[ifwinterco]

That "antichrist" lecture was an attempt at a reverse Streisand effect - there was a meme that Thiel was the antichrist, but now if you google "peter thiel antichrist" all you're going to see is that lecture.

Pretty clever but to be clear he is an incredibly dodgy human being

[YetAnotherNick]

Yeah that's what I thought as well. Because even if he hates Greta Thunberg, there are much more extreme people in all the direction. So saying something so absurd seems bizarre. And for sure if anyone is to be tagged Antichrist, it would be war machine profiteer for most people.

Tbh it's kind of a genius move when countless comments like GP tags the antichrist as just slightly malicious or weird comment by him.

[ifwinterco]

Yep it's clever. He's many things but he's not stupid

[Betelbuddy]

No. He is stupid...

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/4ZjhdkOf0_E

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/s-BQhXdCs8Y

https://www.tiktok.com/@eddiethemediatrainer/video/752115237...

[red-iron-pine]

> He's many things but he's not stupid

evil, sun of satan, bringer of the end of times

[Schmerika]

People can be profoundly stupid in areas like basic/fundamental morality, while also being in the top 0.001% in areas like manipulating media and making money.

Examples: Every billionaire. Every single one - except Chuck Feeney who proved the rule.

[ifwinterco]

I'd argue that's not really stupidity, it's more of a moral and spiritual failing.

IMO those are really two separate axes, you can be very smart and also completely evil or quite dumb but a genuinely good person

[Schmerika]

It's not very smart to fail morally and spiritually, over and over, without ever looking into why or trying to correct the issues.

It does take intelligence of a particular kind to examine yourself and what makes you happy, fulfilled. And it takes a certain kind of stupidity to become greedy for more and more and more, neverending.

I don't believe that intelligence is a single axis. You can even have different levels of intelligence on different days for the exact same topic; even on the same day from one hour to the next.

Some people might be great at set theory but terrible at calculus; some people might be great with their hands at sewing but clumsy with glasswork. People are weird and complex.

But what's clear is when people don't even try to be good people. And that requires a particularly dense form of stupidity.

[ifwinterco]

True yes, I do get what you're saying

[YetAnotherNick]

Umm, I am not sure. If you can type on HN you are probably much richer than most in 3rd world countries and you for sure can give majority of your wealth to them. Almost everyone of any richness thinks they are not rich enough although almost everyone in tech probably is.

[pjc50]

Ah, this is the Boris Bus Distraction technique: https://spectator.com/article/the-boris-bus-conspiracy/ (not endorsing the Speccy, but this is an accurate summary)