Why Peter Thiel Fears “Star Trek”

A spectre haunts Peter Thiel: the spectre of “Star Trek.” Earlier this week, in a cheeky exchange with the Times columnist Maureen Dowd, Thiel dove headlong into one of science fiction’s most venerable debates. Asked by Dowd whether he was a bigger fan of “Star Wars” or “Star Trek,” Thiel replied that, as a capitalist, he preferred the former. “ ‘Star Trek’ is the communist one,” he said. “The whole plot of ‘Star Wars’ starts with Han Solo having this debt that he owes, and so the plot in ‘Star Wars’ is driven by money.” This latest salvo in an ongoing nerd battle would be all fun and games were it not for Thiel’s deep involvement with the incoming Trump Administration—first on the campaign trail, and then as an adviser to the President-elect on technology. In an era when politics and entertainment are more entangled than ever, pitting the feudal heroism of “Star Wars” against the cerebral and technocratic “Star Trek” becomes more meaningful than it probably should. We’re way past the 1986 “Saturday Night Live” sketch in which William Shatner told his obsessive fanboys to “get a life.”