Episode 85: Eugenics In Space
Welcome to the HoosLeft Podcast, a show about Indiana politics, history, and culture from an unapologetically leftist perspective. My name is Scott Aaron Rogers, and I’m recording from Bloomington.
In this space, we’ve spoken often of Christian nationalism, its different strains, and its deep intertwining with the MAGA movement. We understand their governing philosophy as inherently theocratic and the apocalypticism that drives many in this milieu to literally seek the end of civilization. But what about another major driver of far-right authoritarianism, the Silicon Valley tech oligarchs? What motivates them, why do partner with this group with whom they have so seemingly little in common? Is it greed… or something more?
My guest today has spent the last fifteen years studying eschatology - the philosophy of human extinction - and sees something far more sinister than a desire for more tax cuts at work.
Dr. Émile Torres is a moral philosopher, intellectual historian, and journalist whose work focuses on the ethics of emerging technologies, especially AI, and human extinction. They have published four books, the most recent of which is Human Extinction: A History of the Science and Ethics of Annihilation (Routledge 2024). In 2023, with Dr. Timnit Gebru, they coined the acronym “TESCREAL” to denote a constellation of ideologies that have become very influential within Silicon Valley. These ideologies have played an integral role in launching, sustaining, and accelerating the current race to build artificial general intelligence, or AGI, which TESCREAL advocates believe will usher in a utopian world of immortality, endless abundance, and space colonization—that is, unless “God-like AI” annihilates us instead. Torres has published in a wide range of academic journals, including Synthese, Inquiry, Bioethics, Metaphilosophy, and Futures, as well as popular media outlets such as The Washington Post, New Statesman, Los Angeles Review of Books, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and Aeon. They are a contributing writer at Truthdig and, formerly, Salon.
Torres received a BA in philosophy at the University of Maryland and an MS in neuroscience from Brandeis University. In 2023, they received their PhD in philosophy from Leibniz Universität Hannover, in Germany, and are currently a postdoctoral scholar at the Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence at Case Western Reserve University.
In this conversation, we’ll learn about the TESCREAL bundle of ideologies and the subtle differences between these different beliefs. We’ll look at the consequences of carrying these ideas to their logical conclusions, as well as the uncanny overlap some of these philosophies share with Nazism.
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Now, here is my interview with Dr. Émile Torres
Things We Talked About:
A Brief History of the Religious Right: https://www.thearda.com/us-religion/history/timelines/entry?etype=3&eid=17
HoosLeft Christian Nationalism Overview with Dr. Andrew Whitehead: https://www.hoosleft.us/p/episode-41-handling-snakes-christian
HoosLeft Charismatic Pentecostal Episode with Dr. Matthew Taylor: https://www.hoosleft.us/p/episode-46-new-apostolic-reformation
HoosLeft Catholic Integralism Episode with Dr. Karen Park: https://www.hoosleft.us/p/episode-48-the-catholic-strain-of
HoosLeft - How Mainline Protestants Planted the Seeds of Christian Nationalism: https://www.hoosleft.us/p/episode-74-sowing-a-wicked-garden
Why Mainstream Media Thinks the Oligarchs Went MAGA: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-oligarchs-musk-bezos-zuckerberg-1235242625/
Gebru/Torres Article Introducing TESCREAL Bundle: https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/13636/11599
A Philosophical History of Transhumanism: https://philosophynow.org/issues/160/A_Philosophical_History_of_Transhumanism
Kurzweil Introduces Concept of ‘The Singularity’: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-singularity-is-near-when-humans-transcend-biology-ray-kurzweil/16465397
Deepmind: https://deepmind.google/about/
Eliezer Yudkowsky and Rationalism: https://www.readthesequences.com/
Cognitive Bias & Rationality: https://www.eipa.eu/blog/cognitive-biases-in-the-workplace/
The Trolley Problem: https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/religion-and-philosophy/trolley-problem
Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX, and Effective Altruism: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23500014/effective-altruism-sam-bankman-fried-ftx-crypto
SBF Interview with Tucker Carlson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN1CR2dyfo8
How the EA Movement Created SBF: https://www.semafor.com/article/12/07/2022/charity-money-launched-sam-bankman-frieds-empire
The Debate Over Utilitarianism: https://rintintin.colorado.edu/~vancecd/phil1100/Rachels2.pdf
Utilitarianism & Laissez-Faire Capitalism: https://brownpoliticalreview.org/utilitarianism-market-economy/
Utilitarianism & The Industrial Revolution: https://simplelinesdegrowth.wordpress.com/2018/02/20/hard-times-dickens/
Sagan’s Population Calculation: https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1983QJRAS..24..113S
Three-Mile Island to Power Microsoft Data Center: https://www.npr.org/2024/09/20/nx-s1-5120581/three-mile-island-nuclear-power-plant-microsoft-ai
“Liberal Eugenics”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_eugenics
The Eternal Return of Eugenics: https://www.livre-rare-book.com/book/5472549/46363 (in French)
Nazis Inspired by American Policies: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2004/feb/06/race.usa
California’s Longstanding Eugenics Policies: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/30/california-prisons-forced-sterilizations-belly-beast
Japan’s Post-War Eugenics: https://journals.openedition.org/cjs/2338
Yudkowsky’s Dissertation: https://intelligence.org/files/IEM.pdf
SBF Planned to Buy Nauru: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/21/sam-bankman-fried-nauru-bunker-ftx
Accelerationism: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/11/accelerationism-how-a-fringe-philosophy-predicted-the-future-we-live-in
The Merging of Transhumanism and Traditionalism: https://www.truthdig.com/articles/machine-learning-maga-rise-of-the-christian-cyborg/
Can God Work Through AI: https://www.movieguide.org/news-articles/new-survey-finds-people-believe-god-can-work-through-ai.html
Russell Brand Converts Amidst Controversy: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-unlikely-christian-conversion-of-russell-brand/
Rogan Attending Church: https://www.christianpost.com/news/joe-rogan-opens-up-about-going-to-christian-church.html
EA Movement $46 Billion in Committed Funding Before FTX Crash: https://80000hours.org/2021/07/effective-altruism-growing
Once again, that was Dr. Émile Torres, moral philosopher and postdoctoral scholar at the Inamori International Center for Ethics and Excellence at Case Western Reserve University.
That’s a lot to digest - and I’m still digesting the Five Non-Negotiables of the Left from a couple weeks ago. I’m still putting together a platform along those lines for Indiana, and let’s add an essay on today’s topic to the list of writing I owe you all. Put it on my tab - I’m about to take a short vacation.
But I will still be with you this Sunday morning, when I’ll be back with an all new panel of guests on HoosLeft This Week. That airs live at 10:30am ET on the Project Next Media network - YouTube, FaceBook Live, and Twitch - links in the show notes. It’s a lot of fun if you haven’t had a chance to check us out yet. I bring together panelists from the democratic socialist left to never-Trump conservatives and we look at the week’s headlines from around Indiana and beyond. We’ll also dive into one big topic and throw in a few jokes for good measure. Hope to see you there in the comments, but feel free to reach out before then - my email is scott@hoosleft.us.
Thanks again to Dr. Torres. Learn more about their work at xriskology.com and consider buying their most recent book Human Extinction: A History of the Science and Ethics of Annihilation. That’s a college-level textbook and priced like it, so you may have better luck on the used market. And while you’ve got your credit card out, why not sign up for a paid subscription at HoosLeft.US, where you’ll find all of my work. I’m also on Facebook, Bluesky, YouTube and TikTok at HoosLeft or on most other social media sites at ScottRog78, where you can hit me up with feedback, tips, ideas, and concerns. Please forward the show to a friend and have them pass it on. Let’s keep building this project - and a truly democratic state - one conversation at a time. Until the next one, this has been the HoosLeft podcast. I’m Scott Aaron Rogers. Love each other, Indiana.
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