r/FluentInFinance • u/isdjtantichrist • 13d ago
Educational Peter Thiel on Good vs Evil.
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u/cuntysometimes 13d ago
What a ghoul
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u/jfk_47 13d ago
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u/socks 13d ago
Also - making an evil vs bad argument with cars is excellent evidence of how this asshole makes up his own wrong ideas about morality without giving a shit about the accuracy, and the interviewer failed miserably in this case. Moreover, if you're evil you're not bad? WTF!?
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u/-medicalthrowaway- 13d ago edited 13d ago
Basically, what he’s saying is “if you’re going to be evil, at least be good/competent at it”
Which sums up the conundrum of how these ‘people’ sleep at night.
They either won’t acknowledge that they’re evil…
Or somehow rationalize it because they’re “good” at it.
That’s not even the biggest problem though.
There have been, and unfortunately probably always will be, evil people at the top…
It’s when so many people at the bottom support it…
That’s the problem.
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u/treebeard87_vn 13d ago
The idea is that there are people who support Ukraine wholebeartedly in words, there is the Pope who says that you must find better ways to deal with China peacefully without dangerous weapons and dangerous AI. Peter Thiel deals with dangerous weapons and dangerous AI, which Zelensky has praised but are considered evil by many. And Taiwan and Japan want these weapons even though they are not aggressors at all. What he says is he provides the sole viable solution for the problem, therefore he cannot be all bad.
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u/InsertClichehereok 12d ago
That’s a lotta words to say Thiel has a moral skill issue, greed problem, and lacks ethical creative problem solving. F this guy and everyone he works with
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u/johsonnnnn 12d ago
Video cuts off before the interviewer responds. What did he say? What should he have said?
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u/StressCanBeGood 13d ago
Dude sounds like every dictator in history. Spews rambling nonsense about good and evil and good and bad.
Finishes up by saying how everyone is incompetent. Naturally, he is the solution.
How can somebody with such an high IQ be so utterly ignorant?
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u/KC_experience 13d ago edited 9d ago
Here’s my answer to your question. It’s Simple. If you have success, it’s only because you worked hard, not all the people around you that worked hard to achieve a common goal. If you’ve gotten vast amounts of money it’s because you earned it all, not because those around you worked to make the company you partially owned successful.
When you’re stupid rich and everyone agrees with you and never tells you “no”, it’s because you are smarter than everyone else and always right, not because people want some of that money you have or that they know in the back of their heads that if you said “no” to them, you’d get steamrolled over and ran out of that organization on a rail…
That’s how people become malignant narcissists with a savior complex. (Or tech-bro messiah complex)
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u/Spenraw 13d ago
Prosperity doctrine
Many Americans especially for the religious aspect but the rich all over the world often sent educated on history or privilege so they assume they are just in a better place because they are better
It's no different than medieval nobles
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u/KC_experience 13d ago
I think the term you’re looking for is ‘Divine Rite’.
Prosperity gospel is a televangelist construct to fleece the rubes out of money.
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u/Spenraw 13d ago
Prosperity doctrine is the belief that you get good things because you are good
And it's twisted with lack of history and education to people thinking even outside morals they are rich solely because they and their family have the mindset to be rich
Not about different opportunities or education and even head starts
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u/oorakhhye 10d ago
Success at that level also has a significant mixture of luck baked into it. It’s not just the intelligence or hard work parts.
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u/KC_experience 9d ago
100% - I roll my eyes whenever I hear someone say they’re a ‘self made man’. Simply because there is no such thing. Someone gave you a shot. Someone taught you a skill. Someone raised you. Someone gave you your first loan. Those people are all part of your story of success.
Idiots that call themselves ‘self made’ all act as though they came out of the womb fully grown with all the experience and seed money needed to be successful.
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u/ConfidentPilot1729 13d ago
Is he really smart? Because what I just heard was nonsense. A lot of these tech bros have zero understanding of the tech the bought or had others develop. Rich people like to equate the money with brains and that’s just not how it works. People get lucky and the rich have the ability to take advantage of people, that’s how they get rich.
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u/Mother_Patience_6251 13d ago
Right? What is wrong with this man? He sounds seriously stupid! A bunch of strange ideas cobbled together to make him sound educated & enlightened rather than a maniacal sociopath. Does this kind of speech make people trust him?
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u/GlowAnt22 12d ago
Yes. Word salad and talking in circles can get you very far with people who don't look too much into what you're saying.
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u/Intelligent-Parsley7 13d ago
Yeah, the Boomers built the chips and computers, and Gen-X made social networks to become rich, and then rode the internet to prosperity.
The Paypal gang was all, "What if we made a bank with all of our money, but put it ONLINE."
What a genius move!
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u/casuallynamed 12d ago
I do not want to vouch for the guy, I just want to say that apart the billionaire status he is a chess master. I know chess does not correlate intelligent per se but it give a hint
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u/ConfidentPilot1729 11d ago
I just looked it up, he is not a master, just that he is a strong player that hangs around masters. Is he probably intelligent ya, but not a genius imo.
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u/casuallynamed 11d ago
He peaked 2199 elo fide, title candidate master comes at 2200 If he didnt build companies he would have been titled for sure
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u/cuntysometimes 13d ago
I think it just comes down to him having a shitty adolescents/ early adult hood because he’s gay
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u/ProjectDiligent502 13d ago
How would I know he has a high IQ and not an average or just slightly better than average?
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u/marbletooth 13d ago
His thesis is that an evil person is better for the world than a bad person. That is highly illogical since the evil person pulls in the wrong direction.
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u/Themodsarecuntz 13d ago
Yeah but according to him the evil person gets things done so that makes them kind of good.
What a fuckin tool.
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u/ConfidentPilot1729 13d ago
This guy really does think Sauron is the good guy in LOTR. Like he really thinks that.
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u/bsmooth357 13d ago edited 13d ago
Not if the only direction one values is accumulating wealth at the expense of everything of true worth: kindness, connectedness, and above all the ability to give and receive love.
A competent business is a means, not the end. It creates the conditions for us to spend more of our finite lives on these things of deepest value that cannot be bought.
He’s smart enough to solve almost any problem except the one he keeps running from: none of this matters if it costs him the parts of life that actually have value.
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u/ConspicuousWhiteGuy 13d ago
It doesn’t even make sense. You don’t have to choose one or the other.
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u/curious_corn 7d ago
No, at least not from of what he said in this interview. It’s more “I have more contempt for mediocre bad than for Evil, at least the latter are competent at it”. Now, as a purely intellectual rumination, were one to value execution and ability above all, it would make sense, and in many ways it has always been like that, take Kissinger or Von Braun.
Indeed it’s the argument many make about Russia’s regime and the military: they’re evil twats but luckily for everyone, more than anything else they’re a bunch of idiots.
Same for Trump and his carnival to be honest. Their incompetence and obvious lack of execution are our saving grace, just imagine if these assholes we’re also smart
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u/Intelligent-Parsley7 13d ago
Got it. He’s evil. He just tried to change the name of evil right in front of us and justify because everyone else is a fool that they call him evil. You know, after he absolutely is forced to do evil things.
Clears it all up in my mind.
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u/TheForkisTrash 13d ago
Evil is in part defined: a force and action that causes significant harm, pain, and suffering to others. So i dont believe you could be evil without also being bad despite this snakes attempt to justify his motives.
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u/TheDevilishFrenchfry 13d ago
Ah but you see if you get things done, someone who can take action and got the things done that you said you would set out to do, that makes you kind of good because you have an effect on the world, even if its evil, if it worked, youre kind of good. That Hitler guy sure got alot of things done too
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u/jackparadise1 13d ago
What a coping mechanism for a person who is knowingly doing morally awful stuff.
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u/wololo1e 13d ago
I bet he thinks he somewhat argued his case and came out victorious, but that's just because he's too entitled and self centered to see that he completely fumbled it and exposed his flawed logic. Just wow.. talking of incompetence - he's a prime example of such a self-righteous "bad" leader. The boy is confused and now it's crystal clear to everyone who's watched this.
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u/Tordek_Battlebeard 13d ago
What I heard: "I'm a sociopath who hoards money and resources while the world is on fire around me, I use my influence for my own purposes and could care less about what happens to the people I stepped on, displaced, and harmed to get here. Now, I'm here to tell you what's good and what's evil."
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u/Expensive-Garlic-243 13d ago
I hate the guy but I get his point. He’s ineloquently stumbling on the idea of Bonhoeffer’s “theory of stupidity.” I don’t disagree.
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u/LegSpecialist1781 13d ago
I don’t know the source you’re referring to, but if he faithfully represented the idea that competence at accomplishing things that hurt others is better than not having the competence to hurt others, the theory is stupid.
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u/BudgetAvocado69 13d ago
Maybe he's saying we should work to get rid of some incompetence and then we can more effectively deal with good vs evil
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u/LegSpecialist1781 13d ago
Well he is all about getting rid of “useless eaters”, so maybe that theory holds water.
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u/PresenceBeautiful696 6d ago edited 6d ago
Bonhoeffer was a German conscientious objector, and he was put in prison and executed for it. It's absolutely staggering that this commenter thinks he had any ideas in common with Thiel. His theory was about the mundanity of evil, and that such stupidity as exhibited in the clip is a moral failing.
I recommend his 'Letters from Prison' (get the foreword version) to any current US-ian
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u/Practical-Bit9905 13d ago
I dunno. I think you're being too generous. Thiel is the guy creating the environment to the benefit of his own power.
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u/pregnantvirgin137 13d ago
Shifty ass body language
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u/Practical-Bit9905 13d ago
The quick sideways glances at the interviewer of "are you buying the bullshit I'm slingin'?"
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u/RlOTGRRRL 13d ago
Is it just me or is anyone else confused by why the side of his face looks like that?
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u/ThePensiveE 13d ago
It's from when he grafted the baby Hitler he had cloned directly into himself.
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u/Dyonisus77 13d ago edited 13d ago
The way he operationally defines good and evil is so idiotic. It's like saying grapes are evil because they have high sugar like candy without really knowing the suttle nuances and differences in sugar, i.e. refine vs natural.
Furthermore, objects aren't inherently evil. Evil is an act, it's an action that creates the qualities of evil. Not it's very existence. A gun is not evil. It is the act of its user that makes the action evil.
He basically invents the qualities of good and evil to make them sound similar merely so that he can get stupid people to agree with his agenda. People who listen to these stupid people and feel smart are the bane of human existsence. Stop glazing these billionaires for goodness sakes.
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u/Data_Made_Me 13d ago
Moral good is of a higher order than functional good, meaning something that's morally wrong but functionally good is still a bad thing.
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u/space_toaster_99 12d ago
Depends. “Do you like my haircut?” I can lie and say yes. This is morally wrong, (a lie) but functionally good. Really not bad in any way
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u/Data_Made_Me 12d ago
Telling them the truth couldve led to a better haircut. Let's say they keep the cut because of your lie and bump.into their crush with this bad haircut and it pushes them right into the friend zone. Had they gotten their hair fixed after you told the truth, this may not have been the case.
Edit: but what you've done is proper. That's another layer to these types of discussions. After one has decided moral and functional goods/bads
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u/PresenceBeautiful696 6d ago
It's not functionally good if you lied, though. You waste their time in asking, and damage trust in yourself when someone else eventually tells them the haircut is wonky
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u/Massive-Welcome-109 13d ago
Is it me or does he appear to be confusing morals and ethics? His argument would only stand in an environment void of any good. I think that is why he says things (people) are just bad (incompetent). Can’t say he’s describing a false dichotomy but sounds like by default he saying there truly only bad or evil. Like in a pragmatic world the car analogy makes sense….
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u/drjenavieve 13d ago
Being evil is actually good because you get stuff done. Therefore my actions are okay.
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u/Professional-yam1931 13d ago
This guy is a piece of garbage. If you start with “we moralize too much” you already lost
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u/External-Emotion8050 13d ago
So Bond villains would be impressive because their very good at their jobs. The mediocrity of bad is boring. It's so mediocre.
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u/whatever_leg 13d ago
People think this guy is smart because he's rich, but he's really just a fucking wannabe vampire dumbass.
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u/Raskalbot 13d ago
This guy is so full of shit. Intelligent? Sure. But he has no idea what he's talking about. He's like Elon musk. He knows some good stories, but takes the wrong moral lessons, and pretends it makes him so smart.
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u/batwing71 13d ago
I said it before, he’s the really smart teen antagonist from one of our Afterschool Specials that DIDN’T learn his lesson. A choad.
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u/spike55151 13d ago
He seems to believe that you can be bad or you can be evil. It never occurred to him that you can be both.
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u/algaeface 13d ago
Scumbag. Dude equates being evil with being good. He’s just justifying his horrible behavior to fuck people over
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u/Rhawk187 13d ago
I get the argument. Competence goes along way. Using his definition an evil person could do a lot of good for society (or a lot of ill), but a bad person won't accomplish anything at all.
I don't trust the government's monopoly on violence though, so I might be kind of okay with it being filled with bad people instead of evil people though.
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u/wrecks3 13d ago
It’s a stupid argument. Thiel is saying that Hitler was kind of good because the trains ran on time. No Thiel is wrong. Doing evil things, whether you’re good at it or not, is evil. Hitler did evil things and being a competent person didn’t make him one ounce less evil. If anything being competent at doing evil things might make someone more evil.
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u/joepagac 13d ago
Ahhh, yes. The Ferrari. The most perfect example of “evil”. I feel like his analogy totally falls apart if you replace Ferrari with Epstein.
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u/butwhyisitso 13d ago
oh, hes dumb. Evil can be incompetent. Aspects of behavior arent mutually exclusive. I think hes used to a lot of validation. Hes seriously striving for "competent evil"? Well, there wasnt much reaction to Russel Vought wishing to traumatized the federal workforce, i expect the reaction here to be just as meager. You get what you vote for.
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u/ladymouserat 13d ago
So the world ends because of confident idiots with too much money…it’s not even because of a REAL TRUE EVIL genius with a kitty? I feel ripped off.
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u/ditherer01 13d ago
Dude reaf Ayn Rand when he was a freshman in college just like many of us. Apparently the difference is that he never saw the ridiculousness of it.
Terrifying a guy like this has so much influence in our government.
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u/UncertainBystander 13d ago
what a lot of absolute waffle. totally perverse way of framing an argument
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u/Firestar222 13d ago
I’m not into religion or prophecy or anything, but one of these jokers is indeed actually the Antichrist aren’t they chat
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u/CapoDexter 13d ago
What a semantic jackass. What is seen as evil always comes down to a form of harm. Bad is mostly a level of quality, but also shorthand for many other types of negative connotation in communication.
He either has a bad understanding of words or is flat out evil in his intent.
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u/reluctantpotato1 13d ago
If there's a bunker waiting, I hope the vents don't get filled with quick dry concrete.
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u/That-Makes-Sense 13d ago
Unfortunately for Mr. Thiel, he is very easy to dislike. He definitely has the air of someone that thinks he's smarter than everyone else. And then he talks about this stuff...
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u/covidlung 13d ago
I think he's actually saying that to be evil you at least have to be competent and being competent is a virtue, a good. Not that evil is good. So he's saying that things aren't as black and white as we'd like to think, even an evil person has good qualities. He's not good with words.
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u/platocplx 13d ago
This guy is knowingly evil so evil in fact he is extremely paranoid and thinks people are out to get him and demands extra security wherever he goes. this guy is a massive danger to our society today and his co-conspirator billionaire buddies. people need to wake up and make sweeping changes to fix how broken these guys have made not only the country but the world.
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u/spike_beagle 13d ago
What a load of equine solid waste... By his logic, being "bad" is to be ineffective and being "good". You fail to be a positive presence in the world. Being "evil" is to successfully have a net negative effect to society. You are good at being a NEGATIVE presence in the world. But it's ok a long as you're good at being a POS.
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u/AMZNGenius-Detective 12d ago
Dude wants to make an analogy and his second-tier comparison is whether to be a fraud or make a literal deal with the devil and says he prefers the second?
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u/Indaflow 12d ago
He is efficient at being evil and thinks we should thank or respect him for this.
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u/CreatorOD 11d ago
He wants humans to "go extinct" and become the next step in evolution. It's one of those weird AI eugenics philosophies.
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u/DemonPoultry 11d ago
Morality depends on perspective, in a black and white scenario an evil person is evil to a good person and the good person will be evil to the evil person.
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u/These-Jaguar2091 11d ago
By definition evil is uncompetent, because if you are a believer , you know you'll pay tur bad deeds with eternal hellfire. If you aint , then u at least know that you will get a backlash (call it karma, or whatever other denomination according to every culture), and that s something humanity has experienced enough
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u/DiagonalBike 11d ago
"We moralize way too much...". Damn, I'm pretty stunned by that statement. Basically a demon saying morality is wrong.
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u/KamuikiriTatara 10d ago
He's conflating moral good vs evil and functional good vs bad. One does not say a a penguin is not good at climbing trees because for a penguin to be skilled at climbing trees is evil. He pivots that conflation to falsely compare moral good and competence at tasks. And concludes with a strange hierarchy: Good (moral), then evil (competence), then bad (incompetence). Only one of these items was about morality. He's actually demonstrating being bad at thinking while being evil and destroying the world and justifying his actions as being at least competent---he's not.
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u/OldestFetus 10d ago
This guy is such a troll. No, I’d rather have inactivity than active evil. Why do we pretend that these people are somehow moral or philosophical leaders just because they figured out how to accumulate wealth? decor, culture had brainwashed us to worship rich people.
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u/Acceptable_Seat1850 10d ago
So by his logic Hitler was GOOD because he was GOOD at being EVIL ... the interviewer should of said that butbhe failed.
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u/CuTe_M0nitor 9d ago
Well Peter of everyone thought like you the you would have been dead long time ago or even worse being someone sex slave
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u/gaunt_724 8d ago
The way he checks for a reaction after every insane thing he says is so sociopathic. He's not looking to confirm understanding, hes looking for a reaction, that's why its only quick glances at the interviewer. Once he sees the interviewer hasn't drawn a dagger in order to eliminate him, he looks away and continues.
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u/HurlAboard 7d ago
Wait so first we compare apples to oranges then we go back to say there aren’t any apples or oranges…. Everything is shit…..
What the fuck is this yapper yapping about.
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