Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel not too long ago met with New York Occasions columnist Ross Douthat to debate many subjects, together with innovation, life extension know-how, the antichrist, and transhumanism.
The subject of transhumanism was introduced up when Douthat requested Thiel, “Ought to the human race survive?”
Thiel responded, “Sure. However I additionally would love us to radically clear up these issues. And so it’s at all times, I don’t know, yeah — transhumanism.”
The co-founder of Palantir added, “The perfect was this radical transformation the place your human, pure physique will get reworked into an immortal physique.”
He later said that transgenderism doesn’t go far sufficient in the case of altering one’s physique and shared, “We wish greater than cross-dressing or altering your intercourse organs. We wish you to have the ability to change your coronary heart and alter your thoughts and alter your entire physique.”
WATCH:
I fully agree with Thiel. After all we need to enhance ourselves. After all we need to obtain mastery over our flesh. After all we need to advance to this point that at some point we’d not be recognizable as human. pic.twitter.com/wvcLUihlIs
— Hunter Ash (@ArtemisConsort) June 29, 2025
In case you’re unfamiliar with transhumanism, it’s an ideology that promotes utilizing know-how and science to boost human capabilities.
Basically, transhumanists welcome an period the place people merge with machines.
Later within the interview, Thiel and Douthat talk about the antichrist.
Thiel shared that “The way in which the Antichrist would take over the world is you speak about Armageddon nonstop. You speak about existential danger nonstop, and that is what it’s good to regulate.”
The New York Occasions supplied a transcript:
Douthat: You’ve been giving talks not too long ago concerning the idea of the Antichrist, which is a Christian idea, an apocalyptic idea. What does that imply to you? What’s the Antichrist?
Thiel: All proper. Properly, I may speak about it for a very long time. I believe there’s at all times a query of how we articulate a few of these existential dangers, among the challenges we now have, they usually’re all framed on this kind of runaway dystopian science textual content. There’s a danger of nuclear warfare, there’s a danger of environmental catastrophe. Possibly one thing particular, like local weather change, though there are many different ones we’ve provide you with. There’s a danger of bioweapons. You’ve all of the completely different sci-fi eventualities. Clearly, there are specific varieties of dangers with A.I.
Thiel: However I at all times assume that if we’re going to have this body of speaking about existential dangers, maybe we also needs to discuss concerning the danger of one other sort of a nasty singularity, which I might describe because the one-world totalitarian state. As a result of I might say the default political resolution individuals have for all these existential dangers is one-world governance. What do you do about nuclear weapons? We now have a United Nations with actual tooth that controls them, they usually’re managed by a world political order. After which one thing like that is additionally: What can we do about A.I.? And we’d like international compute governance. We want a one-world authorities to manage all of the computer systems, log each single keystroke, to verify individuals don’t program a harmful A.I. And I’ve been questioning whether or not that’s going from the frying pan into the fireplace.
Thiel: The atheist philosophical framing is “One World or None.” That was a brief movie that was put out by the Federation of American Scientists within the late ’40s. It begins with the nuclear bomb blowing up the world, and clearly, you want a one-world authorities to cease it — one world or none. And the Christian framing, which in some methods is similar query, is: Antichrist or Armageddon? You’ve the one-world state of the Antichrist, or we’re sleepwalking towards Armageddon. “One world or none,” “Antichrist or Armageddon,” on one degree, are the identical query.
Thiel: It’s a really implausible plot gap. However I believe we now have a solution to this plot gap. The way in which the Antichrist would take over the world is you speak about Armageddon nonstop. You speak about existential danger nonstop, and that is what it’s good to regulate. It’s the other of the image of Baconian science from the seventeenth, 18th century, the place the Antichrist is like some evil tech genius, evil scientist who invents this machine to take over the world. Persons are approach too scared for that.
Thiel: In our world, the factor that has political resonance is the other. The factor that has political resonance is: We have to cease science, we have to simply say “cease” to this. And that is the place, within the seventeenth century, I can think about a Dr. Strangelove, Edward Teller-type individual taking on the world. In our world, it’s way more prone to be Greta Thunberg.
WATCH:
Peter Thiel is requested why he’s not the Antichrist he warns about if he’s actively constructing authoritarian rule by way of army and surveillance applied sciences
“These are completely different eventualities…clearly I don’t assume that that’s what I’m doing” pic.twitter.com/cDEdAW1Eqs
— HOT SPOT (@HotSpotHotSpot) June 27, 2025
You’ll be able to watch all the interview beneath:
