书童按：本篇是彼得·蒂尔（Peter Thiel）于2025年6月接受罗斯·多塔特（Ross Douthat）”有趣时代”（Interesting Times）播客采访实录。蒂尔是PayPal和Palantir的联合创始人，硅谷传奇投资人，唐纳德·特朗普和J.D.万斯政治生涯的早期资助者，亦是当代保守派知识分子中强调”反对共识”的极具影响力人物。本部分涉及超级智能、顺从型AI风险、超人类主义、基督教与超越、人类自由与神圣决定论，以及人类行动的空间等深刻议题。初稿采用Claude Opus4.5 API全篇翻译、中英混排、审阅修改，书童仅读了一遍并做简单批注，分上下篇两个部分发布，本篇为下篇，以飨诸君。
彼得·蒂尔 你把这件事描绘得太乐观了。我嘛，还有那些人……（书童注：指上篇中罗斯所说”特朗普主义和民粹主义可以成为技术创新和经济活力的载体”）
PETER THIEL You’re framing it really, really optimistically here. So I, well, the people.
罗斯·多塔特 但我知道你是悲观的。
ROSS DOUTHAT But I think, I know you’re pessimistic.
彼得·蒂尔 当你把事情往乐观了说，其实就是在暗示这些人注定要失望、注定要失败，诸如此类。
PETER THIEL When you frame it optimistically. You’re just saying these people are going to be disappointed and they’re just set up for failure and things like that.
罗斯·多塔特 我只是说，人们确实表达了很多乐观情绪。埃隆·马斯克就很乐观——当然，他也流露出一些末日焦虑，比如预算赤字将如何毁灭我们所有人。但他进入了政府，他身边的人也进入了政府，他们的态度基本上是：我们和特朗普政府建立了合作关系，我们要追求技术上的伟大复兴。
ROSS DOUTHAT I mean, people expressed a lot of optimism. That’s all I’m saying. Elon Musk expressed a lot of, I mean, he expressed some apocalyptic anxieties about how budget deficits were going to kill us all. But he came into government, and people around him came into government basically saying, we have a partnership with the Trump administration and we’re pursuing technological greatness.
罗斯·多塔特 我认为他们是乐观的。而你的立场更加悲观，或者说更加现实。所以我想听的是你对现状的评估，而不是他们的看法。你觉得，特朗普2.0时代的民粹主义，看起来像是能够承载技术活力的载体吗？
ROSS DOUTHAT I think they were optimistic. And so you’re coming from a place of greater pessimism or realism. So what I’m asking for is your assessment of where we are, not their assessment. But do you think, does populism in Trump 2.0 look like a vehicle for technological dynamism to you?
彼得·蒂尔 它仍然是目前最好的选择，而且是遥遥领先的那种。哈佛难道能靠继续因循守旧、做着五十年来毫无成效的同样事情来攻克痴呆症吗？
PETER THIEL It’s still by far the best option we have. I don’t think. I don’t know. Is Harvard going to cure dementia by just puttering along, doing the same thing that hasn’t worked for 50 years?
罗斯·多塔特 这不过是”反正不会更糟，不如放手一搏”的论调。但目前对民粹主义的批评恰恰是：硅谷与民粹主义者结成了联盟，可到头来，民众并不真正关心科学，他们不想在科学上花钱，他们想砍掉哈佛的经费，仅仅因为他们不喜欢哈佛。最终，你得不到硅谷想要的那种对未来的投资。这种批评是错的吗？
ROSS DOUTHAT That’s just a case for. It can’t get worse. Let’s do disruption. Right, but the critique of populism right now would be Silicon Valley made an alliance with the populists. But in the end, the populace don’t care about science. They don’t want to spend money on science. They want to kill funding to Harvard just because they don’t like Harvard. Right. And in the end, you’re not going to get the kind of investments in the future that Silicon Valley wanted. Is that wrong?
彼得·蒂尔 是的，但我们必须回到这个问题：科学在幕后究竟运转得怎么样？新政派们，不管他们有什么毛病，至少大力推动了科学——你给它拨款，你给科学家钱，你把规模做大。
PETER THIEL Yeah, but it, we have to go back to this question of, you know, how well is this, is the science working in the background? This is where, you know, the New Dealers, whatever was wrong with them, you know, they pushed science hard and you funded it and you gave money to people and you scaled it.
彼得·蒂尔 然而今天，如果有一个当代的爱因斯坦给白宫写信，那封信会在收发室石沉大海。曼哈顿计划在今天是不可想象的。当我们把某件事称为”登月计划”——就像拜登谈论癌症研究那样——在六十年代，”登月计划”意味着你真的会登上月球。而现在，”登月计划”意味着某种完全虚幻、永远不会实现的东西。”哦，这事儿得搞个登月计划才行”——这话的意思不是说我们需要一个阿波罗计划，而是说这事永远、永远不会发生。
PETER THIEL And, you know, whereas today, if there was an equivalent of Einstein and he wrote a letter to the White House, it would get lost in the mailroom. And the Manhattan Project is unthinkable, you know, if we call something a moonshot, the way this is the way Biden talked about, let’s say, cancer research, a moonshot in the 60s still meant that you went to the moon. A moonshot now means something completely fictional that’s never going to happen. Oh, you need a moonshot for that. It’s not like we need an Apollo program. It means it’s never, ever going to happen.
罗斯·多塔特 那么看起来你仍然处于这样一种模式——和硅谷其他一些人可能不同——对你来说，民粹主义的价值在于撕开面纱、戳破幻象。我们未必处于那个阶段，指望特朗普政府去建设新事物、去搞曼哈顿计划、去实现登月计划。更像是：民粹主义帮助我们看清，一切都是假的。
ROSS DOUTHAT And so, but it seems like then you’re still in the mode of, for you, as opposed to maybe for some other people in Silicon Valley. The value of populism is in tearing away the veils and illusions. And we’re not necessarily in the stage where you’re looking to the Trump administration to, to build the new, to do the Manhattan Project, to do the moonshot. It’s more like populism helps us see that it was all fake.
彼得·蒂尔 两者都要尝试，而且它们彼此紧密交织。核电正在去监管化，总有一天我们会重新开始建造新的核电站，或者设计更好的核电站，甚至是聚变反应堆。
PETER THIEL You need to try to do both. And they are very entangled with each other. And I don’t know, there’s deregulation of nuclear power and at some point, at some point we’ll get back to building, you know, new nuclear power plants or better designed ones or maybe even fusion reactors.
彼得·蒂尔 所以，是的，首先有一个去监管化的解构阶段，然后在某个时候你才真正开始建设。从某种意义上说，你是在清理战场。
PETER THIEL And so, yes, there’s a deregulatory deconstructive part. And then at some point you actually get to construction and it’s all things like that. So, yeah, in some ways you’re clearing the field.
罗斯·多塔特 然后，但你个人已经停止资助政客了。
ROSS DOUTHAT And then, but you’ve personally stopped funding politicians.
彼得·蒂尔 我在这件事上很矛盾。我认为它非常重要，但同时也极具毒性。所以我来回摇摆。
PETER THIEL I am schizophrenic on this stuff. You know, I think it is incredibly important and it’s incredibly toxic. And so I go back and forth on it.
罗斯·多塔特 对你个人来说极具毒性？
ROSS DOUTHAT Incredibly toxic for you personally?
彼得·蒂尔 对每个人都是，每个卷入其中的人都是。这是一个零和游戏，令人抓狂，而且在某种程度上，因为每个人——
PETER THIEL For everybody, everybody who gets involved. It’s zero sum. It’s crazy, you know, and then it’s, and then in some ways, because everyone.
罗斯·多塔特 恨你，把你和特朗普绑在一起。具体来说，对你个人而言，毒性体现在哪里？
ROSS DOUTHAT Hates you and associates you with Trump. Like, what, how is it toxic for you personally?
彼得·蒂尔 它有毒是因为那是一个零和世界。你能感受到其中的利害关系真的、真的很强，然后你——
PETER THIEL It’s toxic because it’s in a zero sum world. You know, the stakes in it feel really, really high and you.
罗斯·多塔特 最终树了很多以前没有的敌人。
ROSS DOUTHAT End up having enemies you didn’t have before.
彼得·蒂尔 是的，它对所有以不同方式卷入其中的人都有毒。”回到未来”有一个政治维度。这是我2024年与埃隆的一次对话。
PETER THIEL Yeah, it’s toxic for all the people who get involved in different ways. There is a political dimension of getting back to the future. You can’t, you know, I don’t know. This is a conversation I had with Elon back in, you know, 2024, and we had all these, you know, conversations.
彼得·蒂尔 我跟埃隆聊过”海上家园”这个话题。我说，如果特朗普没赢，我就想离开这个国家。埃隆说：”没地方可去。没地方可去。这里是唯一的选择。”你总是事后才想到该怎么反驳。
PETER THIEL I had this, I had the seasteading version with Elon where I said, you know, if Trump doesn’t win. I want to just leave the country. And then Elon said, “There’s nowhere to go. There’s nowhere to go. This is the only.” And then, you know, you always think of the right arguments to make later.
彼得·蒂尔 那是我们共进晚餐大约两小时后，我回到家才想到：”哇，埃隆，你已经不相信去火星这件事了。”2024年，这是埃隆停止相信火星的一年——不是把火星当作一个纯粹的科技项目，而是当作一个政治项目。火星本应是一个政治项目，是在建设一种替代方案。
PETER THIEL And it was about two hours after we had dinner and I was home that I thought of, “Wow, Elon, you don’t believe in going to Mars anymore.” 2024. 2024 is the year where Elon stopped believing in Mars. Not as a silly science tech project, but as a political project. Mars was supposed to be a political project, was building an alternative.
彼得·蒂尔 2024年，埃隆开始相信，如果你去了火星，社会主义的美国政府、觉醒的AI，都会跟着你到火星去。这要从我们牵线促成的德米斯（书童注：即德米斯·哈萨比斯，Deepmind创始人，AlphaGo、AlphaFold和Gemini的灵魂人物，诺贝尔化学奖得主）与埃隆那次会面说起。当时德米斯在做DeepMind。
PETER THIEL And in 2024, Elon came to believe that if you went to Mars, you know, the socialist US Government, the Woke AI, it would follow you to Mars. It was the Demis meeting with Elon that we sort of brokered. He was doing DeepMind.
罗斯·多塔特 那是一家AI公司。
ROSS DOUTHAT This is an AI company.
彼得·蒂尔 是的。大致的对话是这样的：德米斯告诉埃隆，”我正在做世界上最重要的项目，我在建造超人类AI。”然后埃隆回应：”好吧，我也在做世界上最重要的项目。我正在把人类变成一个跨行星物种。”
PETER THIEL Yeah. This was the rough conversation was, you know, Demis tells Elon, “I’m working on the most important project in the world. I’m building a superhuman AI.” And Elon responds to Demis, “Well, I’m working on the most important project in the world. I am turning this into an interplanetary species.”
彼得·蒂尔 然后德米斯说：”好吧，可我的AI能够跟着你到火星去。”然后埃隆沉默了。但在我对历史的叙述中，德米斯这句话用了好几年才真正触动埃隆。他直到2024年才消化这件事。
PETER THIEL And then Demis said, “Well, you know, my AI will be able to follow you to Mars.” And then Elon sort of went quiet. But in my telling of the history, it took years for that to really hit Elon. It took him till 2024 to process it.
罗斯·多塔特 但这并不意味着他不相信火星。这只是意味着他认定，必须先赢得关于预算赤字和觉醒主义的战斗，才能到达火星。
ROSS DOUTHAT But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t believe in Mars. It just means that he decided he had to win some kind of battle over budget deficits for wokeness to get to Mars.
彼得·蒂尔 火星意味着什么？它是……是的……而且，再说一遍，它是……
PETER THIEL What does Mars mean? Is it a. Yeah. Is it? And again, it’s.
罗斯·多塔特 火星意味着什么？
ROSS DOUTHAT What does Mars mean?
彼得·蒂尔 它曾经是……它曾经是……它只是一个科学项目，还是……像一个……
PETER THIEL Well, it was. It was. It’s. Is it. Is it just. Is it just a scientific project or is it. I don’t know, is it like a.
罗斯·多塔特 一个新社会的愿景？
ROSS DOUTHAT I don’t know, a vision of a new society?
彼得·蒂尔 是的，海因莱因（书童注：美国硬科幻小说作家，与阿西莫夫与阿瑟·克拉克并成为科幻小说三巨头）式的愿景，成千上万的人生活在天堂里，都是埃隆·马斯克的后代。我不确定他是否具体化到了那种程度，但如果你把事情具体化，也许你就会意识到，火星本应不只是一个科学项目，它本应是一个政治项目。
PETER THIEL Yeah, Heinlein, you know, populated by many, many people in paradise, descendants from Elon Musk. Well, I don’t know if it was concretized that. That specifically, but if you concretize things, then maybe you realize that Mars is supposed to be more than a science project. It’s supposed to be a political project.
彼得·蒂尔 而当你把它具体化时，你就必须开始思考：好吧，觉醒的AI会跟着你去，社会主义政府也会跟着你去，那么也许你必须做一些不仅仅是去火星的事情。
PETER THIEL And then when you concretize it, you have to start thinking through, well, the AI, the woke AI will follow you, the socialist government will follow you, and then maybe you have to do something other than just going to Mars.
罗斯·多塔特 好的，说到”觉醒的AI”——如果我们仍处于停滞中的话——人工智能似乎是停滞的最大例外。这是一个取得了显著进步的领域，令许多人惊讶的进步。
ROSS DOUTHAT Okay, so the Woke AI, artificial intelligence seems like one. If we’re still stagnant. It’s the biggest exception to stagnation. It’s the place where there’s been remarkable progress, surprising to many people, progress.
罗斯·多塔特 我们刚才在谈政治。这也是特朗普政府在很大程度上满足AI投资者诉求的领域，无论是政府后退一步还是开展公私合作。所以这是一个进步——与政府参与并存的领域。而你是AI的投资者。你认为你在投资什么？
ROSS DOUTHAT It’s also the place, we were just talking about politics. It’s the place where the Trump administration is, I think, to a large degree, giving AI investors a lot of what they wanted in terms of both stepping back and doing public private partnerships. So it’s a zone of progress and governmental engagement. And you are an investor in AI. What do you think you’re investing in?
彼得·蒂尔 这个问题有很多层次。有一个问题我们可以提出来：我认为AI有多大？我的笨答案是：介于两者之间。它不只是一个噱头，但也不至于全面改变我们的社会。
PETER THIEL Well, I don’t know. There’s sort of a lot of layers to this. So I do think, I know there’s one question we can frame is just how big, how big a thing do I think AI is? And I don’t know. My stupid answer is it’s somewhere. It’s more than a nothing burger, and it’s less than the total transformation of our society.
彼得·蒂尔 我的估计是，它大致相当于九十年代末互联网的规模。我不确定它是否足以真正终结停滞，但也许足以催生一些伟大的公司。互联网可能让GDP增加了几个百分点，也许每年为GDP增长贡献1%，持续了十到十五年，对生产率有所贡献。这大致是我对AI的预期。
PETER THIEL So my placeholder is that it’s roughly on the scale of the Internet in the late 90s, which is, you know, I’m not sure it’s enough to, to really end the stagnation. It might be enough to create some great companies. And, you know, the Internet added maybe a few points, percentage points to the GDP, maybe 1% to GDP growth every year for 10, 15 years. It adds some to productivity. And so that’s sort of roughly my placeholder for AI.
彼得·蒂尔 AI是我们唯一拥有的东西。进步如此失衡，有点不太健康——这是我们唯一拥有的。我希望有更多维度的进步。我希望我们正在飞往火星。我希望我们正在攻克痴呆症。如果我们只有AI，我也接受。但它确实有风险，这项技术显然有危险。
PETER THIEL It’s the only thing we have. It’s, it’s a little bit unhealthy that it’s so unbalanced. This is the only thing we have. I’d like to have more multidimensional progress. I’d like us to be going to Mars. I’d like us to be having cures for dementia. If all we have is AI, I will take it. There are risks with it. There are, obviously, there are dangers with this technology.
罗斯·多塔特 那么你是否对所谓的”超级智能级联理论”持怀疑态度？这种理论大致是说：如果AI成功了，它会变得极其聪明，以至于能在物质世界为我们带来进步——就是说，好吧，我们人类无法攻克痴呆症，无法弄清楚如何建造完美的工厂来制造飞往火星的火箭，但AI可以。
ROSS DOUTHAT But then you are a skeptic of the, what you might call the sort of superintelligence cascade theory, which basically says that if AI succeeds, it gets so smart that it gives us the progress in the world of atoms, that it’s like, all right, we can’t cure dementia. We can’t figure out how to build the perfect factory that builds the rockets that go to Mars, but the AI can.
罗斯·多塔特 在某个时刻，你跨过某个阈值，它不仅带来更多的数字进步，还带来其他六十四种形式的进步。听起来你不相信这一点，或者说你认为这不太可能。
ROSS DOUTHAT And at a certain point, it just, you pass a certain threshold and it gives us not just more digital progress, but 64 other forms of progress. It sounds like you don’t believe that, or you think that’s less likely.
彼得·蒂尔 是的，我不确定智力是否真的是那个”门控因素”。
PETER THIEL Yeah, I, I, I somehow don’t know if that’s been really the gating factor.
罗斯·多塔特 “门控因素”是什么意思？
ROSS DOUTHAT What does that mean, the gating factor?
彼得·蒂尔 这可能是一种硅谷意识形态——也许以一种奇怪的方式，它更偏自由派而非保守派——但硅谷的人真的非常执着于智商，认为一切都与聪明人有关。如果你有更多聪明人，他们就会做出伟大的事情。
PETER THIEL It’s probably a Silicon Valley ideology and maybe, maybe in a weird way it’s more liberal than a conservative thing, but people are really fixated on IQ in Silicon Valley and that it’s all about smart people. And if you have more smart people, they’ll do great things.
彼得·蒂尔 而经济学中反智商的论点是：人们实际上越聪明，表现越差。他们不知道如何运用自己的聪明才智，或者我们的社会不知道如何用好他们，他们格格不入。这表明门控因素不是智商，而是我们社会深处存在的某些问题。
PETER THIEL And then the economics anti IQ argument is that people actually do worse. The smarter they are, the worse they do. And they, you know, it’s just, they don’t know how to apply it, or our society doesn’t know what to do with them and they don’t fit in. And so that suggests that the gating factor isn’t IQ, but something, you know, that’s deeply wrong with our society.
罗斯·多塔特 那这是智力本身的局限，还是人类超级智能所造就的那种人格类型的问题？我非常认同这种看法。当我在这个播客中与一位AI加速主义者对谈时，我就提出过这个观点：认为某些问题只要提高智力就能解决，这种想法是有问题的。
ROSS DOUTHAT So is that a limit on intelligence or a problem of the sort of personality types human superintelligence creates? I mean, I’m very sympathetic to the idea and I made this case when I did an episode of this, of this podcast with a sort of AI accelerationist that just throwing, that certain problems can just be solved if you ramp up intelligence.
罗斯·多塔特 就好像是：我们提高智力，然后砰，阿尔茨海默病解决了；我们提高智力，AI就能弄清楚一夜之间为你建造十亿个机器人的自动化流程。我是一个”智力怀疑论者”——我认为智力可能存在局限性。
ROSS DOUTHAT It’s like, we ramp up intelligence and boom, Alzheimer’s is solved. We ramp up intelligence and the AI can, you know, figure out the automation process that builds you a billion robots overnight. I, I’m an intelligent skeptic in the sense I don’t think, yeah, I think you probably have limits.
彼得·蒂尔 这很难证明，无论从哪个角度看都很难证明。
PETER THIEL It’s, it’s, it’s hard to prove one way or it’s always hard to prove these things.
罗斯·多塔特 但我，在我们拥有超级——
ROSS DOUTHAT But I, until we have the super.
彼得·蒂尔 智能之前，我赞同你的直觉，因为我认为我们已经有过很多聪明人，而事情因为其他原因陷入停滞。所以也许问题是无解的，这是悲观的观点。也许根本没有治愈痴呆症的方法，这是一个根本性的难题。没有治愈死亡的方法。也许这就是一个无解的问题，或者也许是文化因素在作祟。
PETER THIEL Intelligence, I share your intuition because I think we’ve had a lot of smart people and things have been stuck for other reasons. And so maybe, maybe the problems are unsolvable, which is the pessimistic view. Maybe there is no cure for dementia at all and it’s a deeply unsolvable problem. There’s no cure for mortality. It’s. Maybe it’s an unsolvable problem or maybe it’s these cultural things.
彼得·蒂尔 所以问题不在于个别聪明人，而在于这如何融入我们的社会。我们是否容忍异端的聪明人？也许你需要异端的聪明人去做疯狂的实验。而如果AI只是循规蹈矩地聪明——如果我们把”觉醒”定义为……好吧，”觉醒”这个词太意识形态化了，但如果你把它简单定义为”顺从主义”，那么这种聪明也许不是能产生变革的那种。
PETER THIEL So it’s not, you know, it’s not the individually smart person, but it’s how this fits into our society. Do we tolerate heterodox smart people? Maybe it’s, maybe you need heterodox smart people to, you know, do, do crazy experiments. And, and, and if the, you know, if the AI is just conventionally smart, if it’s sort of, if we define wokeness. Again, wokeness is too ideological. But if you just define it as conformist, maybe that’s not the kind of smartness that’s going to make a difference.
罗斯·多塔特 那么你是否担心这样一种可能的未来：AI本身变成了停滞主义的，它高度智能、具有创造力，但以一种顺从的方式？就像Netflix算法：它制作无限多”还行”的电影供人观看，产生无限多”还行”的想法，让很多人失业、被淘汰。但它不会……它以某种方式加深了停滞。这是你担心的吗？
ROSS DOUTHAT So do you fear then a plausible future where AI in a way becomes itself stagnationist, that it’s like highly intelligent, creative, in a conformist way? It’s like the Netflix algorithm. It makes infinite okay movies that people watch. It generates infinite okay ideas. It puts a bunch of people out of work and makes them obsolete. But it doesn’t. It like deepens stagnation in some way. Is that, Is that a fear?
彼得·蒂尔 这——
PETER THIEL It.
罗斯·多塔特 就像人们只是外包——
ROSS DOUTHAT It’s like people just outsource.
彼得·蒂尔 这确实有可能。那当然是一种风险。但我最终的立场是：我们仍然应该尝试AI，而替代方案只是彻底的停滞。
PETER THIEL It’s quite possible that that’s. That’s certainly a risk, but. But I guess. I guess where I end up is I still think we should be trying AI and that the alternative is just total stagnation.
彼得·蒂尔 所以，是的，各种有趣的事情可能会发生。比如，也许军事领域的无人机与AI结合——好吧，这有点可怕，有点危险，有点反乌托邦，它会改变很多事情。但如果你没有AI，天哪，那就什么都没有了。
PETER THIEL So, yeah, there’s sort of all sorts of interesting things can happen with, okay, maybe drones in a military context are combined with AI, and okay, this is kind of scary or dangerous or dystopian or it’s going to change things. But if you don’t have AI, wow, there’s just nothing going on.
彼得·蒂尔 这个讨论在互联网领域也有类似的版本：互联网是否导致了更多顺从和更多觉醒？是的，它在很多方面没有带来自由意志主义者在1999年幻想的那种丰饶多元的思想爆发。但反事实地说，我会认为它仍然比没有互联网要好，如果没有互联网，也许会更糟。
PETER THIEL And I don’t know, there’s like a version of this discussion on the Internet. Where did the Internet lead to more conformity and more wokeness. And yeah, there are all sorts of ways where it didn’t lead to quite the cornucopian, diverse explosion of ideas that libertarians fantasized about in 1999. But counterfactually, I would argue that it was still better than the alternative, that if we hadn’t had the Internet, maybe it would have been worse.
彼得·蒂尔 AI更好，它比替代方案好。而替代方案就是什么都没有，因为停滞。看，停滞论的论点在这里得到强化：我们只谈论AI这个事实，我觉得，总是隐含地承认——如果没有AI，我们几乎处于完全停滞状态。
PETER THIEL AI is better. It’s better than the alternative. And the alternative is nothing at all, because the sta. Look, here’s one place where the stagnationist arguments are still reinforced. The fact that we’re only talking about AI, I feel, is always an implicit acknowledgement that but for AI, we are in almost total stagnation.
罗斯·多塔特 但AI世界里显然充满了这样的人，他们对这项技术的看法比你在这里表达的更加乌托邦式、更加变革性——不管你想怎么称呼它。而且你之前提到，现代世界曾经承诺激进的寿命延长，但现在不再承诺了。
ROSS DOUTHAT But the world of AI is clearly filled with people who at the very least seem to have a more utopian, transformative, whatever word you want to call it, view of the technology than you’re expressing here, and you were mentioned earlier the idea that the modern world used to promise radical life extension and doesn’t anymore.
罗斯·多塔特 在我看来很明显，许多深度参与人工智能的人将其视为一种超人类主义的机制，一种超越凡人肉身的途径——要么创造某种继承物种，要么实现某种心智与机器的融合。
ROSS DOUTHAT It seems very clear to me that a number of people deeply involved in artificial intelligence see it as a kind of mechanism for transhumanism, for transcendence of our mortal flesh and either some kind of creation of a successor species, or some kind of merger of mind and machine.
罗斯·多塔特 你认为这只是无关紧要的幻想吗？还是只是炒作？你认为人们只是假装我们要建造一个机器上帝来融资？它是炒作？是妄想？还是你所担心的事情？我想你是希望人类能够延续下去的，对吧？你在犹豫……
ROSS DOUTHAT And do you think that’s just all kind of irrelevant fantasy? Or do you think it’s just hype? Do you think people are trying to raise money by pretending that we’re going to build a machine? God. Right. Is it, is it hype? Is it delusion? Is it something you worry about? You. I think you, you would prefer the human race to endure. Right? You’re hesitating. Well, I, Yes.
彼得·蒂尔 我不知道。我，我会……
PETER THIEL I don’t know. I, I would, I would.
罗斯·多塔特 这可是好长的犹豫。
ROSS DOUTHAT This is a long hesitation.
彼得·蒂尔 问题实在太多了。
PETER THIEL There’s so many questions and pushes.
罗斯·多塔特 人类应该生存下去吗？
ROSS DOUTHAT Should the human race survive?
彼得·蒂尔 是的。
PETER THIEL Yes.
罗斯·多塔特 好的。
ROSS DOUTHAT Okay.
彼得·蒂尔 但我也希望我们能从根本上解决这些问题。超人类主义的理想是一种激进的转变——把人类的自然身体转化为不朽的身体。
PETER THIEL But, but I, I also would. I, I also would like us to, to radically solve these problems. And, and so, you know, it’s always. I don’t know, you know. Yeah. Transhumanism is this, you know, the ideal was this radical transformation where your human natural body gets transformed into an immortal body.
彼得·蒂尔 有一个批评是针对，比如说，性别语境中的跨性别现象。异装癖是指换衣服、穿异性服装的人；变性人是指改变性器官的人。我们可以讨论那些手术效果如何，但我们想要的转变远不止于此。
PETER THIEL And there’s a critique of, let’s say, the trans people in a sexual context or, I don’t know, transvestite is someone who changes their clothes and cross dresses, and a transsexual is someone where you change your, I don’t know, penis into a vagina. And we can then debate how well those surgeries work, but we want more transformation than that.
彼得·蒂尔 批评不是说它奇怪、不自然。而是说，天哪，这也太微不足道了。我们想要的不只是换衣服或改变性器官。我们希望你能改变你的心脏、改变你的头脑、改变你的整个身体。而正统基督教对此的批评是，这些事情还不够深入——超人类主义只是改变身体，但你还需要转变灵魂，转变整个自我。
PETER THIEL The critique is not that it’s weird and unnatural. It’s man, it’s so pathetically little. And okay, we want more than cross dressing or changing your sex organs. We want you to be able to change your heart and change your mind and change your whole body. And then orthodox Christianity, by the way, the critique orthodox Christianity has of this is these things don’t go far enough like that transhumanism is just changing your body, but you also need to transform your soul and you need to transform your whole self. And so.
罗斯·多塔特 对，但另一方面……等等，等等，抱歉。我大体上同意我认为是你的信念：宗教应该是科学和科学进步观念的朋友。我认为任何关于神圣天意的观念都必须涵盖这样一个事实：我们已经进步了，取得了成就，做了我们祖先无法想象的事情。
ROSS DOUTHAT Right, but the other way. Wait, wait. Sorry. I generally agree with what I think is your belief that religion should be a friend to science and ideas of scientific progress. I think any idea of divine providence has to encompass the fact that we have progressed and achieved and done things that would have been unimaginable to our ancestors.
罗斯·多塔特 但看起来，是的，基督教最终的承诺是：你通过上帝的恩典获得完美的身体和完美的灵魂。而那个试图靠一堆机器独自做到这一点的人，很可能最终沦为一个反乌托邦式的角色。
ROSS DOUTHAT But it still also seems like, yeah, the promise of Christianity in the end is you get the perfected body and the perfected soul through God’s grace. And the person who tries to do it on their own with a bunch of machines is likely to end up as a dystopian character.
彼得·蒂尔 好吧，让我们把这个说清楚，然后你可以——
PETER THIEL Well, it’s. Let’s, let’s articulate this and you can.
罗斯·多塔特 有一种异端形式的基督教，对吧，说的是另一回事。
ROSS DOUTHAT Have a heretical form of Christianity. Right. That says something else.
彼得·蒂尔 我不知道。我认为”自然”这个词在《旧约》中一次都没有出现过。在某种意义上，我理解的犹太-基督教启示就是关于超越自然，关于克服事物。
PETER THIEL I don’t know. I think the word nature does not occur once in The Old Testament. And so if you, and there is a word in which, a sense in which the way I understand the Judeo Christian inspiration is it is about transcending nature. It is about overcoming things.
彼得·蒂尔 你能说的最接近”自然”的东西是：人是堕落的。在基督教的意义上，自然的状态就是你一团糟。这是事实。但在某些方面，在上帝的帮助下，你应该超越它、克服它。然后如果人们——
PETER THIEL And the closest thing you can say to nature is that people are fallen. And that that’s the natural thing in a Christian sense is that you’re messed up. And that’s true. But, you know, there’s some ways that, you know, with God’s help, you are supposed to transcend that and overcome that. And, but then people, if you just.
罗斯·多塔特 在座的除外。在座的除外。大多数致力于建造假想中的机器上帝的人，并不认为他们是在与雅威、耶和华、万军之主合作。他们认为他们是在独自建造不朽。
ROSS DOUTHAT Present company accepted. Present company accepted. Most of the people working to build the hypothetical machine God don’t think that they’re cooperating with Yahweh, Jehovah, the Lord of Hosts. They think that they’re building immortality on their own.
彼得·蒂尔 是的，没错。我们跳来跳去谈了很多事情。所以再说一遍，我的批评是：他们不够有雄心。（书童批：Peter Thiel想法真的是绝了）
PETER THIEL Yeah, right. We’re jumping around a lot. A lot of things. So again, the critique I was saying is they’re not ambitious enough.
罗斯·多塔特 对。
ROSS DOUTHAT Right.
彼得·蒂尔 从基督教的角度看，这些人不够有雄心。那么我们就要问：他们有吗？
PETER THIEL From a Christian point of view, these people are not ambitious enough. Now then we get into this question, well, are they?
罗斯·多塔特 但他们在道德和精神层面不够有雄心。
ROSS DOUTHAT But they’re not morally and spiritually ambitious enough.
彼得·蒂尔 他们有吗？然后他们在身体层面还足够有雄心吗？他们甚至还真的是超人类主义者吗？天哪，人体冷冻这事儿，看起来像是1999年的复古玩意儿，现在没多少人在做了。所以他们在物理身体上不是超人类主义者。那么，好吧，也许不是人体冷冻，也许是”上传”——但那也不太对。我宁可保留我的身体，我不想只要一个模拟我的计算机程序。所以”上传”似乎比人体冷冻还退了一步。
PETER THIEL And are they? And then are they still physically ambitious enough? And are they even still really transhumanists? And this is where, okay, you know, man, the cryonics thing, that seems like a retro thing from 1999, there isn’t that much of that going on. So they’re not transhumanists on a physical body. And then. Okay, well, maybe it’s not about cryonics. Maybe it’s about uploading, which. Okay, well, that’s not quite. I’d rather have my body. I don’t want just a computer program that simulates me. So that uploading seemed like a step down from cryonics.
彼得·蒂尔 但即便如此，它也是对话的一部分。这就是为什么很难评判。我不想说他们全都在编造、全是假的，但我——
PETER THIEL But then even that’s, you know, it’s part of the conversation. And this is where it gets very hard to score. And I don’t want to say they’re all making it up and it’s all fake, but I don’t.
罗斯·多塔特 你认为有些是假的吗？
ROSS DOUTHAT You think some of it’s fake?
彼得·蒂尔 我不认为是假的——”假的”暗示人们在撒谎。但我想说的是，这不是重心所在。
PETER THIEL I don’t think it’s fake. Implies people are lying. But it’s. I want to say it’s not the center of gravity.
罗斯·多塔特 是的。
ROSS DOUTHAT Yeah.
彼得·蒂尔 确实有一种”丰饶主义”的话语，一种乐观主义的话语。几周前我和埃隆有过一次对话，他说：”十年内美国将有十亿个人形机器人。”我说：”好吧，如果这是真的，你就不用担心预算赤字了，因为我们会有那么多增长，增长会解决这个问题。”然而，他仍然在担心预算赤字。这不能证明他不相信十亿机器人，但这表明也许他没有想透彻，或者他并不认为这在经济上会有那么大的变革性，或者这个预测的误差范围很大。
PETER THIEL And so there is, yeah, there is a cornucopian language. There’s an optimistic language. A conversation I had with Elon a few weeks ago about this was, he said, “We’re going to have a billion humanoid robots in the US in 10 years.” And I said, “Well, if that’s true, you don’t need to worry about the budget deficits because we’re going to have so much growth. The growth will take care of this.” And then, well, he’s still worried about the budget deficits. And then this doesn’t prove that he doesn’t believe in the billion robots, but it suggests that maybe he hasn’t thought it through or that he doesn’t think it’s going to be as transformative economically, or that there are big error bars around it.
彼得·蒂尔 是的，这些事情在某种程度上没有被想透彻。如果要我批评硅谷，它总是不擅长理解技术的意义是什么。对话总是倾向于陷入这种微观的东西：AI的IQ-ELO分数是多少？你到底怎么定义AGI？我们陷入所有这些无穷无尽的技术辩论。但有很多处于中间层次的问题对我来说似乎非常重要，比如：它对预算赤字意味着什么？对经济意味着什么？对地缘政治意味着什么？
PETER THIEL But, yeah, there’s some way in which these things are not quite thought through. If I had to give a critique of Silicon Valley, it’s always bad at what the meaning of tech is. And the conversations, they tend to go into this microscopic thing where it’s okay, it’s like, what are the IQ ELO scores of the AI? And exactly how do you define AGI? And we get into all these endless technical debates, and there are a lot of questions that are at an intermediate level of meaning that seem to me to be very important, which is like, what does it mean for the budget deficit? What does it mean for the economy? What does it mean for geopolitics?
彼得·蒂尔 我们最近有过一次对话——你和我——讨论的是AI是否改变了中国入侵台湾的算计。如果我们正处于加速的AI革命中，在军事上，中国是否正在落后？也许乐观地看，这威慑了中国，因为他们实际上已经输了。而悲观地看，这反而加速了他们的行动，因为他们知道”现在不动手就永远没机会了”——如果现在不拿下台湾，他们将被远远甩在后面。无论如何，这是相当重要的问题，却没有被想清楚。我们不思考AI对地缘政治意味着什么，不思考它对宏观经济意味着什么。这些才是我希望我们更多探讨的问题。
PETER THIEL One of the conversations we had recently, you and I had, was does it change the calculus for China invading Taiwan, where if we have an accelerating AI revolution, the military, is China falling behind? Maybe on the optimistic side, it deters China because they’ve effectively lost. And on the pessimistic side, it accelerates them because they know it’s now or never. If they don’t grab Taiwan now, they will fall behind. And either way, this is a pretty important thing. It’s not thought through. We don’t think about what AI means for geopolitics. We don’t think about what it means for the macro economy. And those are the kinds of questions I’d want us to push more.
罗斯·多塔特 还有一个非常宏观的问题是你感兴趣的，这会稍微拉一下宗教这根线。你最近一直在做关于”敌基督”概念的演讲，这是一个基督教概念，一个末世概念。它对你意味着什么？什么是敌基督？
ROSS DOUTHAT There’s also a very macroscopic question that you’re interested in that, you know, will pull on the religion thread a little bit here. You have been giving talks recently about the concept of the Antichrist, which is a Christian concept, an apocalyptic concept. What does that mean to you? What is the Antichrist?
彼得·蒂尔 我们有多少时间？
PETER THIEL How much time do we have?
罗斯·多塔特 你想谈多久敌基督，我们就有多少时间。
ROSS DOUTHAT We’ve got as long, as much time as you have to talk about the Antichrist.
彼得·蒂尔 好吧，我可以谈，但我们时间快到了。
PETER THIEL All right, well, I have a. I could talk about, but we’re near.
罗斯·多塔特 我的意思是——
ROSS DOUTHAT I mean.
彼得·蒂尔 不，我认为总有一个问题：我们如何阐述这些存在风险，我们面临的这些挑战？它们都被框定为那种失控的反乌托邦科幻场景。有核战争的风险，有环境灾难的风险，也许是气候变化这样具体的东西——虽然我们还提出了很多其他的。有生物武器的风险，有各种不同的科幻场景。AI显然也有某些类型的风险。但我一直在想，如果我们要用”存在风险”这个框架来讨论问题，也许我们也应该谈谈另一种”坏奇点”的风险——我会把它描述为”一个世界的极权国家”。
PETER THIEL But no, I think there’s always a question, you know, how do we articulate, you know, some of these existential risks, some of the challenges we have, and they’re all framed this sort of runaway dystopian science text. There’s a risk of nuclear war, there’s a risk of environmental disaster, maybe something specific like climate change. Although there are lots of other ones we come up with. There’s a risk of, you know, bioweapons, you have all the different sci fi scenarios. Obviously there are certain types of risks with AI, but I always think that if we’re going to have this frame of talking about existential risks, perhaps we should also talk about the risk of another type of a bad singularity, which I would describe as the one world totalitarian state.
彼得·蒂尔 因为我要说的是，人们对所有这些存在风险的默认政治解决方案是”世界治理”。对核武器怎么办？我们有一个有实权的联合国来控制它们，由一个国际政治秩序管辖。类似的逻辑也适用于AI：我们需要全球算力治理，需要一个世界政府来控制所有计算机，记录每一次按键，以确保人们不会编写出危险的AI。我一直在想，这是不是才出虎穴，又入狼窝。
PETER THIEL Because I would say the political solution, the default political solution people have for all these existential risks is one world governance. You know, what do you do about nuclear weapons? We have a United Nations with real teeth that controls them and they’re controlled by an international political order. And then something like this is also what do we do about AI? And we need global compute governance. We need a one world government to control all the computers, log every single keystroke to make sure people don’t program a dangerous AI. And I’ve been wondering whether that’s sort of going from the frying pan into the fire.
彼得·蒂尔 所以无神论的哲学框架是”一个世界或毁灭”——那是美国科学家联盟在四十年代末制作的一部短片，开头是一颗核弹炸毁世界。显然你需要一个世界政府来阻止它。一个世界或毁灭。而基督教的框架，在某种程度上是同一个问题，是”敌基督还是末日大战？”你要么有敌基督的一世界国家，要么我们正梦游般走向末日大战。”一个世界或毁灭”和”敌基督或末日大战”在某个层面上是同一个问题。
PETER THIEL And so the atheist philosophical framing is “one world or none.” That was a short film that was put out by the Federation of American Scientists in the late 40s, starts with a nuclear bomb blowing up the world. And obviously you need a one world government to stop it. One world or none. And the Christian framing, which in some ways is the same question, is “Antichrist or Armageddon?” You have the one world state of the Antichrist or we’re sleepwalking towards Armageddon. One world or none. Antichrist or Armageddon on one level are the same question.
彼得·蒂尔 关于这个话题我有很多想法，但有一个问题是——这是所有那些敌基督书籍中的情节漏洞——敌基督是如何接管世界的？他发表这些恶魔般的催眠演讲，人们就上当了。所以这是一个情节漏洞，一个魔鬼论式的解释。
PETER THIEL Now I have a lot of thoughts on this topic, but sort of one question is, and this was a plot hole in all these Antichrist books people wrote, how does the Antichrist take over the world? He gives these demonic hypnotic speeches and people just fall for it. And so it’s this plot hole. It’s this daemonium explanation.
罗斯·多塔特 完全是，这不可信。
ROSS DOUTHAT It’s totally, it’s implausible.
彼得·蒂尔 这是一个非常不可信的情节漏洞。但我认为我们对这个漏洞有了一个答案。敌基督接管世界的方式是：你不停地谈论末日大战，不停地谈论存在风险。这就是你说需要监管的东西。这与十七、十八世纪培根式科学的图景相反——在那个图景中，敌基督是某个邪恶的技术天才、邪恶的科学家，发明一台机器来接管世界。人们对那种场景已经太害怕了。
PETER THIEL It’s a very implausible plot hole. But I think we have an answer to this plot hole. The way the Antichrist would take over the world is you talk about Armageddon nonstop. You talk about existential risk nonstop. And this is what you need to regulate. It’s the opposite of the picture of Baconian science from the 17th, 18th century, where the Antichrist is like some evil tech genius, evil scientist who invents this machine to take over the world. People are way too scared for that.
彼得·蒂尔 在我们的世界里，有政治共鸣的东西恰恰相反。有政治共鸣的是”我们需要停止科学”，我们需要对此说”停”。在十七世纪，我可以想象一个奇爱博士、爱德华·泰勒类型的人接管世界。在我们的世界里，更有可能的是格雷塔·通贝里。
PETER THIEL In our world, the thing that has political resonance is the opposite. It is the thing that has political resonance is we need to stop science. We need to just say stop to this. And this is where, yeah, I don’t know. In the 17th century, I can imagine a Dr. Strangelove, Edward Teller type person taking over the world. In our world, it’s far more likely to be Greta Thunberg.
罗斯·多塔特 好的。我想在这两个选项之间提出一个折中的看法。过去，对敌基督的合理恐惧是某种技术巫师。而现在合理的恐惧是某个承诺控制技术、使其安全、并引入一种从你的角度来看是普遍停滞的未来的人。对吧。
ROSS DOUTHAT Okay. I want to suggest a middle ground between those two options. It used to be that the reasonable fear of the Antichrist was a kind of wizard of technology. And now the reasonable fear is someone who promises to control technology, make it safe, and sort of usher in what, from your point of view would be a kind of universal stagnation. Right.
彼得·蒂尔 好吧，那更像是我对它会如何发生的描述。
PETER THIEL Well, that’s more my description of how it would happen.
罗斯·多塔特 对。
ROSS DOUTHAT Right.
彼得·蒂尔 所以我认为人们仍然对十七世纪式的敌基督心存恐惧。我们仍然害怕奇爱博士。
PETER THIEL So I think people still have a fear of a 17th century Antichrist. We’re still scared of Dr. Strangelove.
罗斯·多塔特 对。但你是说真正的敌基督会利用那种恐惧，说：”你必须跟我来，才能避免天网，避免终结者，避免核末日大战。”
ROSS DOUTHAT Right. But you’re saying the real Antichrist would play on that fear and say, “You must come with me to avoid Skynet, to avoid the Terminator, to avoid nuclear Armageddon.”
彼得·蒂尔 是的。
PETER THIEL Yes.
罗斯·多塔特 我的观点是，看看现在的世界，你需要某种新型的技术进步来使那种恐惧具体化。对。如果世界相信AI即将毁灭所有人，我可以相信世界会转向某个承诺和平与监管的人。对。但我认为要到达那个点，你需要其中一个加速主义末日场景开始上演。对。要得到你所说的”和平与安全”敌基督，你需要更多的技术进步。
ROSS DOUTHAT And I guess my view would be looking at the world right now, that you would need a certain kind of novel technological progress to make that fear concrete. Right. So I can buy that the world could turn to someone who promised peace and regulation if the world became convinced that AI was about to destroy everybody. Right. But I think to get to that point, you need one of the accelerationist apocalyptic scenarios to start to play out. Right. To get your peace and safety Antichrist, you need more technological progress.
罗斯·多塔特 就像二十世纪极权主义的关键失败之一是它有一个知识问题——它无法知道世界各地正在发生什么。对。所以你需要AI或其他什么东西来帮助”和平与安全”的极权统治。所以你不认为——本质上——你最坏的情况需要涉及某种进步的爆发，然后被驯服并用来强加停滞的极权主义吗？你不能只是从我们现在的位置直接到达那里。
ROSS DOUTHAT Like one of the key failures of totalitarianism in the 20th century was it had a problem of knowledge. It couldn’t know what was going on all over in the world. Right. So you need the AI or whatever else to be capable of helping the peace and safety, totalitarian rule. So don’t you think you need, essentially you need your worst case scenario to involve some burst of progress that is then tamed and used to impose stagnant totalitarianism? You can’t just get there from where we are right now.
罗斯·多塔特 好吧，它可以——就像格雷塔·通贝里在地中海的一艘船上抗议以色列那样。我只是不认为，在缺乏加速变化和对全面灾难的真正恐惧的情况下，现在对AI的安全承诺、对技术的安全承诺、甚至对气候变化的安全承诺能成为强大的、普遍的号召力。
ROSS DOUTHAT Well, it can, like Greta Thunberg’s on a boat in the Mediterranean, like, you know, like protesting Israel, like the. I just don’t see the promise of safety from AI, safety from tech, safety, even safety from climate change right now as a powerful, universal rallying cry. Absent accelerating change and real fear of total catastrophe.
彼得·蒂尔 我是说，这些事情很难评判。但我认为环保主义相当强大。我不知道它是否强大到足以创建一个一世界极权国家，但天哪，它确实——
PETER THIEL I mean, these things are so hard to score. But I think environmentalism’s pretty powerful. I don’t know if it’s absolutely powerful enough to create a one world totalitarian state, but man, it is.
罗斯·多塔特 我认为它目前的形式还不够。
ROSS DOUTHAT I think it is not in its current form.
彼得·蒂尔 我想说它是欧洲人仍然相信的唯一东西。他们对绿色事业的信仰超过了对伊斯兰沙里亚法的信仰，也超过了对中国共产主义极权接管的信仰。而”未来”——一个看起来与现在不同的未来——在欧洲能提供的选项只有三个：绿色、沙里亚和极权共产主义国家。而绿色的那个，在一个衰落、腐朽的地方，是迄今为止最强的。
PETER THIEL It is, I want to say it’s the only thing people still believe in in Europe. Like, you know, they believe in the green thing more than Islamic Sharia law or more than in, you know, the Chinese communist totalitarian takeover. And the future is an idea of a future that looks different from the present. The only three on offer in Europe are green Sharia and you know, the totalitarian communist state. And the green one is by far the strongest in a declining, decaying.
罗斯·多塔特 那是一个在世界上已不是主导力量的欧洲。
ROSS DOUTHAT Europe that is not a dominant player in the world.
彼得·蒂尔 它总是在一个具体语境下，对吧？我们有一段非常复杂的核技术历史。我们确实没有到达一个极权的一世界国家。但到了1970年代，停滞的一个解释是：技术的失控进步已经变得非常可怕。培根式科学在洛斯阿拉莫斯终结了——它在那里结束了，我们不想再有更多了。
PETER THIEL It’s always in a context, right? And then I would, you know, I don’t know, you know, we had this really complicated history with the way nuclear technology worked. And you know, we, okay, we didn’t. Yeah, we didn’t really get to, you know, a totalitarian one world state. But you know, by the 1970s, one account of the stagnation is that the runaway progress of technology had gotten very scary and that, you know, Baconian science, it ended at Los Alamos and then it was okay, it ended there and we didn’t want to have any more.
彼得·蒂尔 当查尔斯·曼森在六十年代末服用LSD并开始杀人时，他在LSD上看到的、学到的是：你可以像陀思妥耶夫斯基笔下的反英雄一样，”一切皆被允许”。当然，不是每个人都变成了查尔斯·曼森。但在我对历史的叙述中，每个人都变得和查尔斯·曼森一样疯狂。
PETER THIEL And you know, when Charles Manson took LSD in the late 60s and started murdering people, what he saw on LSD, what he learned was that you could be like Dostoyevsky, an anti hero in Dostoyevsky and everything was permitted. And of course, not everyone became Charles Manson but Charles Hellingson. But in my telling of the history, everyone became as deranged as Charles Manson.
罗斯·多塔特 但查尔斯·曼森并没有成为敌基督并接管世界。对，我只是——我们正以末世论收尾。
ROSS DOUTHAT But Charles Manson did not become the Antichrist and take over the world. Right, I’m just. We’re ending in the apocalyptic.
彼得·蒂尔 不，但我对1970年代历史的叙述是：嬉皮士确实赢了。我们在1969年7月登上了月球，伍德斯托克三周后开始。事后看来，那就是进步停止、嬉皮士获胜的时刻。是的，它不是字面上的查尔斯·曼森。
PETER THIEL No, but my telling of the history of the 1970s is the hippies did win and they landed, we landed on the moon in July of 1969. Woodstock started three weeks later. And with a benefit of hindsight, that’s when progress stopped and the hippies won. And yeah, it was not literally Charles, man.
罗斯·多塔特 好的，但你在退却。我想以敌基督收尾。而且你在退却，你说，好的，环保主义已经是支持停滞的了等等。好，让我们同意所有这些，但我们现在并没有生活在敌基督的统治下。我们只是停滞了。对。而你假设地平线上可能有更糟糕的东西，会使停滞永久化，会被恐惧驱动。而我在说，要发生这种情况，必须有某种类似于洛斯阿拉莫斯的技术进步爆发，让人们感到害怕。
ROSS DOUTHAT Okay, but you’re retreating. You’re just. I want to stay with the Antichrist just to end. Right, because. And you’re retreating, you’re saying, okay, you know, environmentalism is already pro stagnation and so on. Okay, let’s agree with all that, but we’re not living under, we’re not living under the Antichrist right now. We’re just stagnant. Right. And you’re positing that something worse could be on the horizon that would make stagnation permanent, that would be driven by fear. And I’m suggesting that for that to happen, there would have to be some burst of technological progress that was akin to Los Alamos that people are afraid of.
罗斯·多塔特 我想这是我对你非常具体的问题，对吧——你是AI的投资者，你深度投资于Palantir，投资于军事技术、监控技术、战争技术等等。对吧？而当你给我讲一个关于敌基督掌权、利用对技术变革的恐惧来对世界强加秩序的故事时，我觉得那个敌基督很可能会使用你正在建造的工具，对吧？
ROSS DOUTHAT And I guess this is my very specific question for you, right, is that you’re an investor in AI you’re deeply invested in Palantir, in military technology and technologies of surveillance and technologies of warfare and so on. Right? And it just seems to me that when you tell me a story about the Antichrist coming to power and using the fear of technological change to sort of impose order on the world, I feel like that Antichrist would be, maybe be using the tools that you were building, right?
罗斯·多塔特 敌基督不会说：”太好了，我们不会再有任何技术进步了。但我真的很喜欢Palantir迄今为止所做的。”对吧。我是说，这不是一个担忧吗？历史的讽刺不会是：那个公开担心敌基督的人，反而意外地加速了他或她的到来？
ROSS DOUTHAT Like, wouldn’t the Antichrist be like, “Great, you know, we’re not going to have any more technological progress. But I really like what Palantir has done so far.” Right. I mean, isn’t that a concern? Wouldn’t that be the, you know, the irony of history would be that the man publicly worrying about the Antichrist accidentally hastens his or her arrival?
彼得·蒂尔 听着，有各种不同的场景。我显然不认为那是我正在做的。
PETER THIEL Look, there are all these different scenarios. I obviously don’t think that that’s what I’m doing.
罗斯·多塔特 说清楚，我也不认为那是你正在做的。我只是好奇：你如何让一个世界愿意服从永久的威权统治？
ROSS DOUTHAT I mean, to be clear, I don’t think that’s what you’re doing either. I’m just interested in how you get to a world willing to submit to permanent authoritarian rule.
彼得·蒂尔 好吧，再说一遍，有不同的程度我们可以描述。但这真的那么荒谬吗？——我刚才告诉你的，作为对停滞的一个广泛解释——整个世界已经屈服于五十年的”和平与安全主义”了？这出自帖撒罗尼迦前书5:3。敌基督的口号就是”和平与安全”。而我们已经臣服于它了。
PETER THIEL Well, but again, there are these different gradations of this we can describe. But is this so preposterous, what I’ve just told you as a broad account of the stagnation that the entire world has submitted for 50 years to “Peace and Safetyism”? This is 1 Thessalonians 5:3. The slogan of the Antichrist is “peace and safety.” And we’ve submitted to it.
彼得·蒂尔 FDA不仅监管美国的药物，而且事实上监管着全世界的药物，因为世界其他地方都听从FDA。核管理委员会有效地监管着世界各地的核电站。你不能设计一个模块化核反应堆然后在阿根廷建造它——他们不会信任阿根廷的监管机构，他们会听从美国。
PETER THIEL The FDA regulates not just drugs in the US but de facto in the whole world, because the rest of the world defers to the FDA. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission effectively regulates nuclear power plants all over the world. People, you can’t design a modular nuclear reactor and just build it in Argentina. They won’t trust the Argentinian regulators. They’re going to defer to the US.
彼得·蒂尔 所以这至少是一个关于为什么我们有五十年停滞的问题。一个答案是我们的点子用完了。另一个答案是文化上发生了什么，不再允许这样做了。而文化答案可以是自下而上的——人类某种程度上转变成了一种更顺从的物种；也可以至少部分是自上而下的——有这套政府机器被改造成了停滞装置。
PETER THIEL So it is at least a question about why we’ve had 50 years of stagnation and one answer is we ran out of ideas. The other answer is that something happened culturally where it wasn’t allowed. And then the cultural answer can be sort of a bottom up answer, that it was just some transformation of humanity into this sort of more docile kind of a species or it can be at least partially top down that there is this machinery of government that got changed into this stagnation thing.
彼得·蒂尔 我认为像核电这样的东西本应是二十一世纪的能源，而它不知何故在全球范围内被叫停了。
PETER THIEL I think something like nuclear power was supposed to be the power of the 21st century and it somehow has gotten off ramped all over the world on a worldwide basis.
罗斯·多塔特 所以从某种意义上说，按照你的叙述，我们已经生活在敌基督的温和统治下了。你认为上帝在掌控历史吗？
ROSS DOUTHAT So in a sense we’re already living under a moderate rule of the Antichrist. In that telling. Do you think God is in control of history?
彼得·蒂尔 我认为人类自由和人类选择总是有其空间的。这些事情并非绝对预定。
PETER THIEL I think there’s always room for human freedom and human choice. These things are not absolutely predetermined one way or another.
罗斯·多塔特 对吧？但上帝不会让我们永远处于一个温和的、适度的停滞主义敌基督的统治之下，对吧？那不可能是故事的结局，对吧？
ROSS DOUTHAT Right? But God wouldn’t leave us forever under the rule of a mild, moderate stagnationist Antichrist, right? That can’t be how the story ends, right?
彼得·蒂尔 把太多因果归于上帝总是个问题。我可以给你引用不同的圣经经文。约翰福音15:25，基督说”他们无故恨我”。所以，所有迫害基督的人都没有理由、没有原因。
PETER THIEL Attributing too much causation to God is always a problem. You know, I don’t know, there are different Bible verses I can give you. But I’ll give you John 15:25 where Christ says “they hated me without cause.” And so it’s all these people that are persecuting Christ have no reason, no cause for why they’re persecuting Christ.
彼得·蒂尔 如果我们把这解释为一个关于终极因果的经文，他们就会说”我迫害基督是因为上帝让我这样做，上帝在主宰一切”。而基督教的观点是反加尔文主义的：上帝并不在历史背后操控，上帝并没有在主导一切。如果你说上帝在主导一切，那么上帝就是——
PETER THIEL And if we interpret this as a ultimate causation verse, they want to say I’m persecuting because God caused me to do this. God is causing everything. And the Christian view is anti-Calvinist. God is not behind history. God is not causing everything. If you say God’s causing everything, then God is—
罗斯·多塔特 但等等，上帝是——
ROSS DOUTHAT But wait, but God is—
彼得·蒂尔 你在拿上帝当替罪羊。
PETER THIEL You’re scapegoating God.
罗斯·多塔特 但上帝在……好吧，上帝在耶稣基督进入历史这件事的背后，因为上帝不会坐视我们困在一个停滞的、颓废的罗马帝国里。对吧？所以在某个时刻，上帝会介入。
ROSS DOUTHAT But God is behind—okay, but God is behind Jesus Christ entering history because God was not going to leave us in a stagnationist, decadent Roman Empire. Right? So at some point, at some point God is going to step in.
彼得·蒂尔 我没那么加尔文主义。
PETER THIEL I am not that Calvinist.
罗斯·多塔特 但那不是加尔文主义，那只是基督教。上帝不会让我们永远盯着屏幕、被格雷塔·通贝里训斥。对吧？他不会抛弃我们，任由我们遭受那种命运。
ROSS DOUTHAT And that’s not Calvinism though, that’s just Christianity. God will not leave us eternally staring into screens and being lectured by Greta Thunberg. Right? He will not abandon us to that fate.
彼得·蒂尔 人类行动、人类自由有很大的空间。如果我认为这些事情是决定论的，那你还不如干脆躺平接受。狮子来了，你就做做瑜伽、虔诚地冥想，然后坐等狮子把你吃掉。我不认为那是你该做的。
PETER THIEL There is a great deal of scope for human action, for human freedom. If I thought these things were deterministic, you might as well maybe just accept it. The lions are coming. You should just have some yoga and prayerful meditation and wait while the lions eat you up. And I don’t think that’s what you’re supposed to do.
罗斯·多塔特 不，我同意。在这个基调上，我只是想保持希望：在试图抵抗敌基督、运用你的人类自由时，你应该抱有成功的希望。对。
ROSS DOUTHAT No, I agree with that. And I think on that note, I’m just trying to be hopeful and suggesting that, you know, in trying to resist the Antichrist, using your human freedom, you should have hope that you’ll succeed. Right.
彼得·蒂尔 在这一点上我们可以达成共识。
PETER THIEL We can agree on that.
罗斯·多塔特 好的。彼得·蒂尔，感谢你的参与。
ROSS DOUTHAT Good. Peter Thiel, thank you for joining me.
彼得·蒂尔 谢谢。
PETER THIEL Thank you.