Episode Details

In an age of spreadsheets and regulation, some of Silicon Valley’s sharpest critiques are being framed in biblical terms. Drawing on apocalyptic prophecy, Peter Thiel has cast modern causes—from climate activism to European governance—as symptoms of an Antichrist-era obsession with safety that he says has stalled technological progress. In this episode, we explore how such theological language turns policy disagreements into cosmic struggles, why apocalyptic labels have long been used to demonize opponents rather than predict the end times, and what this rhetoric reveals about a broader drift away from Enlightenment rationality. The story asks whether dressing ordinary debates in sacred urgency clarifies the stakes—or inflames them.

https://www.economist.com/culture/2025/10/16/the-antichrist-hes-back