Nosferatu Goes Digital: Thiel and the Vampire Network

[sus]

Man needs his own post.

Thread's on occasion of his new FT op-ed whose prose @ghost has called laboriously overwrought

https://www.ft.com/content/a46cb128-1f74-4621-ab0b-242a76583105

 

[sus]

I haven't read that one yet but I think this talk is really iconic:



You watch Thiel and Graeber go in, set up as ideological adversaries, expecting a debate, and instead they end up agreeing about everything. Really incredible/symptomatic stuff

 

[sus]

I think understanding Eric Weinstein is very important to understanding Thiel

I can try to type up thoughts on Eric though it's been many years since I followed his thinking from a distance

 

[sus]

I was talking to a friend yesterday about how one thing the CCRU was good at, and one thing that Dissensus is still good at, is coining concepts

I don't agree with a significant portion of Eric's worldview but he's good at making concepts

 

[sus]

Embedded Growth Obligations (EGOs) are structures built into institutions in times of growth that assume growth will continue. An institution must therefore grow to meet its EGOs, or its leaders must lie about the presence of growth. This compromising of incentives causes institutions to tend towards exploitative or sociopathic behaviors, as their leaders face selective pressures to maintain the status quo. Eric Weinstein first publicly introduced the idea in his first appearance on The Rubin Report on January 6, 2017.

 

[sus]

The concept of "Anti-Interesting," originated by Eric Weinstein, describes phenomena, events, or topics that are inherently fascinating, newsworthy, and potentially of great public interest but are deliberately underreported, ignored, or downplayed by mainstream media and other institutional actors. The essence of the concept lies in the idea that these topics are not simply "uninteresting" but are actively suppressed because they threaten established narratives, powerful institutions, or vested interests.

 

[sus]

"De-potemkin" describes the act of fabricating or conjuring up a reality that aligns with the false impression initially projected by a façade or surface appearance. This term draws upon the historical concept of the Potemkin village, referring to a constructed façade designed to deceive observers into believing a false reality. To "de-potemkin" is to actively engage in the creation or maintenance of a fictional or illusory environment that masks the true conditions or lacks substance, thereby perpetuating the deception originally intended by the façade. It encapsulates the notion of actively sustaining an illusion or falsehood through deliberate actions or manipulations.

 

[sus]

 

[Murphy]

He turned up at Stan’s SF embassy submarine along with the homeless bloke who claimed to be the king of Brunei ..



Weinstein seems like a proper repeat offender pod whore. Get him on, regurgitate oligarchical positions with bells and ribbons, repeat ad infinitum. Him and his brother are a right pair of spuds, even got into the UAP debate. They owe their careers to Thiel, just like JDV, so they’re at least loyal to their patron

Mad how Thiel and Musk were both born outside the US but, fling a few quid round, watch what their admirers won’t do.

 

[Murphy]

Very very shiny face. Enough to want to hand him a tissue. A slightly depressing presence, not exactly vigorous or inspiring but with a trace of something seething his profile breeds and selects for. A hint of measured ‘sort of’ polite reticence because everything said is a potential soundbite and you don’t want to look too aloof to criticism or rigidity addressing crowds

He’s been very well schooled in timing answers in interviews but he’s no natural. However, there comes a point as a gentleman, when dyeing your hair to look younger is ridiculous. Baron Harkonnen as an introvert with a penchant for e45 shiny face grooming than collecting various skin diseases, or sweating during public speaking? You decide

Definitely a heart-valve puller



His cadence is appalling, a sort of stuttery “I am very smart, so very very smart I can’t .. I can’t, I can’t quite, get my words out, as I play, as I, as I play 23dimensional chess with myself .. with myself, in my head, whenever anyone else, is addressing, is addressing, me” like a robotic Christopher Walken. And he doesn’t have an impediment so impediments aren’t being mocked, it’s the performative aspect. As if every utterance is somehow hallowed or, as Little Carmine once observed “from the sacred to the propane”, propane here being a prescient allusion to Rocket Man and fellow oligarch rascal influencer, Elron as I read here

Listened to Thiel speaking on the ‘Antichrist’? Absurd to the point of surrealism. Culty war bs, pivoting back to Jesus and christian nationalism as cultural memory shaping the US as a class more than ever as a nation, so understand the thread’s line of inquiry and focus more as American capitalist fetishising. Look to Rome and the kinds of human who could follow Thiel, the pathology needed to get that high on your own supply, or go full Roman and start talking about Mars all the time ..

 

[Murphy]

To get to the top of the pyramid in a nation of 360 odd million and, by default, most of the west and beyond, it’s like god-gold tier where even the most pathologically psychotic must have moments of ”if not me, who? if not now, when?” beyond their own hubris, beyond the relentless pr eventing

 

[version]

Yeah, bizarre when you finally get a look at him. The popular conception of Thiel as this Nosferatu-like figure's somewhat punctured when you're confronted by the glistening, inarticulate specimen who pops up on the news and podcasts.

A couple of things which often come to mind when I think of him are that clip where he claims Obama was "close to communist" and that America needs to get back into the Cold War mindset and an essay he wrote for the Cato Institute where he said he wanted to "make the world safe for capitalism".

The Education of a Libertarian

www.cato-unbound.org

I reckon it was him that got Jimmy Carr into Rene Girard. I dunno that they've actually met, but Thiel's a huge fan of Girard and Carr's started popping up on all these masculinity and self-help podcasts people like Eric Weinstein appear on and talking about Girard and mimetic desire.

Peter Thiel explains how an esoteric philosophy book shaped his worldview

Peter Thiel tells us how the contemporary French philosopher René Girard changed the way he thinks.

www.businessinsider.com

 

[wg-]

It is impressive how easily these South African lads are applying the mid-era USA model of funding somewhat failing democratic models and destabilising governments for their own ideological benefit, but to former colonial powers in USA and the UK. Particularly relevant now that the BRIC model is taking a genuine run at Africa and the western lads aren't really the genuine influence in the content that they previously were

The method of using e.g Rogan and adjacent podcasts to launder reputation and push ideology is a great idea and it works so well. Not one mention of Palantir in the FT article or in this thread, as if he exists within a vacuum. Look at how many times people mention Tesla when they go on about Musk

Anyway my only real opinion on all these people is that at some point you have to stop wanking over billionaires unless you're hoping licking their boots is going to get you somewhere

 

[version]

Not one mention of Palantir in the FT article or in this thread, as if he exists within a vacuum. Look at how many times people mention Tesla when they go on about Musk

Tesla make cars, Palantir do something vague with data. The former's bound to come with a greater degree of visibility.

 

[IdleRich]

Saw Palantir mentioned on twitter today

Listen. Macron & Keir Starmer shall be removed. Trump & DARK MAGA team -- Elon, Peter Thiel, Palmer Luckey, Marc Andreessen, David Sacks, Alex Karp -- have the power of the US Presidency, AI, Palantir, Anduril weapons, SpaceX, Starlink, & trillions$. We will reshape the EU.

 

[version]

It's notable that outspoken capitalists often extol the virtues of competition whereas Thiel says actually competition is bad because it dilutes profits and that monopolies should be the goal.

 

[wg-]

Once you have your hooks into the day to day data process it's very difficult for the client to extract themselves from it

In terms of influence, the consortium they're trying to put together would be a substantial change in the US military industrial complex, and a move away from Lockheed Martin etc does actually begin to put the systems in the hands of "foreign power" to a much larger degree

 

[sus]

Does anyone have an idea for a better title? I can still change it. Wasnt' very inspired last night

 

[version]

Does anyone have an idea for a better title? I can still change it. Wasnt' very inspired last night

Paypalanthiel
Blood Boys and Data Vampires: The Rise and Rise of Peter Thiel
Nosferatu Goes Digital: Thiel and the Vampire Network
Exiting the Vampire Space Fortress

 

[version]

"Listen. Macron & Keir Starmer shall be removed. Trump & DARK MAGA team -- Elon, Peter Thiel, Palmer Luckey, Marc Andreessen, David Sacks, Alex Karp -- have the power of the US Presidency, AI, Palantir, Anduril weapons, SpaceX, Starlink, & trillions$. We will reshape the EU."

Palmer Luckey's such an American sounding name, like a slick lawyer in an old Hollywood film.