Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World Highlight

I think this post, though a joke on most levels, captures an important truth about Roko’s Basilisk. There’s no emerging artificial superintelligence that will automatically arbitrate the thoughts and claims of all people. There is just capitalism, an impersonal system that acts through people toward the increasing accumulation of capital, the amassing of exploited value. It’s not precise enough to say that Thiel has been at the right place at the right time. For capital, he is the right place. The historical forces acting through Thiel are much larger than his intentions; if there’s anything that sets him apart from his peers it’s that he understands that fact better than they do.