Its really easy to read this and be scared without being given any context, not everyone in the room knows who you are referring to and if your reading of their remarks are accurate.
You got a name and a raw source?
You got a name and a raw source?
———-
Douthat: … It seems very clear to me that a number of people deeply involved in artificial intelligence see it as a mechanism for transhumanism — for transcendence of our mortal flesh — and either some kind of creation of a successor species or some kind of merger of mind and machine.
Do you think that’s all irrelevant fantasy? Or do you think it’s just hype? Do you think people are raising money by pretending that we’re going to build a machine god? Is it hype? Is it delusion? Is it something you worry about?
Thiel: Um, yeah.
Douthat: I think you would prefer the human race to endure, right?
Thiel: Uh ——
Douthat: You’re hesitating.
Thiel: Well, I don’t know. I would — I would ——
Douthat: This is a long hesitation!
Thiel: There’s so many questions implicit in this.
Douthat: Should the human race survive?
Thiel: Yes.
Douthat: OK.
The beginning of the essay
> I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years: to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good. I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. For all these reasons, I still call myself “libertarian.”
> But I must confess that over the last two decades, I have changed radically on the question of how to achieve these goals. Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible. By tracing out the development of my thinking, I hope to frame some of the challenges faced by all classical liberals today.
The full essay https://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/educatio...
“A democracy will continue to exist up until the time voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.” - not Peter Thiel
That idea has always been tested, with the current times being the largest test in several decades at least.
Also, I assume you meant to say "Direct democracy is a representative democracy where each person *is* a representative."
And the amount of power an individual has is negligible so a bad vote is diluted much more than it is in a representative democracy.
I think that's the only example needed to prove that direct democracy is not a desirable form of government, let alone the ideal.
I find it illustrative that so many here defend Democracy as an ends to be achieved or an unqualified good unto itself, rather than a process or a means to an end. It illustrates the arguments made elsewhere about how democratic processes and institutions have been succeeded by Democracy, the belief.
As an unqualified good, one can simply claim that the majority has voted or that the Democratic process has been performed, and therefore the outcome is just. There's an apt George Carlin quote...
https://www.google.com/search?q=Democracy%3A+The+God+That+Fa...
See Squid Game as a more recent commentary.
How familiar are you with the writings of the founding fathers? The ones who very intentionally avoided creating a system based on direct democracy?
The founding fathers were often in their (often early) 20s. They were not infallible, nor was the system they created.
That's why they created mechanisms for evolving that system.
Except we rarely do. "But Constitutional Amendments", people say.
Actually, one of the doctrines of the founding fathers was that the whole system should be reviewed, head to toe, every 10-20 years.
Everything is very selective. Infallible when we want it to be. "Oh they didn't mean that/like that" when we want. And completely ignore other parts as inconvenient.
All of the restrictions they put in place, such as the electoral college and who was able to vote at all, along with the writings we have, suggests as a group they were not.
The youngest delegate to the Constitutional convention was Johnathan Dayton of New Jersey, who was 26, and there were three more under 30. There were more over 60 than than under 30.
The people that are frequently cited as being "Founding Fathers" in their "early 20s" (or "between 19 or 21, because we're not sure exactly when he was born", in Hamilton's case) are people who were that age in 1776 and ended up playing an important role. But the Constitution was drafted more than a decade later -- there was a war, plus time under the first system of government under the Articles of Confederation in between.
> Actually, one of the doctrines of the founding fathers was that the whole system should be reviewed, head to toe, every 10-20 years.,
No, that was not a "doctrine of the founding fathers", it was a belief of Thomas Jefferson expressed later in a letter to, as I recall, John Adams, specifically (the upper limit of the period at which he held any law or constitution needed to expire was actually 19 years, based on actuarial data and a set of assumptions he had about what was necessary and acceptable in terms of avoiding the living being ruled over by the dead.)
You can tell it was not a widely held "doctrine of the founding fathers" (or, more to the point, of the Framers, who are the ones actually relevant to the Constitution, though the two groups have considerable overlap) because instead of expiring by its own terms in 19 years or less, the Constitution was permanent, with a very difficult method of amendment, and that method of amendment was specifically barred from changing certain parts.
There weren't really very many widely shared "doctrines" of the Founders or the Framers. They weren't a hive mind or a cult or even a group as ideologically aligned as the coalition that makes up either of the US's current major political parties. The idea of shared doctrines or a single unifying vision behind the Constitution are mythologies created after, and requiring deliberate disregard of, the facts.
None of this is new or edgy. Just read the Federalist Papers and Anti-Federalist papers and you'll see more or less the same debate play out. Hell, here in 2024 we're still having a debate about political control over the central bank, which started in the founding era!
Is it any wonder that he has helped fund our decline into authoritarianism? We now have concentration camps, abrogation of the constitution, judicial capture, and the military turned increasingly against American citizens.
Other countries got those without paying Palantir billions.
Immigration detention facilities are not concentration camps.
Refugees admitted into Europe are not restricted to camps and do have some due-process rights, but they have at most times been a distinct minority of the refugees in the world.
Some refugees do live in inhuman conditions. Even if these conditions affected a majority of refugees, that doesn’t justify treating human beings this way.
All people have a right to due process. It’s a human right. Whether this or that government honors this right is a separate question.
We should be trying to emulate governments that honor human rights, not take our example from those that don’t.
I have a fuzzy notion of what they encompass, admittedly, but nothing about the detention centers or the deportations stands out as a violation of those rights.
It's because most people don't have a good grasp of how diverse and often flimsy administrative and civil process (in cases where one party is the .gov is in reality. Typically the answer is "whatever the enforcing agencies come up with", which isn't very reassuring.
Like for a traffic ticket they at least haul you before a judge in a public court anyone can attend to give some pretext of the accused having serious rights that protect them. It makes sense. Traffic tickets are a "mass market" product so to speak and so the .gov has to put on a good show even if at the end of the day someone facing a $200 civil traffic fine doesn't actually have the same rights as the guy facing a $200 criminal public urination fine.
When it comes to stuff like code enforcement, arcane industry enforcement, fish and game, ICE and everything else federal the process is far less "due", so to speak and is far more likely to not have separation of powers on the government side (i.e. administrative ppl in the enforcement agencies will be making decisions that would be made by a judge in other contexts)
I don't know what "due process" consists of for immigration violations but I would bet my last dollar that it is an absolute joke compared to the high end of civil (traffic ticket and the like), which itself is a joke compared to criminal matters.
I would really like to see all this shit thrown out by the supreme court. If the .gov, be it fed, state or local, is going to punish people the same way they punish criminals bet it a fine or jail then they ought to meet the same bar. Allowing people to be jailed (in the case of ICE) or fined large sums (in the case of many other types of administrative matters) because it's not nominally a criminal matter is 100% an end run around the constitution.
Then let's explore that. There are some rights which aren't fundamental human rights... that is, you don't get them just by virtue of existing. Voting comes to mind, that's a citizen's right only.
The right to be present within the borders of the United States is another such right. If you aren't a citizen, you do not have this right. We might extend the temporary privilege to non-citizens, but it is absolutely at the prerogative of the United States... subject to revocation at any time. The idea that it can't just be subject to revocation (arbitrary or otherwise) is the dimwitted notion that there is a sort of second-class citizenship... that some not-really-citizens can be here permanently and we can't decide that we want them to return home.
So, if they can be deported (for reason, or none at all), the only recourse such people have is "I can prove I'm a citizen". If ICE isn't letting them do so, if they protest that they are a citizen and the ICE agent sticks his fingers in his ears and chants "I can't hear you" repeatedly, then that would be a violation of due process. The process which is due (among whatever other redundant triplechecks they should be doing) is to hear all such protests in good faith and evaluate whatever evidence such a person provides. I haven't heard of any refusing to do such a thing (but if they have, it should be grounds for termination).
I reject the idea that it is necessary or desirable to drag each of these foreigners before a judge to perform this function.
> is going to punish people the same way they punish criminals
I don't want these people punished at all. Punishment would be putting them in prison (where they would stay in the United States). If someone is trespassing on your property and you call the police, the police would punish them by prosecuting, convicting, and incarcerating. When they drag them from your property and tell them to get lost, that's not punishment. It's just removal from where they aren't permitted to be. It's still not punishment even if they cry that they don't want to go home.
A DOJ lawyer literally said they haven't been doing this sufficiently and then he got sacked by Pam Bondi. SCOTUS then reaffirmed 9 to 0 that the original lawyer who admitted this failure in court was actually correct, that DOJ wasn't giving people their due process rights.
I find it extremely hard to believe you have not heard about the Kilmar Abrego case?
Yes. And to the best of my knowledge he is not a citizen.
He did not assert citizenship, they did not violate due process rights. No other process is due him. Anyone claiming that it's a violation of due process rights doesn't know what they mean, though for a moment I had hope for you... you sort of described them, or at least hinted at them, but you're unable to apply what you described to this situation. Due process rights can't and won't keep non-citizens in this country if they are trying to avoid deportation, and shouldn't ever. Non-citizens only have the revocable-for-any-reason-or-none privilege of visiting, and that only if they get the visa.
What do you know that they don’t?
Why?
> aren't in lockstep with liberal/progressive ideals
These aren't the same thing
Increasingly (from my limited view), people with a progressive viewpoint seem to be making this claim ("account X never participated in good faith and therefore should be banned") without any real grounds for doing so.
No wrongthink allowed! Protect the narrative!
Libertarianism must necessarily be concerned with qualitative outcomes of individual liberty rather than being lured in by axiomatically asserting the existence of freedom by construction (commonly resulting in Newspeak). Analyzing all power structures with an eye for coercion, not falling into the trap of championing new ones with differently-named abstractions while defining away the coercion. The "rightist" deductive logical implication following is of course necessary (one can't get very far without it!), but it is incapable of achieving liberty by itself. Trying to do so inevitably fails spectacularly, which is why there are sibling comments in this thread abusing the concepts of liberty to argue in support of naked authoritarianism.
- to have less freedom to pollute the environment.
- to have less freedom where I am able to defraud my customers.
- to have less freedom to have less ability to lie about medical "benefits" of fake cures.
I am also a big proponent of freedom-limiting legislation like GDPR which prevents myself and my employer from secretly collecting and processing your personal information.
And I am currently part of the "Stop Killing Games" initiative which will hopefully restrict the freedom of games companies to sunset and withdraw purchases without a clear roadmap or similar remedy.
Explain why that is a straw-man.
The freedom to own a slave. The freedom to treat women as property. The freedom to kill somebody who may have wronged you.
Just an array of freedoms.
>I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual
Assume for one moment that it is true that science will be able to eliminate natural causes of death in the very near future. If you are a multi-billionaire, what does that mean for you?
What is the biggest danger to you moving forward?
Can the earth support the current population expanding at an ever increasing pace if everyone lives forever?
Is it feasible that the wealthiest 3,000 people on earth can 'control' who has access to the ability to never die a natural death?
Another tidbit: he believes Greta Thunberg is very possibly the actual antichrist.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/opinion/peter-thiel-antic... - Gift link
https://archive.is/mPjPq - Archive link
So yes, he does say it's more likely to be Greta Thunberg than an "evil tech genius", but does not outright say she's the Antichrist.
I still find it strange that he's afraid of her creating a one world government.
You may very well and with good reason disagree with Thiel on the downstream effects of climate regulating agreements/regimes on global productivity and liberty, but regurgitating “Greta is the Antichrist” just replaces discussions of interesting issues to yelling at shadow puppets in Plato’s cave.
Are you wrong or were you lying?
I actually went to listen to it too.
I've seen this nonsense before from journalists
Thiel's words:
> Thiel: ... The way the Antichrist would take over the world is you talk about Armageddon nonstop. You talk about existential risk nonstop, and this is what you need to regulate....
> in the 17th century, I can imagine a Dr. Strangelove, Edward Teller-type person taking over the world.
> In our world, it’s far more likely to be Greta Thunberg.
> downstream effects of climate regulating agreements/regimes on global productivity and individual liberty
People really do be bending over backwards not to hear the words spoken to them if they seem too wacky to be palatable. Dark secret though: billions of people believe truly wacky shit. Some of those people are unbelievably wealthy.
Anyone can go read the transcript. It's quite clear he's saying he believes Greta might very well be the Antichrist.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/opinion/peter-thiel-antic...
More likely to be Greta Thunberg isn't saying it's Greta.