Yes, though haven't dug into the Acts 17 Collective that is funding it. I guess the Commonwealth Club just caters to Silicon Valley fantasies now. This kind of language - that Peter "studied under" a philosopher at Stanford - shows the pretension, that he wants so badly to be seen as a scholar.
The pretension is their weak point. For all that Peter and his set say they want to tear down the system, they are just absolutely desperate to be part of it, fancy universities and credentials and fake-academic language.
Curious to understand how he reconciles Schmitt’s dread of disorder with the chaos-loving Trump. Strange choice.
Many of these guys seem to be infected by a moral pride that Christian thinking warns against but which Christians are sadly at least as prone to as anybody else. Their intelligence and success just add to the temptation.
Re them wanting to be part of the system, my sense was more that they view the current academy as a decadent remnant, and themselves as the true cutting edge of innovative thinking.
They say that, but they aren't breaking with the system, really. That would mean no ego-fluffing panel discussions at Stanford with introductions by the president, no fake-associations with a scholarly heritage ('studied under' would be pretentious even for a grad student).
Maybe the goal is takeover like with the gop.
Yes, that is exactly it.