There’s been a panel discussion between Peter Thiel, N.T. Wright and Ross Douthat, as I relate in my other haunt at Forbes, organized by the Veritas Forum, a Christian organization.
Readers here will probably be familiar with Wright, orthodox Christian theologian and one of the greatest Biblical scholars alive, and with Douthat, the conservative Catholic Times columnist. They might not be so familiar with Thiel. Thiel is one of the most prominent entrepreneurs and investors in Silicon Valley and, relevantly for this, he is also one of the most interesting public intellectuals alive today. Thiel’s thought is really hard to summarize, but basically insofar as we’re concerned here he’s a futurist who warns that technological progress has dramatically slowed down over the past thirty years, with dire consequences, and that if technological progress doesn’t start accelerating soon again, there will be even more dire consequences. Relevantly for us, Thiel has also publicly identified as a Christian (though he is vague about specifics); he started a foundation to promote the thought of René Girard, a Christian intellectual whom frequent readers will know I deeply admire. Thiel clearly believes in a civilizational need to rediscover the idea of progress and the necessity to make this progress a reality.
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