ClaimsPeter Thiel

“Even worse, like the Hydra, the enemy proliferated, so that for every slain jihadist, ten more arose to seek martyrdom in perverse emulation.”

Peter Thiel, essay author 2007 The Straussian Moment (gwern.net (PDF))

Factual Other global risks

For every jihadist killed after September 11, about ten more arose to seek martyrdom.

Unresolvable The public record could not settle it.

Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?

Reasoning

The 10-to-1 ratio of new jihadists per one killed is not measurable by any public record.

Cite this claim

Peter Thiel, “For every jihadist killed after September 11, about ten more arose to seek martyrdom.” (said 2007). Verdict: unresolvable. Reliability API, claim c_6d634d58851b, method 0.1.0+3e03e2df, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_6d634d58851b

This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.

Reply to this claim

For Peter Thiel, or someone speaking for them: a correction or counter-evidence. Replies are read before anything is shown; an approved reply shows your name, role, date, statement and link. Your email address is never shown and is deleted 30 days after the decision (privacy).

More factual claims by Peter Thiel

  1. Mostly false Factual 18 November 2024
    “The idea that the world was just too big a place, it could not possibly be destroyed, we didn't believe God would do it.”

    When people were writing about these things in the 18th and even 19th centuries, the idea was that the world was too big to be destroyed and that God would not do it.

  2. Resolved true Factual 18 November 2024
    “And then you end up building not dozens but thousands and thousands of them in the 60s and 70s.”

    Thousands of nuclear weapons, not just dozens, were built in the 1960s and 1970s.

  3. Mostly true Factual April 2024
    “We didn’t get that much terrorism, and we instead got the Patriot Act and incredible tracking of money flows, incredible monitoring of people.”

    After 9/11 there was not much terrorism, and instead the US got the Patriot Act, extensive tracking of money flows and monitoring of people.

  4. Mostly true Factual 30 September 2026
    “In Goethe's "Faust," he has a pact with the devil and he sort of gets this knowledge by morally dubious means.”

    In Goethe's Faust, Faust makes a pact with the devil and, in Thiel's words, "sort of" gains knowledge by morally dubious means.

  5. Mostly true Factual 30 September 2026
    “But it still always works out more for the best and Goethe's Faust gets redeemed.”

    In Goethe's Faust, things work out more for the best and Faust is redeemed.

All of them

Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.