Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
welcome back to behind the bastards a podcast where robert evans is still waking up still kind of hung over uh which i know i've introduced like a third of our episodes that way and it might lead some of you to wonder does robert have a problem and the answer to that question is no i have a solution sophie how are you doing today Uh, I'm in pain, but my best friend's here, so... That's a win.
And you, my other best friend. I have two. I have two. You're also my best friend. It's okay. I know where I stand. I know where I stand. Yeah. Sarah Marshall, welcome to the show. Hello, Robert. A pyramid is the strongest shape. Or, well, I guess a triangle. That's right. But a pyramid, if you're in marketing. Um, I... Sophie, I'm so happy to be here with you, my legend, my queen. Thank you.
And Robert, you, a guy who is also here. I'm just kidding. Thank you. You're also a legend. I think of you every time I see a goat. Every time you see a goat. Okay. That's good, because there's a lot of those out there. You and Sophie were talking about your beautiful friendship, and it made me think about the differences between deep male and deep female friendships, because...
When I was thinking back to my stories with my best friend, it's all the different times that either I puked on Lenny or Lenny puked on me. I have one of those stories, but only one. Well, no, I have two. I have two. Anyway. Yeah, that's good. That's a good number. That's a good start. Yeah. I mean, what do you think that you're kind of...
The stuff of your intimacy with your male friends is about. I don't know. You know, honestly, I think a big part of it's just male or female friends. It's just that kind of that kind of bone deep trust where you feel as comfortable with another person as you do, like feeling alone on your couch.
I would say that's about the highest level of intimacy in or out of a romantic relationship that exists. Just to say, Robert, I would love to puke on you. Thank you, Sophie. That's very sweet. It will happen one day. You guys just keep putting in your hours. I've avoided puking on you for the same reason. I think I've puked on more people than the average person. The most at once was like nine.
Wow. The most at once. I'm proud of that. It took some work. It took some work and elevation. I like to stay in and, you know, watch the Drew Carey show. So I don't get the opportunity as much. It's a great shame. Yeah. You know, now that you think of it, I've never puked on someone while watching the Drew Carey show. So there may be a causative effect.
Speaking of great shows, I would like Sarah to plug her new show for our audience. I have a show to plug. And Sophie, you have been such a help to me in my show advertising tour. Going hither and yon, ringing my cowbell, telling people about my new show, which is called The Devil You Know. It's from CBC Podcasts.
It features such iconic performances as our dear friend Jamie Loftus performing the book Michelle Remembers. Oh, my God. Yeah. That's a win. That just needed to happen. And now it's happened. And it's also, you know, an attempt to kind of tell the story of the satanic panic and its initial spread.
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Chapter 2: What are Peter Thiel's beliefs about the Antichrist?
So I feel pretty confident that I can explain what this motherfucker believes to the extent that it will ever make sense. So before we get into that, we should talk about the group that funded this lecture series, which is the Acts 17 Collective. You would have seen that on the photo of Peter that we posted a little bit earlier if you're watching it.
The name of the Acts 17 Collective is based on chapter 17 of the Book of Acts. And, you know, the Bible. And this chapter concerns... She said Bible. You said Bible. Sarah goes, heard of it. Heard of it. Heard of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You might have caught this one. And it's the New Testament, which if you're not into religion, it's the aliens to the Old Testament's alien.
Oh, God, that's so true. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Obviously, Jesus is sort of a Ripley figure. I think a lot of people have argued that over the years. He was clearly heavily inspired by Ripley. Yeah, unless he's, you know, there's a little bit of Newt in there too, though. There's a little bit of Newt in there, sure, absolutely. I think the Apostle Paul is Hicks.
Generally, biblical scholars agree that the Apostle Paul was inspired by Corporal Hicks. Yeah. It's a consensus. Yeah, there's a broad consensus. You have to really read the original Aramaic that Aliens was written in to get a lot of that. James Cameron writes exclusively in Aramaic. He's a polymath. It's a real problem for a lot of his collaborators.
So Act 17, the chapter that's in, concerns Paul and some of his companions on like a trip through Greece. They're not just in Greece or they're not just in Athens, but it's like they spend a lot of time in Athens arguing about religion with philosophers, right?
They're going to these different markets and public places and synagogues, and they're talking to like educated scholars about religion to like argue that, hey, Christianity is is a thing, basically. I'm yada yada-ing this a lot. You're like, hey girl, have you thought about Christianity? Yeah, have you thought about Christianity in a logical sense?
He's trying to make the intellectual, that chapter is like Paul arguing and debating with a lot of intellectuals about his new religion, right? It's like Shark Tank. Yes, it's like the Shark Tank part of the Bible, yeah. And Sarah said, hey girl. You gotta hey girl. And I say, girl, whatever. Is that a Shark Tank joke, Sophie? How am I supposed to get that? No, it's for the youth.
It's for the ladies who... Peaked in a high school on MLM Facebook 10 years ago, kind of a thing. Oh, it is that happening. But yeah, it is definitely that for Paul, where he's like sliding into the DMs of a friend from high school who happens to be like a rabbi being like, hey, I'm doing this new thing. You want to hear about it? Can I get you to show up? Like, well, there will be free makeup.
We'll get to give you a free makeover. Talk about Jesus. There's going to be snacks. We're going to learn about leggings. Yeah. Right. And also Jesus. Yeah. Yeah. Jesus wants you to sell these leggings. No, that is exactly what's going on, basically.
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Chapter 3: How does Peter Thiel justify his views on democracy?
So, you know, you're like, I want to get better at baking. I want to make a bouche de Noel for Christmas. I'm going to spend three months developing my bouche de Noel skills. But instead, because they have no patience, they just want to destroy democracy because that feels like it would be faster. I don't know. Maybe it is.
Well, I think it's just because for these guys, there's so little that they can really say. There's nothing above them. They have all of the money. There's no one who can tell them what to do. So the only thing theoretically above them is the state and so is the government. And so they define... And honestly, most of the government is in their pocket.
Like, as a general rule, lawmakers are not anti-Silicon Valley billionaires. So instead, they pick, like, the thing they can't control, which is the small number of people who get elected, like, on progressive agendas trying to fix problems. And... Those are the people who don't like because those are the only people in politics who aren't going to pretend to respect you, to love you. Right.
Because they're kind of fundamentally in opposition to guys like you. And so you have to. That's who's responsible for all of the problems. That's who does everything wrong. You know, that's why I'm unhappy. Mm hmm. Because someone out there doesn't like me or someone out there doesn't marginally respect me. Yeah.
I mean, it's the reason why so many famous people lost their minds as soon as they got access to Twitter. Right. Is like being confronted with the fact that people dislike you and disrespect you. And that's just life.
uh maybe you could be a better person but like you just normally don't hear about it in detail you know yeah and so having the ability to reach for that knowledge um it is kind of this yeah like a fascinating yeah i don't know experiment in terms of what would happen if people suddenly became telepathic because in a way people did yeah especially choice carol oats Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, it's the it's the same reason why, like so many people high up in like our media class, like the folks who write for the columns for The New York Times consider, quote unquote, woke ism and cancel culture a bigger problem than any of the things that are actually going to kill them. Because like it's this no people.
I went to Harvard or Yale or whatever, and my family name is this and I have this fancy job and people are calling me an idiot because. That shouldn't be allowed. That's got to be illegal that they're calling me a dipshit for my dipshit opinions. And it's like they were calling you an idiot before. You just didn't know about it. Yeah.
You couldn't see it and people weren't sharing it 100,000 times. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. They're a bunch of very healthy people, these billionaires. They're thriving. They're doing great. Yeah. They're doing great. And they have now formed Act 17 because they want to establish a theocracy that makes it illegal to not like them or respect them. Yeah. Right.
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Chapter 4: What influences shape Peter Thiel's philosophy?
Well, and also, I mean, you know, not to, this is just me kind of guessing, but I feel like if you look at human history, there are plenty of civilizations that have ended, right? Or that have come very close to it through, you know, plague or being built next to a volcano or massive floods or whatever else. And so it feels like this idea of destruction that will eventually come for everyone is
Sure. Is just something that you would develop as an idea based on what it feels like to exist as a human being. Yeah, that makes complete sense. And like it is this like you can't how can you how could somebody live through like the. the Black Death and be in like a city where 75% of the population dies. Like that is an apocalypse that you've lived through.
Just like, I mean, fuck, if you lived in Berlin in 1945, you're living through an apocalypse or Hiroshima, you know, like that's an apocalypse. What else would you call that? We create, yeah, humans create a lot of them or witness a lot of them. And I do feel like post-pandemic, I have this feeling of like, all right, we can have another of these. I don't know. That's not unprecedented anymore.
So what's next? Honestly, might be nice. We all got a couple of weeks off last time, you know? Sure. Before we descended into more fascism for several years, we had a couple of weeks where things were really chilled. Really got to catch up on Netflix. Yeah. Got to rewatch some good TV shows. Yeah. Yeah.
So in that article, Steinfels goes on to quote Bernard McGinn, who's a scholar of medieval religion from the University of Chicago, who said medieval folk lived in a more or less constant state of apocalyptic expectation. And if that sounds kind of chillingly familiar to you, it's because we haven't changed, really.
We're the same as people back then, and we expect the world to end just like they did in some different ways. And our tummies hurt for different reasons and sometimes the same. Some of them the same. Yeah. And obviously there's different theories as to why do people always think the world is going to end? You know, you can that that's a lot of ink has been spilled on that topic.
But I think it boils down to two factors and neither of which really involves an increase in knowledge like Peter is obsessed with. I think the two big factors are, number one, the apocalypse makes for good entertainment. People are interested in the idea of the world ending.
And number two, it's less scary to imagine the world ending than to imagine yourself dying and the world going on, which is what will happen, right, to everybody. Yeah. And especially for a guy like Peter Thiel. Yeah. Yeah. Right. And especially if you're, you know, an egomaniac who no one is restraining any longer. You're like, look, everyone has to go out with me ultimately somehow. Oh, my God.
I am certain that he would prefer a nuclear holocaust to himself dying alone while the world continues. Right. He would prefer his last years being a bunker. Well, guess what, buddy boy? It's going to be the second one. God willing, you know? Yeah. I just hope those bunkers ain't deep enough. Or the security. Their security guards will take them out, I'm sure. Yeah.
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