The Antichrist: he’s back! 

The Book of Revelation, for some reason, forgot to mention Greta Thunberg. In its barnstorming final book, the Bible limns what will happen when the apocalypse arrives: earthquakes, sinister horsemen, and hail and fire mingled with blood. But now, in Silicon Valley, new words are being added to those ancient prophecies. Some say that the footsoldiers of the Antichrist are already here—and that they include Ms Thunberg, a Swedish activist, as well as “Brussels bureaucracy”. (For who has stood in a passport queue in Belgium and not felt that the End Times were upon them?)

These latest revelations came not from the Book of Revelation, but from Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and Palantir. Their style is rather different. The Book of Revelation is a first-century biblical text, rich in allusion and clothed in the English of the King James version. It goes heavy on phrases such as: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth.” Mr Thiel is a 21st-century tech bro, rich in money ($26bn, by some estimates) and clothed in black t-shirts. He goes heavy on phrases such as: “So it’s like, come on.” It seems unlikely he will be quoted in 2,000 years’ time.

What the hell—in a more literal sense than usual—is going on? Over the past few weeks, in a series of off-the-record lectures and on-the-record interviews, Mr Thiel has argued that the world has submitted to a doctrine of “peace and safetyism” for the past 50 years. It has also submitted to the rule of organisations such as the European Union. As the Bible, Mr Thiel says, states that “the slogan of the Antichrist is ‘peace and safety’,” it follows that the world risks the rule of the seven-headed one.

Mr Thiel’s science is worth treating even more cautiously than his theology. He argues that the world’s (and arguably the Antichrist’s) enthusiasm for safetyism has led to “50 years of stagnation” in many areas. He is concerned about artificial intelligence (AI) and the Antichrist stymying the technology’s potential. Mr Thiel has called Nick Bostrom, a philosopher who writes about the dangers of AI, a “legionnaire of the Antichrist”. Others demur. The idea of widespread scientific stagnation is “nonsense”, says Martin Rees, Britain’s former Astronomer Royal. Mr Bostrom is more charitable. “I understand his frustration,” says Satan’s supposed operative.

There is an august tradition of talking twaddle about the End Times. Everyone from the emperor Nero to Bill Gates has been accused of being the Antichrist. Medieval crusaders saw the Antichrist’s footsoldiers in their Saracen enemy. Protestants during the Reformation felt the pope was the Antichrist. For others he was embodied in property-owners who must thus be massacred. (Generation Rent might feel some sympathy.) Each incarnation of the Antichrist is less indicative of demonic power than personal pique. Mr Thiel, who has invested in AI, sees the Antichrist in anti-AI regulation. The Antichrist has always been less anti-Christ than anti-you.

The Antichrist also appeals because the devil is so devilishly appealing, as generations of artists who have attempted to capture the glory of God—and ended up accidentally glorifying Satan—have found. Lots of people may find that, like John Milton, they are “of the Devil’s party without knowing it”. Had Mr Thiel given an open talk on how AI’s benefits might be lost by overzealous regulation, it would have been all but ignored. To give a secret talk is, he said, “a pretty good marketing shtick”; throw in the Antichrist and it is irresistible.

Accusations of Antichrist activity are also impossible to disprove. Mr Bostrom does not look much like an agent of the Antichrist (he is wearing a green cardigan). But, as he says, with a smile that it would be churlish not to describe as devilish, “You never know what I’m up to when I switch off the camera.”

These days such charges are notably unfashionable. Early Christian writings seethed with hallucinogenic apparitions, with demons appearing as lions, horned beasts and naked women. St Augustine’s “City of God” is also a city of demons. (The theologian didn’t take ketamine, unlike some tech types.) But ghouls became uncool in the Enlightenment as people sought rational explanations of evil.

Now, demons are on the march again: look at Google’s Ngram viewer, which tracks the usage of words, and mentions of the Antichrist rise steadily after 2000. Perhaps this is proof that this is an age of the Antichrist—or perhaps it is proof that this is an age of anti-Enlightenment thinking. That, even to the most rational mind, may feel a little apocalyptic. ■