I had pretty much the same reaction when I heard JD Vance’s speech “Techno optimism vs. populism” and when Project Stargate was announced. I worry about Vance and his relationship to Peter Thiel in all this rhetoric. You hit the nail on the head with this. Nice take!
Hmm. Going to have to read that. First take is that Vance's trad Catholic beliefs will triumph but it is worthy of concern. I have always wondered whether Thiel's corporate name (Palantir) was a warning or an aspiration.
I would hope so, about his Catholic beliefs. But sometimes even inherently good people, of good faith, can be influenced by their benefactors. Especially those linked to the industrial military complex. I linked an article that has a video at the bottom of the page, if you want to see the speech.
Thx. I tend to think that hubris is the way that really smart people get into trouble and sincere religious beliefs should be a protection against that.
They have try something else because the covid debacle didn't cull the herd enough. I can't remember who said it but "Man is born with a God-shaped hole inside." They're trying to fill the hole with the antithesis of God instead of God Himself.
Interesting to me is the seeming parallel between techno-optimism and the Biblical accounts of Israel of the prophets’ time making idols and “worshipping the works of their hands.” It would seem that AI and techno-optimism are a form of idolatry. If Biblical accounts are true, and I believe they are, I believe we know where this leads. It’s another form of “me-ism deism.” In short, the people worship their own creations, rather than the God who made them and gave them the ability to create.
People like Armstrong seem clever but they fundamentally misunderstand the world we live in.
It's complete Chestertons fence moments, again and again.
He acts as if a womb is just a child growing pod. No understanding that there almost certainly will be much about a womb, in a babies development in the womb and it's effect on the mother and the relationship between child and mother, that we do not understand.
He talks of "speeding up evolution". As if the experience of hundreds of millions of years of evolution has some how come up with the wrong speed of progress and that he, with all his knowledge of the evolutionary process can just speed it up and make it "better". Because faster must be better right?
Evolution is the random creation of diverse traits with the chance that those traits might give an advantage in some unpredictable future change in the environment.
It is both responsive and proactive, but it doesn't have a direction or a plan.
So how would he be able to improve on that? Can he predict the environment in 10 years or a 100 years? Will some genetic "strength" for today's environment be a massive weakness in 100 years?
He doesn't know. But he'll poke around anyway as if he does.
The crazy thing about the reductionists is that they know reductionism doesn't work. There is unpredictability at the micro level (Heisenberg uncertainty) and at the macro level (chaos theory).
This won't be resolved by faster computers we would need a completely new understanding of physics.
But they spout this nonsense anyway as if the universe gives a dam about their spreadsheets.
Funnily enough if you read more about it you discover that evolution itself is just an unproven theory although it is treated by society as a fact. Yes natural selection is demonstrable (different finch beaks on the Galapagos island for example) but only within species. They have never been able to show the jump from one species to the next. The fossil record doesnt show it and Darwin himself was doubtful. The world is much much more mysterious and full of wonder than we can imagine. What hubris to suggest artificial wombs should be used so that women neednt have the inconvenience/danger of birth. It is laughable bollocks. They are so up themselves and so stupidly wrong for so many reasons!
Techno Optimism seems to be the "real life" version of some Matrix-like computer/board game designed by and for the grown-up child-like video gamers. They dream of being "creators", driven by money and tech ability/intelligence. As with AI, techno optimism has potential for being very useful for humans. Unfortunately, the owner/operators, tech barons, have little sense of morality and ethics, having been babysat by the paddles, headset and video screens. {And people thought the "boob tube" was bad.} In spite, of their money and tech smarts, these tech barons have not matured past their teenage years. All of this tech, by the way, serves to benefit the elite, not the general public. If this is a future forecast for humanity, it does not bode well.
This bit made me laugh out loud, because of its ring of "no foolin'":
"You don’t need an advanced degree in psychoanalysis to discover that techno-optimists often have giant voids and/or irregularities in their personal lives, which they seek to “solve” through technological means."
Different method but essentially the New Soviet man or whatever the Jacobins called their perfected human. In the end, it will crash into the same all too human vices that caused the earlier efforts to implode. Probably faction. Hopefully, the war between the techno optimists and the transhumanists won't blow up the universe.
I should add that this techno optimism dovetails nicely with the guff we had to put up with starting five years ago with Covid-- insane mask mandates, six-foot distancing, vax mandates, lockdowns etc.
These guys thought we could 'solve' the virus given the right algorithm and brought misery onto millions in their attempt at engineering our lives, only it looks like we, the public, disappointed them in various ways by not playing along 100% and daring to catch covid after vaccination. I for one am sorry to have let them down and ask their forgiveness.
Every technological change we make (especially the kinds in Brian's tweet) moves us farther away from our natural condition. Every one entails hidden complications and a contribution to neurosis. As a species we should use technology selectively, and we should remain rooted in our biological and psychological animal natures. This isn't an example of the naturalist fallacy-it's simply an observation that internal combustion cars run well on gasoline, and not so well on milk.
I'm surprised how often our natural attributes and constraints are brought up in these conversations. I suspect that people like these see these things as hindrances, rather than immutable features.
I had pretty much the same reaction when I heard JD Vance’s speech “Techno optimism vs. populism” and when Project Stargate was announced. I worry about Vance and his relationship to Peter Thiel in all this rhetoric. You hit the nail on the head with this. Nice take!
Hmm. Going to have to read that. First take is that Vance's trad Catholic beliefs will triumph but it is worthy of concern. I have always wondered whether Thiel's corporate name (Palantir) was a warning or an aspiration.
I would hope so, about his Catholic beliefs. But sometimes even inherently good people, of good faith, can be influenced by their benefactors. Especially those linked to the industrial military complex. I linked an article that has a video at the bottom of the page, if you want to see the speech.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/03/19/jd-vance-delivers-speech-on-techno-optimism-vs-populism/
Thx. I tend to think that hubris is the way that really smart people get into trouble and sincere religious beliefs should be a protection against that.
Tech is nice until it becomes a tool of the wretched abusers who hate humans.
They have try something else because the covid debacle didn't cull the herd enough. I can't remember who said it but "Man is born with a God-shaped hole inside." They're trying to fill the hole with the antithesis of God instead of God Himself.
Pascal
Thanks!
Interesting to me is the seeming parallel between techno-optimism and the Biblical accounts of Israel of the prophets’ time making idols and “worshipping the works of their hands.” It would seem that AI and techno-optimism are a form of idolatry. If Biblical accounts are true, and I believe they are, I believe we know where this leads. It’s another form of “me-ism deism.” In short, the people worship their own creations, rather than the God who made them and gave them the ability to create.
Just another example of the hubris of mankind -- thinking we can "outsmart" and "outdo" Mother Nature ... what could possibly go wrong?!
People like Armstrong seem clever but they fundamentally misunderstand the world we live in.
It's complete Chestertons fence moments, again and again.
He acts as if a womb is just a child growing pod. No understanding that there almost certainly will be much about a womb, in a babies development in the womb and it's effect on the mother and the relationship between child and mother, that we do not understand.
He talks of "speeding up evolution". As if the experience of hundreds of millions of years of evolution has some how come up with the wrong speed of progress and that he, with all his knowledge of the evolutionary process can just speed it up and make it "better". Because faster must be better right?
Evolution is the random creation of diverse traits with the chance that those traits might give an advantage in some unpredictable future change in the environment.
It is both responsive and proactive, but it doesn't have a direction or a plan.
So how would he be able to improve on that? Can he predict the environment in 10 years or a 100 years? Will some genetic "strength" for today's environment be a massive weakness in 100 years?
He doesn't know. But he'll poke around anyway as if he does.
The crazy thing about the reductionists is that they know reductionism doesn't work. There is unpredictability at the micro level (Heisenberg uncertainty) and at the macro level (chaos theory).
This won't be resolved by faster computers we would need a completely new understanding of physics.
But they spout this nonsense anyway as if the universe gives a dam about their spreadsheets.
Funnily enough if you read more about it you discover that evolution itself is just an unproven theory although it is treated by society as a fact. Yes natural selection is demonstrable (different finch beaks on the Galapagos island for example) but only within species. They have never been able to show the jump from one species to the next. The fossil record doesnt show it and Darwin himself was doubtful. The world is much much more mysterious and full of wonder than we can imagine. What hubris to suggest artificial wombs should be used so that women neednt have the inconvenience/danger of birth. It is laughable bollocks. They are so up themselves and so stupidly wrong for so many reasons!
It's complex, most everything is.
I'm not concerned about the fossil record as fossils are a lottery. Does the evidence not exist in the record or have we just not found it yet.
I think Archeopterx is a pretty good example of an intermediate between dinosaurs and birds.
However you are right there are a lot of legitimate criticisms of evolution, I guess I'd say it's the best theory we have.
That's optimistic? What does pessimistic look like?
Techno Optimism seems to be the "real life" version of some Matrix-like computer/board game designed by and for the grown-up child-like video gamers. They dream of being "creators", driven by money and tech ability/intelligence. As with AI, techno optimism has potential for being very useful for humans. Unfortunately, the owner/operators, tech barons, have little sense of morality and ethics, having been babysat by the paddles, headset and video screens. {And people thought the "boob tube" was bad.} In spite, of their money and tech smarts, these tech barons have not matured past their teenage years. All of this tech, by the way, serves to benefit the elite, not the general public. If this is a future forecast for humanity, it does not bode well.
This bit made me laugh out loud, because of its ring of "no foolin'":
"You don’t need an advanced degree in psychoanalysis to discover that techno-optimists often have giant voids and/or irregularities in their personal lives, which they seek to “solve” through technological means."
Different method but essentially the New Soviet man or whatever the Jacobins called their perfected human. In the end, it will crash into the same all too human vices that caused the earlier efforts to implode. Probably faction. Hopefully, the war between the techno optimists and the transhumanists won't blow up the universe.
The lonely, soulless human cyborgs creating a post human world. How overwhelmingly boring and unimaginative. The opposite of creation. Hard pass.
More soulless people with a soulless plan. Get thee behind us, anti-humans of both left and right.
I should add that this techno optimism dovetails nicely with the guff we had to put up with starting five years ago with Covid-- insane mask mandates, six-foot distancing, vax mandates, lockdowns etc.
These guys thought we could 'solve' the virus given the right algorithm and brought misery onto millions in their attempt at engineering our lives, only it looks like we, the public, disappointed them in various ways by not playing along 100% and daring to catch covid after vaccination. I for one am sorry to have let them down and ask their forgiveness.
Every technological change we make (especially the kinds in Brian's tweet) moves us farther away from our natural condition. Every one entails hidden complications and a contribution to neurosis. As a species we should use technology selectively, and we should remain rooted in our biological and psychological animal natures. This isn't an example of the naturalist fallacy-it's simply an observation that internal combustion cars run well on gasoline, and not so well on milk.
I'm surprised how often our natural attributes and constraints are brought up in these conversations. I suspect that people like these see these things as hindrances, rather than immutable features.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/2-visions-of-reality
Thought this article pairs well this one here: https://open.substack.com/pub/fasterplease/p/democrats-and-abundance-a-quick-q?r=bhfii&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Anyone interested in what this sort of utopia might look like should read the excellent Suarez novel "Change Agent".