
What Is Peter Thiel's Grand Trumpian Plan? - sajid
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/11/what-is-peter-thiel-grand-trumpian-plan
======
internaut
I think what most 'passers-by' have wrong, is that they think this is some
kind of fluke like a random personality quirk or even a midlife crisis. Hence
the whole affair may be dismissed as the ramblings of a strange mad
billionaire.

If you watch Thiel's presentations going back over a decade, you'll see
something different. These are all public but it takes about a hundred hours
or more so most people have jumped around, looking for the gist of what is
going on, such as all these journalists attempting to psychoanalyze Thiel,
with the obvious motives that first: something weird needs to be explained
(100 journalists at the recent press conference!) and less honorably second:
he has to be vilified as a prominent opposing political entity external to
their tribe.

This is unfortunate because the truth is far more interesting albeit _very
difficult_ to explain in a way that would impart an understanding. It does not
get picked up on because I believe it takes slow-thinking, it takes some
reflection to absorb what is being suggested. Reading old books helps. I think
somebody said once "the past is a foreign land, they do things differently
there", and that intuition is of use here. Darwin, Gibbons, Girard, Spengler
and many others, the basic theme is 'this basic reality you think you have?
Well, it ain't so. Here is a deeper level'. In present day parlance this is
called 'redpilling' by reactionaries but that should not put you off this,
this is an old way to give knowledge by undermining former assumptions (the
Christians call this 'revelation' I believe) and not the sole providence of a
single political sect.

I see a disturbing picture emerging I call the Wolfian World after Gene
Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun. If there is a shortcut to understanding, then
that book is it. Ancient institutions are crumbling due to age and corruption.
The frame of reference the narrator has is bizarrely warped as things familiar
are perceived with alien eyes. The past is without context. The accretion of
crud is literally geological. The spirit of renewal, has evaporated. The
keyholders are creatures of mimicry going through the motions. Many parts are
vestigial limbs and do not know it. The peripheral shrinks literally and
spiritually as the World turns inward, navel gazing instead of looking to new
frontiers. Enemies, ancient and modern, are at the gates. What is more, the
gates are abandoned, forgotten because the peoples who manned them no longer
understood their purpose and left their posts generations ago. It is unclear
who is controlled and who are the controllers. In Christopher Nolan's
Interstellar humanity experiences not just empty future prospects but also _a
diminished expectation of the past_. We did not really go to the moon in that
future, that is very telling of human nature's chronocentricism - They cannot
even imagine their past, let alone their future.

In short; our World is becoming like the Wolfian World. It is likely that we
are on the threshold of sliding into a new Dark Age. In order to fight back
one would need to utterly readjust his thinking and expectations of the
future. The people who prepare (e.g. sama) for a systems collapse, are
appreciating the possibility but those kind of actions are mostly in
microcosm, a self preservation instinct. A sudden shock is more immediate and
so more energizing for an individual to take action, but the more likely
option is actually a long steady stagnation punctuated with the occasional
shock.

tldr; Thiel believes our civilization has Alzheimers.

I repeat; if you want a shortcut to Thiel's worldview in my personal opinion
the best way to see that is to read The Book of the New Sun. The suggestion
you might find weird, but go with me on this, is to listen to the Voyager
Recordings - Symphonies of the Planets while you're reading it. It is hard to
escape our inherent chronocentricism. When demands are made of our presence
from moment to moment, it becomes much harder to appreciate anything outside
of that. If it feels 'weird' then good, it is supposed to, you have to get out
of your comfort zone. If you wanted the material specifics of the Stagnation
Thiel believes is going on, then I've written about it at length in my history
on HN dozens of times, some samples are included below. There is a list of
statistics, attributes and artifacts a mile long that cannot be explained in
any other way than we have been plateauing. We ought to anticipate that the
future will be much stranger than the present, and not in a good way.

[12]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12197054](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12197054)

[11]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12242497](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12242497)

[10]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12420696](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12420696)

[9]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12413729](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12413729)

[8]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12527867](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12527867)

[7]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12572091](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12572091)

[6]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12608052](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12608052)

[5]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12626864](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12626864)

[4]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12627138](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12627138)

[3]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12757955](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12757955)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12772091](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12772091)

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12853180](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12853180)

~~~
asdfasdfa11112
Would you say that Gene Wolfe's books mentioned bear thematic similarity in
this sense to the Foundation series? Trying to build on something I already
know.

~~~
internaut
There is a little bit of similarity, but to be honest the complexity is
completely different.

Gene Wolfe is several orders of complexity higher than the Foundation series.
Its threads are tied together in ways that will blow your mind. You need to be
totally, totally awake to understand what you are reading. You don't get
'clues'. You get one chance to grasp something Wolfe is telling you. It is
extremely rewarding as well as intellectual.

I cannot count the number of times I had a "holy fuck" moment, Wolfe is
unbelievably smart.

You know how people on Reddit and 4chan look for 'mindfuck' movies.

This book, The Book of the New Sun, is on another level. My mind changed its
frame of reference about a dozen times reading it. Normally a good author
manages to accomplish that _once_.

There is basically no way I can ruin this book for you by hyping your
expectations. It is just that good.

Also; I must beg a favour so I can return one to you. You must read the book
(there's two volumes of 4 books total) while listening to a piece of 'music'.
The Voyager Recordings.

This is not actually music. It is what the sensors picked up on the spacecraft
as they pointed their arrays at the different planets.

If you listen to this while you read the book, it'll make it much more
immersive.

I know this sounds dumb as hell, but it is hard to explain. Just do it, you'll
thank me later.

P.S. Your initials won't happen to be N.D would they? Foundation is his
favorite book also. If so I won't hold it against you, I'm not that kind of
guy, but do read and listen. It is rewarding, and important, I think. I know I
somehow changed after doing this, it was as if the world had deeper textures
and certain things just clicked or something. Maybe I'm a strange person on
the internet, but it is worth taking a risk to find out.

~~~
asdfasdfa11112
I'm afraid those aren't my initials. I'm in California, just been enjoying the
hell reading through your posts that you nicely collected into an index
recently I stumbled upon.

Your arguments are intriguing. I was tempted to fire off half thought through
replies to what initially struck me as gaping holes in logic, but am glad I
did not. The more I read, the more I realize that I need to put more effort
into understanding what you're really trying to say before I can begin to
evaluate it.

Almost a "see it as the painter intended" moment. Anyhow, thank you for your
writings, for although I don't know yet if I agree with anything you said,
it's certainly exposed me to new perspectives I hadn't considered.

edit - and yes, I do promise to read the books listening to your
recommendation.

~~~
internaut
I'll be the first to admit that there may be holes in my arguments. I hazard
perhaps it just hard to articulate for ordinary mortals such as I but there is
a thread running through out I feel passionately about. That is why I
recommend Wolfe. He manages elegantly illustrate concepts that remain mere
fizzing and bubbling of ideas in my brain. He is the master artisan, so go to
him rather than me.

I am convinced Thiel has seen a glimpse of something really important in the
big picture. Events are in motion, as we can see from recent events, formerly
influential stories we tell ourselves about the world appear to be flying
apart.

Please tell me what your experience was when you finish your first Labour! (My
email is in my profile.) :-)

Here are the specific recordings I meant, there's a few alternatives drifting
about:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vjz9m1TkQ_A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vjz9m1TkQ_A)

They themselves are remarkable, they took electromagnetic sensor data from
Voyager 1 and 2’s trip past Jupiter and Saturn and then converted the radio
waves into sound accessible to ears.

