Is Peter Thiel the target of Pope Leo’s Gandalf quote? An investigation.

彼得·蒂尔是教皇利奥引用甘道夫名言的目标吗？一项调查。

I’m not suggesting that a man like Pope Leo—the Vicar of Christ, the Bishop of Rome, the Servant of the Servants of God—would stoop to anything quite so base as “trolling” the onetime PayPal co-founder and current Antichrist alarmist Peter Thiel. But I’m also not not suggesting it, if you see what I mean. 我并不是在暗示像教皇利奥这样的人——基督的代理人、罗马主教、上帝仆人之仆——会卑微到去“钓鱼”嘲讽前 PayPal 联合创始人、现任“敌基督”警报主义者彼得·蒂尔（Peter Thiel）。但如果你明白我的意思，我也不是完全在否认这种可能性。

How else to explain the novel appearance of Gandalf—yes, the pipe-smoking wizard!—in the pages of one of Catholicism’s most important documents, a major papal encyclical about AI and technology? Perhaps Leo, who was born and raised in Chicago before spending decades in Peru, is simply a big J.R.R. Tolkien buff who can’t get enough of magic rings, Eldar lore, and tricksy little hobbitses. Or perhaps Leo is sending a message. 否则，该如何解释甘道夫——没错，就是那个抽烟斗的巫师！——竟然出现在天主教最重要的文件之一、一份关于人工智能与技术的重要教皇通谕中？也许在芝加哥出生长大、随后在秘鲁度过几十年的利奥，仅仅是一位 J.R.R. 托尔金的超级粉丝，对魔戒、精灵传说和狡猾的小霍比特人情有独钟。又或者，利奥是在传递某种信息。

In his new encyclical, released yesterday, Leo quotes one literary character in the entire 40,000-word document. It’s Gandalf, doling out some of his wisdom in a scene from Return of the King: “It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.” 在昨天发布的这份新通谕中，利奥在整篇 4 万字的文件里只引用了一位文学人物。那就是甘道夫，他在《王者归来》的一个场景中分享了他的智慧：“我们的职责不是掌控世间所有的潮汐，而是尽我们所能去救助我们所处的时代，铲除我们所知领域内的邪恶，好让后人有干净的土地可以耕耘。”

Leo connects this speech with the “civilization of love” that he calls for in the document, stressing (as Tolkien did) the importance of “small and steadfast acts of fidelity that serve as a bulwark against dehumanization.” The Gandalf quote, innocuous on its own, feels more pointed when you realize how Tolkien is valorized (Valar-ized?) in conservative tech circles today. Peter Thiel is one of the most powerful people in such circles—and he is a Tolkien fanboy in the worst way. 利奥将这段话与他在文件中呼吁的“爱的文明”联系起来，并（像托尔金一样）强调了“微小而坚定的忠诚行为，作为抵御非人化堡垒”的重要性。甘道夫的这段引言本身并无恶意，但当你意识到托尔金在当今保守派科技圈中是如何被推崇（甚至被“维拉化”）时，这段话就显得意有所指了。彼得·蒂尔是这些圈子里最有权势的人之一，而且他还是一个极其狂热的托尔金粉丝。

Fellowship of the bling

权力的“魔戒”远征队

As far back as 2012, people were running articles on how “Peter Thiel, the first outside investor in Facebook, is a huge fan of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series of fantasy books.” Business Insider noted that “Thiel’s inner circle seems well aware of his fondness for Tolkien’s world of elves and magic. One source who claims to be close to Thiel says there’s an in-joke about his venture-capital firm, the Founders Fund, being nicknamed ‘The Precious.’” 早在 2012 年，就有文章报道称“Facebook 的首位外部投资者彼得·蒂尔是 J.R.R. 托尔金《指环王》奇幻系列小说的超级粉丝”。《商业内幕》指出：“蒂尔的核心圈子似乎非常清楚他对比精灵和魔法世界的喜爱。一位自称与蒂尔关系密切的消息人士称，他的风险投资公司 Founders Fund 有一个内部笑话，被戏称为‘宝贝’（The Precious，指魔戒）。”

Thiel has named many of his companies after Tolkien’s world. He co-founded the AI-focused Palantir. He launched Mithril Capital Management. He co-founded the fintech venture capital firm Valar Ventures. He has other companies named Rivendell One and Lembas LLC. Thiel protégés include current US Vice President J.D. Vance, who has called Tolkien his favorite author and who once founded a venture capital firm called Narya (one of the Elvish rings of power). 蒂尔以托尔金世界中的名字命名了许多公司。他联合创立了专注于人工智能的 Palantir（真知晶球）。他创办了 Mithril（秘银）资本管理公司。他联合创立了金融科技风险投资公司 Valar Ventures（维拉）。他还有其他名为 Rivendell One（瑞文戴尔一号）和 Lembas LLC（兰巴斯面包）的公司。蒂尔的门生包括现任美国副总统 J.D. 万斯，他曾称托尔金是他最喜欢的作家，并曾创立过一家名为 Narya（纳雅，精灵三戒之一）的风险投资公司。

Palmer Luckey, who launched his own Tolkien-themed tech/defense startup called Anduril, is also “launching a new digital bank with backing from Peter Thiel,” Fortune reported last year. The bank’s name? Erebor, naturally, another name for the Lonely Mountain, where Smaug slept atop piles of gold in The Hobbit. 据《财富》杂志去年报道，创办了以托尔金为主题的科技/国防初创公司 Anduril（安都瑞尔圣剑）的帕尔默·拉奇（Palmer Luckey），也正在“在彼得·蒂尔的支持下创办一家新的数字银行”。这家银行的名字叫什么？自然是 Erebor（孤山），也就是《霍比特人》中史矛革睡在金堆之上的那座山的名字。

Thiel and his circle like a good fantasy story. So what? According to The New York Times, even the current leader of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, used to cosplay Tolkien characters and attend “Hobbit Camps,” where she “sang along with the extremist folk band Compagnia dell’Anello, or Fellowship of the Ring.” But Thiel isn’t just one more investor with a Tolkien fetish. He has also been proclaiming a fairly idiosyncratic version of Christianity for years. His message has recently taken the form of a multi-night, four-lecture series about the looming dangers of “the Antichrist,” a figure drawn from the Book of Revelation who opposes everything Jesus stood for. And he doesn’t seem to be a big fan of the Pope. 蒂尔和他的圈子喜欢精彩的奇幻故事。那又怎样？据《纽约时报》报道，甚至连现任意大利领导人乔治亚·梅洛尼也曾扮演过托尔金的角色，并参加过“霍比特人夏令营”，在那里她“与极端民谣乐队‘指环王远征队’一起唱歌”。但蒂尔不仅仅是一个有托尔金情结的投资者。多年来，他一直在宣扬一种相当独特的基督教版本。他最近的信息以一系列为期数晚、共四场的讲座形式呈现，主题是关于“敌基督”迫在眉睫的危险——这是一个源自《启示录》的人物，反对耶稣所代表的一切。而且，他似乎并不是教皇的粉丝。

The Antichrist loves peace and safety

敌基督热爱“和平与安全”

Thiel’s Antichrist tour has taken him around the world, including Rome, where earlier this year the Associated Press said that Thiel’s “invitation-only conference” became “so controversial that the Catholic universities initially associated with it have all denied official involvement.” While the lectures have been private, recordings of them have leaked. The Guardian has a nice write-up on them, saying that Thiel’s “beliefs are diffuse, meandering, and often confusing, but one tenet he’s steadfastly maintained over the years is that the unification of the world under one global state is essentially identical to the Antichrist.” Thiel worries especially about a “woke American pope” making common cause with a “woke American president,” which could lead to the world domination he fears. 蒂尔的“敌基督”巡回演讲带他走遍了世界各地，包括罗马。美联社今年早些时候报道称，蒂尔的“受邀者会议”变得“极具争议，以至于最初与之相关的天主教大学都否认了官方参与”。虽然讲座是私下的，但录音已经泄露。《卫报》对此做了很好的报道，称蒂尔的“信仰分散、漫无边际且经常令人困惑，但他多年来坚定不移地坚持的一个原则是：在单一全球国家下实现世界统一，本质上等同于敌基督。”蒂尔特别担心一位“觉醒的美国教皇”与一位“觉醒的美国总统”结盟，这可能导致他所恐惧的世界统治。

You can see how Thiel’s ideas—I use the word with hesitation—might come to the attention of the current, US-born Pope. But Popes don’t generally stoop to Tolkien-quote battles with those who dislike them, so why now? Perhaps it’s because Thiel, despite his professed Christianity, represents a sort of tech messianism. It is technology that could save the world from the “stagnation” that grips it, he said repeatedly on a New York Times podcast interview in 2025. And the technology that could best help break this cultural stagnation is AI. Therefore, we should take the guardrails off AI, despite the risks. 你可以看出蒂尔的这些想法——我迟疑地使用了这个词——是如何引起现任美国出生的教皇注意的。但教皇通常不会屈尊与那些不喜欢他们的人进行托尔金式的引言之战，那么为什么是现在呢？也许是因为蒂尔尽管自称是基督徒，却代表了一种科技弥赛亚主义。他在 2025 年接受《纽约时报》播客采访时反复表示，是技术可以拯救世界免于陷入“停滞”。而最能帮助打破这种文化停滞的技术就是人工智能。因此，尽管存在风险，我们也应该拆除人工智能的护栏。

“I still think we should be trying AI, and that the alternative is just total stagnation. So yeah, there’s all sorts of interesting things can happen with—maybe drones in a military context are combined with AI. And OK, this is 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. I’m old enough to remember life before AI. It certainly seemed like some things were going on.” “我仍然认为我们应该尝试人工智能，否则唯一的选择就是彻底的停滞。所以，是的，人工智能可能会带来各种有趣的事情——也许是军事背景下的无人机与人工智能相结合。好吧，这很可怕、危险或反乌托邦，或者它会改变一切。但如果你没有人工智能，哇，那就什么都不会发生。我年纪够大，还记得人工智能出现前的生活。当时看起来确实发生了一些事情。”

But to Thiel, people and governments who stand in the way of AI—especially if they in some sense represent the dreaded one-world governance of his nightmares—are themselves possible Antichrists. If you think I’m making this theory sound crazier than it is, here’s Thiel saying that his worries about “peace and safetyism”—i.e., regulation—are di… 但在蒂尔看来，阻碍人工智能的人和政府——特别是如果他们在某种意义上代表了他噩梦中可怕的“世界政府”——本身可能就是敌基督。如果你认为我把这个理论说得太疯狂了，那么请看蒂尔本人所说的，他对“和平与安全主义”——即监管——的担忧是……