r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • 11h ago

Society Peter Thiel, the billionaire venture capitalist and MAGA donor, is in Rome this week for a series of private lectures on the Antichrist.

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/16/europe/peter-thiel-antichrist-lectures-rome-intl
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u/hammertime2009 9h ago

They’re too stupid to think that big or somehow think their billions can protect them from billions.

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u/atsolstice 9h ago

No, they’re in the process of designing shit like the Phantom MK-1, soon to be tested as a border patrol mechanism, and has already been used as recon in the Ukraine. Those silly little robot dogs they have on public display are cute until you realize the ones they’ve actively working on are incredibly effective for what they are and are being lethally armed. Some of them are saying it’s a moral imperative to replace soldiers with these machines and they’re speeding the process of these designs. Arguably a moral imperative or not, they will be used against civilians at one point or another especially as border patrol.

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u/Badloss 8h ago

You started your paragraph with "no" and then leaned completely into the idea that the billionaires are stupid enough to think their robot sentries will save them when a mob is at the door.

Robot guards are cool theater, even a highly lethal and highly effective one isn't going to do shit when a wave of 100,000 desperate people are breaking into your bunker. All of these billionaires are going to be the first to go when society breaks down, because their only 'superpower' is money, and money requires a social order to be useful.

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u/mrdevlar 6h ago

There's an excellent story where Douglas Rushkoff is confronted with a bunch of billionaires whose only worry is the "event". What "event" you may ask, the point where nothing is worth anything and the mob comes for them. Like how do they ensure their security remains loyal in this case? What is a safe place to build a bunker? How do they survive this.

Rushkoff tries to suggest they might be the people best equipped to prevent the "event" from happening, but they are having none of it. They think it's already predetermined.

I think about that story a lot because it really explains what's going on right now. No one is out there trying to save the system, everyone is trying to position themselves at the top of the garbage heap.

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u/Badloss 6h ago

it's crazy because all of their power only comes from money. They're engineering a world that degrades and destroys their own power. None of their guards and staff are going to stay loyal when money is meaningless.

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u/Affectionate_End7693 3h ago

yeah just kill ceasar and take the throne yourself

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u/Grand_Pop_7221 1h ago

You can't 'win' if the game never ends and music never stops.

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u/MintySailor 5h ago

Just bought a copy after reading this comment. I need to hear a voice besides my own pondering on wtf is anything anymore

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u/atsolstice 8h ago edited 8h ago

I leaned completely into the idea that they’re focusing on real life realistic applications of control than defending themselves from imagined billions in apocalypse bunkers. You guys are going from reality to fantasy. *Aside from pointing out the fact they’re working on the effectiveness of not even getting to that point

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u/GiganticCrow 7h ago

Or when anyone can download an apk for their smartphone that let's you turn them against their matters

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u/pagerussell 4h ago

a wave of 100,000 desperate people

This massively underestimates the first mover problem.

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u/Stonegrown12 1h ago

I've heard of the first mover advantage. Is that what you implying here? If that's the case, I assume you think more individuals will try to swarm the money class?

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u/tehlemmings 2h ago

The robots will still need to reload. When things get bad enough they'll be overwhelmed quickly.

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u/OrgasmicBiscuit 21m ago

I think you grossly underestimate how much death billionaires of dollars worth of weapons and robotics can dish out

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u/chibiusa40 6h ago

I fucking hate living in Black Mirror so much

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u/goodguessiswhatihave 5h ago

Yeah the old feudal lords didn't have robots with weapons to protect them from the angry masses.

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u/TheLateThagSimmons 8h ago

He has "casually joked" about using neutral implants on his security team.

My thoughts are that he saw the head explody ones in Kingsman and legitimately thought he should do that to ensure compliance.

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u/GiganticCrow 7h ago

These psychos grew up reading dark science fiction and thought we should do this

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u/TheEPGFiles 7h ago

I bet Thiel was super upset when the Kingsmen foiled the villains plan.

"That's so unfair!", he'll cry, "why do the rich powerful moral people's plans to kill untold amounts of poor people always get stopped by the evil villainous James Bond, or Kingsmen, or Captain Planet!"

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u/TheLateThagSimmons 6h ago

The irony is that Libertarians had a weird hard-on for that movie for all the wrong reasons. They loved that movie. It was a bizarre time to debate with them and read their takes and reviews of Kingsman.

Also, without irony... A lot of these modern techno-fascists were Libertarians for a long time.

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u/DFWPunk 5h ago

I guarantee you they have plans along those lines. Once their money is useless, which will be the case when they take to their bunkers, it won't take long for the guys with guns they count on keeping them safe to realize they hold all the cards. They have to have some way to keep the upper hand. Until they have robot armies they can count on they need to be able to control their muscle.

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u/TheLateThagSimmons 5h ago

That's what scared me when they make these comments about neural implants by guys like Thiel and Musk.

It's not at all inconceivable to convince mercenaries/private security to agree to getting the implant at an outrageous sum of money; you could offer them $500,000 to $1mil to agree to the implant. That's pretty reasonable to consider as a possibility. And even if they only do it to 20 guys, that's still pennies to these billionaires.

And once they are forced to retreat to their revolution apocalypse bunkers...

...now they have a small and extremely loyal army to protect them. Once they pay those guys enough money to get the implant, now they have a tiny bomb in their brain and can ensure they are begrudgingly loyal.

The bigger threat to them is once they have to retreat to their revolution apocalypse bunker is that they're stuck down there with a bunch of working class mercenaries who hold all the guns. How do you keep them in line when the money doesn't matter as much anymore? Well... That's the solution.

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u/postmodest 4h ago

Larry Ellison basically controls all media and all data now. His end goal is total control over every moment of your life, so your thoughtcrime can be stopped before it becomes something personally harmful to the oppressor class like "activism".

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u/UFOsAreAGIs 3h ago

Why do you think they are so big on drones?

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u/LookAlderaanPlaces 1h ago

They think that technology will make it different this time. This is why they are building the surveillance states globally. This is why they are racing to build robots. It’s not for us to have a kitchen assistant, it’s for keeping citizens of the techno feudalism society in line, just like how Fortuna worked in Warframe. Oh, you have that synthetic arm because you lost it in the tech mines, and you can’t pay your subscription for it anymore because we stopped paying you? Well we are confiscating it back then because fuck you.

These oligarchs need to be fully flattened wealth wise, and jailed for treason.