NEW YORK ¨C From the Kremlin to the White House to Silicon Valley, the Antichrist ¡ª or at least talk of it ¡ª is coming. The concept amounts to little more than obscure theological conjecture, arising largely from Saint Paul¡¯s cryptic mention of a ¡°man of lawlessness¡± who will ¡°exalt himself over everything that is called God,¡± and sit in God¡¯s temple, ¡°proclaiming himself to be God¡± (2 Thessalonians 2:3¨C4). But, for a small group of rich and powerful men, the Antichrist has become the lens through which they view the world.
Perhaps the most prominent would-be prophet of Armageddon is the billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir and sponsor of U.S. Vice President JD Vance¡¯s political career. Thiel¡¯s Antichrist is sui generis: an evil tyrant who will gain global power by posing as a do-gooder and exploiting people¡¯s fears, especially of technology. This harbinger of the end-times may already be among us, Thiel speculates, embodied by some ¡°luddite who wants to stop all science,¡± like the climate activist Greta Thunberg.
Thiel¡¯s Antichrist could also arrive in the form of a ¡°one-world¡± government. As one Jesuit theologian observed, Thiel¡¯s vision is fundamentally political and his ¡°practical conclusion is brutal¡±: any attempt to regulate AI, engage in international governance or limit technological development becomes ¡°preparation for the reign of the Antichrist.¡±
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