tl;dr: A libertarian mindset among tech-affine people often goes together with political ideas that seem to promote freedom and progress, but really stand for a crypto-fascist neufeudalism, and the transhumanist idea that we can and need to take control of human evolution by technological means—in the narrow image of those who promote this view, and to the detriment of diverse people with other world views or ways of life.

The inclusion of Joscha Bach's talk at 39C3 and its subsequent cancellation, after his emails with Jeffrey Epstein were made public, has generated much needed discussion about this close connection between the libertarian right in tech, the TESCREAL bundle of throught schools (transhumanism, extropianism, singularitarianism, cosmism, rationalism, effective altruism, and longtermism), and covertly or overtly misogynist / queer- & transphobic / misanthropic patriarchical, autahoritarian, and fascist ideologies.

None of this is particularly new. Analysis of these connections stretches back decades. It reveals a shocking amount of supremacism, egotism, and immaturity, a profound lack of responsibility, the celebration of behavior that targets undesired minorities, and political incorrectness under the guise of "free speech," from the very beginnings of the tech industry to the present moment [1,2,3].

Last year, Bach presented at 38C3, where he reduced the human mind to software, fetishized the mismeasure of human intelligence by IQ, and called for the effective dehumanization of humanity (quote: "we anthropomorphize people way too much") [4].

Recently, another connection has been highlighted: that between transhumanist narratives and religious salvation myths [5,6] and apocalyptic revelations [7,8]. The basic idea is that our world is about to unravel and our capacities will soon be outclassed by superintelligent machines that—for all practical purposes—take on the role of god(s). For the accelerationist, this is a good thing because, with the proper alignment, it will enable us to upload our minds to the cloud, live forever, and thus conquer the galaxy. For the doomer, surprisingly, this is not a bad thing either, because humanity is but an intermediate stage—crossing Nietzsche's famous rope—between the primitive ape descending from the trees and the infallible machines that will inevitably replace us, marking the next step in some sort of strange imagined Great Chain of Being. Human extinction, therefore, is to be welcomed.

In these hypermodern apocalypse myths, God and the devil in the traditional religious narrative have simply been replaced by our future machine overlords. Just take Peter Thiel's invocation of the antichrist (nicely contextualized and summarized in [7,8]), some sinister force that prevents technological progress from saving humanity and leading us into our glorious future. Or Bach himself who—in an interview on the Jim Rutt Show—outlined an Aquinean approach to alignment: all it takes to get along with AGI is love, hope, and faith [9]. The apotheotic drive behind all this is not exactly subtle.

Such dramatic-sounding (and weirdly spiritual) visions of the future cover up a dark political agenda, sometimes called the dark enlightenment [10,11], which is being implemented in their shadow: a totalitarian form of libertarian neufeudalism designed to enrich a very small elite of billionaires at the cost of the rest of humanity and the ecological health of our planet. The idea is for the chosen few to survive the coming megacrisis without having to worry about us—the other 98%. This side of transhumanism looks more like a crazed end-time cult than the pan-rationalist utopia it pretends to be in public.

This entire view is based on an astonishing amount of hubris. It reveals a lack of empathy and human connection. It is also completely detached from reality, assuming technological capabilities and an individual capacity to survive that are very unlikely to ever come to pass. It is a myth in both senses of the term: a visionary narrative for this epoch of late-stage capitalism, but also a foolish fairy tale with no relevance to what is actually going on.

What explains the appeal of such a delusional and anti-human ideology?

One reason is widespread ignorance when it comes to the true nature of this heterogeneous movement. It does not even try to hide from view but—backed by a spittle-licking tech-media information ecosystem and the idea that "boys will be boys" but that's not too harmful and, anyway, this phase will pass—it manages to cover its tracks quite effectively and to get away with pretty much anything at the moment—even buying itself a Vice President of the U.S. of A. [12].

The second reason is the following: in this time of looming crisis, a lot of us are looking for positive visions of the future, for narratives that suggest workable paths our of our current predicament. This is why many otherwise intelligent and tech-savvy folks are surprisingly susceptible to the dangerous and anti-social delusion of the hypermodern myth of technological salvation. We desperately want it to be true.

Workshop Format: (60 min)

This workshop consists of a short (10 min) introductory talk by Yogi Jaeger, which summarizes the main theses of his 2023 essay on tech-transcendentalism [5], followed by comments from ElleJay.

The main part of the workshop consists of a moderated deliberative discussion with the audience. We want to exchange ideas and perspectives, as well as experiences, especially from the standpoints of different minority groups impacted by this ideology.

The aim of our deliberations is to raise awareness of the presence and influence of transhumanist crypto-fascism in the community, and to come up with specific strategies how to oppose this problematic ideology while providing alternative visions for a thriving and diverse humanity in the 21st century.

The time is perfect to raise this important topic at 39C3—not just because of the debate about Bach, but also because it seems to be garnering more and more attention, at least in English-speaking world.

References:

[1] Paulina Borsook (2001). Cyberselfish: A Critical Romp through the Terribly Libertarian Culture of High Tech (New York: PublicAffairs).

[2] Meghan O'Gieblyn (2021). God, Human, Animal, Machine: Technology, Metaphor, and the Search for Meaning (New York: Doubleday). Neatly summarized here: https://youtu.be/mgqdSJrutXg.

[3] The Nerd Reich Podcast: Gil Duran interviews Paulina Borsook: https://youtu.be/DL-kwZdkiOA.

[4] Documented in this Mastodon thread by Aline Blankertz: https://indieweb.social/@alineblankertz/113808990876980594.

[5] Mary-Jane Rubenstein (2022). Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).

[6] In this blog from 2023, Jaeger compares tech-transcendentalism to the medieval catholic salvation myth: https://www.johannesjaeger.eu/blog/machine-metaphysics-and-the-cult-of-techno-transcendentalism.

[7] The Nerd Reich Podcast: Gil Duran talks to Robert Fuller and Matthew Fox about Peter Thiel's "Antichrist" lectures: https://youtu.be/KegSMO9XcIY.

[8] The Nation: "Peter Thiel is the real Antichrist," https://www.thenation.com/podcast/archive/twsu112025.

[9] Joscha Bach in one of his three appearances on the Jim Rutt Show: https://www.jimruttshow.com/currents-joscha-bach.

[10] Guardian article on Curtis Yarvin (a.k.a. Mencius Moldbug): https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/21/curtis-yarvin-trump.

[11] Nick Land's coining of "Dark Englightenment" is described in this essay: https://socialecologies.wordpress.com/2012/10/10/nick-land-on-the-dark-enlightenment.

[12] See, for example: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jd-vance-trump-vp-peter-thiel-billionaire.