https://apolut.net/silicon-valley-peter-thiel-und-das-kommen-des-antichrist-von-christian-kreiss/

Website is in German but this was the translation:

The anti-social media as a pioneer?

A point of view from Christian Kreiss.

On September 23, a notable article appeared in The Wall Street Journal entitled: „Peter Thiel wants everyone to think more about the Antichrist –at performances, the billionaire explained his views on technology and governments, as well as a biblical perspective on the end times“. (1) The US billionaire, born in Frankfurt am Main in 1967, whose fortune is currently estimated at around 21 billion dollars (2), will give four lectures on the coming of the Antichrist in San Francisco in September and October, two of which have already taken place. Other prominent US journals also took up the topic, such as „fortune“ at the beginning of September: „Peter Thiel gives 4 private sold-out lectures at a club in San Francisco – about the Antichrist“ (3).

Not only Peter Thiel deals with such topics, but in recent years there has been an increasingly broad discussion in the Anglo-Saxon world about basic Christian values, loss of Western identity and apocalyptic sentiment. The book by the well-known British Christian author Paul Kingsnorth was published a few days ago, "Against the Machine – On the Unmaking of Humanity“. Kingsnorth has long been concerned with questions of the core values of Western civilizations and the coming of the Antichrist. (4) According to the Wall Street Journal, some very prominent business leaders from Silicon Valley's previously highly secular tech scene have recently embraced their core Christian values, such as former Intel boss Pat Gelsinger, Gary Tan, the head of Y Combinator and Elon Musk, who recently publicly touted the virtues of Christianity.(5)

Existential fears and apocalyptic mood

The background to this flaring discussion of values is the increasing existential fears of many people. Peter Thiel addresses fears of nuclear war, environmental disasters, bio-weapons or autonomous killer robots controlled by AI. Humanity is racing towards its final battle – Armageddon –. The Antichrist promises - with false promises - to save humanity from this in order to finally win it over and lead it into evil. In order to stop the Antichrist, Thiel recommends advancing technology, especially the expansion of artificial intelligence, wants less government regulation and criticizes opposition to technical progress.(6) In earlier statements, Thiel said that the Antichrist came today in the form of Greta Thunberg. (7) In front of the building in California where the lectures took place,were there protests from people wearing devil masks and symbols, as well as plaques with inscriptions like: “Not today, Satan” And “Thiel gets rich, we get watched.” (8)

In Germany, there has hardly been such a public discussion about basic Christian values or even about the coming of the Antichrist, driven forward by celebrities or powerful people. This would be particularly appropriate in our country, especially in view of the worrying developments towards a possible war against Russia.

The Mephisto principle in our economy

If you look at anti-human trends in our economy, especially in our society, which have been running in the background for a long time and have become increasingly powerful in recent decades, you can certainly see some worrying tendencies. One could ask oneself the question: How, for example, would Mephistopheles, the well-known figure from Goethe's Faust, set the course in our society? (9)

The first question that arises is: What are Mephisto's goals? Well, he says that quite openly himself: „You know how we contemplated destruction of the human race in deeply wicked hours“. (10) Basically, Mephistopheles simply wants to do as much damage to people as possible, bring discord, arguments, strife, misfortune, etc. into the world if possible, and in particular destroy basic Christian values. Particularly annoying are Mephisto's charity, selflessness, togetherness, the ideals of the French Revolution, freedom, equality, fraternity, internally strong people, good faith. Mephisto particularly hates intact, loving families who ensure a sheltered childhood and ensure security, confidence and hope in the children and thereby lay a central foundation for decency, morals and ethics.

Mephistopheles will therefore direct his attacks against all of these values as far as possible and against all institutions and bodies that promote such values. Above all, he loves hatred and fear and will try to drive people into the classic, so-called seven deadly sins in the Middle Ages, to initiate everything that promotes these vices: Prideousness (Pride, Vanity, Overcourage, ambition); Miser (Avarice, greed); Lust (Dissipation, addiction to pleasure, Desire, unchastity); Wrath (Short temper, Rage, Vengefulness); Gluttony (greediness, excessiveness, intemperance, Selfishness); Envy (Jealousy, Disfavour); Laziness (Cowardice, Ignorance, weariness, sluggishness of heart). Everyone can ask themselves which values are currently being promoted in our society through politics and the media, the basic Christian, family values or others.

What is important for Mephistopheles is that we do not see through his activities. Because who would be open to bad plans today? The lying spirit must normally pretend to want good, just as Peter Thiel describes it from the Antichrist.

Let's stick with Silicon Valley, the media giants, the internet companies. They spread their tentacles over children and young people almost all over the world. (11)

Extent of media consumption in Germany

In Germany in 2021, young people spent five hours on a typical day of the week (school day, working day) on the screen and almost seven hours on days off. Seven hours. That's almost half the waking time of day. (12) According to a study commissioned by the federal government, around 60 percent of young people „show problematic internet usage behavior“. This affects girls and women more often than boys: 68 percent of girls and 51 percent of boys show internet addictive behavior. (13) What are the effects of this excessive, compulsive Internet use?

Media use and mental stress on girls and young women

Since around 2015, there has been a trend towards a deterioration in the mental and emotional health of young girls, which is leading to a sharp increase in suicides and and self-mutilation. The statistics speak impressive language. Since 2010, hospitalizations of teenage women for self-mutilation have increased by 143 percent in 11 countries, according to economist. For boys, they increased by 49 per cent. The main reason given for this is the rapidly increasing use of social media, especially Instagram. Smartphones are therefore particularly dangerous for girls because boys are more concerned with video games and less with „depression-causing social media“. Numerous studies have shown that social media can cause sadness and fear among teenagers. (14)

According to that Guardian, which focused on a study at the beginning of 2021 British Journal of Psychiatry In the UK, seven percent of all children attempted suicide by the age of 17 and almost one in four committed an act of self-mutilation in the last year, particularly affecting girls. One reason given is that „social media can be a toxic environment“. (15)

Impact of media use on our boys

Boys sometimes use other types of social media, other computer games and they usually react differently to media use than girls. While boys experience aggression more externally, girls often react with aggression internally (autoaggression). War and killer simulations such as fortnite (16), World of Warcraft, Call of Duty (17) and so on are mostly played by boys and young men.

In his film Fahrenheit 9/11As early as 2004, Michael Moore showed how young soldiers in the US military were prepared for combat missions in war through such games. These types of war games are therefore used specifically by military superiors to make the young men callous and unempathetic, to extract pity from them, and to no longer see opposing soldiers as human beings, but as enemies to be eliminated. It makes sense from a soldier's or war's point of view. Soldiers are supposed to kill in combat missions, and pity and empathy are a hindrance. Soldiers should be trained to be fighting machines. Scruples about shooting and killing should be deprived of such games. In short: These games are used to promote unscrupulousness, dehumanize and brutalize. The professional trainers of soldiers know exactlywhat they are doing there and why they are doing it.

It is all the more astonishing that we let our children and young people play these killer “games“ „play“ to the greatest extent possible and without any significant public discussion. Age barriers are often circumvented. Often, 10-year-olds already play these types of killer and first-person shooter games. What is happening in the souls of our children? Even adult men, US soldiers, apparently talk about this kind of brutalization and become more inhumane. How much more does this apply to minors? The sooner our children immerse themselves in these types of killer games, the longer they kill on the screen, the more widespread this type of fun activity is, the more they are raised to be inhumane. Mephisto is thrilled.

I fear that after a few cohorts of children and young people who were particularly hooked on these soulful games at an early age, we will face dire social consequences. In my opinion, this massively promotes aggression, ruthlessness, egoism, but also addictive behavior and illness. Hundreds of millions of our children and young people are already being sworn and prepared for the war of all against all through Fortnite alone. Fortnite, which works with the highest intelligence, brilliant design and ingenious marketing, has succeeded for the first time in getting legions of minors excited about killing each other earlier than ever before. In my opinion, this lowers the moral standards of millions of young men.Then it's easier to wage war in real life. Many of our young men are mentally prepared for this every day. So from a political perspective, this can definitely have advantages. From a mephistopelic point of view, this is grandiose.

Reduction in thinking skills through social media

In my opinion as a university lecturer, the constant quick swiping at TikTok (18), Instagram, Facebook & Co. as well as the incredibly short concentration ranges ensure that our children and young people's ability to think is dramatically reduced. The ability to recognize connections, to pull together intellectual threads and to think through something calmly and thoroughly is undermined by the constant, quick and fast nature of social media. Are we no longer able to build an airport in Berlin, get trains to run on time or build train stations with the predicted costs and in the predicted period (the Stuttgart 21 disaster): what will that look like in a generation?

Is the Antichrist coming?

To return to the initial question: Why do such processes take place in our society? What does this have to do with the coming of the Antichrist? Well, if our children are weakened and prepared in this way long enough, future dark forces would have a much easier time than if our children grew up strong, protected, self-confident and anchored in basic ethical, Christian values.

The people never feel the devil, even if he had them by the collar.“ (Mephistopheles)

Why don't we defend ourselves? The first step would be to become aware of the processes that take place in the background of our society. It would certainly not be a mistake if we took up the discussion about evil that is currently emerging in Anglo-Saxon countries