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The notion that many tech titans are indifferent to the fate of biological humanity isn’t just a figure of speech; it’s a core tenet of a powerful, yet often unseen, ideology. From prominent figures like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel to Sam Altman, a significant segment of Silicon Valley leadership adheres to a worldview that envisions the replacement of humans by advanced digital post-humans, viewing this as ultimate progress.
Philosopher, intellectual historian, and journalist Émile Torres sheds light on this concerning trend. In an interview, Torres explains that many Silicon Valley leaders embrace a transhumanist future where biological humans are succeeded by superintelligent digital entities. This explains their intense focus on artificial general intelligence (AGI) and forms the bedrock of what Torres terms “human extinctionist preferences.”
Understanding the TESCREAL Ideology
In 2023, Torres, alongside colleague Timnit Gebru, introduced the acronym TESCREAL to encapsulate this influential constellation of ideologies within Silicon Valley. It stands for:
- Transhumanism
- Extropianism
- Singularitarianism
- Cosmism
- Rationalism
- Effective Altruism
- Longtermism
At the heart of the TESCREAL worldview lies a techno-utopian vision: humanity develops advanced technologies to radically reengineer the human organism, creating a new, “post-human” species. This new species will then colonize the galaxy, eventually creating vast computer simulations populated by trillions of digital beings. The driving force behind this colossal endeavor is the mandate to maximize the total amount of “value” within the universe, with people serving as the “containers or substrates of value.”
The Impersonal Pursuit of Cosmic Value
This concept of “value” is crucial. Influenced by “totalist utilitarianism,” TESCREALism views value as impersonal. It doesn’t matter who benefits; what matters is that the universe contains more value, be it happiness, pleasure, or an abstract quantifiable metric. From a detached “cosmic eye” perspective, the universe is inherently better with more value, irrespective of individual sentient experience.
Torres points out a profound, almost religious and capitalist influence here: humans are not valued for their intrinsic worth, but rather as means to an end – the maximization of this abstract value. We are merely conduits for its creation, an “impersonalist understanding of value.”
Humans as “Biological Bootloaders”
Elon Musk’s infamous X post, describing humans as a “biological bootloader for digital superintelligence,” perfectly encapsulates this ideology. For TESCREALists, superintelligence is the ultimate engineer capable of solving any problem, from space colonization (a goal openly championed by Sam Altman of OpenAI) to reversing aging or uploading minds. Superintelligence could facilitate the utopian vision, or even completely replace humanity if the current species is deemed “unworthy” to fulfill the grand cosmic ambition.
These future “creatures” could manifest as simulations in virtual reality worlds or as digital entities inhabiting advanced android bodies that navigate our physical universe. The ultimate vision includes both: superintelligences colonizing space and constructing “planet-sized computers” to host virtual reality worlds teeming with simulated AI beings.
The Imperative of Radical Reengineering
The core transhumanist imperative is to radically reengineer humanity. Without this transformation – whether through mind uploading or the creation of an entirely new AGI species – ambitious goals like space colonization become unachievable in their view. Biological limitations are seen as obstacles to be overcome or discarded.
Rationalism’s Stark Logic
The ‘R’ in TESCREAL, Rationalism, founded by modern transhumanist Eliezer Yudkowsky, focuses on optimizing rationality to create these post-human successors. It advocates identifying and neutralizing cognitive biases and developing new decision theories for maximally rational choices. While aiming for rationality seems laudable, its extreme application leads to problematic conclusions.
Torres cites an example from Yudkowsky’s blog: choosing between one person tortured for 50 years versus an “unfathomable” number of people experiencing a “dust speck” in their eye. Yudkowsky’s “Shut up and multiply” slogan argues that, mathematically, the dust speck scenario is far worse, implying one should choose the torture option. This extreme rationalism prioritizes quantifiable outcomes over human emotion or suffering, revealing a deeply unsettling moral framework.
Eugenics, IQ, and the Roots of Discrimination
The TESCREAL movement also harbors a concerning worship of high IQ, leading into territory historically tied to eugenics. Many adherents are “IQ realists,” believing IQ measures an essential, inherited aspect of the human mind, despite widespread skepticism among psychologists and philosophers like Nassim Taleb, who argues IQ tests are largely meaningless above a certain threshold due to the multifaceted nature of intelligence.
Historically, IQ tests were developed by eugenicists with racist and sexist biases, aiming to “confirm” the superior intelligence of the “white race.” Torres highlights a clear continuity: TESCREAL leaders express anxieties about “dysgenic pressures” – the idea that “less intelligent” individuals might outbreed “more intelligent” ones, leading to a decline in population IQ. This echoes 20th-century eugenicist fears about non-white populations outbreeding white populations. Julian Huxley, a prominent eugenicist, was instrumental in introducing transhumanism, essentially framing it as “eugenics on steroids” – not just improving humanity, but creating an entirely “superior” post-human species.
Silicon Valley’s Powerful Adherents
This worldview isn’t confined to academic circles; it’s embraced by some of the most influential figures in tech. Marc Andreessen once included “TESCREALIST” in his Twitter bio, and Elon Musk has publicly stated that longtermism “is a close match for my philosophy.”
Musk, for instance, sees himself as a messianic figure pivotal to cosmic history, believing his work with xAI (ushering in AGI) and SpaceX (colonizing Mars) will launch humanity towards this techno-utopian vision. His anxieties about global population decline often carry a racial undertone, implying a concern for the decline of white populations, which he seemingly deems superior.
Peter Thiel’s reluctance to affirm the enduring value of the human race in a New York Times interview, quickly followed by a mention of transhumanism, further underscores this perspective. For many TESCREALists, the future utopia is for post-humans, not existing biological humans.
While Thiel’s view of post-humanity involves extensions of our biological bodies (biological transhumanism), many others in Silicon Valley envision a purely digital future (digital eugenics). Whether humans become these post-humans or merely create them (like AGI becoming separate entities), the overarching theme remains pro-extinctionist: the ultimate goal is a world ruled by post-humans.
An Undemocratic and Coercive Vision
The vision promoted by TESCREALism is inherently non-inclusive, elitist, and profoundly undemocratic. With vast financial resources, these tech billionaires are actively trying to shape a new world dominated by post-humans, entirely without the consent or input of the rest of humanity. They are driven by a deep conviction that their path is the only rational and correct one.
The rationalist community, highly influential in Silicon Valley, reinforces this belief: mastery of decision theory supposedly grants access to fundamental truths about the ideal future, making external perspectives unnecessary. This profound lack of democratic engagement in determining humanity’s collective future is, as Torres concludes, profoundly coercive, reflecting a belief that those in power, the “super intelligence for the moment,” don’t need anyone else’s opinion.