Start here with this video (short - 2 minutes)
Now, from my knowledge of Peter Thiel, he is known for being a Libertarian and a promoter of Individidualism.
However in this video, you can’t help but pick up on Gollum vibes - like - the power corrupts.
The interviewer kindly approaches the fact that he is putting significant resources into building these technologies that the primary use case is for supressing and controlling people.
Which is somewhat confusing given that Thiel’s label is one of a Libertarian.
Could it be that greed has taken over his compass in life? Perhaps he has become blind to the risk that he brings upon humanity. Perhaps he wants to own it so that he can control it, to enforce its use in “good”.
Who knows - but clearly someone saying one thing and doing something is a cause for concern and deeper inspection.
Some examples of Thiel’s resources going towards technological initiatives that could be seen as harmful from a libertarians point of view.
Thiel has also been involved for a long time with Sam Altman of OpenAI through investment and mentoring.
Perversion
Now this word isn’t used very often and from my experience is typically associated to some sexual degenerency or of a use in a religious sense.
Perversion means a distortion, corruption, or deviation from its original intent.
Now to me there is clearly some deviation between Peter Thiel’s supposed belief system in individualism and how he focuses his resources on technology. But this isn’t unique to this gentleman.
This is seemingly commonplace through all examples of Technology.
Evolution
I’ve long been thinking about the topic of:
“does Evolution (Technology) make the world a better place?”.
(And this is a subset question on a larger topic that I think about:
“Why in a Universe of entropy, do we have distinct pockets of complexity?”)
In this, I immediately bump up against the fact that technology gets used right away for badness.
Me working in Technology for 20+ years →
Einstein - Ultimately ended up facilitating the Hydrogen bomb
Watson and Crick - Double helix identification within DNA, also enabled eugenics, selective bioweapons
Von Neumann - Advanced mathematics, provided Mutually Assured Destruction “game” plan
Fritz Harber - Developed ammonia synthesis, also father of chemical warfare
Alan Turing - Aided foundations of computing, also the foundations for a surveilance state and control
Regardless of intent, in all scenarios, the good is ultimately met with an offsetting bad.
And circling back to answer my question of
does Evolution (Technology) make the world a better place?
There are two contexts that are needed to answer this:
Collectivism
Individualism
From a collective point of view - the human race, we move forward in evolution.
Think Borg from Star Trek.
The macro picture of Why in a Universe of entropy, do we have distinct pockets of complexity?
We get more complex. We evolve. We move forward as a race and as a pocket of complexity.
From an individualism point of view. From me as an individual. The good of technology is offset with the bad of authoritarianism and control. Therefore neutral from an individualism point of view.
In Conclusion
In a cosmos of nothingness and uniform entropy, pockets of uniqueness are facilitated by evolution and that evolution is fueled by technology. Technology is nothing more than identifying resources around you and putting them to use.
Evolution advances the collective at the cost of the individual.