Peter Thiel’s Religion

“There is something very odd about a society where the most talented people get all tracked toward the same elite colleges, where they end up studying the same small number of subjects and going into the same small number of careers… It’s very limiting for our society as well as for those students.”

Thiel asks: “Is this a business that I have enough confidence in that I would consider joining it myself?” If yes, he’ll consider an investment. If the answer is no, he won’t.

 Everybody condemns hate-fueled online speech. If Girard’s theories are accurate, online fighting might be the preventative medicine we need, even if it tastes disgusting and comes with painful side-effects. The forces of globalization and technology may have abolished the boundaries of violence.

As any dancer will tell you, the heart beats fastest when two people agree to imitate each other and move in perfect sync. These are the moments when time disappears; when years of trust are built in seconds of synchronicity.

We all form our identity by looking towards others. Since everybody copies, we can improve society by encouraging people to copy the right people.

His message has two meanings. Violence is the disease and the cure for the disease. Sacrificial ritual is always violent. And yet, since the real and symbolic violence of sacrifice restores peace in the community, it prevents the escalation of runaway Mimetic violence. In that way, humanity contains violence with violence because sacrifice saves th... See more

He doesn’t see the world as a mere distribution of luck-based outcomes. Instead, he praises conviction, bets on transcendent founders, and invests in the kind of companies he’d want to work for.

We increasingly believe that progress is inevitable. Progress, though, is not guaranteed. We must work for it. Otherwise, our living standards will not improve, and may get worse. 

As a libertarian who holds the New Testament as a seminal text, Thiel seeks to increase individual freedoms while preventing runaway Mimetic violence.