Yes, Peter Thiel is an anagram of The Reptile. No, he isn’t literally a lizard man, any more biolgically related to a literal reptile than any other human. Unfortunately, his behavior is human. Psychopaths are human.
I suspect that at least some of the conspiracy theorists saw a lot of “cold-blooded” looking people in in power. Those without empathy, and the mirror neurons needed to produce normal body language and responses that look like candid and emotion- tinted, socially normal human movements.
It’s a known thing that sociopaths and psychopaths can rise to the top in corporate structures. A lot of our “leaders” in politics etc, seem to lack empathy and this could easily be symbolized in someone mind as being lizard-like. The collective hints would be more obvious and disturbing to more sensitive people, causing their minds to do the pattern recognition and symbolisms needed to create reptilian conspiracies.
So maybe the conspiracy theorists were an early warning for the nonsense we are seeing now in politics.
It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see…" “You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?” “No,” said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, “nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.” “Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.” “I did,” said Ford. “It is.” “So,” said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t people get rid of the lizards?” “It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.” “You mean they actually vote for the lizards?” “Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course.” “But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?” “Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?” “What?” “I said,” said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, “have you got any gin?” “I’ll look. Tell me about the lizards.” Ford shrugged again. “Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happenned to them,” he said. “They’re completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone’s got to say it.” “But that’s terrible,” said Arthur. “Listen, bud,” said Ford, "if I had one Altairian dollar for every time I heard one bit of the Universe look at another bit of the Universe and say ‘That’s terrible’ I wouldn’t be sitting here like a lemon looking for a gin.
This rant reminded me of a book, The Wisdom of Psychopaths. It was a humanistic look at the inner workings of such people and their fundamentally limited experience of human emotion.
The job of a CEO might be difficult for someone like me. Long hours, high stakes, endless political intrigues, systematically exploiting labourers - but to a psychopath, all they see is big opportunities, excitement, and cruel delights. The position is one that seems oddly suited for one who lacks pity, remorse, or a need for emotionally substantive experiences.
And now we see where that road leads. We never should have given them this much power.
I could do a spiel about how capitalism systematically favours psychopathy, but we can skip it this time, as a treat
Actually, no. We shouldn’t skip it. Capitalism favours psychopathy. It should be repeated again and again!
Sounds like you just volunteered. Get after it!
i think it would be more comforting to think its reptilians in power rather than humans who act like that.
It’s from the 1980s film/TV series, “V”.
All of these conspiracy theory nuts believe the most banal stupid crap.
series V, the new one too, and BSG the og series. had an advanced alien race behind the cylons creations, but relative unknown to the humans. plus there was speculative rdinosaur evolution documentaries that evolved into humanoid reptiles.
Mousies!
This is a smear campaign against lizards. /s
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Having a pet lizard has made me have a hard time taking the “lizard people/reptilians” conspiracy theorists seriously. Like, have these people actually been around reptiles? Deeply unserious creatures. Not generally social, sure, but they definitely have body language and would fail terribly at running some kind of complex scheme.
Yes, this shower thought is guilty of being insulting to reptiles, who are generally very good.
Nice try, The Reptile!!
It’s a known thing that sociopaths and psychopaths can rise to the top in corporate structures.
It’s not just that they can - they excel at it. Maybe basing our economic system on greed and competition was a bad idea?
Also a lot of politicians can lick their own eyes.
That’s not good for the eyes. 8|
If imagining the elites are lizard people helps people come to terms with the need for violent revolution then I’m fine with it honestly.
Ted Cruz is the lizard, though. I can tell, not from his lack of body language cues, but simply because his human-skin suit is so ill-fitting. Also, as a cold-blooded creature, he leaves for warmer places (like Cancun) when Texas gets too cold.
Until this post I never considered whether Peter Thiel is a reptile, but now I’m sure he is!
I don’t like the word “psychopath” because if you look at the etymology, it’s just Greek for “mentally ill person”. I don’t like the association our language historically has between evil people and mentally ill people.
“mentally ill but functional and well off enough to make that everyone elses problem” doesn’t roll off the tungue though
I don’t think evil is a mental illness. I don’t think medicalising evil accomplishes anything good.
The origninal phrasing was not with the intent to equate “bad behavior” with “psychopaths”. Two seperate things. Both human though. May or may not be related to peter theil. Definitely both concepts related to the topic of reptilian conspiracy.
My boss’s boss is eerily kinda like that. She gives me the creeps because she’s also trained as a nurse and she could probably kill if she wanted to and get away with it.
Sounds like a truly dangerous person. Power does not look good on certain people.
In as much as (there is some evidence to suggest that) sociopaths lack the capacity for empathy on a neurological level, given that empathy is a recent evolutionary capacity unique to mammals, it could be argued that sociopaths are less mammalian in a crucial sense than typical humans.
Moreover, as I understand it, some of our neurological systems were inherited or developed from pre-mammalian evolutionary ancestors.
So…from a certain point of view…this crazy conspiracy shit can be made to seem slightly more plausible. In a mundane kind of way.
Presumably, people whose brains lack these later distinctively mammalian neurological systems perceive the world, social interactions, and ethics very differently.
They don’t necessarily lack the empathy systems, like reptiles. Some just have additional mammalian systems to use their empathy selectively. For their puppies and dogs, empathy on. For minorities or anyone different from them, empathy off.
