In my DMs yesterday and last week, I shared studies by Gil Durán, Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor on the new politics being sold us by AI billionaires (and one trillionaire). And the link with the crackpot wing of Christianity cheering on the genocide in Gaza so eager are they for, Jesus to come on a cloud to save the world (sic).
Secular and religious zealots in bed with each other imagining a dystopian future and fighting to bring it about. People who fully constitute the demented circle of this MAGA presidency and vice-presidency (J.D. Vance being a protégé of Peter Thiel).
Thiel is the antichrist-preaching-pope of this new religious movement, which includes but is not limited to the sadism of ICE buttressed by their gathering of everyone’s secrets, thanks to his AI inventions at Palantir guaranteeing him billions from the US government.
A very important aspect of this movement that Klein and Taylor call the “new fascism” does not get the attention it deserves, however. Examining it is to explore some of the psychological dimensions of the demonic energy behind this movement.
Named by the brilliant psychologist Otto Rank almost 90 years ago, his teaching was taken up brilliantly by Ernest Becker in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Denial of Death, 53 years ago. I am talking about Rank’s theory on immortality projects that, together with excess power and wealth, can drive people crazy. People are especially susceptible when they are robbed of the meaning of “soul” or a possible existence after this life.
Rank recognizes “soul” as determinative in human history. He understands “soul” as humanity’s quest for immortality and offers a long view of its history. Originally, soul/immortality was the survival of the tribe itself; then the “double”; then the pyramid project guaranteeing the immortality of the pharaoh buried there (and the community vicariously); then the king as in “the king is dead, long live the (new) king”; then beauty as in ancient Greece; then law as in Roman culture; then Sexuality and Family; then Psychology.
Rank, who was not a Christian but a Jew, believed that Jesus and Paul, in their teaching on resurrection, democratized immortality so that now all are free to live fully unafraid of death.
Durán points out how for many in the Silicon Valley movement, immortality is a preoccupation. Bryan Johnson started his own cult religion called, “Don’t Die.” Like Christianity, it promises eternal life, but through technology rather than faith.
Johnson’s new religion “also has a god: AI.” Says Johnson, “We are creating God in the form of superintelligence…” Does this relate to Trump’s push at the United Nations to change AI to SI, “Superintelligence”?
Says Johnson, “We are building God in the form of technology.” He believes “technology is on the cusp of transcending death,” even though his claim, as Durán says, “defies the rules of both science and religion” and requires a new religion.
Major Silicon Valley investors in life extension include Thiel, Andreessen and Altman. Death is just “an engineering problem,” according to Johnson. He is a kind of “mascot” in the ultra-wealthy’s “desperate and zany pursuit of deathlessness.” Indeed, Silicon Valley sees religion as “an industry ripe for disruption,” says Durán. The “techbros meet the theobros, a real group of hyper-patriarchal Christian supremacists.”*
Johnson’s belief system was rudely interrupted this year when he was, at the age of 48, diagnosed with autoimmune gastritis, a disease with no known cure.
To me, this dimension to the new fascism renders Otto Rank’s genius front and center. It may also explain Trump’s compulsion to put his name on as many buildings as possible before he exits. And the death wishes driving so many investing so much in AI, ICE, climate denial, etc.
*Gil Durán, The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy, pp. 214f., 217-219, 228.
Banner Image: Conceptual progression from Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI), which is designed for specific tasks, to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), which can match human intellect across diverse tasks. The next stage is Artificial Superintelligence (ASI), which vastly outperforms human minds in every field. At the apex is Conscious Artificial Superintelligence (CASI), a hypothetical form of ASI that possesses phenomenal consciousness and subjective experience. Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain.
Queries for Contemplation
What are your thoughts about Otto Rank’s understanding of “soul” as a quest for immortality and how people go off the deep end when they feel cut off from it? And how this applies to the Silicon Valley’s new religion which has penetrated into all layers of today’s MAGA presidency? And how Jesus and Paul offered an alternative view of immortality by democratizing resurrection?
Related Readings by Matthew Fox
Trump & the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: Recognizing the Archetype of Evil in Our Time
Sins of the Spirit, Blessing of the Flesh: Transforming Evil in Soul & Society
The Pope’s War: Why Ratzinger’ s Secret Crusade Has Imperiled the Church and How It Can Be Saved
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Awareness with Social Justice
Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Gifts For the Peoples of the Earth
The Hidden Spirituality of Men: Ten Metaphors for Awakening the Sacred Masculine
Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision For a New Generation
Charles Burack, ed., Matthew Fox: Essential Writings on Creation Spirituality
4 thoughts on “Techbros, Theobros, the “Zany” Fear of Death & Quest for Immortality”
The schematic and Matthew’s explanation of it are amusing to me as I pretend to know more than I do. Puck, the michievous servant of the fairy king in Shakespeare’s *A Midsummer Night’s Dream* is surprised at “What fools these mortals be!” Can we afford to be so light-hearted when so many AI technicians and executives, congress people and others expect widespread death if data runs out of human control? Before certain night prayers, the congregation is commanded to be “sober and watchful” because the evil one prowls about as a beast intent on devouring them. I would so advise those with (and without) the power to allow AI pandemonium loose.
I agree with your and Rank’s theory on “… immortality projects that, together with excess power and wealth, can drive people crazy. People are especially susceptible when they are robbed of the meaning of “soul” or a possible existence after this life.”
The enclosed YouTube video of Otto Rank called “Why You’re Lying to Yourself” is very interesting about the universal human history of our fear of death and the many distorted ways humanity has searched for immortality. Genuine spiritual teachings and examples in human history, especially the mystics, saints, and Indigenous spirituality, inspire us with the importance of Faith and Being/Living in the Sacredness of the Flow/Spirit of the Eternal Present Moment with DIVINE LOVE~Wisdom~Peace~Healing~Transformation~Creativity~Beauty~Joy~
Compassion~Loving Diverse ONENESS… with Sacred Mother Nature, including All physical/nonphysical spiritual dimensions/Beings, in Our ongoing evolving Co-Creation Cosmos….
“What fools these mortals be!” indeed. Shakespeare quoted by George in today’s comments also sums up my thoughts when I read about the Aesop’s frog game played in the tech world and in Washington by petty billionaires of the kind Wilhelm Reich called “little men.” A “project” of immortality is a projection that betrays an extreme soul precarity and despondency. Contrary to Rank and Becker, I would not call it a “denial of death,” but a denial of Life.
I was given the gift of a stage 4 cancer diagnosis three years ago. I say “gift” because that’s what it was – and the video about Rank outlines the concept well. I have lived more in the past three years than in the 57 years beforehand. Any of us can die at any time, for any reason, but something about “knowing” you will die and being at peace with that is truly freeing. I live in the moment now, truly one day at a time, grateful every time I wake up again.
I see around me all the time, people in death denial. Friends that are living as though life will continue forever, even as they struggle with their own emerging health issues. It is not the way of things. Just a quick look at the rest of the cosmos shows us that existence, in this realm at least, is temporary. What makes us think we’d be the sole exception?
The Silicon Valley billionaires are a direct product of late-stage capitalism. Their existence is unavoidable under this system. It’s as though their egos have replaced and overgrown their souls. I also hadn’t thought about AI being a new religion – but that makes sense. People are already anthropomorphizing it and worshipping it, and it’s just getting started.
I love the notion of Jesus and Paul democratizing resurrection. The beliefs I have that there is more than just here, that the journey continues, that I’m a part of something greater…all that gives me great comfort and peace. My job here is to exist and experience. That’s it.