Dialectical horse bones: Thiel is a Straussian too iirc, and while Strauss is a much more ambiguous figure, he’s another guy whose reactionary tendencies were clearly the product of living in the nightmare that was Europe in the 20th century who has a whole cult of sinister nerds

Also thinking about how there’s a billionaire Tolkien fan who names all his stuff after Tolkien things, and wants to extend his life unnaturally and funds weapons and the surveillance and centralized/corporatized authoritarian control

The most “let’s build the torment nexus” guy of them all. He’s a Catholic and wants to live forever, he’s a René Girard guy, and he invested in Facebook

can you imagine what Tolkien would think of a company named Palantir that does private mercenary work, run by a guy whose goal is to put convenient modern technology into everyone’s fingertips to make money? I’m trans, I don’t think Tolkien would approve of me personally, but he’d prefer me to Pete

I can see the Professor finding his way to grudging acceptance of trans folks; I think he would go to his grave ABOMINATING shitheels like Thiel.

Naming military contractors after Tolkien’s work is absolutely profane

But he wouldn’t be surprised by it.

yeah this is the thing, I absolutely think Tolkien would be enraged at nearly everything about modern society, but the nerds who think he's cool would anger him more than anything. like this was true in his life time and it's SO MUCH WORSE NOW

he said "abominable cultus" about his fandom in an angry moment in his life, surely his words for Thiel would be so much stronger

Thiel is a Straussian too iirc, and while Strauss is a much more ambiguous figure, he’s another guy whose reactionary tendencies were clearly the product of living in the nightmare that was Europe in the 20th century who has a whole cult of sinister nerds

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