The question was posed in a safe environment. Douthat, one of the Times’ most reliable conservatives, offered Thiel sufficient context to escape with an easy answer. Douthat prefaced his question by saying: “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.” He was referencing the movement to radically enhance and evolve humans to achieve immortality. Transhumanist adherents advocate for a range of innovations, from genetic biohacking to uploading our consciousness to a computer to merge with A.I., freezing ourselves through cryonics, and robotically adapting our bodies through expansive bionics that reach the level of cyborgs.
Douthat clearly thought that Thiel would choose human over machine. But Thiel responded with a long hesitation. In a video of the exchange, Douthat—to his credit—is clearly taken aback.
Thiel has long been cagey and ambiguous about his beliefs—likely a strategic play for his career as an investor—but he has clearly been fascinated with transhumanism for a long time. This recent interview, though, seems more direct and dangerous. Thiel seems unwilling to answer the question: Does he eventually want to be a literal, honest-to-god brain in a jar wired to a Macbook Pro?
Yes… That’s been the plan the whole fucking time. I thought we all knew this already?
There is just something about watching the slow, but inevitable collapse of the U.S. and eventually humanity as we know it, due to the very deliberate actions of one billionaire who was born in another country and who has been playing both sides against each other, while all other silicon valley billionaires have just accepted this as inevitable and are holding brainstorming sessions about what they can do following the collapse, rather than just stopping the guy who is orchestrating the whole thing.
Transhumanism is our inevitable fate, but this was all kicked off by a movement thar coerced Americans into believing they had to organize against secular humanism before things got anymore out of hand.
Thank God (can I still say God or do I have to say Thank Thiel?) we didn’t let that happen.
I’m surprised to see someone so supportive of Peter Thiel on Lemmy.
I feel like you’re so lovestruck you’ve somehow confused Thiel and his money with the technology he’s attached his name to, but I will loop you in on this hot take and very well kept secret: You can oppose Peter Thiel and the broligarchy trying to control the technology most of them played no role in creating, and not be opposed to technology.
Especially when you realize that the rush to this is bc Thiel just wants to attach his name to a very lackluster final product before anyone else can improve it out make it their own.
I’m not necessarily supportive of Thiel - he does some things that I oppose, and also some things that I think are silly. He’s not a very likeable man overall. I’m supportive of transhumanism. The substance of this article is merely that:
The article doesn’t even say what his reply ultimately was, but the implication is that even considering that a transhuman future would be better is somehow horrifying, and that’s the implication I’m surprised to see supported here.
You can find the video interview. I’ll spoil it for you: He didn’t say he would prefer the human race endure following that very concerning pregnant pause. Rather, he hemmed and hawed.
Thiel isn’t just a transhumanist, he’s an accelerationist, and he has a fuckton of money.
I’m for transhumanism and potentially some kind of ai governance but thiel (and the rest of the slime in the tech industry) are not the people to bring it to us. Everything they touch is tainted by greed and our current direction with ai is a lobotomized tumorous speech center.
Its a bit dated (written in the 90s) and doesn’t address transhumanism but Stark by Ben Elton really gets the vibe of these assholes.