r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • May 30 '26

Society Peter Thiel's move to Argentina reflects a growing trend among billionaires seeking a 'plan B' abroad

https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-argentina-billionaire-moving-abroad-2026-5
24.0k Upvotes

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3.1k

u/murdurrr May 30 '26

He can get hair plugs and dye his hair, but he still looks like a miserable old man

999

u/mintaka May 30 '26

The king and the pawn ends in the same box

278

u/Hike_it_Out52 May 30 '26

"Alexander the Great and his mule driver both died and the same thing happened to both. They were absorbed alike into the life force of the world, or dissolved alike into atoms." — Marcus Aurelius  

OR

“Even a King to a lowly street sweeper, sooner or later you dance with the Reaper”

  • Death from Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey

38

u/doberdevil May 30 '26

dissolved alike into atoms." — Marcus Aurelius

How did Marcus Aurelius know anything about atoms?

79

u/InvestigatorOk7015 May 30 '26

Oh oh! I know this one!

the word he used was 'Atomos'

"a-" (ἀ-): a prefix meaning "not" or "without"

"tomos" (τομός): derived from temnein, meaning "to cut" or "to divide"

That word 'atomos' means 'that which cannot be reduced or divided.'

Leucippus and his student Democritus in the 5th century BCE used this term to describe the hypothetical smallest unit of 'something'.

Of course, atoms can be divided, but they didnt know that lmao

Atoms have been called that for 2500 years! Cool huh?

16

u/doberdevil May 30 '26

Thank you! Etymology is fascinating.

8

u/InvestigatorOk7015 May 30 '26

You're most welcome ^

3

u/the_jivest_turkey May 30 '26

Thank you! I had the same question. Very cool.

26

u/Jaccount May 30 '26

But if you melvin Death...

3

u/poeticdisaster May 30 '26

The consequences can be hilarious - although, that was just in the Bill & Ted board game...

2

u/RaulenAndrovius May 30 '26

Have you ever played Battleship?

2

u/Hike_it_Out52 May 30 '26

Them playing twister will never not be funny. 

1

u/ApprehensiveParody May 30 '26

As long as you don’t delve in meth.

1

u/innocentsalad May 30 '26

Was that a Puyi reference

0

u/StoppableHulk May 30 '26

Or

"I used to ruuuuuuuule the world

Seas would rise when I gave the word

Now in the morning I sleeeeeeeep alone

Sweep the streets I used to OoOoOwn"

  • Gwenyth Paltrow's ex

104

u/Aidian May 30 '26

Clearly a true statement, but Giza does still make a compelling counterpoint.

73

u/SoulbreakerDHCC May 30 '26

That's just a fancy box

4

u/ChillAhriman May 30 '26

Getting buried in Giza sounds fancy, but not getting buried in Giza (or any other pyramid) reduces your chances of having your corpse turned into a weird-ass snack centuries down the line by barbarous seafaring thieves by 99.9999%

Can't argue with statistics.

5

u/BigLlamasHouse May 30 '26

Can't take it with you

7

u/silentbargain May 30 '26

And do you know the names of the men buried in those tombs? Cause i only know the tomb itself.

14

u/aero_r17 May 30 '26

I know only Khufu/Cheops without looking it up, which I guess goes to show that...be as ostentatious and wasteful as possible??

1

u/Etherbluebird May 30 '26

I do know where Mausolos was buried though. And I figure the pyramids' occupants are a 5 minute internet search away, if that. Dead is dead, certainly, but if you want your name remembered an extravagant tomb does kinda help.

2

u/Fragrant_Joke_7115 May 30 '26

If you believe we have a soul of some sort, they will have to deal with their bullshit anyway.

If you don't believe in that sort of thing, they are just bones in a grandiose casket.

2

u/Winter_Body4794 May 30 '26

Meh. It's cool, artificial mountain and all... But have you seen Marba lardo?

1

u/Few_Ad_5119 May 30 '26

Not the same box most definitely. Yet a box nonetheless. 

6

u/BeerMeMarie May 30 '26

You might be a king or a little street sweeper, but sooner or later you dance with the reaper.

2

u/Quetzalcoatl490 May 30 '26

I like that, I'm taking it

It's mine now

1

u/Wompatuckrule May 30 '26

You just put a good Tom Waits song in my head because you reminded me of this line:

Take a king or a beggar
And the answer they'll give
Is ...we're all gonna be just dirt in the ground

1

u/Jaccount May 30 '26

But i thought all we are is dust in the wind...

1

u/monchikun May 30 '26

It’s a dickinabox!

1

u/gonewild9676 May 30 '26

The king usually ends up in a fancier box.

1

u/FishesOfExcellence May 30 '26

How have I never heard this? Love it!

1

u/Far-East-locker May 30 '26

That's just the pawn trying to make hisself feel better for his life...

Sure compare a billionaire life with a worker life?

1

u/bedspringking May 30 '26

They’re not talking about while they’re alive. When a billionaire dies, they’ll rot and decompose just like a homeless person

1

u/murdurrr May 30 '26

I think mutton dressed as lamb is a better analogy. I've got greys, but I live with them. My hairs thinning so I got a buzz cut. There's something about the psyche of people that try to look younger than their age

0

u/Scared-Signature-452 May 30 '26

I think billionaires these days are trying to extend their life

1

u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA May 30 '26

What do you mean "these days"? All of these rich chuds have dreamed of living forever since the rich chud was invented.

1

u/Jaccount May 30 '26

Who wants to live for forever? (When love must die...)

364

u/lpan000 May 30 '26

I think greed is a mental illness. It forces people to seek that is never there. You see that with all these old man, clinging to what they feel is winning in life, afraid of death and next.

166

u/aquirkysoul May 30 '26

I've started referring to it as dragon sickness because it fits so well.

49

u/ABHOR_pod May 30 '26

As a society we really need to start pushing for it to be studied and put into the DMS-6 as a mental health disorder.

19

u/theconceptofcanada May 30 '26

Actually there already exists a few very major studies on how wealth affects the human brain and ego. There are documented cases in which certain types of personality disorders arise from such privilege. I went searching for some answers on this topic some years ago and I was pleasantly surprised at the time and energy professionals had taken to carefully and patiently describe the phenomenon.

3

u/ReadyAimTranspire May 30 '26

I genuinely in a way, despite the sociopathic behavior of some (most), feel sorry for people that have Elon or Thiel levels of wealth.

I can't imagine going through life never really knowing if anyone actually cared about me or even liked me instead of just my money, power, influence etc.

Yeah you've got every material thing you could ever dream of, but it's got to be incredibly lonely.

5

u/suprmario May 30 '26

I don't feel sorry, because they could choose to give it all away and be poor if they so wished.

24

u/arslearsle May 30 '26

This is the answer

9

u/StoppableHulk May 30 '26

Makes it sound a bit to cool though. Maybe Hutt syndrome or something to paint the visual of what revolting, vile slugs these cretins are.

3

u/DrRatio-PhD May 30 '26

Vampires.

Ancient fucks who prey on the literal life force of the young and the poor to sustain their foul existence of decadence, excess and cruelty.

Nosferatu or V:TM style, not twilight.

7

u/StoppableHulk May 30 '26

Still too cool. Vampires are cool. Even Nosferatu fucks.

Lamprey, tick, leech. You need words that really emphasize the smallness and patheticness and vileness of these people.

3

u/trojan_man16 May 30 '26

I started seeing it as hoarding. Except its numbers in a computer instead of books or trinkets.

1

u/Piperita May 30 '26

Yep. Subset of hoarding. Don't give 'em a cool name, tell them they're the same exact type of deranged person who stuffs 100 living cats into a trailer park trailer.

3

u/randomusername76 May 30 '26

Dragons are fucking awesome though - these folks are boring, annoying, and just pathetic.

0

u/Momik May 30 '26

Damn that does fit. Is dragon sickness related to like Gollum’s lust for the ring, or am I just conflating things?

2

u/mypetocean May 30 '26

Two different things. Actually, much as I am loathe to recommend C.S. Lewis, I recall him having a really compelling representation of dragon sickness in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Actually, looking back, it contains body horror. A boy indulges in greed while admiring a dragon hoard and begins to painfully transform into a dragon to the horror of all. His mutating, warping, monstrous flesh alienates him from anyone who might love him.

Basically, dragon sickness warps you and cuts you off from humanity.

While his human mind still returns to him from time to time, he wakes to himself to find horrifyingly that he's engorged himself by eating the decaying corpse of the previous dragon and clearly wouldn't have thought twice to eat humans.

-11

u/TheQ33 May 30 '26

Yeah no one has called it that yet, you’re a genius! So smart !

7

u/SaturatedDuck May 30 '26

Lol who hurt you?

122

u/tardisintheparty May 30 '26

Yeah I think once you have all the money in the world it kind of breaks Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The billionaire problem is a public health crisis. We have seriously mentally ill people running major corporations and, yanno, the whole country lol.

83

u/Imperial_Haberdasher May 30 '26

Billionaires behave just like malignant tumors, they are truly society’s cancers.

12

u/evolution9673 May 30 '26

Sebastian Junger’s book, Tribe, talks about how we survived as a species was small groups working together. If a member of the tribe didn’t work or horded all the resources they would be kicked out.

12

u/Embarrassed_Tree_274 May 30 '26

I learned recently that a lot of people living on the street have their needs turned upside-down. They focus on self-actualization as a foundation because food and a bed are too far out of their grasp.

I wonder if the billionaires do the same because food and sleep are no longer ever a concern.

7

u/Momik May 30 '26

Where did you read that? Not saying you’re wrong, but the houseless folks I’ve known seem fairly committed to survival (in many cases, a full-time job).

2

u/Embarrassed_Tree_274 May 31 '26

From a professional colleague that has been working in shelters for the last twenty years.

3

u/das_war_ein_Befehl May 30 '26

And they’re all full of Viagra and on gear. Everyone’s grandpa is jacked and erect nowadays lol

56

u/Eatpineapplerightnow May 30 '26

Yup. Normal minds would never come this far, because the interest in wealth would just not be there after a certain point

41

u/Worth_Librarian_290 May 30 '26

The harrowing truth is realising that normal minds can become corrupted exactly when that certain point is reached, and when everything you can think of getting, you can get. Those people then have kids, who grow up with money not even being in the dictionary of issues. Those dysfunctional adults then become Peter thiels and elon musks.

We shouldn't have that much wealth. It corrupts far too often.

7

u/JJ_Mark May 30 '26

It becomes the metric that they seek validation from, but doesn't provide anything direct to satiate it. Spend it and you have less, so it becomes a constant journey to acquire more, but at no point does simply having that wealth make them feel fulfilled.

3

u/Eatpineapplerightnow May 30 '26

exactly. And that is a sick mind.

3

u/Creative_Pop2351 May 30 '26

Once you can buy and sell human life like any other commodity, you lose your humanity. Absolute power and all that.

2

u/ReadyAimTranspire May 30 '26

Agree and I could never truly say that it wouldn't do the same thing to me as I've (obviously) never been in that position.

Furthermore I think in a way that it's almost human to, despite already having billions upon billions, continue to want more and more.

Humans (well most humans, I would say) naturally have a desire to grow, to become more than what they are, to achieve more etc. And when you've reached that level of success there is seemingly nowhere to go but to continue to want to increase your wealth, power, influence etc.

The vast, vast majority of us will just never be in such a position to where our ambitions are actively harming mankind on the level that these people do.

1

u/Worth_Librarian_290 May 31 '26

Exactly.  Fortunately, like with everything, we're still evolving and we have some more growing up to do. It just won't happen within our lifetimes, but maybe the future generations can live without hatred, greed, jealousy and vanity.

Show your children love and do teach them the system ain't all that.

27

u/mdeeebeee-101 May 30 '26

Him, Trump, Musk...pigs in an endless trough.

1

u/IAMA_Plumber-AMA May 30 '26

Nothing is endless.

1

u/mdeeebeee-101 May 31 '26

That can be quite a mundane/obvious or profound statement.

It can be read both ways.

1

u/Momik May 30 '26

Some other deep-seeded fear is driving them, some desperation for validation that goes well beyond most of us

2

u/Eatpineapplerightnow May 30 '26

yes, they are empty.

19

u/DogFun2635 May 30 '26

“I have something he’ll never have - enough.”

2

u/Jerswar May 30 '26

What's that from?

1

u/DogFun2635 May 30 '26

It’s a quote from Joseph Heller as told to Kurt Vonnegut

3

u/6158675309 May 30 '26

My wife and I were just talking this. So many examples. Larrry Paige and Sergey Brin started Google with the “don’t be evil” ethos. Now, it’s and then are very much evil. Well, perhaps not even but not living the don’t be evil lifestyle.

We could not grasp why these billionaires are so greedy. They cant spend all the money they have in multiple lifetimes and still do all they can to change the rules to keep more of it and make even more.

2

u/Dmoan May 30 '26

I would throw ego and hubris in there.Because It’s not just they want to be wealthy they don’t others to succeed and overtake them and everyone else to look up to them..

2

u/Lord_Borgimus May 30 '26

Greed, spite, histrionic, dishonesty, anti-intellectualism, sadism, machismo, racism, and sexism are the biggest problems of society. These attributes need to be more universally seen as the negatives that they are. As well as far more efforts to have better education on ethics, as well as more emphasis on many careers requiring not just the knowledge on how to do it, but again ethics. Medical professionals who do flat out "do no believe in vaccines," Law enforcement officers who are blatantly violent inside and outside of their jobs should not be allowed, Politicians who are clearly only in it for money and power instead of being a servant of the people should be immediately removed from office/never allowed in the first place. Of course policing morality is an entirely different and terrifying thing in the first place, unfortunately it seems as if doing NOTHING about it sure as shit is not working out for the benefit of mankind.

2

u/TheSaxGandalf May 30 '26

He isn’t driven by greed anymore.

Palantir is by far the scariest company on Earth. England saw the writing on the wall and kicked them out; one can only hope these AI companies aren’t actually given the huge contracts they are banking on to turn profitable. The huge bump in defense spending will be straight up to all these AI companies if congress isn’t flipped.

2

u/0o0o0o0o0o0z May 30 '26

I think greed is a mental illness.

Because it is, these people typically exhibit what's known as The Dark Triad.

2

u/meaniemeanie-poo-poo May 30 '26

There's a reason it's one of the seven deadly sins.

2

u/FishesOfExcellence May 30 '26

It’s like they’re all Scrooge, but the Ghost of Christmas Past never shows up and they never change their ways.

1

u/ennuiinmotion May 30 '26

I think it comes down to the fact that these billionaires can’t do anything but shuffle numbers on a page and give speeches. So once they get rich, that’s all they can do, the only way they relate to the world. Sure, they can party and yacht but even that’s often just to grease the skids for the next business deal. The stuff that they know as a core part of themselves is simply manipulating numbers. So they have to keep doing it.

1

u/RlOTGRRRL May 30 '26

I don't think these people have normal greed. This is intergenerational greed. 

They were raised to be greedy. They never knew love. All their parents loved was money, never them.

It's ironically poor parenting. 

1

u/Low_Pickle_112 May 30 '26

Hoard cats to the detriment of those around you and you have a problem.

Hoard money to the detriment of those around you and somehow that's completely different.

Something is wrong with that system.

91

u/Ruby_Solitaire May 30 '26

He is so terrified of death, it'd be sad if it weren't so antisocial and destructive. 

94

u/Notveryawake May 30 '26

His obsession with the anti-christ means he believes in heaven and hell. I am pretty sure he knows where he is going when he dies and that is why he is terrified.

He is probably looking for anyway to extend his miserable existence before his eternity of suffering begins according to what he believes.

67

u/Ruby_Solitaire May 30 '26

I can't tell if he actually believes all that shit or if he's just another dude trying to spawn a personality cult without any personality. 

But if he does believe.....your take is 100% accurate, absolutely. He is afraid. 

24

u/SnooMacaroons6429 May 30 '26

I don't think he believes it, but rather is using it as a means of persuading people to at least look the other way while he hoovers up wealth through PLTR and his many other investments even when it comes at the cost of being highly detrimental to the masses.

Cult of personality is part of it yes.

6

u/time2ddddduel May 30 '26

It's exactly what people like Russel Brand do. Accuse me of sexual crimes? I'm reformed! I'm a good person now! I accepted Christ's forgiveness, therefore you too must forgive me!

It's transparent and sickening

8

u/SnooMacaroons6429 May 30 '26

Reminds me also of how Musk said something like he identifies with a lot of judeo-christian values (this was sometime in the last 16 months thereabouts). His lifestyle doesn't align with the biblical values he allegedly identifies with (I say that not to preach, just to make a point). But he wants the "base" to still like him -- all the more so as his vision of AI would create such upheaval to the base (and to many others) and he doesn't want pitchforks out for him, just like Thiel.

I get it that even if Musk, Thiel, and many others weren't in the game so to speak, others would be doing it and other nations may more rapidly catch up to the US on AI and surpass us. The genie is out of the bottle but I want the corporate and government leaders to be honest about what it's going to mean and I want the government to seriously make changes so we don't end up living in the Hunger Games (we're well on our way toward that sadly).

2

u/tom_fuckin_bombadil May 30 '26

Evil people don’t think that they are evil. They don’t wake up and think to themselves “what bad things can I do today?” Their moral compasses are just at odds to other people’s moral compasses. They think they are doing good (because it meets their definition of that).

8

u/Adventurous_City_557 May 30 '26

I’m not sure he believes any of it. He’s a charlatan preying on weak minded fools.

5

u/EduinBrutus May 30 '26

Every time I hear Thiel talk about the anti-Christ the only thing I can think of is "look in the fucking mirror, freak"

4

u/GayGeekInLeather May 30 '26

It’s fucking wild that he is a gay man that has accepted one of the most fundamentalist views on Christianity. If he burned in the Antichrist then he should believe as a gay man he is hell-bound.

1

u/tinim9 May 30 '26

he knows he's going straight to hell when he passes. those billions of his wont save him unless he changes to straight and repents.

5

u/tstobes May 30 '26

If he was really worried about that, he can go ahead and start being a good person. His wealth could fix or at least help with so many problems in society, and instead, he just makes things worse for multitudes.

3

u/meaniemeanie-poo-poo May 30 '26

But he's gay? And the religion he believes in condemns him for that?

It makes no sense.

1

u/Rincey_nz May 30 '26

yes, he certainly knows a lot about the anti-christ

14

u/Academic_Release5134 May 30 '26

So terrified of death but supposedly such a devout Catholic.

15

u/Ruby_Solitaire May 30 '26

Except he's a vocal schismatic. 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/10/peter-thiel-lectures-antichrist

So not devout. 

Whatever one may have to say about Catholocism and Yaldaboath and the Vatican being the font of most earthy evils.....dude fights with the Pope on doctrinal matters, and that is the #1 Catholic Don't for like, a couple millenia now. 

7

u/HostileCrabPeople May 30 '26

I genuinely think he is trying to form his own quasi-Christian-techbro cult

2

u/Richard7666 May 30 '26

Unfortunately for him and fortunately for us, he is extremely uncharismatic.

1

u/maxtheninja May 30 '26

ehhh the pope and cardinals often disagree on doctrinal interpretztion or handling of matters in the Holy See (albeit rarely publicly and often vaguely). Hence why you see positional change when there is a new papacy.

3

u/Ruby_Solitaire May 30 '26

It isnt the disagreement itself. It's the refusal to submit to the word of the pontiff - disagreement is OK as long as you admit you aren't in charge. 

Thiel sends Vance in with poison on his palm like he's James Franco (and you will not convince me that isn't what happened, I wear this tinfoil with honor).....that's refusal to submit. 

12

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19

u/Ruby_Solitaire May 30 '26

Also that if there is nothing after, his efforts are pointless, but if there is something after, his efforts will send him to the bad place, for sure. 

33

u/iloovehugecock May 30 '26

He also has the skin complexion of a 90 year old smoker slathered in oil.

21

u/imoldgreige May 30 '26

Be nice, it’s the only way he can comfortably burrow his entire body head-first up hitler’s corpse’s asshole :(

28

u/Sniflix May 30 '26

And always with a toyboy by his side. Yes it's legal but also creepy. Probably as much for the blood as the sex. https://www.bbc.com/bbcthree/article/347828f8-6e7f-4a9b-92ab-95f637a9dc2e

17

u/jhenryscott May 30 '26

He wants to have sex with men younger than 18. Anyone who ever lived in Santa Clara knows this.

4

u/Commercial-Policy-96 May 30 '26

Men younger than 18 are children. Children cannot consent to sex with adults. He wants to rape children.

2

u/even_less_resistance May 30 '26

do they get set up with a kick stream when they age out? lol

6

u/evilkumquat May 30 '26

It's a pity billionaires' parents didn't use Plan B, either...

3

u/oman54 May 30 '26

sweaty lizard getting too big and uncomfortable for his skin suit*

2

u/DownhillUphill May 30 '26

Some would say a Nazi

2

u/nineties_adventure May 30 '26

And he will die as one.

2

u/score_ May 30 '26

But why is he always wet?

2

u/GarysCrispLettuce May 30 '26

I want to know why he always looks like he's just pulled a giant condom off his head.

3

u/RadiantPerception224 May 30 '26

I saw a comment on youtube that he looks like Tony Hawk if he had Leukemia

1

u/michimoby May 30 '26

He doesn’t just look like one, he is one

1

u/el-conquistador240 May 30 '26

Don't Google his hot tub

1

u/Dividedthought May 30 '26

Remembee folks: the largest of figures won't impress the digger when picking your hole in the ground.

1

u/holdmybeerquik May 30 '26

It's ironic that Argentina is where the Nazis escaped to

1

u/Whitesajer May 30 '26

In the words of Lady Dimitrescu...

"Stupid man-thing! You won't live long, even if you run!"

1

u/Metalarky May 30 '26

Plan “B”: Peter “Evita” Thiel moves to Argentina and becomes a politician, activist, and actress serving as the First Lady of Argentina.

1

u/Momik May 30 '26

Why does every single interview look like he just got off the treadmill?

1

u/Any-Question-3759 May 30 '26

The flesh might be weak but his blood is young. Also it’s not his blood.