Peter Thiel has a plan to save the world, and it looks like a nightmare. He’s casting around for scapegoats, but perhaps Peter Thiel and the Antichrist are one and the same.
The PayPal co-founder, Facebook‘s first outside investor, and Silicon Valley‘s most influential political operator has spent years developing a political philosophy so strange that most people assume it can’t be serious. Democracy and freedom are incompatible, he says. Global cooperation is the Antichrist. The only hope for civilization is absolute monarchy modeled on tech startups. And he’s not just theorizing—he’s building it.
Thiel has poured millions into political campaigns, funded think tanks, mentored a generation of “New Right” intellectuals and alt-Right screeders, and cultivated politicians who share his vision. He’s amplified fringe thinkers like Curtis Yarvin (the blogger behind “Neoreaction” who openly advocates abolishing democracy), but Thiel’s worldview is uniquely his own—a bizarre synthesis of Christian eschatology, corporate governance theory, and techno-authoritarianism that’s far more sophisticated and disturbing than anything coming from the intellectual dark web.
This isn’t just eccentric billionaire philosophy. Thiel’s protégés include a sitting Vice President (J.D. Vance) and multiple Republican senators. His ideas circulate through conservative think tanks and Trump‘s inner circle. What sounds like science fiction is increasingly becoming Republican policy doctrine.
The media often portrays Thiel as an enigmatic libertarian or contrarian thinker. But that framing misses what’s actually happening. This is a systematic rejection of 250 years of democratic governance, wrapped in theological language and corporate efficiency rhetoric. And it’s weirder and more methodical than most people realize.
Peter Thiel and the Antichrist in 8 minutes (video)
This NotebookLM video does a great job explaining the background and impact of Thiel’s dangerously apocalyptic rhetoric inspired by a Nazi theorist — and below it you can find a deeper explanation of all major points:
Here are the five interlocking beliefs that form Thiel’s vision—and why each one should terrify you.
1. Democracy Is the Bug, Not the Feature—Replace It With a Tech Startup Dictatorship
Thiel doesn’t just critique democracy—he’s concluded it’s fundamentally incompatible with freedom. In a 2009 essay, he wrote: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” Not ideal partners; not in tension — but incompatible.
His alternative is coldly corporate: run countries like founders run startups. One CEO. One vision. Absolute authority. No consensus. No debate. No democracy.
In the shadows of Washington’s policy debates, a quiet technological revolution is taking shape—one that could fundamentally alter how the federal government collects, analyzes, and potentially weaponizes data on American citizens. At the heart of this transformation sits Palantir Technologies, the secretive data analytics firm co-founded by tech billionaire Peter Thiel that has become the Trump administration’s go-to contractor for an ambitious plan to merge information across federal agencies into what critics fear could become an unprecedented surveillance apparatus.
The push represents the culmination of Thiel’s decades-long influence campaign within both Silicon Valley and right-wing politics, where he has emerged as the “godfather” of a powerful network of tech billionaires who have shifted dramatically rightward. Once the sole major Silicon Valley figure to back Trump in 2016, Thiel has watched his political philosophy spread throughout the tech elite, with former PayPal colleagues like Elon Musk and proteges like Vice President J.D. Vance now occupying the highest levels of government. This so-called “PayPal Mafia“—a group of billionaires with overlapping business interests and shared anti-regulatory fervor—has become integral to the second Trump administration, with at least three former Palantir employees now working within Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Since Trump’s March executive order calling for expanded data sharing across government agencies, Palantir has quietly embedded itself deeper into the federal bureaucracy than ever before. The company has secured over $113 million in new federal contracts and expanded its flagship Foundry platform into at least four major agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, and most recently, the Internal Revenue Service. This technological infrastructure could enable the administration to create detailed digital portraits of Americans by combining bank records, medical claims, student debt information, and disability status—all accessible through a single, searchable database.
The expansion reflects Thiel’s long-standing belief that “freedom and democracy are not compatible,” a philosophy that has guided his investments and political activities for over a decade. While Thiel maintains no official government position, he has direct access to the president, vice president, and virtually every tech figure in Trump’s inner circle, recently hosting an inauguration party at his Washington mansion for the “crème de la crème of the tech world.” As one journalist noted during the 2024 Republican National Convention, “It’s Peter Thiel’s party now”—a sentiment validated by the presence of his handpicked protege as vice president and his former colleagues running key government efficiency initiatives.
But the expansion has also triggered alarm bells within Palantir itself, where current and former employees worry about their company becoming the public face of Trump’s political agenda. Thirteen former employees recently signed a public letter urging the company to reconsider its role, while at least one strategist has resigned over the expanded ICE contracts, calling the work a “red line” she won’t cross.
As privacy advocates file lawsuits and Democratic lawmakers sound warnings about potential abuse, Palantir finds itself at the center of a national debate about the balance between government efficiency and civil liberties. To understand how we arrived at this moment—and what it might mean for American privacy—we need to examine the company behind the technology and the controversial figures who built it.
What is Palantir?
And once again I turned to Perplexity Labs to help me tell the story of Palantir in an interactive way. I am a little bit addicted to this new featureset — it is miraculous. It can build incredibly sophisticated things in a very short amount of time. To view the presentation, simply click the image below to launch it in a new Lightbox window:
And once again, the methodology and the full response are below.
Understanding Neoreaction (NRx): The Dark Enlightenment’s Growing Influence
In the landscape of contemporary political thought, few movements have generated as much intrigue and controversy as Neoreaction (NRx). Emerging from the darkest corners of the internet and gradually infiltrating mainstream discourse, this philosophical movement represents one of the most comprehensive rejections of modern liberal democracy. Here we’ll explore the origins, key figures, core beliefs, and growing influence of Neoreaction in both Silicon Valley and Republican politics.
Origins and Key Figures
Neoreaction emerged in the mid-to-late 2000s as an online philosophical and political movement, primarily through blog posts and forum discussions. The movement’s foundational texts were written by Curtis Yarvin (writing under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug), a software engineer by day and political theorist by night who began publishing his critiques of modern democracy in 2007-2008 through his blog “Unqualified Reservations.”
Yarvin’s verbose, citation-heavy writing style attracted a small but dedicated following of readers who were drawn to his radical critique of contemporary political systems. His work was further developed and popularized by British philosopher Nick Land, who coined the term “Dark Enlightenment” in his 2012 essay of the same name. Land, formerly associated with the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit at Warwick University, added accelerationist elements to Neoreactionary thought, emphasizing the role of capitalism and technology in destabilizing existing political structures.
While Yarvin and Land are considered the primary architects of Neoreactionary thought, the movement draws inspiration from earlier thinkers. These include 19th-century writer Thomas Carlyle, who advocated for authoritarian governance; Julius Evola, an Italian traditionalist philosopher; and American economist Hans-Hermann Hoppe, known for his critiques of democracy from a libertarian perspective.
Core Beliefs
At its heart, Neoreaction represents a fundamental rejection of Enlightenment values and the modern liberal democratic order. Its adherents advocate for several interconnected beliefs:
The Thiel Connection: Mentorship and Collaboration
Lonsdale’s career has been deeply intertwined with that of Peter Thiel, the billionaire entrepreneur and right-wing political donor. Their relationship began during Lonsdale’s college years at Stanford University, where he was editor-in-chief of The Stanford Review, a publication Thiel had co-founded years earlier. This shared intellectual foundation would prove formative for their future collaborations.
After graduating from Stanford with a computer science degree in 2004, Lonsdale joined Thiel at Clarium Capital, a global macro hedge fund. As an early executive there, Lonsdale helped grow the fund to $8 billion in assets under management, working closely with Thiel and absorbing his contrarian investment philosophy and political worldview.
The most significant product of their partnership came in 2004, when they co-founded Palantir Technologies along with Alex Karp, Stephen Cohen, and Nathan Gettings. Named after the all-seeing stones from “The Lord of the Rings,” Palantir focused on data analytics with applications in defense, intelligence, and corporate settings. The company received early investment from the CIA‘s venture fund, In-Q-Tel, setting it on a path to become deeply embedded in government and defense work—a connection that would later align with Lonsdale’s political activities.
Building an Empire: From Palantir to 8VC
While Lonsdale left his operational role at Palantir in 2009, he continued as an advisor while launching a series of new ventures. He founded Addepar, a wealth management platform now managing over $4 trillion in assets, and co-founded OpenGov, which provides cloud-based software for government budgeting.
In 2015, Lonsdale founded 8VC, a venture capital firm that now manages over $6 billion in capital. Through 8VC, he has invested in companies like Oculus, Guardant Health, Oscar, Wish, and Flexport, expanding his influence throughout the tech industry. The firm’s name itself reflects Lonsdale’s philosophy—the number 8 representing infinity when turned sideways, suggesting limitless potential.
Political Activities and Right-Wing Advocacy
Unlike many Silicon Valley elites, Lonsdale has been unabashedly outspoken about his right-wing political views. Following in the footsteps of his mentor Thiel, he has emerged as an active Republican donor and fundraiser, using his considerable wealth and influence to support right-wing candidates and causes.
In 2020, Lonsdale made headlines when he joined the exodus of tech leaders leaving San Francisco for more conservative locales, relocating his family and business to Austin, Texas. He publicly criticized California’s “disrepair,” citing high taxes, regulations, and progressive policies as his reasons for leaving—a move that solidified his status as a vocal critic of liberal governance.
Lonsdale’s political advocacy extends beyond campaign contributions. He co-founded the Cicero Institute, a policy think tank focused on market-oriented solutions to healthcare, housing, and criminal justice reform. The institute promotes conservative approaches to these issues, advocating for reduced regulation and private-sector solutions.
Perhaps his most ambitious political-adjacent project is the University of Austin (UATX), which he co-founded as an alternative to what he sees as the liberal orthodoxy dominating higher education. The university aims to promote so-called “intellectual diversity” and “free speech“, reflecting Lonsdale’s belief that traditional universities have become too politically homogeneous.
The New Right of Silicon Valley
Together with Thiel, Lonsdale represents a new brand of tech-enabled Republicanism. This movement combines traditional Republican values of (in this case extremely) limited government and free markets with a Silicon Valley ethos of disruption and technological optimism. It stands apart from both establishment Republicanism and populist right-wing movements, offering a vision of conservative politics infused with the language and tools of technology.
Lonsdale has used his platform to advocate for American innovation and entrepreneurship, arguing that technological advancement, not government intervention, is the solution to society’s problems. His American Optimist initiative promotes this vision through podcasts and other media, featuring conversations with entrepreneurs, scientists, and policy experts who share his techno-optimistic worldview.
Joe Lonsdale and Elon Musk
Joe Lonsdale and Elon Musk know each other, and have collaborated on various ventures. Lonsdale has been a supporter of Musk’s initiatives both politically and in business. His firm 8VC invested in Musk’s Boring Company during its Series C funding round. He also contributed $1 million to America PAC, a super PAC backing Donald Trump‘s 2024 presidential campaign run by Musk. Their relationship extends to political endeavors, with Lonsdale described as a friend and “political confidant” of Musk.
On a personal level, Lonsdale married Tayler Cox in 2016, and they have five children together. Their family life, now based in Austin, reflects the traditional values that inform his political perspective.
With an estimated net worth of $425 million, Lonsdale uses his wealth not just for political activities but also for philanthropy, often directed toward causes aligned with his conservative values. He and his wife are active donors in various philanthropic pursuits, though these typically reflect his market-oriented approach to solving social problems.
The Future of Right-Wing Tech
At just 42 years old, Lonsdale’s influence in both technology and politics continues to grow. As one of the youngest members ever to appear on Forbes’ Midas List, his investment decisions shape the future of technology, while his political advocacy helps define a new strain of tech right-wing forces.
Following Thiel’s playbook but developing his own distinctive voice, Lonsdale represents a generation of tech leaders who are attacking Silicon Valley’s liberal consensus. And with fellow tech titan buddy Elon Musk now Chief Buddy, these energetically right-wing tech oligarchs with enormous power over our daily lives already are unsettlingly close to the White House.
Accelerationism Dictionary: A Complete Terminology and Lexicon
AI accelerationism, or “e/acc,” is one of the most radical and controversial ideologies emerging from Silicon Valley today. At its core, it champions the rapid and unrestricted development of artificial intelligence, rejecting calls for regulation and safety measures in favor of unchecked innovation. Proponents argue that AI holds the key to solving humanity’s greatest challenges—climate change, poverty, disease—and even envision a post-human future where intelligence transcends biological limits.
With strong libertarian leanings, the movement prioritizes market-driven progress, believing that government intervention would stifle AI’s transformative potential. Tech billionaires like legendary venture capitalist Marc Andreessen have embraced these ideas, elevating what was once a fringe philosophy into a driving force in the AI industry.
However, AI accelerationism faces fierce criticism for its disregard of ethical considerations, social consequences, and potential existential risks. Detractors warn that unregulated AI development could exacerbate inequality, destabilize economies, and lead to dangerous technological outcomes without proper safeguards.
The movement stands in stark opposition to cautious, ethical AI development advocated by groups like the effective altruism community, setting up a high-stakes ideological battle over the future of artificial intelligence. Whether one sees AI accelerationism as a path to utopia or a reckless gamble, its growing influence makes it a defining force in the ongoing debate over technology’s role in shaping humanity’s future.
This accelerationism dictionary should help get anyone up to speed on this emerging and dangerous ideology. We’ll keep adding to it over time as the field continues to evolve at breakneck pace.
Accelerationism Dictionary
A
Accelerate or die: A common slogan in the e/acc movement expressing the belief that technological acceleration is necessary for survival.
Accelerationism: A philosophical and political movement advocating for the acceleration of technological, social, and economic progress. Can exist in left-wing, right-wing, and politically neutral forms.
AI supremacy: The belief or fear that artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence and capabilities, potentially dominating society, economies, and geopolitical power structures. It is often discussed in the context of global competition for technological dominance.
Effective Altruism and Longtermism are relatively recent (since the late 2000s) twin philosophical movements making the claim that, as a human species, we ought to prioritize impacting the long-term future of humanity — hundreds, thousands, or millions of years from now — over and above any concerns for actual humans alive today. Largely inspired by utilitarianism, it favors questionable metrics like “lives saved per dollar” in its quest to not just do good, but “do the most good.”
Longtermism is an outgrowth of Effective Altruism (EA), a social movement developed by philosophers Peter Singer and William MacAskill. It emphasizes the moral importance of trying to shape the far future, and adherents argue that the long-term consequences of our actions far outweigh their short-term effects because of the potential of vast numbers of future lives. In other words, future people will outnumber us at such a scale that, by comparison to this imaginary future universe, our current-day lives are not very important at all.
It has numerous and powerful adherents among the Silicon Valley elite including Trump bromance Elon Musk, tech billionaire Peter Thiel (who spoke at the RNC in 2016), indicted and disgraced crypto trader Sam Bankman-Fried, Twitter and Square founder Jack Dorsey (who is good friends with Elon), OpenAI‘s CEO Sam Altman, Ethereum founder (and Thiel fellow) Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Asana Dustin Moskovitz, and others.
Why longtermism resonates with tech oligarchs
The tech-industrial complex is steeped in the idea of longtermism in part because it aligns so well with so many of their values:
technological optimism / techno-utopianism — the belief that technology is the solution to all of humanity’s greatest challenges
risk-taking mindset — venture capital is famous for its high-risk, high-reward mentality
Greatness Thinking — unwavering devotion to an Ayn Randian worldview in which only two groups exist: a small group of otherworldly titans, and everyone else
atomized world — social groups and historical context don’t matter much, because one’s personal individualized contributions are what make real impact on the world
The dubious ethics of effective altruism
Although it positions itself high, high above the heady clouds of moral superiority, EA is yet another in a long line of elaborate excuses for ignoring urgent problems we actually face, in favor of “reallocating resources” towards some long-distant predictively “better” class of people that do not currently exist and will not exist for thousands, millions, or even billions of years. It’s an elaborate excuse framework for “billionaires behaving badly” — who claim to be akin to saints or even gods who are doing the difficult work of “saving humanity,” but in reality are navel-gazing into their vanity projects and stroking each others’ raging narcissism while completely ignoring large, looming actual dangers in the here and now like climate change, systemic inequality, and geopolitical instabillity to name a few.
Curtis Yarvin, born in 1973, is a software developer and political theorist whose controversial neo-reactionary views have rippled through both Silicon Valley and right-wing political circles. Writing under the pseudonym Mencius Moldbug, Yarvin gained notoriety for his influential blog “Unqualified Reservations,” where he advanced ideas that challenge the foundations of democracy and equality.
Yarvin wasn’t always a fringe political figure. Raised in a secular, liberal family—his paternal grandparents were Jewish American communists, and his father worked for the U.S. Foreign Service—he grew up with a global perspective, spending part of his childhood in Cyprus. But it was after reading figures like Thomas Carlyle and Hans-Hermann Hoppe that Yarvin turned sharply to the right. Disillusioned by libertarianism, he carved out his own niche in far-right ideology, a space he has termed “neo-reaction.”
“The Cathedral” and Neo-Reactionary Thought
At the heart of Yarvin’s philosophy is what he calls “formalism”—a system that would replace modern democracy with something akin to monarchy. His ideas reject progressive norms and push for a consolidation of power akin to aligning political authority with property rights. Yarvin coined the term “Cathedral” to describe the intertwined power structures of mainstream media, academia, and the bureaucracy that he believes work together to perpetuate liberal democracy.
Yarvin’s ideologies have found an audience among Silicon Valley’s elite, where some of his most ardent admirers hold significant clout. Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and noted libertarian-turned-conservative, has supported Yarvin’s work both ideologically and financially. Thiel’s venture capital firm, Founders Fund, even backed Yarvin’s tech startup, Tlon, which developed the decentralized computing platform Urbit.
Steve Bannon, the former White House strategist, is also a known reader of Yarvin’s work, while political figures like 2024 Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance and failed 2022 AZ Senate candidate Blake Masters—both backed financially by Thiel—have cited and promoted Yarvin’s ideas.
Tech Hubris Meets Political Hubris
Yarvin’s Urbit project, launched in 2002, is a decentralized computing platform designed to overhaul the current internet structure, aligning with his broader vision of restructuring power. Though he left Tlon in 2019, he remains involved with Urbit’s development and continues to influence the tech space through his ideas, despite the controversy surrounding them.
Critics have slammed Yarvin’s views as deeply racist and fascistic, pointing to his writings that flirt with dangerous notions about race and slavery. His ideas—though offensive to many—seem to thrive in niche spaces where libertarian techno-utopianism meets far-right authoritarianism, making him a key figure in the ongoing discourse about the future of governance, especially in a tech-dominated age.
Here’s Rachel Maddow’s segment highlighting the Vance-Yarvin connection:
Breaking: NEW bombshell JD Vance video by MSNBC & Rachel Maddow. JD Vance wants to shut down American universities & business using extra constitutional powers. He wants to rip them out like a tumor and install political religion. Vance is following the plans of right-wing… pic.twitter.com/tDBoaMhydS
Curtis Yarvin represents an ideological fusion that’s hard to ignore: Silicon Valley’s boundless ambition meets a longing for autocratic rule. In this strange nexus, he’s helped shape a disturbing vision of the future, one where tech CEOs could potentially wear the crown.
Faced with these realities and the census projection of a majority minority population in the United States by the year 2045, the Republican right-wing is struggling to keep piecing together a voting base that can achieve victories in electoral politics. The GOP is now 3 cults in a trenchcoat, having been hollowed out and twisted to the point of trying desperately to hold increasingly extreme factions together for another election cycle in which they can try to capture power forever through gerrymandering and other anti-democratic election engineering — or at least long enough to erase the evidence of their criminal behavior during the Trump years culminating in a coup attempt on January 6, 2021.
Led by Charles Koch et al, the mostly aging, Boomer crowd who controls much of the US government either directly or indirectly as a donor or operative is starting to panic for one reason or another: the fear of death looming, existential worries about thwarted or unmet ambition, economic turn of the wheel starting to leave their fortunes in decline (with inflation as a common boogie man since the Wall Street Putsch of the 1930s). Much of this crowd inherited the free market ideological zeal of the Austrian School of economics (later, trickle down economics) from their fathers along with their trust fund fortunes that some have squandered (Trump), tread water with (Coors, Scaife), or grown (Koch, DeVos).
Longtermism is an extreme ideology that has gained traction in Silicon Valley and the technosphere: both Elon Musk and Peter Thiel are acolytes. In this worldview, the far future of humanity will have colonized the stars and number in the trillions — therefore making all the puny little humans alive today essentially worthless and expendable in their eyes (except themselves, of course). As long as climate change doesn’t kill *absolutely all* 7 billion of us, we’ll manage to soldier on — therefore we should focus on AI instead, they say.
Their breezy tossing aside of morality on anything with effects less than 100 years is also chilling. By use of the frame-shifting device of the far far future, longtermism is able to render basically anything a rounding error of no importance, from the Holocaust to the dropping of atomic bombs to the famines of Stalin and Mao. That is just not going to sit well with most people who have empathy — which is most people.
The vast majority of billionaires in the world got richer during the year of the pandemic — fantastically richer. And they still demand more!
Inequality grows and grows, warping both capitalism and government, and yet still the plutocrats press their advantage further while whining about their invented delusional oppression.
Certainly not all rich people are gigantic assholes, but a depressing many of them are. We can hang onto the good ones while tossing the others out of the Titanic lifeboats where their rugged masculinity can carry them to shore.
The Veil of Ignorance — John Rawls’ theory of how to make the best moral judgments — is a phenomenal tool for thinking deeply about which choices are best for society as a whole, and not just for ourselves:
Would you choose it if you were in the other guy’s shoes?
Essential concept of fairness, akin to “do unto others”
Akin to parable about the best way to cut a cake: the person who cuts it chooses the last slice. In this way they are incentivized to divide the dessert equally, lest they end up with the smallest piece.
Peter Thiel and Palmer Luckey are a particularly toxic breed of billionaire welfare queen, who outwardly revile government with every chance they get while having both sucked at its teat to make their fortunes, and currently making a luxe living on taxpayer largesse.
They follow in a long line of right-wing denialism in which Austrian School econ acolytes (and trickle down aficionados) have claimed to be self-made men while reaping untold rewards from lucrative military contracts and other sources of government funding or R&D windfall. Barry Goldwater once famously invoked the mythology of the independent cowboy to describe his successful rise (as would union man Ronald Reagan years later) — when in reality he inherited the family department store business that itself became viable only due to the public money pouring in to nearby military installations springing up in Arizona since as far back as the Civil War.
If we’re lucky, Luckey will create some sort of VR seasteading community that sucks the Silicon Valley Supremacists right in and traps them in a sort of Libertarian Matrix forever.
Peter Thiel and the Antichrist in 8 minutes (video)
This NotebookLM video does a great job explaining the background and impact of Thiel’s dangerously apocalyptic rhetoric inspired by a Nazi theorist — and below it you can find a deeper explanation of all major points:
More on Peter Thiel and his right-wing political network:
Buddies with right-wing Silicon Valley venture capitalist David Sacks — now Trump’s “AI and Crypto Czar” as of December 2024
