While there is an extensive mosaic of ideas and philosophies that drive these visions, three characteristics play a central role, says Adam Becker, a scientific and astrophysical writer: an unwavering certainty that technology can solve any problem, a belief in the need for perpetual growth and a quasi-religious obsession with physical and biological limits. In his new timely book, More everything forever: Lords of AI, Space Empires and the Silicon Valley Crusade to control the destiny of humanity, Becker calls this triumvirate of beliefs the “ideology of technological salvation” and warns that technological titans are using it to lead humanity in a dangerous direction.
“In most of these ISM you will find the idea of escape and transcendence, as well as the promise of a surprising future, full of unimaginable wonders, provided we do not get in the path of technological progress.”
“The credibility that technological billionaires give to these specific science fiction futures validates their search for further– portray the growth of their businesses as a moral imperative, to reduce the complex problems of the world to simple technology issues, [and] To justify almost any action you want to take, “he writes. Becker argues that the only way to free themselves from these visions is to see them for what they are: a convenient excuse to continue destroying the environment, the regulations of the skirts, accumulate more power and control, and discard today’s very real problems to focus on the imagined tomorrow.
Many critics, academics and journalists have tried to define or distill the spirit of Silicon Valley over the years. There was The “Californian ideology“In the mid -90s, the era” Move Fast and Break Things “from the early 2000s, and more recently the “Libertarism for me, feudalism for you“ either “techno-authoritarian“Views. How do you see the” ideology of technological salvation “?
I would say that it is a great piece with those previous attempts to describe the mentality of Silicon Valley. I mean, you can draw a beautiful straight line from Max More of Transhumanism In the 90s to Californian ideology [a mashup of countercultural, libertarian, and neoliberal values] What I call the ideology of technological salvation. The fact is that many of the ideas that define or encourage Silicon Valley’s thinking have never been a mystery: libertarism, an antipathy towards government and regulation, unlimited faith in technology, obsession with optimization.
What can be difficult is to analyze where all these ideas come from and how they fit, or if they fit at all. It occurred to me the ideology of technological salvation as a way of naming and shaping a group of interrelated concepts and philosophies that may seem extensive and poorly defined at the beginning, but that actually sit in the center of a worldview shared by risk capitalists, executives and other thought leaders in the technology industry.
Readers will probably be familiar with technological billionaires who appear in their book and at least some of their ambitions. I suppose they will be less familiar with the various “ISM” who argue that they have influenced or guided their thinking. Effective altruism, rationalism, long term, extrapianism, effective accelerationism, futurism, singularitarianism,Transhumanism“There are many of them.” Is there anything you share?
They are definitely connected. In a sense, it could be said that all are versions or instantiations of the ideology of technological salvation, but there are also some very deep historical connections between people in these groups and their objectives and beliefs. He Estpians In the late 80s, it was believed in self-transformation through technology and freedom of the limitations of any kind, ideas that Ray Kurzweil eventually helped popularize and legitimize himself for a broader audience with The singularity.
In most of these ISM, you will find the idea of escape and transcendence, as well as the promise of an incredible future, full of unimaginable wonders, provided we do not get in the way of technological progress. I must say that the researcher of the Timnit Gebru and the philosopher Émile Torres have also done a lot of work Linking these ideologies with each other and showing how everyone has links with racism, misogenesis and eugenics.
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