Peter Thiel’s Evil Is ‘Kind Of Good’ Explanation Goes Viral

Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel is going viral for an eye-rolling explanation about why evil can actually be “kind of good” when you think about it.

Thiel shared his thoughts while talking about whether artificial intelligence will be a net positive or negative for society during a conversation with German media mogul Mathias Döpfner published online last Thursday.

“I’m going to get in trouble for what I’m about to say. I think we moralize way too much,” he said, agreeing with Döpfner’s earlier point about technology being neutral, and the way people use it is what yields either good or bad results.

But from there, Thiel’s comments spiraled into a convoluted yet clichéd tangent about why he thinks “if you’re evil, you’re not bad,” if you’re talking in terms of effectiveness.

“There’s always a question I like to ask: What is the antonym of good?” the tech billionaire began. “The moral antonym is evil. The functional antonym is bad.”

“A Ferrari is an evil car because it doesn’t get many miles per gallon,” he went on, acting as if people are constantly conflating the concepts of bad and evil.

Performing some truly tired linguistic gymnastics, Thiel then said, “So, you know, if you’re evil, you’re at least competent. And if you’re evil, you’re not bad, and therefore you’re actually maybe kind of good because you’re at least getting something done.”

“I think it’s better to be good than evil,” he did later clarify.

While Thiel’s little thought experiment seemed more pointless than nefarious in context, the double-speak didn’t land well once clips started gaining steam on the internet.

“Right wingers: Billionaires aren’t the problem it’s actually trans people and immigrants,” one critic wrote. “Billionaire: I am literally evil. I am not joking. I love being evil.”

While defenders argued Thiel’s words were being taken out of context, maybe it was hard to read the hackneyed “evil is good” spiel earnestly when coming from a man who made much of his fortune from the shady surveillance and data company Palantir, previously donated $1.25 million to help elect President Donald Trump, and has recently been touring around a lecture series on the topic of The Antichrist.