Part One: Peter Thiel and the Anti-Christ | BEHIND THE BASTARDS

What this episode is about

The discussion explores the complexities of friendship dynamics, particularly contrasting deep male and female friendships. The speakers share humorous anecdotes and personal experiences that highlight the intimacy and trust found in their relationships, revealing insights into how these bonds differ between genders.

Key takeaways

• Friendship bonds can be tested by shared chaos—puking on each other isn't just a gag, it's intimacy!
• Satanic Panic: A bizarre chapter that teaches us how fiction can warp collective reality and political discourse.
• The strongest shapes in marketing might just be pyramids, but friendships are built on trust, not structures.
• It’s wild how a Canadian book can encapsulate American politics—says a lot about our neighbors’ influence.
• Believing in wild fantasies often feels safer than facing reality; a peculiar truth in understanding modern politics.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Robert Evans (Host) · 35 min speaking
• Sarah Marshall (Guest) · 30 min speaking
• Sophie (Guest) · 13 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 10:00: Michelle Remembers, Sarah Marshall, The Devil You Know, CBC podcasts
2. 10:00 – 20:00: Carl Schmitt, Rene Girard
3. 20:00 – 30:00: Acts 17
4. 1:10:00 – 1:20:00: Michelle Remembers
5. 1:20:00 – 1:26:46: The Devil You Know

Notable quotes from "Part One: Peter Thiel and the Anti-Christ | BEHIND THE BASTARDS"

• Show advertising tour. going hither and yawn, ringing my cowbell, telling people about my new show, which is called The Devil You Know. It's from CBC podcasts. It features such iconic performances as our dear friend Jamie Loftess.

  about Sarah Marshall · at 2:58

• Needed to read in order to really understand like American statesmanship and I was like no it's Michelle remembers that's the book you need to read if you want to understand how politics work and I was like psychopaths no.

  about Michelle Remembers · at 4:10

• Lectures weren't public, but they were publicly advertised. The page for the registration for these lectures is still up on some service called Luma that I'd never heard of before this, but it was at the in the.

  about Luma · at 11:40

• Episodes, I would recommend listening to the Carl Schmidt episodes. The gist of it is Schmidt was a right-wing political philosopher, and when the Nazis came to power, they…

  about Carl Schmitt · at 15:35

• Exactly household names, but Gerard, a big part of like his belief system was the idea of like scapegoating, right? And how like scapegoating works within, and like why…

  about Rene Girard · at 17:50

• Seen that on the photo of Peter that we posted a little bit earlier if you're watching it. The name of the Acts 17 collective is based on chapter 17 of the book of Acts and you know the Bible. and this chapter concerns H.

  about Acts 17 · at 21:49

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Sarah Marshall — Person · Main guest · 2 mentions · first at 0:33
  Guest co-host; plugs her new podcast and reacts to/helps interrogate the Thiel-Antichrist discussion.
• Carl Schmitt — Person · Referenced expert / ideological influence (referenced) · 2 mentions · first at 15:28
  Cited as a major intellectual influence on Thiel; described as a right-wing political theorist who provided justification for Nazism.
• Rene Girard — Person · Referenced expert / ideological influence (referenced) · 1 mention · first at 17:57
  Cited as an intellectual influence on Thiel; discussed for theories of scapegoating and mimetic rivalry (Girard).
• Jamie Loftess — Person · Referenced performer (guest on another show) · 1 mention · first at 3:14
  Mentioned as a featured performer on Sarah Marshall’s podcast, reading/performing material related to 'Michelle Remembers'.
  Podcasts. It features such iconic performances as our dear friend Jamie Loftess performing the book Michelle Remembers.
• Drew Carey — Person · Referenced entertainer (joke) · 1 mention · first at 2:29
  Mentioned in a comedic aside about 'The Drew Carey Show' while discussing puking; not central to the main topic.
  Yeah. I' now that you think of it, I've never puked on someone while watching the Drew Carey show. So there may be a positive effect.

Books & papers

• Michelle Remembers — Book · Referenced work · 3 mentions · first at 3:17
  Discussed as a book that influenced the satanic panic and modern politics.
• Kissinger's Diplomacy — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 4:06
  Mentioned in a comparison with Michelle Remembers regarding understanding politics.
  Yeah I've had an argument with a friend about like whether or not like cuz his argument was that Kissinger's Diplomacy was the book that you needed to read in order to really…

Companies & orgs

• CBC podcasts — Company · Business focus · 1 mention · first at 2:52
  The platform hosting Sarah Marshall's new show, The Devil You Know.
  I have a show to plug. and Sophie, you have been such a help to me in my show advertising tour. going hither and yawn, ringing my cowbell, telling people about my new show, which is.
• Luma — Company · Incidental · 2 mentions
  Mentioned as the service hosting Peter Teal's lecture series.

Products & tech

• The Devil You Know — Product · Secondary owned · 2 mentions · first at 3:04
  Sarah Marshall's new show about the satanic panic.
  Show advertising tour. going hither and yawn, ringing my cowbell, telling people about my new show, which is called The Devil You Know. It's from CBC podcasts. It features such iconic performances as our dear friend Jamie Loftess.

Concepts & topics

• Acts 17 — Concept · Core topic · 2 mentions · first at 21:47
  A collective inspired by chapter 17 of the book of Acts, focused on spreading Christian doctrine to elites.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:01 Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast where Robert Evans is still waking up, still kind of hung over. Uh, which I know I introduced like a third of our episodes that way. And it might lead some of you to wonder, does Robert have a problem? And the answer to that question is no, I have a solution. Sophie, how are you doing today?

0:20 Uh, I'm in pain, but my best friend's here so that's a win. And you? Speaking of Sophie's best friend,

0:28 I have two. I have two. It's okay. I know where I stand. I know where I stand. Yeah.

0:33 Sarah Marshall, welcome to the show. Hello, Robert. A pyramid is this the strongest shape or well, I guess a triangle, but a pyramid if you're in marketing. Um I Sophie, I'm so happy to be here with you, my legend, my queen. And Robert, you uh a a guy who is also here. I'm just kidding. You're also a legend. I think of you every time

0:56 I see a goat. And that's You see a goat. Okay, that's good cuz there's a lot of those out there. You You and Sophie were talking about your beautiful friendship and I It made me think about the differences between like deep male and deep female friendships because when I was thinking back to my stories with my best friend, it's all the different times that Linn either I puked on Lenny or Lenny puked on me.

1:21 Uh I have one of So there's some differences only. Yeah. [sighs] No. Well, no, I have two. I have two anyway. But

1:33 yeah, that's good. That's a good number. That's a good number. Start. Yeah. It's a I mean, what do you what do you think that your kind of the stuff of your intimacy with your male friends is about?

1:46 Uh, I don't know. You know, honestly, I think a big part of it just with male or female friends is just that kind of that kind of bone deep trust where you feel as comfortable with another person as you do like feeling alone on your couch. Uh I I would say that's about the highest level of of intimacy in or out of a romantic relationship that exists.

2:05 Just just to say, Robert, I would love to puke on you. Thank you, Sophie. That's very sweet. It will happen one day. You guys

2:12 I've avoided puking on you for the same reason. I' I've had I think I puked on more people than the average person. The most at once was like nine. Um but yeah.

2:24 Well, the most at once. I'm proud [snorts] of that. It took some work. It took some work and elevation.

2:29 I know. And uh watch the Drew Carey show. So I don't get the opportunity as much. It's a great shame.

2:36 Yeah. I' you know, now that you think of it, I've never puked on someone while watching the Drew Carey show. So there may be a positive effect. Speaking of great shows, I would like uh Sarah to plug her new show

2:50 for our audience. I have a show to plug. Um and Sophie, you have been such a help to me in my show advertising tour. Um going hither and yawn, ringing my cowbell, telling people about my new show, which is called The Devil You Know. It's from CBC podcasts. It features such iconic performances as our dear friend Jamie Loftess performing the book Michelle Remembers.

3:20 Oh my god. Yeah, that's a win. That really that just needed to happen and now it's happened. And it's also, you know, an attempt to kind of tell the story of this the satanic panic and its initial spread

3:33 in the 80s. it sort of long shadow in the '9s and how it came back in a way that suggests it never went away in the present day um by talking to individual people whose lives were dramatically affected and often you know pretty much destroyed by it and

3:49 but and yet it's also I think not that depressing want to emphasize that yeah I I've had an argument with a friend about like uh whether or not like cuz his argument was that Kissinger's Diplomacy was the the book that you needed to read in order to really understand like American statesmanship and I was like no it's Michelle remembers that's the book you need to read if you want to understand how politics work and I was like psychopaths no weird I thought

4:25 I think that yeah I think that's true and it stands to reason that the book that explains America is Canadian Um, yeah. Often is this is the case. Often that's the case.

4:37 I would love to hear your thoughts on Michelle Remember because it's a book that like defies description, you know.

4:43 I mean, it's a it's a book that I think says a lot about how irrationality uh can can be foundational to a lot of people's fundamental beliefs about how the world works. like and it's also a book about how I mean the story of the book and how it became popular and what happened like during its creation is incredibly relevant for like foundationally how everything from like reality TV to like modern politics works in this country. Um, like it's the story of a fantasy overtaking reality in the minds of tens of millions of Americans based on nothing but like, oh, I'd rather believe that there's that satanic pedophiles run the country than anything else.

5:29 Yeah. Yeah. And that's like one of the things we're trying to get at and which is, you know, kind of this enduringly fascinating thing of like why why did people why did it feel less scary in a way to believe in what was seemingly the scariest thing possible? Yeah. And there's, you know, that's actually very relevant to what we're talking about today. All of this, both both how irrationality and fantasy become like the undergirling aspects of people's understanding about reality and how about these things have come to completely dominate US politics and culture because they primarily primarily because they dominate the thinking and the rationality of the power elite in this country. And that's why today you and I, Sarah, are going to be talking about Peter Teal's weird obsession with the Antichrist.

6:17 Oh my god. Oh, this is amazing. Wow. Cuz I know that he's a handful and I feel like I've heard probably from Sophie that this

6:26 bushel and a pet. Yeah, I'm so excited. Is Peter Teal, is this the guy who took down Gawker all by himself?

6:36 He sure did. This is the guy who funded well with Hulk Hogan. Hulk Hulk was a loadbearing part of that that

6:42 he he got Hulk Hogan to Hulk out all over Gawker and and journalism and and free speech. So that's nice.

6:50 We we've done a two-parter on Peter about his like life and background. But this is the guy. He's the co-founder of PayPal. He actually was the guy who kind of like orchestrated Elon Musk's ouster from the company and they were at odds. Now they're friends again. It's a beautiful story. You know,

7:05 I'd watch an HBO original movie about that. That would be like a six out of 10. You [clears throat] know,

7:10 starring Jeremy Strong and Oh, I was going to say Jared Leto for both of them. He's the only man upsetting enough to play both those guys.

7:21 It'll make test audiences puke. Yeah. Poor Jesse Eisenberg. I realized the other day because I saw him in that Kieran or Rory Kulkin, which one of the Kulkans was in the movie with him, uh,

7:35 Kieran Kulkin, and he was good and I was like, "Oh, I've hated Jesse Eisenberg for years." I guess because he just did a good job of playing Mark Zuckerberg. Like I think I just hated him cuz he did a job well.

7:46 He really did though. But the thing is, he kind of always plays guys who you're like, "No, get away from me."

7:54 Yeah. You don't seem safe. like I'm watching my drink around you, Jesse Eisenberg, which again I don't think real Jesse Eisenberg has earned that kind of

8:04 all of his characters. You're like, look, it's not to be rude, but I'm going to be a little rude. It's fine.

8:09 Yeah, you upset me on some fundamental level. There's something something wrong in the pit of your soul, Jesse Eisenberg. And I'm glad you've been able to turn that into your career.

8:18 Yeah, but yeah, you're not welcome in my house. For him, sorry if you're listening to this podcast, Jesse Eisenberg. taking no prisoners. This is, you know, you have to be provocative in today's political winds and we're doing it.

8:32 You have to be ruthless to get into the mood to talk about the things Peter Teal believes about the world because despite being an aspiring immortal CEO king and one of the major patrons of the modern farright and the guy who got JD Vance's career started, you know, he funded his his campaign, he funded he's he's his mentor. Despite all of that,

8:53 Peter being that guy's mentor. You're like, "Hey buddy, you killed the pope and your face still looks like a catcher's mint."

9:01 Yeah, that's fine. Still doing good. Why don't you have an apple juice or an apple sauce?

9:07 Yeah. Why don't you sit down over here next to me? Uh, yeah. Despite I mean sports reference. That was so beautiful.

9:15 Oh, cat. Yeah. Well, yeah. Well, that that's kind of a classic MST3K descriptor of like I don't know a Robert Zadar type. I I will

9:26 Robert do all the baseball references I can. Robert Zadar. Oh, no. The kids don't know Robert Zedar. You know, I'm glad I'm glad Robert Zadar. It's spelled Robert Zedar. Z apostrophe D A R. Obviously,

9:38 and yes, he had a condition. That's why his face looked like that. And it's often fatal, but in his case, he was like right in the sweet spot where it just made him an incredibly in- demand character actor during the 1980s.

9:50 Yeah, he played a lot of alien prison guards. A lot of alien prison guards. Yeah. [snorts] Um, anyway, Robert Zedar, not much to do with Peter Teal, but the other stuff we were talking about does because I

10:03 Okay, I've gone back and forth in my studies on Teal. And I think in the the biographical episodes we did about him, I concluded he's one of the very few of these guys who like scares me because of how intelligent and disciplined and patient and competent he is. And the fact that discipline, intelligence, and patience with him are married to like 30 million billion dollars in net worth, right? Which is a dangerous mixture for a guy who thinks democracy should come to an end and is actively working to further that goal.

10:34 This week I think I have to make a mia cuz I don't entirely agree with that anymore.

10:39 I think that's exciting. [clears throat] I may have overestimated his intelligence and cunning

10:44 which I don't. He's still a dangerous man, right? M I think he's out of his mind. And I think he's out of his mind in part because he's not as smart as certainly he thinks he is and not as smart as maybe I thought he was. And you know, I I it's tough for me to tell entirely what's going on here, but I've become increasingly convinced that he's like unwell in a way that's leading him that's made that that's made him less functional as a person. Um, and I kind of think this Antichrist obsession is an example of that because this is

11:19 it's it's very disordered thinking that you see when you like listen to him try to explain his beliefs, which I'm going to do to you. I'm going to try to walk you through

11:28 everything. He recently did a 4-day lecture series laying out his theories on the Antichrist. There have been articles about this. Yeah, if you're like reasonably online, you might have seen something about this cuz the lectures

11:41 weren't public, but they were publicly advertised. The page for the registration for these lectures is still up on some service called Luma that I'd never heard of before this,

11:53 but it was uh it was at the in the Embaradero in San Francisco. Uh on September 15th was the first of these. Uh and it was called the Antichrist, a four-part lecture series. And the picture of this is just like Peter Teal from 15 years ago uh underneath the logo of the group that supported this speech, the Act 17 collective. It's weird how young Sophie can pull up that and then like a modern-day photo of Peter Teal. It's just like kind it for a It's fitting I guess for a guy whose most public obsession is with living forever.

12:27 Um but yeah. Uh so the event summary reads, "You are warmly invited to a series of four lectures by Peter Teal addressing the topic of the biblical Antichrist." Peter is a technology entrepreneur and investor who has spent much of his career writing and speaking about how his Christian faith informs his understanding of the world. His remarks will be anchored on science and technology and will comment on the theology history literature and politics of the Antichrist.

12:52 I have 2025 Peter up on the screen for you, Robert. Say it. Last place in the Katie Lang tribute competition.

13:07 That's a fair comparison, Sarah. And I love Katie Lang. That's not the point here. Yeah.

13:13 No. And I love Peter Teal, you know. And I mean, certainly the Lord loves him, but maybe not anybody else.

13:21 Yeah. I don't know about the Lord, but Yeah. Possibly. possibly. Um, if I were Jesus, I would simply be looking at a lot of people who talk about me a lot and being like, "I don't know you. Please stop implying that we're friends. This is I'm sending you a cease and desist."

13:40 Uh, yeah. I I it it's got to be like you've I'm sure you've experienced the same thing. Like when you get like a degree of fame, every now and then you'll meet fans who will like talk about something you did that meant something to them. And the way they will explain is like that doesn't sound familiar to me at all. That's what you took out of of that. That's not what I meant in any way. Can I do I say that to you? Do I say like, "Oh, no. That had nothing to do with like you you've read in something completely absent there."

14:09 Or do you just like smile and nod? People think I often or remember me saying something that I feel like is smarter than I said because I don't know it any longer, but then you're like, did I know it at one time and then I said it and then I forgot it

14:25 or are they confusing me with some other show they listen to that same day. It could be that too. Sometimes it's very

14:31 I've seen it all happen where it's like, "No, that was a guest who said that and you just like transposed it to being me."

14:37 Thanks for giving me credit. Yeah, I was I've been listening to Simpsons commentaries and one of the things the writers kind of consistently talk about is like, "Who wrote that? Was that your joke? Was that my joke? I can't remember." Or like someone being like, "I loved that joke in that episode you wrote." And they're like, "I didn't write that joke."

14:54 And I love that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. This is my favorite thing you did. Well, I didn't.

15:00 So, you're like, "But I I was near it and I I was around." So, yeah. I was in the room.

15:05 I was I was in the room when that joke was made. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I provided moral support to the birth of that joke.

15:13 Yeah. Um so this summary of Peter's lecture on the Antichrist goes on to note that Peter's thinking about the Antich beliefs on this subject draw from the work of several prominent theologians and philosophers. These include Renee Gerard, Jonathan Swift, and former Bastards Pod alumni Carl Schmidt. Now, if you haven't listened to those episodes, I would recommend listening to the Carl Schmidt episodes. The gist of it is Schmidt was a right-wing political philosopher, and when the Nazis came to power, they basically called him up and said, "Hey, you're writing the just the educ like the educated justification for why Nazism is good." Like that, we need you to come in and do that. Right.

15:56 Um, [clears throat] yeah, it's not great. Um, and you know, Schmidt was a perfect fit for this job because his earlier work had been a huge influence on a lot of prominent Nazis. So, he helped influence the Nazis and how they took power. A big thing he wrote about was how to use effectively the creation of borders in order to destroy liberal democracy. Basically, his his kind of in a nutshell

16:21 seems to be working. It does. It works very well. And he's the guy who the basic idea was that like anytime you every society no matter how like liberal a democracy draws a line between like who are members of the community and who aren't, who is a citizen and who isn't. And wherever you find that line, anytime there's a border, that's the the the thing you can use to destroy that liberal democracy because you figure out where that is and you start pushing it inward and you start trying to define other groups as not part of the community, right? Um, and that's kind of the fundamental weak point that all liberal democracies have.

16:59 Uh, and it's, you know, in a way it's kind of the the the other side of the anarchist belief that like any border is implies the violence of its maintenance, right? The existence of a border fundamentally implies violence because that's the only way to maintain a border. And what Schmidt was saying is the existence of a border is an opportunity to carve groups of people out of the body politic in order to gain authoritarian political power. Right? That's Carl Schmidt who Peter Teal loves uh and sees as a big influence. Right?

17:33 So he's not being subtle about any of this. He's like, "Here are my top three influences. One of them Nazis so much."

17:40 My my buddies. Yeah. These are all my faves. Well, and it's the other guy that he listed there, Renee Gerard, is a I mean, neither of these guys are like exactly household names, but Gerard, a big part of like his belief system uh was the idea of like scapegoating, right? And how like scapegoating works within, you know, and like why communities pick scapegoats and like how the whole process works. And that's also like a a major influence on Peter Teal like that. which is, you know, not again if you look at the kind of politics uh like the right-wing politics that have he's supported during like his lifetime, it it makes sense that he finds these kind of things influence influential. Like so Schmidt's essential idea is that like when once a human society like has reached the level where most people's basic needs are satisfied um there's still like unmet desires but people don't know like entirely what it

18:42 is that they want that they don't have. And so they engage in mimicry where they like look at what their neighbors who are doing the best have and they they seek to they aspire to mimic the most impressive people in their society. Right. Um, and because people are never really satisfied and this mimemetic rivalry never really leads I mean it's it's never something that you can actually like achieve or or like get the things these unfilled desires can't really be met. And so people need like an explanation for why it doesn't work for why they're not happy. And that tends to get channeled into a war of all against one via what Gerard called a scapegoat mechanism, right? Um, and so these are the two huge like Schmidt and Gerard are the two huge like pillars of Peter Teal's like personal philosophy.

19:36 And one of the things Gerard believed is that Christianity kind of marks this turning point in human consciousness because like the crucifixion narrative is fundamentally Jesus being murdered in an act of collective violence against a scapegoat, right? And so like that's kind of this that Christianity leads this sort of epiphany by which human beings have started to realize that like the scapegoating rituals that we engaged in are wrong. and it's like a bad thing to do. Um, and

20:10 yeah, that's that's that's kind of where Gerard goes. Peter Teal winds up taking this in some weird places, right? Where [clears throat]

20:20 basically Gerard's attitude was that you have to reject scapegoating because like Christ's example is proof that it's fundamentally evil and wrong.

20:28 And Teal's kind of interpretation from that is that you can't really avoid scapegoating. like that's the inevitable path forward. Uh and so it's kind of a thing you have to it's a tool you have to make use of this like human need to scapegoat is a a thing that you can use to drive politics. Essentially where Peter Teal takes this guys cuz Gerard was not advocating that behavior.

20:56 Right. Well, we're all watching that happen, you know. Yeah. Yeah. It's It's not to Dairy Queen, that's for sure.

21:03 No. So, these are these are Peter Teal's kind of favorite philosophers that have inspired his takes on the Antichrist. And unfortunately, full audio of these talks is not available publicly. 7 hours of so or so have been leaked to a couple of different outlets. I don't have them tragically, but we do have one attendee took word for word nearly notes of the first lecture, which got him kicked out of subsequent lectures. So, we've got that and we've got articles that have summarized and quoted directly from Teal in these lectures. So, I feel pretty confident that I can explain what this [ __ ] believes to the extent that it will ever make sense. Um, so before we get into that, we should talk about the group that funded

21:44 this this lecture series, uh, which is the Acts 17 Collective. You would have seen that on the the photo of Peter that we posted a little bit earlier if you're watching it. The name of the Acts 17 collective is based on chapter 17 of the book of Acts and you know the Bible. Uh and this chapter concerns H.

22:06 She said Bible. You said Bible. Sarah goes heard of it. Heard of it. Heard of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You might you might have caught this one. Um and it's it's the New Testament which if you're not into religion, it's the aliens to the Old Testament's alien.

22:20 Oh god, that's so true. Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. Absolutely. Obviously Jesus is sort of a Ripley figure. I've I think a lot of people have argued that over the years. He was clearly heavily inspired by Ripley.

22:32 Yeah. Unless he's you know there's a little bit of N in there too though. There's a little bit of N. Sure. Absolutely. Um I think the Apostle Paul is Hicks. Uh we that's generally biblical scholars agree that that the Apostle Paul was inspired by Corporal Hicks.

22:48 Um yeah. So chapter 17. Yeah. there's a a broad consensus. Um you have to really read the original Aramaic that Aliens was written in to get a lot of that. Yeah. Um James Cameron writes exclusively in Aramaic. It's a real problem for a lot of his

23:05 collaborators. So Act 17 that the chapter that that that's in concerns Paul and some of his companions on like a a trip through Greece. They're not just in Greece or they're not just in Athens, but it's like they spend a lot of time in Athens. arguing about religion with philosophers, right? They're going to these different markets and public places and synagogues and they're talking to like educated scholars about religion to like argue that hey, Christianity

23:34 is is a thing basically. I'm summariz I'm I'm I'm yada yada this a lot, but like it is like

23:41 Have you thought about Christianity? Yeah. Have you thought about Christianity in like a logical and like like sense like he's he's trying to make the intellectual this is like that's chapter is like Paul arguing and debating with a lot of intellectuals about his new religion right um which is

23:59 tank [snorts] yes it's like the shark tank part of the bible yeah it's it's got to hey girl

24:06 um yeah hey girl whatever is that a shark tank joke Sophie how am I supposed to get No, it's it's the ladies who peaked in high school on on MLM Facebook 10 years ago kind of a thing happening. But yeah,

24:23 it is definitely that for Paul where he's like sliding into the DMs of a friend from high school who happens to be like a rabbi being like, "Hey, I'm doing this new thing. You want to hear about it? Can I get you to show up? Like we we'll there there will be free makeup. We'll get give you free makeover snacks. We're going to learn about leggings. Yeah. And also Jesus. Yeah.

24:47 Yeah. Jesus wants you to sell these leggings. No, that is exactly what's going on basically. And the Act 17 collective is inspired by this chapter dedicated specifically to spreading Christian doctrine to political and cultural elites in Silicon Valley. Right? Which is why that chapter makes sense, right? Because Paul is kind of talking to these sort of intellectual elites. Act 17 is like we need to be proilitizing not to the poor, not to the huddled masses, you know, not to the people that like Jesus talked to, but like the billionaires. We need to convert the billionaire you now,

25:21 right? Exactly. They're obsessed with not dying. So, it does make sense that they would be like, "Yeah, yeah, my immortal soul. Yeah, that's the ticket."

25:30 Yeah. Flipping the chair around backwards. You kids are interested in eternal life, huh? I know a guy who offers eternal life. You don't even have to take your son's blood Peter.

25:39 Exactly. Well, you do have to take [clears throat] the son's blood. The son somebody's son's blood. That's right.

25:46 Less gross. Just have a cracker and some grape juice. That's right. And [snorts] if you want to be immortal listeners, whatever sponsor of the podcast comes on next, we'll ensure that you never die. Just you though. And we're back. I hope you're enjoying your new new immortality. You know, you're going to watch everyone that you love and care for die. everything that you care for end eventually watch the stars themselves wink out but you know have fun with that

26:13 true yeah you people never do with immortality also what about the scenario where if you're immortal and everyone else dies and then there aren't people to maintain nuclear reactors and they all melt down and then the globe is covered in nuclear fallout what are you going to do then Dracula

26:34 I feel like I could maintain a nuclear reactor Sarah Yeah, the the one in your area is going to be So, you're going to take care of the one in Washington, so we'll be okay. Yeah,

26:43 that'll that'll be good. I mean, all that nuclear waste from the Hanford site's going to poison all of the waters, but that'll happen anyway. Um,

26:50 good. I mean, where else are we going to get those albino gators or whatever they have up there?

26:55 Exactly. You know, um I assume that in a couple of generations it'll be gator territory. The Pacific Northwest will warm up enough finally then I could have a gator farm in my yard. We were always meant to be Gator territory. Really? Yeah.

27:09 Everywhere was everywhere was. Um, so yeah, the ACT 17 collective dedicated to preaching to the most needy in our society, which is tech billionaires.

27:20 Yes. Well, they do have the heaviest hearts I've heard. AB. Yes. In the Egyptian sense. Yes.

27:26 Um, it's funny. What I think is funniest about this is like the act 17 works perfectly as a name. Like I you're referencing a part of the Bible that's relevant to what the group does, but they needed to make it into a like, no, it already works. Why would you make this an acronym? But they did. And so they've decided that ACTs also stands for acknowledging Christ in technology and society.

27:53 All right. All right. Again, unnecessary, but I hope you're happy. I guess back, you know.

28:01 Sure, man. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so the organization was founded by or at least co-founded by Michelle Stevens. Um, and she I mean she was some sort of entrepreneur. She was involved in in tech to some extent and kind of did this after she left the company. Um, her husband Trey was one of the first Trey Stevens one of is one of the first Palunteer employees and now works for Peter's uh venture capital fund as a partner. So, this is a guy who was involved in Peter's military spying company,

28:36 okay? And also his VC fund. And it's his wife that founds the ACT 17 collective. And I found an interview with Michelle where she explains how the group came about. And so, this is their origin story. Per Michelle,

28:47 by the end of 2023, my company was winding down and my husband's 40th birthday was that November. I wanted to celebrate big. We invited over 220 of his closest friends to a three-day birthday party in New Mexico called the roast, the toast, and the Holy Ghost. On the Holy Ghost day, we thought we'd have a sort of remixed church service. Wouldn't it be funny if we tricked a bunch of people into going to church? We served caviar bumps, breakfast pizza, mimosas, and spiked coffee. DJ Canvas had come out with his crew to play a Saturday night set, re remixing all of our beloved movie themed songs into a trap beat. He also does this for Christian and worship music.

29:24 He's got the best dance moves. No wonder nobody likes white people. Yeah, that that made me cringe nearly to death, Sarah. I'm going to be honest.

29:34 Right. It's also funny that they're like, "Isn't it fun and subversive to have caviar bumps and then go worship Christ?" And it's like no cuz like the whole problem in America arguably is that the prosperity gospel has taken over Christianity and it's no longer a moderating influence on capitalism.

29:54 Right. Yeah. And that the And also it's just gross and silly to be doing that. It's gross. Stop it.

30:02 Yeah. It's it's just deeply upsetting and it's this it's this fundamentally poisonous thing that stands against most of what the religion has has at least publicly stood for over the course of like the history of the faith. Like it's it's fundamentally a heretical uh interpretation of Christianity, I think,

30:23 right? Like if you take the the good parts of Christianity, which I feel like most people would acknowledge that there are like at least some some good ideas in there. Like one of the main themes is like don't eat caviar off each other's hands while a huge percentage of the population is in dire poverty. That's one of the main things.

30:46 Yeah. You don't you don't have to like the religion to be like, "Okay, well, the one time that like literally God beat people up, it was because they were money changing in the temple."

30:58 Yeah. Probably shouldn't have money changers. They probably shouldn't He might not like money changers at all, actually.

31:04 It's so funny. It's like, which is just what Peter Teal and his friends do. That's what a venture capital fund is. They're changing money.

31:11 And also PayPal, where you literally just move money around for a fee. Yes. Yes. Yeah, it's it is really it's just it's fascinating and it's like what is it like to to become enthusiastic about a belief system that your actual beliefs are pretty much contrary to? You know,

31:31 I'm very curious about that. That's that's the thing. And the answer is you have to like remake the belief system into something that is not does not familiar to most people who actually like are members of the faith. Like you have to create your own Christianity, which is what Peter's done. That's effectively what these Antichrist lectures are is him reinventing Christianity for billionaires.

31:57 Twist. That is the twist at the end of this. Before we get to that though, you have to hear a little bit of DJ Canvas. Uh

32:06 I I just I needed to I tried I I I didn't have the the courage, the raw heroism to look at examples of his dance moves. So, we're going to have to leave those to our imagination. But I did find his just got saved mixtape and Sophie's going to play you like 15 seconds of that.

32:25 So, let's hear it. It It won't let me fast forward. So, we're just going to have to listen to 30 seconds of it, but Rory can edit it the correct way. Sorry.

32:33 Great. Yeah. Who wouldn't want more of this? I mean, there's clapping. God knows we love That's

32:49 I am not forgotten. I am not forgotten. I am not forgotten. God knows my name. I am not forgotten. I am not forgotten. I am not forotten. God knows my name.

33:08 There you go. See? Okay. Who wouldn't want to get down to that with Peter Teal and a bunch of uh venture capital guys?

33:16 Like if they if I met like some I don't know 15year-old Bible camp goer who was like I love this song. I would be like that's nice. Good for you. Yeah. But then it's like like so directly about this idea about of like being rescued from being one of the downtrodden and it's like you're the one who's treading on people. Yeah, everyone knows your name. You're one of the most famous people in the world. Like, you're all wealthy and powerful.

33:46 Want it. I mean, you have everything that you've ever wanted. Yeah. You don't need God. You are God in society as we have it set up, you know?

33:54 Yeah. And I also love that they're like, "This music is just so bumping. It'll trick people into going to church."

34:00 It's not going to seem like Christian music at all. It's like, yes, tricky. And I want you the the audience to imagine you're at this birthday party. This guy is laying down what we what we'll we'll call it a beat, right? Uh and people are dancing as well as you'd expect a bunch of tech elites to dance. And then while this is all going on, Peter Teal gets up spontaneously and in Michelle's words, quote, gave a 55minute lecture on forgiveness and miracles.

34:31 OH NO. NO. GOD, it's like in Succession when you're like, "Why do these people keep throwing parties? They're so bad at parties. Just stop having them."

34:42 Is this even a party? That's abuse to me. That's like torture. Like the CIA didn't do that [ __ ] back.

34:50 It's It's that time share thing, you know, where you guys have to attend a short sales pitch.

34:56 Yeah. I And I'm imagining too like the dawning realization like, "Oh, wow. Peter's talking. I thought we were all dancing." Okay. He's probably just doing a little quick toast. No, no, he's not doing an hour.

35:07 Not doing a toast. Like, I actually have to go to the bathroom. Yeah, I need to get a drink. Maybe do some caviar bumps. I don't know. Um Michelle stated, "We were blown away." A lot of people were looking like he had tin heads. Like, what are you talking about? And I'll believe that. I'll believe that being the response to this. Um

35:29 so, she says the reaction was mixed. Some of her Christian friends were angry that she'd put a non-seminary trained guy up and had him give a sermon that like this is heretical. He doesn't know what he's talking about. This is certainly not Christianity that he's ranting about. It's kind of weird that you did this to all of us. Um but she said some other Christian friends of hers were like, "You just tricked over 200 people into going to church and that's good. We like it. We think that's great." And so this is the origin of the Act 17 collective, right? A boring guy forces you to listen to him for an hour.

36:03 That is church. That's church. Yes. This podcast has often been church. Um we And we actually did make you listen to the same guy.

36:13 Church. Church. That's a kind of church. Um getting an Uber driver who just immediately starts talking for the entire drive about like his weird philosophical beliefs. Uh that's a kind of church, you know. Thank you, Dale, for informing me about the dangers of vaccines. You know, I I I wouldn't have known without that ride.

36:33 Yeah, that's that's a big one. God, the important thing is that Peter Teal has the freedom to express himself, which God knows he hasn't had access to in society before.

36:43 Yes. Yes. Our our culture has really cracked down on [snorts] Peter Teal's ability to to express his beliefs to the world. Um, and yeah, so the the orig the act the the purpose of the ACT 17 collective is specifically to trick San Franciscans, who Michelle describes as one of the most unchurched cities in America, into going to church and becoming Christians, right? That's that's what this group exists to do.

37:07 They have Unitarianism. That's enough, right? Well, Unitarians are nice and not not bigots. That's kind of the whole point. And these people want to be [ __ ]

37:16 right? Oh, I see. That's key. That's key. Um because one of the pro most prominent members of the ACT 17 collective is Gary Tan uh who is the CEO of Y Combinator which is a tech startup incubator. He's hosted several ACT 17 events in his home which is a former church uh including one with former Intel CEO Pat Gellzinger about the holy shift across life AI leadership and faith. Uh, and for an idea of some of the other things Gary Tan is into, I'm going to quote from a 2024 article in the New Republic by Gilderan, which is writing about a Twitter rant that Tan went on uh, January of 2024.

37:55 Posting on X, formerly Twitter, Tan wished death upon a majority of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. [ __ ] Chan Peskin Preston Walton Melgar Ronin, Sapphi, Chan as a label and [ __ ] crew, wrote Tan, namechecking sever progressive supervisors. In a hyper cringy attempt to adapt, Tupac Shakur's hit him up to his drunken rants. Die slow, [ __ ] For good measure, he posted a photo of his personal liquor cabinet. Its inscription, Gary Tan, SF social media troll, Twitter menace on his liquor cabinet. man.

38:28 Well, it's not like anyone in local office in San Francisco has ever been famously assassinated by a crazy guy.

38:35 Yeah. Yeah. That did is that did really piss people off for that exact memory reason.

38:40 Yeah. Yeah. God. Yeah. Um and very godly behavior. Super godly. Super godly. Now, another godly thing Tan did was fund the recall campaign against progressive district attorney Chessa. Uh he also promised to wipe out supervisors who expressed worries about the safety of driverless taxis, telling them your days are numbered.

39:03 You know, if you use death threats all the time, it [clears throat] doesn't mean anything.

39:08 Yeah, exactly. And it's very funny to be like, you think these are unsafe? I'll kill you. And then like 3 months later, a cruise taxi pins a pedestrian and drags her across the payment, which leads to Cruise losing its operating permit and receiving a $ 1.5 million fine.

39:24 Yep. Although, which I'm sure they could afford. Yeah, I'm sure. But maybe they weren't super safe. Gary,

39:30 driverless cars don't kill people. I kill people. That's right. Jerry Tan does.

39:36 Oh my god. Uh Tan had to delete his tweets threatening city supervisors as you brought up due to the Harvey Milk of it all, right? Because a bunch of them received death threats after he threatened to

39:47 Jesus cuz he has fans who are, you know, [ __ ] Jesus is like, "Leave me out of this one."

39:53 Right. Uh Gary put out a statement directed by a crisis PR firm and said, "I am sorry for my words and regret my poor decision." Uh, Tan is one of a chunk of wealthy reactionaries using their money to try to change progressive San Francisco into something of a haven for far-right bureaucrats. He's a big network state guide like Peter Teal. Um, and you know, the fact that the city's already very friendly to these guys doesn't matter because again, you know, it's really the thing Gerard picked up on, which is that once people have everything they need, they're still unhappy. And

40:29 because that that that unhappiness fundamentally can't be dealt with in the ways that they try to like the things that they think will make them happy simply don't. They just find someone to be angry at. They need a scapegoat. You know that's and for Jerry Tan it's the progressives in San Francisco. That's why Jerry's unhappy

40:46 is the secret to happiness is small achievable goals in a sort of vague general progression. So you know you're like I want to get better at baking. I want to make a bush to Noel for Christmas. I'm gonna spend three months developing my Bush to Noel skills, but instead because they have no patience, they just want to destroy democracy because that feels like it would be faster. I don't know. I might I maybe it is.

41:14 Well, I think it's just because for these guys, there's so little that they can re really really say. There's nothing above them.

41:20 There's no They have all of the money. There's no one who can tell them what to do. So the only thing theoretically above them is the state and so is the government. A and so they define and honestly most of the government is in their pocket. Like as a general rule lawmakers are not anti-Silicon Valley billionaires. So instead they pick like the thing they can't control which is the small number of people who get elected like on progressive agendas trying to fix problems. And like that's who those are those are the people who don't like cuz those are the only people in politics who aren't going to pretend to protect to respect you to love you, right? Cuz they're kind of fundamentally in opposition to guys like you. And so you have to that's who's responsible for all of the problems. That's who does everything wrong, you know? That's why I'm unhappy.

42:11 Mhm. Because someone out there doesn't like me or someone marginally harder. Respect me. It's I mean it's it's the reason why so many famous people lost their minds as soon as they got access to Twitter, right? Is like being confronted with the fact that people dislike you and disrespect you and that's just life. Uh maybe you could be a better person.

42:31 You just normally don't hear about it in detail, you know, and so having the ability to reach for that knowledge. Um it is kind of this yeah like a fascinating

42:41 I don't know experiment in terms of what would happen if people suddenly became telepathic because in a way people did

42:49 and yeah yeah I mean it's the it's the same reason why like so many people high up in like our media class like the folks who get to write for the like columns for the New York Times consider quote unquote wokeism and cancel culture a bigger problem than any of the things that are actually going to kill them

43:06 because Like it's this. No, people I I went to Harvard or Yale or whatever and my family name is this and I have this fancy job and people are calling me an idiot. They that shouldn't be allowed.

43:19 That's got to be illegal that they're calling me a [ __ ] for my [ __ ] opinions.

43:23 An idiot before. You just didn't know about it. You just Yeah. You You couldn't see it. And people weren't sharing it 100,000 times. Um

43:31 yeah. Anyway, uh back to Peter Teal and the Antichrist. very healthy people. These these billionaires, they're they're thriving. They're doing great. Yeah,

43:41 they're doing great. And they have now formed Act 17 because they need to they want to establish a theocracy that makes it illegal to not like them or respect them. Right? That's the gist of the Act 17 collective in my opinion. Uh and obviously, as I noted, they were inspired by a rant Peter Teal gave at a birthday party about Christianity. And so it's only fitting that they would host a four-part lecture series by him about the antichrist. Uh during the first of these lectures, Michelle Stevens, the founder of the collective, introduced Peter uh on September 15th by calling him one of the great Christians of our time as well as one of the great capitalists.

44:19 So sure, those two things seem like they should go together. Um we're going to start with the most detailed information I've got uh which is the the almost word for word notes uh on lecture one titled knowledge shall be increased.

44:34 Now the attendee who published his notes on this lecture was the head of protocol research at a software company called succinct and his name is uh shiti Kulcarnney and from what I can tell Kulcarnney is a fan of teal. I don't think he posted these notes as like a work of undercover reporting. I think he was just super enthusiastic and kind of ignored that the event itself warned people not to share and spread what they heard inside like folks weren't supposed to record this and stuff.

45:01 He was like he's modest. It's so great. People are going to want to know. People need to leave to read this. Uh Karnney was banned from listening to other lectures, but his notes are uh as far as I can tell from other reviews that include quotes from Peter Teal pretty close to one to one. Uh so Teal opens his lecture with a quote from the book of Daniel. But thou, oh Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book even to the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro and knowledge shall be increased.

45:30 And this is like talking about the end of days, right? You know, but thou, oh Daniel, shut up.

45:36 Shut up. Yeah. Shut up, Peter. Um, Teal interprets this as Daniel, who he describes as a biblical historian, predicting that knowledge was would increase vastly towards the end of time. Uh, and quote, "As knowledge increased, apocalyptic fears would mount, leaving room for a tyrant to rise." Now, there's a lot that's wrong with these few sentences. Uh, and like first, I don't really That's not the only certain

46:03 You got that from the omen. Yeah, right. That's not really what Daniel's saying. That like the an increase in knowledge will increase apocalyptic fears which will let a tyrant for one thing that's not how the antichrist comes.

46:17 Yeah. That's a lot to get from the word increase. Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. You're reading a lot in there.

46:22 And he's like, "And that tyrant is me." Yeah. Surprised. Yeah. Uh you'll be surprised at who he thinks that tyrant is. Sarah, I'm excited for that reveal. That's that's going to be really fun for you. Um,

46:35 Sandra Lee, it's my guess. No, it's weirder than that. Former de facto first lady of New York. Sandra Lee. Just like to mention that,

46:46 although he's probably she's probably on his list. I'll give you I'll give you that. Uh, but yeah, we'll get to that.

46:52 So, the other thing that Peter says here that's really questionable is he describes Daniel as a historian. Like, in fact, he describes Daniel as the first historian, right? is like the first person to really think of history in a modern way. Uh that's very silly. And it's kind of worth noting biblical scholars debate ferociously whether or not Daniel was writing reliable accounts of history, whether or not he was effectively trying to write a history, right? Because there's the two broad interpretations of like how the book of Daniel was written is one is the the the author Daniel had these experiences with he and his friends and chronicled them, right? that he's like writing an account of things that he saw and did and he's including in there genuine prophecies that he made that were fulfilled in some cases centuries later. Right? That's that's the traditional interpretation of the book of Daniel. Right?

47:44 Modern biblical historians have pointed out that it there's a lot of evidence that suggests that the author of the book of Daniel was someone who would have been alive centuries after the actual biblical Daniel

47:59 and that the book of Daniel couldn't have been written contemporaneously, right? In other words, like this is more of like a work of uh historical fiction than historical fact is kind of like one of the arguments. The real Daniel is supposed to have been a member of the Judean nobility who was taken to Babylon during the Babylonian captivity and became popular at Nebuchadnezzar's court. He eventually became a dream interpreter and a prophet. And again, up until like the 19th century, it was widely agreed that this historical guy wrote the book of Daniel and filled it with prophecies he had at the time that were proven right later. Now, there's a good write up on the biblical hermeneutic stack exchange with citations which summarizes the modern critical argument about Daniel. Quote, "The book of Daniel is replete with historical inaccuracies regarding the Babylonian and Persian periods, indicating it was written quite some

48:47 time after those eras. Between this point and the independent nature of the court of the courtales, the person of Daniel appears to be a literary fabrication, not a historical figure and hence not the author of the book." Davies, who's a biblical scholar, suggests that this Daniel character may not have been a well-known figure in Jewish culture before the book was completed. and Collins is one scholar to suggest the very name Daniel was chosen for the anom anonymous Jewish sage of the folklore out of the inspiration from the ancient sage Daniel mentioned by Ezekiel and Ugaritic texts. Right? So the likeliest and the thing widely believed by biblical scholars today is that this because of some very fundamental historical inaccuracies in the book of Daniel, this was written later and Daniel was never meant to be a real person like the name.

49:32 The same way that Venicula wasn't actually written by a dog. Exactly. Exactly. Well, there's a lot of scholarly debate about that.

49:38 Well, that's true. Yeah. But, you know, I I'm a believer. It it feels like it's to me kind of the marker of a good historian to understand that people in the past also enjoyed using literary devices, you know?

49:51 Right. Yes. And that the fact that like there's also this, it's weird to me how despite how much some people who are religious emphasize the importance of faith, there's this idea that like, well, but no, if it's not literally Daniel that wrote this about his literal life, then that would be saying that the Bible doesn't have value. And it's like, well, why not? Like, you know, sometimes it gets a little frilly. You know, it's it's a it's a work of literature. or let them have their literary devices.

50:23 Yeah, it doesn't bother people with other kinds of literatures that it's not literally true that Aragorn, son of Arathorn, isn't a real historical figure. People have still uh changed their lives as a result of those books, you know?

50:36 Um but I don't know, maybe they just don't have that much faith. Uh and I guess Peter doesn't because again, he always describes Daniel as absolutely the guy who wrote the book of Daniel and as a historian, as a real historian. And you know he's real cuz he made predictions about the future that happened. And again, historians will say, "Well, cuz they happened

50:53 before the person wrote the book in the future." It's like if if you you could write a historical fiction about a guy who's a prophet and include a bunch of [ __ ] about World War II in your book set in 1910. That doesn't mean you prophesied World War II. You're just looking, you're just writing fiction, you know?

51:12 Like, wouldn't it be great if some guy saw that coming? Yeah. I mean, it's like I don't know. And Just any kind of nostalgia media like that 70s show where they're like, "Oh, kids, stop playing with the lawn darts." Isn't it funny that we know now what that's about the time where this is set? Yeah.

51:32 Yes. [snorts] This is that's exactly what's going on in the book of Daniel. And speaking of lawn darts, this podcast is sponsored entirely by lawn darts. Lawn darts. Aren't there too many kids in the world? [snorts]

51:46 Yeah. The Love Canal didn't get enough of [clears throat] them. That's right. We're back. We're thinking about all the things that used to kill kids back before we decided to make the world safe. And uh uh Yeah. Now things are good. It's a safe world for children. That's what I know about all kids. Yeah.

52:04 Mhm. Yeah. Uh that's why so many schools have metal detectors. Great stuff. So I don't have when it comes to the biblical scholarship was the book of Daniel written by I mean I'm pretty convinced that it was written later and Daniel is a historical fiction and amalgam of different people and and whatnot. Uh but you know there's arguments scholars will make either way. What's interesting to me is that Teal doesn't reference these arguments at all. He doesn't even mention them, which I I I could it could just mean that he has a strong biblical literacy literalism stance and he argue disagrees with those takes. But the fact that he doesn't mention them at all, I kind of wonder if he just doesn't know cuz he doesn't actually like

52:48 read curiously about stuff like this. I I Yeah, I could believe that he doesn't really care about scholarship on the Bible. He reads it and takes whatever is useful to him out of it and has no interest in what anyone else has said about it.

53:02 Well, and this feels like he's doing like his impression of a smart person. And I feel like a lot of people's smart person impression is like, I read the Bible and I figured out what it's about without the benefit of ever reading any

53:13 one else's thoughts about it ever. And it's like that's not what intelligence is about. Intelligence doesn't mean that you never listen to anyone else for your whole life.

53:22 No. No. Nor is it like, well, I assume this the English translation of this has all of the the context that's useful in understanding it historically. Right.

53:32 Right. There's no need to like look back at the different ways that this is different things have been interpreted, different translations. Like there's no value in any of that. They got it right with the King James version. That's the official version now. God said so. He told me is going to take me home. Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like what people maybe who I don't know look down on scholarship as a pursuit don't re realize about it maybe and maybe disdain it because they understand this kind of collaborative quality to it. Is it anything you figure out in an academic setting or really like any you know kind of real pursuit of of learning and research is you're standing on the shoulders of everyone else who's thought about it and worked on it in the past. And there's and you have a, you know, an awareness that you're only doing like an extra little millimeter of of progressing an idea.

54:24 Yeah. And that's also something a guy like Peter Teal can't accept. like the collaborative nature of like through which actual knowledge is built is fundamentally that's why all these guys are so bullish on AI is it's abhorent to them that other people have thoughts that they haven't thought or that they didn't think first that they might not understand you know

54:44 it's this a healthy person understands there's things that are beyond me even if I'm very smart I'm not smart in every area you know I I think I I'm certain that like Stephven Hawking wouldn't have like gotten angry if somebody had tried to explain to him how like, "Oh yeah, your fridge is broken, Stephen, and this is what's wrong." Cuz I doubt Stephen Hawking knew much about how refrigerators worked, right? And I'm sure he was humble enough to be like, "Well, no, I need to get a repair guy. I don't know."

55:10 This is what happened on EastEnders for the past 10 years. Sure. Or this is what this B verse of the Bible, you know, how it was translated a thousand years ago. And so it might mean something different. I actually intelligent people have a degree of humility in terms of the things they don't know. And I think to a guy like Peter Teal, the idea that like there might be anything important that he doesn't know is deeply offensive. And I think that's the Silicon Valley ideology in a nutshell.

55:37 Which is why like no, all that matters is what I know and what I can have this robot summarize. It can do everything else cuz other kinds of knowledge than the ones I have and other kinds of skill aren't real knowledge or skill cuz I don't have them. That's uh that's my interpretation of Peter Teal. You know, yours may yours might vary.

55:54 Well, I guess like kind of toddler-like anger at anything that eludes your grasp. So, you have to kind of shrink the world to fit your own worldview.

56:02 And that's what he's doing with the Bible here because it's important to peel Peter that Daniel is a real prophet and a real historian because he interprets Daniel 12:4, which I quoted earlier, as a prophecy. Now this is the fact the idea that like oh what he's saying is that knowledge increases which leads to us expecting an apocalypse and that creates room for a tyrant. That's not really how the Bible foresees the antichrist rising, you know? But apocalyptic fears have been with us as long as civilization, right? Like it's it's a it's not a thing that starts with Christendom and it's not a thing that starts with Daniel, right? The book of Daniel didn't invent apocalyptic beliefs. Um, and it's it's one of those you'll sometimes hear it claim that prior to the year 1000, Christsendom was convulsed, that like the last millennium, there were a bunch of specific fears that the world was going

56:53 to end then. And this is actually not really accurate, but it's not accurate because people didn't really agree what year it was on a wide scale back then. Um, however, as Peter Steinfelds wrote in a 1999 article for the New York Times, uh, so were there religious terrors and overroad expectations of the final judgment in the year 999? Absolutely. And also in the years 8.99, 1199, 1299, you name it. One might as well turn the question around and ask, how could it have been otherwise? Right? In other words, it wasn't so much that people were obsessed with the year 1000. It's that they they have always people did not widely agree on what year it was at all times in the past, but people have always expected the end of the world was around the corner, no matter what year they thought it was going to happen.

57:38 That's just natural human nature, right? I guess makes sense. Well, and also I mean, you know, not to this is just me kind of guessing, but I feel like if you look at human history, there are plenty of civilizations that have ended, right? or that have come very close to it through, you know, plague or being built next to a volcano or

57:58 massive floods or whatever else. And so it feels like this this idea of destruction that will eventually come for everyone um

58:07 Sure. is just something that you would develop as an idea based on what it feels like to exist as a human being. Yeah, I I that makes complete sense. And like it it is this like you can't how can you how could somebody live through like the the black death and be in like a city where 75% of the population dies. Like that is an apocalypse that you've lived through just like I mean [ __ ] if you lived in Berlin in 1945 you're living through an apocalypse or Hiroshima, you know, like that's that's an apocalypse. What else would you call that?

58:42 We create Yeah. Humans create a lot of them or witness a lot of them. And I do feel like post pandemic I have this feeling of like all right we could have another of these. I don't know like that's not unprecedented anymore. So what's next?

58:55 Honestly might be nice. We all got a couple of weeks off last time you know. Sure.

59:00 We had before we descended into you know things got a lot worse more fascism for several years. We had a couple of weeks where things were really killed. Yeah.

59:09 Really got to catch up [clears throat] on Netflix. Yeah. Got to rewatch some good TV shows. Yeah. Yeah.

59:16 Um, so, uh, in that article, Steinfelds goes on to quote Bernard McInn, who's a scholar of medieval religion from the University of Chicago, who said, "Meievie folk lived in a more or less constant state of apocalyptic expectation." And if that sounds kind of chillingly familiar to you, it's because we haven't changed really. We're the same as people back then, and we expect the world to end just like they did in some different ways. You know,

59:40 our tummies hurt for different reasons, and sometimes the same. some of them the same. Yeah. Um and obviously there's different theories as to why do people always think the world is going to end. You know, you can that that's a a lot of ink has been spilled on that topic. Uh but I think it boils down to two factors and neither of which really involves an increase in knowledge like Peter is obsessed with. I think it the two big factors are number one the apocalypse makes for good entertainment. People are interested in the idea of the world ending. And number two, it's less scary to imagine the world ending than to imagine yourself dying in the world going on, which is what will happen, right, to everybody.

1:00:19 And especially for a guy like Peter Teal. Yeah. Right. And Right. And especially if you're, you know, an egoomaniac who no one is restraining any longer. You're like, look, I everyone has to go out with me ultimately somehow.

1:00:33 Oh my god. I I am certain that he would prefer a nuclear holocaust to himself dying alone while the world continues, right? He would prefer his last years be in a bunker, right?

1:00:45 The second one, God willing, you know, um I just hope those bunkers ain't deep enough or the security their security guards will take him out, I'm sure. Um they haven't figured out the shot callers well enough. Now that said, I will I will acknowledge one thing that Peter says that I agree with is that I think apocalyptic fears have in the past and do today provide space for a tyrant to rise. You know, and

1:01:08 one of the things that I think I don't think Peter realizes, but is clear to me studying his beliefs about the Antichrist is that he justifies his yearning for a tyrant, his desire to end democracy and replace it with a dictatorship. He justifies that as the only way to stop the antichrist and the end of the world, which is deeply anti-Christian because Peter's whole idea, he he says he's a Christian. He says, "I am a believer that the antichrist will come and bring about the end of days, but I also think it can be stopped and that's a good thing, which is like not the religion, my my dude."

1:01:44 Right. Like you can't you kind of have to guess. Yeah. Yeah. It's key. It's pretty important,

1:01:51 right? It's like the last, you know, the the the the final conflict of the movie. You can't just cut that scene out. Yeah. [clears throat]

1:02:00 And that's that's important for you to understand is that Peter's belief is not the standard Christian apocalyptic belief that you've heard even from like weirdo fundamentalists, you know, who believe in the rapture. Peter's is all of that except but we can stop the bad stuff if we put the right dictator in today. It's actually amazing because he's made himself the main character of the Bible, which

1:02:21 I haven't like which people can't I I can't think of another person who's managed to do that. They usually stick with the characters that are in there.

1:02:29 Jesus did, you know, and Yeah. And like, you know, and people, you know, we're very familiar with people using Jesus as a proxy for their own desires, but

1:02:39 to actually write self-insert Bible fanfiction, it's it's stunning. Yeah, it is. It's stunning.

1:02:48 It's really It's really some impressive stuff. Um, and it's it's very funny. We're barely into Peter's like the first episode of Peter's speech. Uh, so I'm going to I'm going to read for you now. It started with him quoting that passage from the book of Daniel. Here's the second paragraph of his speech.

1:03:05 In late modernity, such worries of the apocalypse are infashionable, and the Antichrist is a forgotten figure. And I'm sorry, I lied. We couldn't get through the whole paragraph because that first sentence like what world are you living in man? The antichrist is a forgotten face.

1:03:19 Where have you heard of the antichrist? Peter Taylor was probably growing up watching the omens star during Gregory pack just like everyone else

1:03:26 talked to a person. Yeah. And this is a a loadbearing belief of his that churches don't talk about the apocalypse or the antichrist anymore. What are you talking about?

1:03:35 Constantly like are you how do you think this? Um, and just to add some polling data here, in 2013, the public policy polling conducted a series of uh a survey on conspiratorial beliefs among American voters. 13% of respondents in 2013 believed Barack Obama was the antichrist. Another 13 were unsure and 73% stated they didn't think Obama was the antichrist, but all of them were aware of the concept of the antichrist. Peter,

1:04:07 I mean, this isn't new. Yeah, it's it's Satan's kid, you know. It's Satan's Yeah exactly.

1:04:15 Little Nikki. It's his It's his You know, look, if Satan is uh uh uh Francis Ford Copala, uh the Antichrist is Nicholas Cage, who also would be a good pick to play the Antichrist. I'm just saying.

1:04:29 Oh my god. You know, that that has to have happened in 1994 and we forgot about it. It better have. Yeah,

1:04:36 we It just skipped us by. I watched him play a surfer recently. Not a great movie. Wow. Um, not a great movie. Sorry guys.

1:04:42 That's what I I appreciate that Nicholas Cage well I apparently can't say no. You know, they're just like, "Will you be in this really inappropriate role?" And he's like, "Yes,

1:04:52 he's also an Australian in that." And they just explain it by being like, "Oh, we moved to America when California when I was young." It's like, I don't you still don't really sound Australian to me.

1:05:03 All right, Gibson. But also, I will watch you do anything for roughly 90 minutes. So, I guess I'm the fool here.

1:05:11 And often an additional 30. Yeah, some many cases more than that. Um, so I'm going to actually read another paragraph. Peter said, this time you'll get the whole paragraph, but it's just as insane. And so, like, hold your hold your questions till the end, Sarah, but I know you're going to immediately have them. Our universities tell us that fears of the apocalypse are irrational and that the world is simply getting better. And yet our news tells us otherwise. We are worried about existential risks from AI, bioweapons, and nuclear war. How can we understand our apocalyptic time? And like what universities are you you think college professors are telling all their kids the world is always getting better and that's what h like who where what are you basing this on? What college [clears throat] classes? Maybe he read Candid and he was like, "So that's what they do in college."

1:06:02 That's what professors must feel all the time. In college, you spend four years with people saying, "Everything's fine. Don't worry about it. Don't even think about it. It's great."

1:06:11 Well, that's what's so weird to me about this is that like Peter hates universities in the standard right-wing way. So, I'm not surprised that he's critical of professors, but the standard right-wing critique of professors and university isn't they think the world's getting better,

1:06:26 right? It's that like all of these leftist academics are telling everyone capitalism is [ __ ] up and the the climate change is it's the opposite of that. How that's such a weird thing for you to say being you, Peter.

1:06:38 It feels like kind of classic like freshman comp writing where you're like, "Yeah,

1:06:43 I'm going to invent a a problem that doesn't exist in order to justify the importance of my position." And it's like, all right, you just made that up, but whatever. Fine. Keep going. And it's like, yeah, like I get that you're you can you're creating straw men, but like you're creating conflicting straw men. Like your straw men aren't internally consistent, which is kind of weird, right?

1:07:06 Um anyway, uh after this, Peter goes on to state that the apocalypse is not a fixed date on a calendar. Uh and he briefly summarizes the hilarious history of people trying to predict the end of days. Then he writes, "Still, if the day and the hour remain hidden, perhaps we may at least suspect the century." Now, I would argue this is just as delusional as trying to predict the day of the apocalypse. But it is much smarter from a gamblers's point of view. And Peter Teal is a degenerate gambler, right? Like you got a lot of space to be wrong if you're just like, "Oh, it'll happen sometime in the 21st century." Right? Like that is the smart

1:07:41 before people know you're totally wrong. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Uh now next he tells his audience that if we are to take the antichrist seriously and again for Peter the antichrist and the apocalypse are both synonyms we have to ask four questions. These four questions are what is the antichrist's relationship to Armageddon? When will he arrive? What is his relationship to Christ and who is the antichrist? Now Peter's selective reading of scripture concludes that the antichrist is the final antagonist before the revelation of Christ and Armageddon.

1:08:14 quote the beast of the sea heading a world government. He will come after many forerunners and will deser deceive the faithful by appearing more Christian than Christ. Now for that last question, who is the antichrist? Peter notes that the antichrist depending on who you listen to, could be a single person or a system or a type that repeats across history, right? Uh and next he has a degression where he claims that David from the Bible was the first real historian. quote because he foresaw a one-time sequence of world empires.

1:08:46 Whereas classical historians like Thusidities saw only cycles quote Athens versus Sparta, Germany versus Britain, Britain, and China versus America were one and the same. They were just steps in an eternal recurrence.

1:08:59 And I know there's a lot that's wrong there. We'll get back to the Antichrist stuff, but I have to correct Peter's talking about history because this is not fair to Thusidities or to classical thought. And neither nothing he's saying here is like accurate historioggraphy right classical thinkers did talk about the cyclical nature of history like theidities talked about that but he wasn't saying that like history is trapped in these like like cycles of like it's the same thing happening over and over again. He was making the same observation modern people do looking at history, which is that like, oh, people make the same mistakes a lot. Huh.

1:09:37 Like there's a lot of similarities in history that rhyme because we keep [ __ ] up in similar ways.

1:09:42 I'm going to Here's a quote from Thusidities himself. Just to make that point. If my work is judged useful by any who shall wish to have a clear view both of the events which have happened and those which will someday according to the human condition happen again in such and such like ways, it will suffice for me. So, Thusidities is saying my work is a success if it leads people to understand the human condition and the patterns that we go through as people, right? Like the patterns in history as a result of the human condition. That's a very like modern thing really in a lot of ways and I think is actually comports pretty well with modern historioggraphy which is like the exact same things don't repeat but people make similar choices historically in similar situations

1:10:24 and that's why you study history like I actually think is saying something timeless here and Peter is saying that no no no this guy is this is a a classical person who's trapped with like a very limited view of historic of history that's fundamentally wrong cuz he he doesn't believe history can progress, you know, which is not what Thusidities is saying. He's making a point about human nature.

1:10:45 He's got to create another meaningless straw man in order to make this theoretical point. Yeah.

1:10:51 Yes. In part because Daniel has to be the first real historian, you know, because historians predict things that haven't happened yet,

1:10:59 right? That's what being a historian is. Robert, my my question is, do we have any from your from the source? Do they say like how the audience is reacting to this like 55minute thing?

1:11:12 They seemed engrossed from the reports I've heard. Like mostly interested. People kept showing up. I don't know. I don't have the audio so I can't hear like what the reaction was. Was there a lot of applause?

1:11:22 Was it all people being polite to Peter cuz they work in his VC fund. These are the unknowns, you know, to me. So I can't answer that question accurately, Sophie. But it's a good question. Um so Peter claim his justifica his explanation for why Daniel was the first real historian is that Daniel was the first historian to realize that world empires would all fall in succession leading ultimately to the end of the world and the coming of God's kingdom. Now,

1:11:50 okay, Daniel, I mean, he that he he he made a that's kind of what he predicted, but not in a way that's accurate to modern history because, and this is critical, Sarah, Daniel prophesied four earthly kingdoms rising and falling in succession. And then after those four kingdoms rise and fall, we'll get the end of days and God's eternal kingdom, right? And the first, we know what the kingdoms were. The first was Babylon, which did indeed rise and fall. The second was Persia. The third was Greece. Some of what Daniel is wrote is often seen as him having predicted Alexander the Great, although again it was [clears throat] written after Alexander's time probably, right? Um, uh, probably. And then the fourth kingdom that Rosenfall was probably Rome, right? That that's what Daniel was prophesying. Now, if you're a history,

1:12:41 talk, right? You might be saying at this point, I feel like there's been a lot of empires since the Roman Empire fell. Yeah, it feel the Ottoman Empire springs to mind.

1:12:52 Sure, that's a good thing. British Empire. Yeah, that's a big one. The American Empire, you know. Obviously, the Canadian Empire, the most powerful and evil of them all.

1:13:02 Oh, yeah. Yeah. The seed of global Satanism according to Michelle remembers. So, there you go.

1:13:06 Yes. Yes. Um, and anyway, Peter's stance seems to be that like Daniel was right. Uh but that and and again Daniel is literally the guy who wrote the book of Daniel and literally a historian but also the four kingdoms thing was figurative right he wasn't literally talking about the actual historical empires he was talking about

1:13:28 my argument yeah which is the only way cuz like again he missed a lot of history after the Roman Empire uh in between that and the apocalypse and as a result I might suggest that like well Daniel clearly didn't foresee anything past the Roman Empire in terms of empires rising and falling. Maybe Thusidities's way of looking at history, you know, seeing patterns of human behavior and seeing how they antic influence historic events rather than trying to predict specific events. Maybe that's a more productive way to look at history. Maybe Thusidities was a better historian than Daniel.

1:14:02 The correct way to look at history is self-insert fanfiction. We've been over this.

1:14:06 That's right. That's right. Make yourself the most important character in history. Why bother studying anything if you can't be the main character of it?

1:14:15 Right. I've always felt that way anyway. So, thank you for for like reinforcing my belief system here. Oh, yeah.

1:14:21 Um anyway, in his next paragraph, Peter continues to be dizzyingly wrong. From 1750 to the early 1900s, technology accelerated at a pace that defies comprehension. In the 20th century, lifespans doubled. We moved faster physically. Steam engines led to automobiles and jet airplanes. In the 21st century, technology only means information technology. Progress in all other fields has halted. The question naturally arises, is the singularity in the past or in the future? Now,

1:14:50 he doesn't know what singularity means. No, he doesn't. And he doesn't know. This is a very

1:14:56 if all you care about is like the consumer tech industry, it's a I understand how your attitude could be. Nothing is progressing aside from information technology. Smartphones aren't really improving anymore. Tablets are kind laptops, all of these things that used to be wildly different every year are only kind of a little bit different now with every new innovation. Progress has stopped. If you only look at technology and like gadgets a guy keeps in his living room or or their pocket,

1:15:26 I get how you might [snorts] say that. And clearly that's how Peter Teal thinks about technology because he's a terminal narcissist, right? Who can only see progress through the lens of the parts of the tech industry he makes money on. But the idea that like all other fields of scientific endeavor have stalled in the last couple of decades is insane nonsense. I mean for example mRNA vaccine technology

1:15:49 advanced rapidly in very recent history, right? That doesn't count to Peter for some reason. And like

1:15:56 what what does it matter if something advances if you can't make exponential profits off of it? Who cares?

1:16:03 Yep. Yep. I and that's clearly what's going on here. I don't even know like should I like I have I had a rant in here about like car tech like automobile safety technology just as like a point of how wrong he is because

1:16:16 like it's mad like since the 1980s uh like there's a little bit of debate about this but like uh anti-lock brakes became normal in the 1980s and kind of after that you've started getting an increasing a variety of like what are called advanced driver assistance systems or ADAS. This includes everything from like collision warnings to automated emergency braking and electronic con stability control, lane assist, all that kinds of stuff. And like electronic stability control or ESC systems alone have been shown to reduce single ve vehicle fatal crash uh crash fatality chances by between like 40 and 56%.

1:16:54 Um there's a 2017 study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety that shows that uh like some of these like like rear braking systems have reduced rear end collisions by 27%. Um, like the data overall suggests that like automated emergency braking with combined with a warning reduces rear-end crashes by between 50 and 56% and altogether newer cars have something like a 50% lower fatality risk in crashes than cars built in the late 50s. This is a staggering degree of improvement and a lot of it's occurred in the last like 20 years again during this period of time where Peter Peter's like nothing's getting better.

1:17:30 Well, a lot is. It's just not what you care about. Like yeah, we have kind of reached the apex of what a screen can do probably. Like you can't get

1:17:41 that's fine. There's other things cancers to research. You know, we're still making headway in other areas. It's fine.

1:17:48 It's It's so weird to be like, well, TVs are as good as they're going to get. All of progress is halted now.

1:17:54 We might as well give up, I guess. Yeah. I'm ready for apocalypse if my TV is not going to keep improving. Yeah,

1:18:01 we can't make the images any smoother. Yeah. And it it it's just really telling that like Peter's attitude is like only information technology is still advancing. And it's like Yeah. Cuz that's the only technology you're looking at, right? You don't care about car safety. You don't care about any of these

1:18:17 to it. It doesn't exist. You know, it's like when a baby drops something. Yeah. And there's a there's a very funny at this point in his write up that he made of Peter's speech, KC Carney, the guy taking the notes, includes a graph. And I I don't know. I think that Peter's presentation had a graph like this. I don't know that. Maybe. But it's it's so funny. Sarah, look at this beautiful thing. There's [snorts] there's two graphs. One is labeled in the past and one is labeled in the future. And the one that says in the past shows the line basically going an S-curve, but like it's going rapidly up. Knowledge on the x-axis, time on the y ais. Or did I [ __ ] up the axis? Uh, and then it's showing it's showing knowledge going up massively over time and then plateauing suddenly. And then the one labeled in the future shows knowledge at a steady rate until it shotguns up uh, rapidly over time. I guess that's Peter

1:19:14 predicting that knowledge will Yeah. Can we see the raw data for these? What is the data? What is knowledge based on? How are we defining knowledge?

1:19:22 How do we know in the future of the future? It's cuz he's a true historian. Like Daniel, who wrote the book of Daniel? Duh.

1:19:30 Yeah, I love I love fake graphs. And this is a beautiful fake graph to me. It It's perfect. I don't even know what you're trying to argue other than like AI will increase the rate of knowledge. Maybe it looks like that's kind of what he's trying to say. But he's arguing certainly that right now we're stuck. Like science is stuck, you know? And this is like the core of everything Peter believes and like why he is so supportive of radical political change is that he thinks it's death for the human race that science is stuck. And as a spoiler, the antichrist is all of the anti-science people who want to stop AI research who want to stop

1:20:06 drilling for fossil fuels. Like who want to like that that is his his doom loop, right? Peter says, quote, "We are running a red queen's race. working harder, running faster, yet standing still. Wages have stagnated, health is plateauing, and optimism is fading. Nixon declared a war on cancer in 1971, promising victory by the bicesentennial in 1976. No president today would dare declare a war on Alzheimer's. And like I mean, yeah, man, cuz we didn't we didn't beat cancer in 1976.

1:20:35 Yeah, Nixon was very brave. Hey, if he hadn't got if he hadn't resigned, maybe he would have cured cancer.

1:20:42 Sure. It's like I don't know. Maybe the fact that this was didn't work last time is why presidents don't say [ __ ] like that anymore because it's like dumb silly.

1:20:50 It's a stupid thing to do. It's a grandiose and over the top thing to say and I get that it's personally disappointing to you that the presidents don't act more megalomaniacal but

1:21:02 and it's also the idea that like oh wow it's fun that he recognizes regular people their wages are standing still like things like quality of life increases have plateaued and things aren't getting better at the rate they used to

1:21:15 and yet my wealth as a billionaire has increased massively while like regular wages are stagnant and rich people like me, the top 1% of the top 1% are getting a lot more. Hm. Wonder if those are connected. I wonder if maybe all of the benefits that should be spread out throughout society in order to do things like increase life expectancy and increase average wealth and like ensure people are able to retire and all this stuff that in that translates to quality of life. I wonder if the fact that all that money is going to me has anything to do with the stagnation. Nah.

1:21:49 Antichrist. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, in his next paragraph, Peter gets to the core of why he's so angry at science and academia. Science once proud promised radical life extension. Today, the closest we come to mastery over death is legalized euthanasia.

1:22:03 What? And I Yeah. No, Peter, that's not true. Like, he he just hasn't he I don't think anyone has given him feedback on this.

1:22:16 No. And it's like I don't think I I think Yeah. This is very clearly a man without an editor for sure.

1:22:22 He needs a producer. He needs a single person to say no sir. I feel like science never promised radical life. You probably read like an article and like people where someone who wasn't a scientist talked about radical or a grifter talked about radical and you bought it because you're not that smart. Maybe that's who promised radical life. I think some conmen promised you radical life extension and as you age and none of the nonsense you're doing really works the way it's supposed to, you realize you've been conned and you're blaming science as opposed to the grifters that you listen to and gave a lot of money. I think maybe that's what's going on here.

1:23:04 Blaming science for your magical thinking not working as well as it used to. Yeah. And also just like the closest we come to master over a death is legalized euthanasia again like [ __ ] uh the most recent uh uh like uh vaccine technology leaps and like life expecties have increased in a lot of ways for a lot of specific illnesses. There are a lot of new medicines that didn't exist 10 years ago, 20 years ago that exists exist now and like absolutely

1:23:32 gene modification technology you know. Yeah. Like I realize euthania is exciting, but come on.

1:23:39 Yeah, there's a ton of medical improvements and even breakthroughs. Just none of them mean that you'll live forever cuz that's not possible, Peter.

1:23:48 But basically, he's like, "Science is in the diction. We might as well all kill ourselves." But wait, there's more.

1:23:55 But wait, there's more. It's like looking at It's like looking at like the aerospace field and being like there's been no progress in the last 30 years because we haven't developed faster than light travel

1:24:04 because I didn't see it on TV so I assume it didn't happen right [clears throat] but like planes are a lot safer like plane crashes are a lot rarer like isn't that count as an improvement? No. [ __ ] you. We don't have warp speed. I'm angry. Um yeah. Anyway, we'll talk some more about Peter Teal and what he believes and specifically we're going to talk about who he thinks the Antichrist might be in part two, but this is part one. It ran a little long, but thank you Sarah for for indulging me.

1:24:35 Thank you. This has been a horrifying journey. I feel like he's a tiny little baby and uh I can't wait to see him become even tinier before my very eyes next time. Yeah,

1:24:51 Robert, who who is your antichrist, Robert? Who do I think the antichrist is? Honestly, like Peter Teal is not a bad pick. Um, if you're kind of going though with the more traditional view of like it needs to be somebody who's like popular, who's like widely beloved, you know, by people who's able to like get a large following together.

1:25:12 Uh, I feel like Mr. Beast. I feel like Mr. Beast. Very probable antichrist. Yeah,

1:25:18 I can see it. There's nothing behind his eyes. We can all agree on that, right?

1:25:23 That black eyes like a doll's eye. Doll's eyes. Uh, [snorts] and I I I'm glad that you brought up Jaws because I do think that the solution to Mr. Beast is the same as the solution to the shark and Jaws. Uh,

1:25:38 yep. Make him bite into an oxygen tank. Yeah. I'm going to crowdfund a shitty boat. Like, not a good boat. like a [ __ ] up looking boat that I've been living on for a while.

1:25:48 It's named after the thing that almost ate you when you were younger or no, it's called the orca. I guess it's named after the only thing that can eat the thing that almost ate you when you were younger.

1:25:57 Yeah. Yeah. Uh so yeah, that's going to be great. Anyway, if you haven't watched the original Jaws, go listen to Jaws.

1:26:05 That's the episode. We're done. Oh, wait, no, sorry. Plug your pluggable, Sarah.

1:26:09 Yeah. Um go listen to The Devil You Know. It's out right now from CBC podcast. It's my new uh miniseries about the satanic panic and all of the truly wonderful people who got caught up in it. Um and I was so happy to get to talk to you today about something that scares me so much more than any depiction of the devil. And I cannot wait to resume.

1:26:34 Yay. Excellent. All right, everyone. Part one is done. Go away for a while.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Part One: Peter Thiel and the Anti-Christ | BEHIND THE BASTARDS"?

Robert Evans (Host), Sarah Marshall (Guest), Sophie (Guest).

What is "Part One: Peter Thiel and the Anti-Christ | BEHIND THE BASTARDS" about?

The discussion explores the complexities of friendship dynamics, particularly contrasting deep male and female friendships. The speakers share humorous anecdotes and personal experiences that highlight the intimacy and trust found in their relationships, revealing insights into how these bonds differ between genders.

What is mentioned in this Behind the Bastards episode?

11 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Acts 17, Michelle Remembers, Sarah Marshall, The Devil You Know, Carl Schmitt, Rene Girard. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Part One: Peter Thiel and the Anti-Christ | BEHIND THE BASTARDS"?

The episode runs 1 h 27 min; the transcript is about 16,106 words in 301 timestamped sections.

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