| An Underestimated Intellectual Contributor: Part 2  Dear Daily Prophecy Reader,
When Peter Thiel was a student at Stanford, he encountered an aging French historian, anthropologist, and philosopher named Rene Girard. It changed his life. It also deepened and perhaps darkened his Christian faith. Thiel went on to become the prime founder — among many transformative companies — of PayPal, Facebook, and Palantir. As well as a key investor in Elon Musk's SpaceX. He became, in some eyes, the nation's leading venture strategist. If you associate with Thiel, you may hear frequent references to this mysterious sage Girard. You may be chilled by his harrowing images of envy, violence, human sacrifice, and apocalypse. You may be baffled by his enigmatic theory of human relations called "mimesis." You might not readily grasp that these images and concepts directly inspired Thiel's theory of business strategy and innovation espoused in his great book Zero-to-One. This book distinguishes between original or vertical inventions and economic growth — zero-to-one — and imitative or horizontal economic growth, one-to-n. You might not suspect that this esoteric French philosopher was crucial to Thiel's path to billions in new wealth. And you might never imagine that this Christian theorist might be pivotal to your investment prospects. The Spread of Globalized Memesis Recently a young San Francisco consultant and blogger named David Perell of the North Star Podcast published a long and enthralling essay on the relationship between Girard and his theories and Thiel and his companies. It makes a powerful argument that the Girard-Thiel connection is one of history's most fruitful collaborations. Mimesis means imitation, mimicry, or copying. In Girard's vision, it begins by extending human sympathies and common feelings. But it may lead to envy and resentment. It may foster violence. As Perell explains: "Our mimetic nature is simultaneously our biggest strength and our biggest weakness. When it goes right mimesis is a shortcut to learning. [It is the way we all learn languages]. But when it spirals out of control, Mimetic imitation leads to envy and to bitter, ever-escalating violence." In a critical and difficult Girardian insight, that propensity toward violence may be contained and focused through scapegoating — through sacrifice of a representative of a group outside the compass of copying and memesis. This is the Girardian theory of the Christian crucifixion. What does this have to do with Thiel's business theories and successes? In Zero to One, Thiel offers a quadrant mapping out four different forms of optimism and pessimism. I would sum them up as definite optimism stemming from a specific vision of the future, an agenda or plan; indefinite optimism reflecting a general belief in the evolutionary progress of random mutation and selection — in technological terms the "inevitable" advance toward a "singularity." Definite pessimism expresses a particular memory or prophecy of famine and plague, whether from climate change or population growth. Indefinite pessimism reflects a general fear of the future and leads to passivity and retreat. | 
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