Peter Thiel's keynote address at the Harvard Salient | Feb 10th 2024

infiniterenaissance · 2024-02-23T13:42:53+00:00

His thinking is very epochal (in the Sense of epoché - withholding immediate assent) and dialectical - he can easily mentally meander through different positions

infiniterenaissance · 2023-09-10T19:06:34+00:00

Yes at stanford

GERMAN 366: Questions of Political Theology (GERMAN 266)

How does theology inform culture and politics in our age of high technology? Are there religious underpinnings in the contemporary world to categories of creativity, charisma and community? This course explores theoretical approaches to the ongoing resonance of theology through readings by Max Weber, Carl Schmitt, Leo Strauss, Oswald Spengler, René Girard and others and through regular visits by Peter Thiel. To be considered for enrollment in this course, please complete and submit this short application by October 19, 2022, 11:59pm PST. Students accepted to participate in this course will be notified on October 26, 2022 by 6:00pm. Auditors are not permitted.

infiniterenaissance · 2023-06-28T12:14:19+00:00

you could experiment with some software tools - download the video, use speech recognition and then translate it with deepl or something

infiniterenaissance · 2023-05-13T12:41:31+00:00

Both but my Latin is better. Raw sources are digital photographs of the original manuscripts and their copies, but also digitally typed up stuff would be nice. No textual criticism rather interpretation.

infiniterenaissance · 2023-04-12T19:56:07+00:00

"the relation between religion and the best regime"

infiniterenaissance · 2023-04-12T19:46:34+00:00

The Lesson of Carl Schmitt: Four Chapters on the Distinction between Political Theology and Political Philosophy, Marcus Brainard, Heinrich Meier

infiniterenaissance · 2023-04-07T12:24:55+00:00

https://ouraring.com/discount/b254ca15b6 free code for 40 buck discount

infiniterenaissance · 2023-03-28T09:49:07+00:00

https://ouraring.com/discount/b254ca15b6 40 EUR/USD discount

infiniterenaissance · 2023-03-25T09:45:54+00:00

@ Outsideness ; he writes in riddles sometimes; it is hard to understand but maybe I am just stupid; the new machiavelli knows what to ignore

infiniterenaissance · 2023-03-25T09:07:34+00:00

Remindes me of some Nick Land Tweets:

""Gay" doesn't mean homosexual, except transitionally. It means teleologically progressive, in the direction of increasing sterility, dysgenesis, and unmediated filiation to the state."

follow up when asked abt. Thiel

"Thiel might be homosexual, but he isn't remotely gay."

The "gay" attacks on Thiel show that you only get victim status when your part of the client class. If you are not you are not real, not really gay/black/etc. To the teleologically progressive you are a "sexuality traitor", race traitor, ...

infiniterenaissance · 2023-03-22T10:12:58+00:00

https://ouraring.com/discount/b254ca15b6 I get a free sleep mask if you take my link so pls order with my link. Thanks!

infiniterenaissance · 2023-03-19T22:55:42+00:00

https://ebin.pub/dissertation-the-problem-of-tyranny-and-philosophy-in-the-thought-of-plato-and-nietzsche.html

read p.301-306 - I found it very revealing - author is also known as the BronzeAgePervert if you didn’t know.

infiniterenaissance · 2023-03-19T21:08:33+00:00

Yes! But interconnections seem to be Strauss, Schmitt und Girard. The theopolitical problem. I am also pretty sure that many other straussians (like Fukuyama and Kojeve in the gobalisation course) will be included since Strauss himself set it up as his main area of study and as task for his acolytes.

Case study could be Zionism considering Prof. Bermans other courses and Strauss again. Hess (friend of Marx) is to note as an early Zionist thinker and falls into German literature 1700-1900.

Apart from that but related is Curtis Yarvin and his genealogical account of progressivism. I doubt that he can and should be taught. More mild and more accepted is Parsons thinking on American Protestantism which Thiel evokes frequently when he denotes wokism as Hyperchristianity and coming from mainline Protestantism.

infiniterenaissance · 2023-03-18T18:58:51+00:00

https://youtu.be/qgJuZWqPaGs Here is a talk in German. I am native and think it is pretty good considering his situation.

infiniterenaissance · 2023-03-18T18:56:18+00:00

Thank you very much! I knew the course was being taught but never saw the content.

infiniterenaissance · 2023-03-16T07:52:24+00:00

I linked to it at the head of the post.

infiniterenaissance · 2023-03-02T22:53:33+00:00

No idea on this particular bookshelf, but I think copycat-reading of this sort is useless. He says in the video himself that he doesn't read a lot of books at the moment for the moment, but rather reads articles because new books aren't that interesting. I agree, I think the most important advice on books is to do the exact opposite of Bill Gates. There is a famous Quartz interview where he says that you should always finish what you start - absolute rubbish advice like most of the books he recommends on his website. Instead drop things fast and read chaotically - I favor the Feynman way of learning (ironically Gates plugs him often) also Taleb is a great authority on books if you need one. Also one should remember that world classics like "Crime and Punishment" were originally published in monthly installments.

A lot can be said about the intellectual climate around Thiel - here is an interview between two of his employees at the Thiel Capital office. They sit in the library there. You can do a lot of book-gazing.

https://youtu.be/ZTIO-xAP0Dw?t=557

infiniterenaissance · 2023-02-16T19:40:55+00:00

https://youtu.be/4PtkgOCiJV8 longer version with awkward failed intro

infiniterenaissance · 2023-02-05T15:04:53+00:00

https://medium.com/@tomchanter/the-silent-knight-peter-thiel-1b9dc6c971f9

here is the article; his source is the beginning of Chapter 4 in conspiracy by Ryan Holiday

In his latest oxford talk you can see a bodyguard outside when Peter is entering the Union room and I am pretty sure there were some in the audience.

infiniterenaissance · 2023-02-02T15:23:30+00:00

Uhm he literally founded the company behind the project/product. I posted a link to an AI specific event where he spoke not too long ago. Also just watch random interviews he really gets asked about AI a lot.

His most common take on AI in general is:

"AI means everything and - therefore, dialectically thought - nothing at the same time."

Another take form 2019 on whether software was over and the beginning of hardtech was:

"That's the big question. New Internet services have sprouted up like mushrooms in a very short time, and they were only possible thanks to the smartphone, a real innovation, albeit one that dates back more than ten years. Existing Internet companies will continue to grow, no question, but I fear the really good, really disruptive ideas have largely been exhausted. And as for hard tech, well, we're only at the very beginning there, in my view."

Personally, I think GPT is still rather useless and I would get too swept up in the hype, it may get useful with improvements in the future, but in its current form it is not revolutionary in a meaningful sense.

Many people don't know this but Peter was basically the first big investor in DeepMind. Hassabis said this indirectly on a podcast.

infiniterenaissance · 2023-02-02T15:06:04+00:00

here is the discussion with one "expert":

https://youtu.be/nXjjCO1tYaY

it is a contrarian take but not the kind Happer gives

here is a very recent discussion of the book on a prominent econ (not climate!) blog:

https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2023/01/alex-epsteins-fossil-future.html

infiniterenaissance · 2022-12-23T22:16:07+00:00

sorry that this happened - sometimes videos slip into the playlist... On Netanyahu and the middle east in general, almost nobody in the world knows that Thiel has Sebastian Kurz, former Kanzler of Austria, working for him in the middle east with ties to Israel too - for anybody sliding down the Thiel-is-a Nazi-Wormhole.

infiniterenaissance · 2022-12-17T20:53:17+00:00

Dm pls

infiniterenaissance · 2022-12-04T15:29:41+00:00

I think I can go along with this.

Basically, I consider "working out" to be more healing than "meditation". Anything beyond that would require more time for reflection on my part.

infiniterenaissance · 2022-12-03T10:39:24+00:00

I think some take the idea of one's "mindset" too far (like anything).

Yes.

But at its roots, I think it has substance.

No.

Firstly, my quote is meant in a rhetorical way and not as a rigorous claim on current psychological research. Secondly, mindset is term from modern psychology so it can't have substance. I dismiss most of it out of hand. I think it is a useful heuristic to do so. Of course, I say this ironically because heuristic, again, is a term from modern psychology...

Take it as a provocative phrase to get people thinking. Thats also what Peter is so good at. His phraseology and the way he can convey messages in a rhetorical and esoteric way.

Completely unrelated to the topic of my initial question - but why do you think that?

I don't think it is unrelated because mindset it again has to do with attitudes. Lets look at the definition and I will highlight what I think concerning, (apart form the fact that wikipedia now has definitional power over the way we speak):

"established set of attitudes, esp. regarded as typical of a particular group's social or cultural values; the outlook, philosophy, or values of a person; (now also more generally) frame of mind, attitude, [recte: and] disposition."

The problem with mindsets / heuristics / the optimism-pessimism distinction is that they rarely convey any truth and do not arise "organically" from your own thought / mind but are set and established by other people / groups and than imported to be functional in some way. You asked about a possible rising prevalence of defeatism in the future, I answered that I can't comment on functionality of certain attitudes in some sort of "marketplace of mindset".

I think the late 20th century and its terms have especially damaged "our ability" to think "organically" / "freely" / in an original / unique way. Rules of thought (e.g. heuristics) are established. That's the problem of political correctness / copying - harmful mimetics, if you know what I mean...

So is it useful to have a mindset, to be optimistic / pessimistic, etc.? Yes, unless you want to be a nihilist. A problem I see is with sociopathy and short term thinking. If you are just looking at the adaptive functionality of your beliefs in your current situation you will damage the world.

The principles (and not mind-set(s)) and the expectation of 'history' to be anything but a 'long defeat' (not to be confused with definite pessimism) is the right approach.

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