Ellen went quiet.”
Mars was originally intended as a political project—building an alternative civilization and society independent from Earth—not primarily a scientific or technological one.
“Mars was supposed to be a political project. It was building an alternative.”
There is a risk that AI becomes just another form of stagnation: a 'conformist' AI that generates infinite acceptable content (movies, IDs), puts people out of work, and deepens stagnation rather than breaking it, similar to how the Netflix algorithm produces infinite mediocre entertainment.
“do you fear, then, a plausible future where AI, in a way becomes itself stagnation, that it's like highly intelligent, creative in a conformist way. It's like the Netflix algorithm. It makes infinite O.K movies that people watch. It generates infinite O.K IDs. It puts a bunch of people out of work and makes them obsolete. But it doesn't. It like deepens stagnation in some way. Is that a fear. It's like people just outsource. It's quite possible that that's certainly a risk.”
The stagnation of the 1970s can be attributed to the dual success of Baconian science (Apollo 11 moon landing, July 1969) followed immediately by the hippie movement (Woodstock, three weeks later), which together represent science's and technology's loss of cultural legitimacy.
“My telling of the history of the 1970s is the hippies did win and they. But we landed. We landed on the moon in July of 1969. Woodstock started three weeks later. And with the benefit of hindsight, that's when progress stopped and the hippies won.”
The FDA's regulatory reach extends globally because other countries defer to FDA standards; the Nuclear Regulatory Commission effectively regulates nuclear power plants worldwide because countries defer to U.S. standards rather than using local regulators; and this pattern represents a form of global governance through regulatory capture and deference, creating a 'mild' rule of the Antichrist in stagnation.
“Is this so preposterous, what I've just told you, as a broad account of the stagnation that the entire world has submitted for 50 years to peace and safety. This is a first Thessalonians 5' 3. The slogan of the anti-christ is peace and safety. And we've submitted to. The FDA regulates not just drugs in the US, but facto in the whole world. Because the rest of the world defers to the FDA. The Nuclear Regulatory commission effectively regulates nuclear power plants all over the world. People you can't design a modular nuclear reactor and just build it in Argentina. They won't trust the Argentinian regulators. They're going to defer to the US.”
One account of the stagnation is that it resulted from the policy and regulatory capture mechanism in place: something like nuclear power was supposed to be the power of the 21st century, but it has been 'ramped off...on a worldwide basis,' meaning stagnation is at least partially explained by top-down regulatory suppression, not just bottom-up cultural loss of confidence.
“And one answer is that something happened culturally where it wasn't allowed. And then the cultural answer can be a bottom up answer, that it was just some transformation of humanity into the more docile kind of a species, or it can be at least partially top down that there is this machinery of government that got changed into this stagnation thing. I think something like this nuclear power was supposed to be the power of the 21st century. And it somehow has gotten off, ramped all over the world on a worldwide basis.”
The fact that no millennial generation person believes science will cure all their diseases (unlike the fringe Boomer belief in cryonics and life extension) is itself a symptom of technological stagnation and generational loss of optimism.
“And so I'm always anti Boomer, but maybe there's something we've lost even in this fringe Boomer narcissism where there were at least a few boomers who still believed science would cure all their diseases. No one, no one who's a millennial believes that anymore.”
The fact that we're only discussing AI as a source of progress is itself an implicit acknowledgment that we are in 'almost total stagnation' elsewhere; AI's prominence in discourse is evidence of generalized stagnation.
“Look here's one place where the stagnation arguments are still reinforced. The fact that we're only talking about I feel, is always an implicit acknowledgment that. But for we are like in almost total stagnation.”
The narrow specialization of modern institutions and the fact that only ever-narrower groups of guardians guard themselves is itself cause for skepticism about whether progress is actually occurring.
“the fact that it's so hard to answer that we have ever narrower groups of guardians guarding themselves is itself cause for skepticism.”
Thiel's role is clearing away false narratives and illusions about the system ('deconstructive'), while recognizing that actual progress requires construction as well ('constructive'), with deregulation and nuclear power as examples where destruction and construction are entangled.
“for you, as opposed to maybe for some other people in Silicon Valley. The value of populism is in tearing away the veils and illusions, and we're not necessarily in the stage where you're looking to the Trump administration to build the new, to do the Manhattan Project, to do the moonshot. It's more like populism helps us see that it was all fake. You need to try to do both. And they're very entangled with each other. And I don't know, there's a deregulation of nuclear power.”
Thiel emphasizes that there is 'a great deal of scope for human action, for human freedom' in history, and if one believed outcomes were deterministic, 'you might as well maybe just accept it...wait while the lines eat you up,' but Thiel does not believe that is what people are supposed to do—humans are called to act and resist.
“I am not, I am not, I am not that Calvinist. And that's not Calvinism, though. That's just Christianity. God God will not leave us eternally staring into screens and being lectured by Greta Thunberg, right. He will not abandon us to that fate. It is. It is. There is a great, I don't know, for better and for worse. I think there's a great deal of scope for human action, for human freedom. If I thought these things were deterministic, you might as well maybe just accept it. The lines are coming. You should just have some yoga and prayerful meditation and wait while the lines eat you up. And I don't think that's what you're supposed to do. It's no, I agree with that.”
The alternatives to a growth-based middle-class society are either a feudal society of permanent static inequality or a radical shift to a completely different societal model, but neither option is the way the Western world or United States has functioned for its first 200 years of existence.
“maybe there's some way you can have a feudal society in which things are always static and stuck, or maybe there's some way you can shift to some radically different society, but it's not the way. It's not the way the Western world. It's not the way the United States has functioned for the first 200 years of its existence.”
Thiel realized two hours after a dinner with Musk that Musk 'stopped believing in Mars' in 2024, not as a science project, but as a political project—Mars was supposed to be an alternative civilization to escape the U.S., but Musk came to believe that a 'socialist US government' and 'woke A.I.' would follow him to Mars.
“And then you always think of the right arguments to make later. And it was about two hours after we had dinner and I was home that I thought of, wow, Elon, you don't believe in going to Mars anymore. 2024 2024 is the year where Elon stopped believing in Mars. Not as a silly science tech project, but as a political project. Mars was supposed to be a political project. It was building an alternative. And in 2024, Elon came to believe that if you went to Mars the socialist US government, the woke A.I., it would follow you to Mars.”
AI researchers and transhumanists are not physically ambitious enough—they discuss cryonics (freezing heads/bodies for future revival) from the 1990s as retro and abandoned, and uploading minds into computers is 'a step down from cryonics' because 'I don't want just a computer program that simulates me'—so they lack clear commitment to physical immortality.
“the cryonics thing that seems like a retro thing from 1999. There isn't that much of that going on. So they're not transhumanists on a physical body. And then, O.K, well, maybe it's not about cryonics, maybe it's about uploading. O.K, well, it's not quite. I'd rather have my body. I don't want just a computer program that simulates me. So that uploading seems like a step down from cryonics”
Mark Zuckerberg/Meta was not ideologically committed to liberalism; it was the default position, and after years of doubling down on liberal solutions ('do more,' 'spend hundreds of millions,' become 'completely woke') failed, he pivoted toward supporting Trump in 2024, not because of pro-Trump conviction but because the previous approach wasn't working.
“someone like Mark Zuckerberg or Facebook meta. And in some ways, I don't think he was very ideological. He didn't think this stuff through that much. It was the default was to be liberal. And it was always what if the liberalism isn't working, what do you do. And for year after year after year, it was do more if something doesn't work, you just need to do more of it. And you up the dose and you up the dose and you spend hundreds of millions of dollars and you go completely woke and everybody hates you. And at some point, it's like, O.K, maybe this isn't working. So they pivot.”
Belief in radical life extension and scientific immortality has itself declined as a symptom of stagnation: in 1999 there was still a fringe Boomer belief that science would cure all diseases (e.g., cryonics enthusiasm), but no millennial believes that anymore.
“in 1999, this was not a mainstream view, but there was still a fringe Boomer view where they still believed they could live forever. And that was the last generation... No one, no one who's a millennial believes that anymore.”
Thiel is 'schizophrenic' about funding politicians because political involvement is incredibly important for changing stagnation, but also incredibly toxic, creating zero-sum dynamics where political enemies accumulate and stakes feel dangerously high.
“I am schizophrenic on this stuff. I think it is. It is it's incredibly important and it's incredibly toxic. And so I go I go back and forth on incredibly toxic for you personally for everybody, everybody who gets involved. It's 0 sum. It's crazy.”
The internet did not lead to the 'cornucopian diverse explosion of ideas' that libertarians fantasized about in 1999, and there are 'all sorts of ways where it' led to more 'conformity and more wokeness,' but counterfactually, it was 'still better than the alternative'—not having the internet would have been worse.
“there's a version of this discussion on the internet where did the internet lead to more conformity and more wokeness. And yeah, there are all sorts of ways where it didn't lead to quite the cornucopian diverse explosion of ideas that libertarians fantasized about in 1999. But counterfactually, I would argue that it was still better than the alternative, that if we hadn't had the internet, maybe it would have been worse. I bet it's better than the alternative.”
Thiel hesitates substantially when asked whether he prefers the human race to survive, suggesting significant ambivalence about human survival as a value.
“Do you think that's just all kind of irrelevant fantasy, or do you think it's just hype. Do you think people are trying to raise money by pretending that we're going to build a machine. God right. Is it hype. Is it delusion. Is it something you worry about. I think you would. You would prefer the human race to endure. You're hesitating. Well, I Yes, I would. This is a long hesitation.”
Thiel was simultaneously holding two contradictory implicit beliefs in 2016: (1) nobody would be mad at him for supporting Trump if Trump lost, and (2) Trump had a 50/50 chance of winning. The implicit fantasy was that Trump's loss wouldn't matter because it wouldn't be politically important, but his half-conscious 50/50 probability assessment implied he thought Trump might win.
“In retrospect, this was a preposterous fantasy. I had these two thoughts and in 2016, and you often have these ideas that are just below the level of your consciousness. But the two thoughts I had that I wasn't able to combine was, number one, no, nobody would be mad at me for supporting Trump if he lost. And number two, I thought he had a 50/50 chance of winning. And then I had this implicit, why would nobody be mad at you if he lost. It would just be such a weird thing and it wouldn't really matter. But then I thought he had more. He had. I thought he had a 50/50 chance because the problems were deep and the stagnation was frustrating.”
People are not optimistic about the current trajectory and they don't believe we've reached a stable 'Greta future' of sustainable degrowth because such a future would be deeply oppressive, yet growth-based institutions also don't work long-term, leaving people anxious and searching for alternatives.
“And that's why people are they're not optimistic. They don't think we've hit some stable the Greta future.”
There is cornucopian/optimistic language in AI discourse but when tested (e.g., Elon Musk claiming a billion humanoid robots in 10 years), believers don't fully think through the implications: if true, growth would solve budget deficits, yet Musk still worries about budget deficits, suggesting either he doesn't believe his own forecast or hasn't thought it through.
“There's an optimistic language. A conversation I had with Elon a few weeks ago about this was, he said, we're going to have a billion humanoid robots in the US in 10 years. And I said, well, if that's true, you don't need to worry about the budget deficits because we're going to have so much growth. The growth will take care of this. And then. Well, he's still worried about the budget deficits. And then this doesn't prove that he doesn't believe in the billion robots. But it suggests that maybe he hasn't thought it through or that he doesn't think it's going to be as transformative economically or that there are big error bars around it.”
The common-sense understanding that the world in 1985 looks fairly similar to 2025 (unlike the vast differences between 1860/1890 and 1970) provides non-statistical but compelling evidence for the stagnation thesis, as even children can observe the built environment has not dramatically transformed in 40 years the way it did in prior 80-year periods.
“if you put someone in a time machine from various points, they would recognize themselves to be in a completely different world if they left 1860 or 18 90 to 1970, if those were the 80 years of your lifetime or something like that. But the world just to my kids, even as children of 2025, looking at 1985, it's like the cars were a little different. And no one has phones, but the world seems fairly similar.”
A 'Greta Thunberg future' would involve degrowth, small-scale Scandinavian-style villages, and universal resource scarcity, creating an oppressive society that, while not identical to North Korea, would be 'super oppressive'.
“It would be. It would be a very, very different society if you actually lived in a kind of degrowth small Scandinavian villages. I'm not sure would be North Korea, but it would be. It would be super oppressive.”
The Christian framing of the dilemma is 'Antichrist or Armageddon': one-world totalitarian state (the Antichrist) or civilizational collapse (Armageddon). This mirrors the atheist 'One World or None' framing.
“And the Christian framing, which in some ways is the same question, is Antichrist or armageddon? You have the one world state of the Antichrist, or we're sleepwalking towards Armageddon. One world or none. Anti-christ or Armageddon. On one level are the same. Question”
Thiel would prefer multi-dimensional progress across technology domains (Mars, dementia cures, etc.) rather than unidimensional progress in AI only, and while he would take AI progress over nothing, the current imbalance with AI as the only bright spot is 'unhealthy'.
“It's the only thing we have. It's a little bit unhealthy that it's so unbalanced. This is the only thing we have. I'd like to have more multi-dimensional progress. I'd like us to be going to Mars. I'd like us to be having cures for dementia. If all we have is I will take it.”
Eric Schmidt, Marc Andreessen, and Jeff Bezos all argued (in 2012-2014 debates with Thiel) that 'everything's going great' regarding progress, but all three have since 'to varying degrees, updated and adjusted' their views toward Thiel's stagnation thesis.
“I had a debate with Eric Schmidt in 2012 and Marc Andreessen in 2013 and Bezos in 2014. I was on the there's a stagnation problem, and all three of them were versions of everything's going great. And I think at least those three people have, to varying degrees, updated and adjusted.”
In a 2024 conversation, Elon Musk argued 'there's nowhere to go' in response to Thiel's suggestion that if Trump lost he would leave the country, meaning the United States is the only geopolitical space worth contesting.
“I had the seasteading version with Elon where I said if Trump doesn't win, I want to just leave the country. And then Elon said, there's nowhere to go. There's nowhere to go. This is the only place.”
It took Musk years to process the Hassabis comment that 'my A.I. will follow you to Mars,' and he didn't come to act on this realization (shifting from Mars focus to political engagement) until 2024, suggesting a delayed lag between intellectual insight and strategic action.
“But in my telling of the history, it took years for that to really hit Ellen. It took him until 2024 to process it. But that doesn't mean he doesn't believe in Mars. It just means that he decided he had to win some kind of battle over budget deficits or wokeness to get to Mars.”
Thiel estimates AI is roughly on the scale of the internet in the late 1990s in terms of economic impact—probably adding a few percentage points to GDP growth, maybe 1 percent per year over 10-15 years—making it significant but insufficient alone to end stagnation, and certainly not a guaranteed solution to dementia or other major problems.
“my placeholder is that it's roughly on the scale of the internet in the late 90s, which is I'm not sure it's enough to really end the stagnation. It might be enough to create some great companies. And the internet added maybe a few points, percentage points to the GDP, maybe 1 percent to GDP growth every year for 10, 15 years. It added some to productivity. And so that's of roughly my placeholder for I.”
Greta Thunberg is currently 'on a boat in the Mediterranean protesting Israel,' not building a mass movement for totalitarian environmental control, suggesting that the promise of safety from climate change, AI, or technology is not currently 'a powerful universal rallying cry' for totalitarianism.
“Well, it can Greta Thunberg's on a boat in the Mediterranean. Protesting Israel the. I just don't see the promise of safety from A.I., safety from tech safety, even safety from climate change right now as a powerful universal rallying cry. Absent accelerating change and real fear of total catastrophe.”
Thiel's hope for Trump in 2016 was that Trump would at least enable a conversation about American decline and whether 'making America great again' represents optimism about future improvement or pessimism about present decline, breaking what Thiel saw as a 100-year pattern of Republican syrupy optimism.
“a much narrower aspiration was that we could maybe at least have a conversation about this when someone like Trump said, make America great again. O.K is that a positive, optimistic, ambitious agenda, or is it merely a very pessimistic assessment of where that we are no longer a great country. And I didn't have great expectations about what Trump would do in a positive way. But I thought, at least for the first time in 100 years, we had a Republican who was not giving us this syrupy Bush nonsense.”
Back to the Future II (set in 2015) was wildly divergent from the 1985 present in the film, with flying cars and other advanced technology, but the actual 2015 was very similar to 1985—cars were slightly different, phones didn't exist, but the built environment looked nearly the same.
“The 2015 future did have Biff Tannen as a Donald Trump-like figure in some kind of power. So it had some kind of prescience. But yeah, the big, the big noticeable thing is just how different the built environment looks.”
Environmentalism is 'pretty powerful' in Europe, where Thiel believes it is 'the only thing people still believe in' more than Islamic Sharia law or Chinese totalitarianism, but environmentalism is not yet a 'dominant player in the world' in the way needed to sustain global totalitarianism.
“I mean, these things are so hard to score, but I think environmentalism is pretty powerful. I don't know if it's I don't know if it's absolutely powerful enough to create a one world totalitarian state. But man, it is. I think it is not. It is in its current form. It is. I want to say it's the only thing people still believe in Europe. They believe in the green thing more than Islamic Sharia law or more than in the Chinese Communist totalitarian takeover. And the future is an idea of a future that looks different from the present. The only three on offer in Europe are green, Sharia and the totalitarian Communist state. And the green one is by far the strongest and in a declining, decaying Europe.”
At PayPal in 1999-2000, co-founder Luke Nozick promoted cryonics and life extension, and the company organized a 'Tupperware party' for cryonics policies where employees could sign up for either whole-body or head-only freezing at lower cost, which failed because a dot-matrix printer malfunction prevented policy printing.
“I remember 1999, 99 2000. When we were running PayPal, one of my co-founders, Luke Nozick, he was into Alcor and cryonics and people should freeze themselves and and we had one day where we took the whole company to a freezing party, a Tupperware party. People sell Tupperware policies at a freezing party. They sell their. Was it just your heads. What was going to be frozen. You could get could get a full body or just a head. Just the head was cheaper. It was disturbing. With a dot matrix printer didn't quite work. And so the freezing policies couldn't be couldn't be printed out.”
Political involvement is simultaneously incredibly important and incredibly toxic for everyone who gets involved, because in a zero-sum world the stakes feel extremely high and one acquires enemies one did not have before, which is why Thiel oscillates ('schizophrenic') on whether to fund politicians.
“I am schizophrenic on this stuff... It is it's incredibly important and it's incredibly toxic... It's toxic because it's in a zero sum world. The stakes in it feel really, really high. And you end up having enemies you didn't have before.”
Silicon Valley is recklessly ambitious.
“Is Silicon Valley recklessly ambitious?”