Thiel, a German-American entrepreneur and activist, was a co-founder of PayPal and software firm Palantir. Revelations about the society – known as “Dialog” – have attracted widespread attention. And Thiel himself gave a confidential lecture series in San Francisco this year, in which he framed issues of politics and technology in biblical terms.
Thiel has said he believes that humankind faces existential threats from nuclear war or runaway artificial intelligence (AI) that could lead to “Armageddon”. In such an end-times era, so the thinking goes, only the most ingenious – like those in the secret society – would survive.
Thiel is an extreme, but by no means isolated, case. Other powerful people in politics and technology are viewing today’s world through a lens of civilisational crisis and impending catastrophe.
Politics of the end times
Over the centuries, political leaders have often invoked fears of decline and collapse. In ancient times, Augustus, the first Roman emperor, championed the narrative that Rome faced moral collapse to justify concentrating power in his own hands. Yet the current moment of “end-times politics” is different on several fronts. Threats, both real and imagined, spread faster than ever, diffused through social media algorithms that favour hysteria and conspiracy.
In Silicon Valley, influential figures routinely discuss AI as either humanity’s salvation or an extinction event. Palantir CEO Alex Karp has described the AI race as “our Oppenheimer moment”, when the world’s rich nations must decide whether to halt the development of a dangerous technology or tip the balance of power in its favour.
Yet the phenomenon extends beyond eccentric tech circles. End-times narratives have made their way into the halls of power, as political figures seize the opportunity to propagate radical politics.
US military personnel have filed a large number of complaints, stating that their commanders have been using biblical end-times rhetoric to justify the US attacks on Iran. Their leadership reportedly made reference to the Armageddon, viewing the war in Iran as a necessary step in bringing about the return of Christ.
This occurs in a context where the Trump administration has been catering to the Christian right, particularly evangelicals, as a major constituency for its “spiritual warfare”. The US secretary of war, Pete Hegseth, in particular has been portraying himself as an instrument of god in an existential civilisational battle for Christianity.
Hegseth and other central figures have reportedly been stacking their departments with evangelicals and Christian Zionists. These instances can be viewed as elements of a larger shift, where political and corporate leaders mix their interpretation of Christianity with beliefs about US supremacy.
Radical minds, radical politics
Trump’s threats towards Iran, including his decree in April that “a whole civilisation will die tonight, never to be brought back again”, indicate the consequences of this myth-making. It paves the way for radical politics in the US, and also beyond.
The Trump administration has claimed that Europe is facing continental decline and “civilizational erasure” due to immigration and European integration. In the same vein, Nigel Farage, leader of Reform UK, has sounded the alarm about the UK facing “societal collapse”.
Research has shown that people are more willing to support extraordinary measures when they believe they face an existential threat. It has also been shown that political leaders’ psychological dispositions matter more in times of uncertainty. The unforeseeable effects of technological and environmental transformation create risks and anxiety – and the danger is that leaders treat opponents, social movements or minority groups as mythical foes.
End-times politics then becomes a struggle over the definition of the ultimate threat to humankind. We are in a time when humans face multiple risks. These worldviews eventually determine how national politics and geopolitics evolve.
There is another reason to pay attention. For much of the modern era, the most influential people were elected leaders and state officials. Today, a novel type of leader has emerged: technology executives with wealth and media influence. Their influence can extend deep into the state – symbolised by Elon Musk’s role in the US Department of Government Efficiency and the critical role of SpaceX in US global strategy.
For a long time, scholars explained global politics in terms of institutions and structural relations, and globalisation through business interests. Now, the future of both increasingly depends on the psychology of a small political and corporate elite.
End-times leaders will exaggerate certain threats while downplaying others. Often, technology executives will establish links between a prosperous future and the necessity of disruptive innovation. US venture capitalist Marc Andreessen has been a proponent of “technological accelerationism” – the idea that unregulated technological development is the only way to overcome the world’s existential problems.
The challenge is distinguishing between genuine threats and narratives that amplify fear while obscuring more pressing problems. At a time when the debate is saturated with predictions of collapse, it may be more important than ever to focus on the risks that are supported by evidence – the climate crisis and an erosion of democratic systems, for example.
On the question of whether technology can overcome climate change and bring world peace, it might be wise not to take the word of tech billionaires. After all, Thiel has recently been hedging his bets between a bunker in New Zealand and a refuge in Javier Milei’s Argentina.
Joscha Abels, Post-Doctoral Researcher, Institute of Political Science, University of Tübingen and Juliana Tappe Ortiz, Post-Doctoral Researcher, Institute of Political Science, University of Tübingen
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.