Right here is the audio, video, and transcript, together with virtually thirty minutes of viewers questions, filmed in Miami. Right here is the episode abstract:
Tyler and Peter Thiel dive deep into the complexities of political theology, together with why it’s an idea we nonetheless want at present, why Peter’s in opposition to Calvinism (and rationalism), whether or not the Previous Testomony ought to lead us to be woke, why Carl Schmitt is having fun with a resurgence, whether or not we’re getting into a brand new age of millenarian thought, the one existential danger Peter thinks we’re overlooking, why everybody simply muddling by way of results in catastrophe, the function of the katechon, the political imaginative and prescient in Shakespeare, how AI will have an effect on the affect of wordcels, Straussian messages within the Bible, what worries Peter about Miami, and extra.
Right here is an excerpt:
COWEN: Let’s say you’re making an attempt to trace the chance that the Western world and its allies someway muddle by way of, and simply carry on muddling by way of. What variable or variables do you take a look at to attempt to observe or estimate that? What do you watch?
THIEL: Properly, I don’t assume it’s a extremely empirical query. Should you might persuade me that it was empirical, and also you’d say, “These are the variables we should always take note of” — if I agreed with that body, you’ve already gained half the argument. It’d be like variables . . . Properly, the solar has risen and set every single day, so it’ll most likely preserve doing that, so we shouldn’t fear. Or the planet has all the time muddled by way of, so Greta’s fallacious, and we shouldn’t actually take note of her. I’m sympathetic to not listening to her, however I don’t assume it is a nice argument.
After all, if we take into consideration the globalization challenge of the submit–Chilly Warfare interval the place, in some sense, globalization simply occurs, there’s going to be extra motion of products and folks and concepts and cash, and we’re going to grow to be this extra peaceable, better-integrated world. You don’t have to sweat the main points. We’re simply going to muddle by way of.
Then, in my telling, there have been numerous issues round that story that went very haywire. One easy model is, the US-China factor hasn’t fairly labored the way in which Fukuyama and all these individuals envisioned it again in 1989. I feel one might have figured this out a lot earlier if we had not been advised, “You’re simply going to muddle by way of.” The alarm bells would’ve gone off a lot sooner.
Possibly globalization is main in the direction of a neoliberal paradise. Possibly it’s resulting in the totalitarian state of the Antichrist. Let’s say it’s not a really empirical argument, but when somebody such as you didn’t ask questions on muddling by way of, I’d be a lot — like an optimistic boomer libertarian such as you cease asking questions on muddling by way of, I’d be a lot extra assured, a lot extra hopeful.
COWEN: Are you saying it’s in the end a metaphysical query moderately than an empirical query?
THIEL: I don’t assume it’s metaphysical, nevertheless it’s considerably analytic.
COWEN: And ethical, even. You’re laying down some obligation by speaking about muddling by way of.
THIEL: Properly, it does tie into all these larger questions. I don’t assume that if we had a one-world state, this may robotically be for the very best. I’m unsure that if we do a classical liberal or libertarian instinct on this, it might be perhaps absolutely the energy {that a} one-world state would corrupt completely. I don’t assume the libertarians had been important sufficient of it the final 20 or 30 years, so there was a way they didn’t imagine their very own theories. They didn’t join issues sufficient. I don’t know if I’d say that’s an ethical failure, however there was some failure of the creativeness.
COWEN: This multi-pronged skepticism about muddling by way of — would you say that’s your precise actual political theology if we bought into the underside of this now?
THIEL: Every time individuals assume you possibly can simply muddle by way of, you’re most likely arrange for some form of catastrophe. That’s honest. It’s not as optimistic as an agenda, however I all the time assume . . .
Certainly one of my chapters within the Zero to One guide was, “You aren’t a lottery ticket.” The fundamental recommendation is, in case you’re an investor and you may simply assume, “Okay, I’m simply muddling by way of as an investor right here. I don’t know what to put money into. There are all these individuals. I can’t take note of any of them. I’m simply going to put in writing checks to everybody, make them go away. I’m simply going to arrange a desk someplace right here on South Seashore, and I’m going to provide a verify to everybody who comes as much as the desk, or not all people. It’s just a few writing lottery tickets.”
That’s only a system for dropping all of your cash. The place the place I react so violently to the muddling by way of — once more, we’re simply not considering. It may be Calvinist. It may be rationalist. It’s anti-intellectual. It’s not fascinated with issues.
Fascinating all through, undoubtedly really useful. You could recall that the very first CWT episode (2015!) was with Peter, that’s here.
Right here is the audio, video, and transcript, together with virtually thirty minutes of viewers questions, filmed in Miami. Right here is the episode abstract:
Tyler and Peter Thiel dive deep into the complexities of political theology, together with why it’s an idea we nonetheless want at present, why Peter’s in opposition to Calvinism (and rationalism), whether or not the Previous Testomony ought to lead us to be woke, why Carl Schmitt is having fun with a resurgence, whether or not we’re getting into a brand new age of millenarian thought, the one existential danger Peter thinks we’re overlooking, why everybody simply muddling by way of results in catastrophe, the function of the katechon, the political imaginative and prescient in Shakespeare, how AI will have an effect on the affect of wordcels, Straussian messages within the Bible, what worries Peter about Miami, and extra.
Right here is an excerpt:
COWEN: Let’s say you’re making an attempt to trace the chance that the Western world and its allies someway muddle by way of, and simply carry on muddling by way of. What variable or variables do you take a look at to attempt to observe or estimate that? What do you watch?
THIEL: Properly, I don’t assume it’s a extremely empirical query. Should you might persuade me that it was empirical, and also you’d say, “These are the variables we should always take note of” — if I agreed with that body, you’ve already gained half the argument. It’d be like variables . . . Properly, the solar has risen and set every single day, so it’ll most likely preserve doing that, so we shouldn’t fear. Or the planet has all the time muddled by way of, so Greta’s fallacious, and we shouldn’t actually take note of her. I’m sympathetic to not listening to her, however I don’t assume it is a nice argument.
After all, if we take into consideration the globalization challenge of the submit–Chilly Warfare interval the place, in some sense, globalization simply occurs, there’s going to be extra motion of products and folks and concepts and cash, and we’re going to grow to be this extra peaceable, better-integrated world. You don’t have to sweat the main points. We’re simply going to muddle by way of.
Then, in my telling, there have been numerous issues round that story that went very haywire. One easy model is, the US-China factor hasn’t fairly labored the way in which Fukuyama and all these individuals envisioned it again in 1989. I feel one might have figured this out a lot earlier if we had not been advised, “You’re simply going to muddle by way of.” The alarm bells would’ve gone off a lot sooner.
Possibly globalization is main in the direction of a neoliberal paradise. Possibly it’s resulting in the totalitarian state of the Antichrist. Let’s say it’s not a really empirical argument, but when somebody such as you didn’t ask questions on muddling by way of, I’d be a lot — like an optimistic boomer libertarian such as you cease asking questions on muddling by way of, I’d be a lot extra assured, a lot extra hopeful.
COWEN: Are you saying it’s in the end a metaphysical query moderately than an empirical query?
THIEL: I don’t assume it’s metaphysical, nevertheless it’s considerably analytic.
COWEN: And ethical, even. You’re laying down some obligation by speaking about muddling by way of.
THIEL: Properly, it does tie into all these larger questions. I don’t assume that if we had a one-world state, this may robotically be for the very best. I’m unsure that if we do a classical liberal or libertarian instinct on this, it might be perhaps absolutely the energy {that a} one-world state would corrupt completely. I don’t assume the libertarians had been important sufficient of it the final 20 or 30 years, so there was a way they didn’t imagine their very own theories. They didn’t join issues sufficient. I don’t know if I’d say that’s an ethical failure, however there was some failure of the creativeness.
COWEN: This multi-pronged skepticism about muddling by way of — would you say that’s your precise actual political theology if we bought into the underside of this now?
THIEL: Every time individuals assume you possibly can simply muddle by way of, you’re most likely arrange for some form of catastrophe. That’s honest. It’s not as optimistic as an agenda, however I all the time assume . . .
Certainly one of my chapters within the Zero to One guide was, “You aren’t a lottery ticket.” The fundamental recommendation is, in case you’re an investor and you may simply assume, “Okay, I’m simply muddling by way of as an investor right here. I don’t know what to put money into. There are all these individuals. I can’t take note of any of them. I’m simply going to put in writing checks to everybody, make them go away. I’m simply going to arrange a desk someplace right here on South Seashore, and I’m going to provide a verify to everybody who comes as much as the desk, or not all people. It’s just a few writing lottery tickets.”
That’s only a system for dropping all of your cash. The place the place I react so violently to the muddling by way of — once more, we’re simply not considering. It may be Calvinist. It may be rationalist. It’s anti-intellectual. It’s not fascinated with issues.
Fascinating all through, undoubtedly really useful. You could recall that the very first CWT episode (2015!) was with Peter, that’s here.