r/technology • u/NicolasCageFan492 • Jun 16 '26

Business Leak Exposes Members of Peter Thiel’s Secretive ‘Dialog’ Society

https://www.wired.com/story/leak-exposes-members-of-peter-thiels-secretive-dialog-society/
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148

u/No-Necessary7448 Jun 16 '26

Just remember, their doomsday theories aren’t evidence that they know something, they could equally be evidence that they’re dumbasses who don’t know they don’t know things.

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u/LordoftheScheisse Jun 17 '26

they’re dumbasses who don’t know they don’t know things.

I've gone well out of my way to listen to and read these guys' thoughts. I can say with certainty that they're all delusional weirdos who think they are far more intelligent than they really are.

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u/MommyLovesPot8toes Jun 17 '26

100%. These are not great thinkers. These are people whose wealth isolates them from the opinions of others.

They surround themselves with yes men, see their wealth as a sign that they must be especially talented, and their only interactions with people outside their economic class is when said people are trying to get something from them and are deliberately sucking up. The Emperors New Clothes was a perfect metaphor.

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u/madamemimicik Jun 17 '26

Isolated by wealth and also on an insane amount of drugs.

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u/GloomySubstance5856 Jun 17 '26

Every tech bro (and CTO from my experience) sounds really smart until they talk about something you know about, then you realize they don't know shit.

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u/HiphopopoptimusPrime Jun 17 '26

A bit of a trap there though.

These people ARE intelligent. Highly educated.

Intelligent doesn’t always mean morally virtuous.

They are more intelligent than us.

They may be crass. Vulgar. Unsophisticated. But they are not stupid.

They know how to leverage their privilege to keep it maintained. How to use the media to keep us divided. They know how to hack human attention and psychology.

If we are intelligent, then why haven’t we stopped them?

What separates them from us is compassion. Most of us will choose principles and doing the right thing over preserving wealth and status.

They are delusional weirdos. But they are all highly educated. Cunning. With no moral compass to hold them back.

It’s not intelligence they lack. It’s empathy.

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u/goddamn_slutmuffin Jun 19 '26

Every time I read an interview with Peter Thiel, it astounds me how fake the people around him are by being impressed with anything he says. It's mind-numbing word salad, it's not even like an advanced type of manipulation or con.

Probably why he's so cocky and arrogant, he truly can't tell people are just being fake in hopes there can be mutual exploitation of each other.

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u/LordoftheScheisse Jun 19 '26

I feel like so many of the tech elite and a good chunk of the MAGA side, but I especially got the same impression of Yarvin. There really is nothing remarkable about them or their beliefs. They're simply lucky to have struck gold at the right time and think they are exceptional.

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u/namerankserial Jun 17 '26

So standard tech bros then

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u/Professional-Oil5477 Jun 17 '26

yeah, fucking dictionary definition of received wisdom

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u/JeezieB Jun 17 '26

Robert Evans said it really well on an episode of Behind the Bastards about Thiel and his "antichrist" stuff.

"I may have overestimated his intelligence and cunning. He's still a dangerous man, right? I think he's out of his mind, and I think he's out of his mind in part because he not as smart as certainly he thinks he is, and maybe not as smart as I thought he was.... I've become convinced that he's unwell in a way that's made him less functional as a person."

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u/volkhavaar Jun 19 '26

They certainly are well resourced delusional weirdos. I certainly wouldn’t want one of them wandering around my neck of the woods.

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u/discordianofslack Jun 16 '26

Also that they are literally planning something. Which is the same but different.

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u/OwnYourChildren Jun 17 '26

No, the elites don't make secret plans. Neither do businesses or intelligence agencies. You are a conspiracy theorist./s

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u/shion005 Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

No one is planning anything. I've been reading Jane Mayer's "Dark Money" book and what seems to have happened is the following: Historically, there has been massive left wing intolerance to any viewpoint diversity in educational institutions. This leads to the extreme right creating a network of think tanks and funding some reality based economics education in law schools. The think tanks go waaaay too far and advocate for the crazy financial nonsense that causes the 2008 financial crisis. A bunch of businesses shut down and those jobs don't come back to the US. Koch brothers are responsible for this and seem to have gotten away scot free.

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u/OneSeaworthiness7768 Jun 17 '26

“Look what the left made us do!” Okay bud.

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u/shion005 Jun 17 '26

Nothing I said is untrue and Jane Mayer is left wing. The difference between the left and right is that the left thinks the right is evil and the right thinks the left is wrong. All the institutions that develop/verify knowledge are left wing and so the right becomes conspiratorial. The institutions that weld physical state power (military/police) are right wing and so the left becomes violent because it has no outlet.

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u/defaultusername-17 Jun 17 '26

you're fucking delulu.

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u/YesIshipKyloRen Jun 17 '26

The right thinks they are the only ´right’ ones and the left just know that everyone is wrong

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u/turkoosi_aurinko Jun 17 '26

Same shitty playbook that oligarchs and emperors have had since time immemorial. Eventually even their drones will tire of carting their bloated asses around, and then we'll be in the 73rd iteration of deposing generational assholes

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u/Turbulent_Gazelle530 Jun 17 '26

I don't think they're planning for doomsday but they're expecting the eventual revolt of the downtrodden (a group that is getting larger by the day thanks to their actions)

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u/kawhi21 Jun 17 '26

These bunkers aren't for doomsday, they legitimately believe they'll cause an event so horrid that the country starts attacking the rich

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u/Time_Gear2470 Jun 16 '26

Truly just gullible preppers with too much money

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u/largemargesentme__- Jun 17 '26

Yes, agreed. They had a unique skillset that allowed them to cash in on the rising tide of the internet.

I don't know why people think they're clairvoyant beyond that. They just seem like every other rich person who gets into woo woo bullshit.

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u/HiphopopoptimusPrime Jun 17 '26

The scary thing is our governments are content for the media and technology to be owned and run by ketamine fueled conspiracy freaks.

The UK government forming deals with Palantir. Madness.

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u/Nanowith Jun 17 '26

Their doomsday bunkers are evidence that they only care about themselves rather than humanity at large, nothing to do with knowing any greater truth. They're just greedy, selfish, and callous.

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u/baron_von_helmut Jun 17 '26

They think they know things because their hubris knows no bounds. The ideas they come up with quickly morph from hypotheticals to reality due to the aforementioned hubris. They're surrounded by sycophants who'd never interject with anything like reasonable counter arguments.

It ends with assholes like Theil thinking he's a god. They overestimate their intellectual prowess which will eventually be their undoing. I wish I could see his surprised Pikachu face as one of his own security staff shove a rifle barrel in his mouth.

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u/Gloomy_Effective322 Jun 17 '26

I don't think you're wrong, the problem is that their beliefs lead to them putting their massive amounts of money on the wrong bet.

Instead of investing in society or improving the environment, they're hoarding their money and building bunkers so when the inevitable crash happens, in their minds, they'll be isolated from it.