Post by david o. houwen

Kuifje: "Ha Philippulus, ouwe onheilsprofeet! Long time no see! How's business?" Plippulus: ''Waardeloos. Tegenwoordig is iedereen onheilsprofeet. Er valt geen droog brood meer mee te verdienen. De concurrentie is moordend. Ik stap over op het verkondigen van het paradijs op aarde.'' 🤓 How apocalyptic worldviews are moving from the fringes to the corridors of power | The Conversation It recently emerged that tech billionaire Peter Thiel is running a secret society that brings together fellow CEOs and billionaires with political leaders. Members reportedly include figures like Nato supreme commander Alexus Grynkewich and son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, Jared Kushner. Thiel, a German-American entrepreneur and activist, was a co-founder of PayPal and software firm Palantir. Revelations about the society – known as “Dialog” – have attracted widespread attention. And Thiel himself gave a confidential lecture series in San Francisco this year, in which he framed issues of politics and technology in biblical terms. Thiel has said he believes that humankind faces existential threats from nuclear war or runaway artificial intelligence (AI) that could lead to “Armageddon”. In such an end-times era, so the thinking goes, only the most ingenious – like those in the secret society – would survive. Thiel is an extreme, but by no means isolated, case. Other powerful people in politics and technology are viewing today’s world through a lens of civilisational crisis and impending catastrophe. https://lnkd.in/ex_fmufa #crisis #catastrophe #apocalyptic #worldviews #mainstream #politics #technology #power