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Oct 23Liked by Matt

I love this Meditation!

It’s as Thiel has some kind of arrested development. Thiel has the analysis of history of a 5th grader, and a 5th grader’s goals with his own individual existence. Most of these people have some kind of frozen psycho-social development displaying the complete impossibility of wisdom and the extremely minimal humility of young children. They are also lacking in curiosity, which is a trait that intelligent people almost always have. Such people continue to inquire throughout their lives.

He really is someone who would make a GREAT character for a sci fi novel but as a very limited and troublesome villain, not as a protagonist.

The Epic of Gilgamesh already covered this problem, and Gilgamesh is sort of sympathetic in his own way. But this is because he lost his love. His quest starts with loss and love. Tolstoy also had a lot of problems with accepting death, after he lost his brother. So—it happens. But to get stuck there like Thiel does is a sign of intellectual and character limitations.

One thing I find a little bit interesting about this ‘quest’ is that many of the billionaires justify their mendacity with quests that have an adolescent character, and then they pretend that they are providing humanity with something in a way that nobody else can—like Musk and Mars or Bezos and whatever the hell he’s doing with space….or whatever. So do they genuinely believe they NEED a justification for their position? If they do, I’d say this is a vulnerability in their world view because the justification they provide is wack-a-doodle and unwanted. Or is it a cynical ploy like that of Bankman Fried and ethical altruism to provide cover for a larger grift.

Or is it a kind of self-deception ploy to help them cope with their own fears?

It’s honestly unclear whether—after a hundred years (or even less) one would be the ‘same person’ in any meaningful sense. They have never even inquired what it is to have a ‘self’ such that the ‘self’ survives over time. Among a vast array of other things they have not considered. I suppose they are not more absurd than other emperors and Caesars but they are pretty damn absurd, and more sensible people should oppose them as much as possible.

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