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This week we chatted with historian Quinn Slobodian, a professor of international history at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University.

His books, which have been translated into ten languages, include, most recently, Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ and the Capitalism of the Far Right and Crack-Up Capitalism: Market Radicals and the Dream of a World without Democracy.

 Intro

• Anthropic: AI deception risk
• Patreon: Join Community Chats

Quinn Slobodian

• Tech bros, Trump, and the Silicon Valley nation-state – The Guardian
• The Bastards of Neoliberalism – New Statesman
• Elon Musk and the Demography Agenda – New Statesman
• Crack-Up Capitalism Interview – Jacobin
• The Bastards of Neoliberalism – New Statesman
• The Inhuman Future of Intelligence – The Guardian

Other 

• Balaji’s Private Island School – TechCrunch

This week is Part 1 of our Patreon supporter only series on the Zizians. We discuss the origins of the Zizian ideology in the Rationalism community, MIRI, CFAR, Roko's Basilisk and Doom Circles.

To become a subscriber, visit us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/DystopiaNow

To become a Patreon supporter go here: https://www.patreon.com/c/DystopiaNow

With guest Nathan Robinson, Editor of Current Affairs, we dive into the career and ideology of Matt Yglesias and his confidently wrong opinions about everything. Yglesias has helped shift mainstream liberalism toward a colder, more cynical worldview that prioritizes elite consensus and data-driven “pragmatism” over solidarity and human dignity. From Sam Bankman-Fried and crypto, to housing, to Palestine, he’s the voice of technocratic centrism beloved by Silicon Valley elites. His views reflect a shallow utilitarianism that strips politics of moral urgency and empathy, and we are here to drag that shit.

We explore how Yglesias has become a key ideological bridge between neoliberal Democrats and the techno-libertarian right.

Nathan J. Robinson – Articles & Book

• The Opinions of Matt Yglesias Should Be Ignored – Current Affairs
• Why Effective Altruism and Longtermism Are Toxic Ideologies – Current Affairs
• We Should Be Neither Anti-Natalist Nor Pro-Natalist – Current Affairs
• The Dangerous Ideas of Longtermism and Existential Risk – Current Affairs
• The Myth of American Idealism – Book by Noam Chomsky & Nathan J. Robinson

Articles Mentioned in Intro:

• Democrats, Influencers, and Trump – NYT
• Charity for Shrimps? Ronny Chieng Explores the Limits of Effective Altruism | The Daily Show
• Biden’s PSA Test and Political Fallout – NYT

Matt Yglesias – Writings & Critiques

• The Troubling Rise of Hitler Revisionism – Slow Boring
• Some Thoughts on the FTX Implosion – Slow Boring
• Reds in the Family – Slow Boring
• Matt Yglesias’s Crypto Opinions – Revolving Door Project
• Matt Yglesias in Biden’s Washington – Washington Post
• Embarrassing Fans of the Super Rich – Jeet Heer
• Silicon Valley Patronage – Citations Needed
• Group Chats That Changed America – Semafor

Sam Bankman-Fried & Effective Altruism

• FTX’s Collapse and Media Fallout – Semafor
• How SBF Sweet-Talked the Media – NY Mag
• Inside the Crazy World of FTX – The Guardian
• SBF Guilty Verdict – Semafor
• EA Group Debated SBF’s Ethics in 2018 – Semafor

Breakthrough Institute

• Homelessness Meets Cluelessness – Prospect on Michael Shellenberger
• Ted Nordhaus – The Breakthrough Institute
• Bad Science in Apocalypse Never – Yale Climate Connections

Empathy, Musk

• Elon Musk on Empathy – CNN
• The Christian Right’s War on Empathy

Additional Resources

• Solidarity – Book by Leah Hunt-Hendrix & Astra Taylor (N+1)
• International Factory Safety – Slate

To join us on Patreon: 

https://www.patreon.com/c/DystopiaNow

This week we welcomed comedians Kath Barbadoro (What a Time to Be Alive podcast) and Alex Ptak (Quorators podcast) to go through each letter in the bundle of ideologies. Who invented them, who believes in them, and the impact they are having on our world today.

Transhumanism

Extropianism

Singularitarianism

Cosmism

Rationalism

Effective Altruism

Longtermism

Extra reading/watching:

Intro clip: https://www.tiktok.com/@the.free.press/video/7457615074945944863

The TESCREAL Bundle: https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/13636/11599

Adam Becker:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/03/tech-oligarchs-musk

The Politics and Ethics of Transhumanism by Alexander Thomas:

https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/the-politics-and-ethics-of-transhumanism

TESCREAL overview by Èmile:

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-acronym-behind-our-wildest-ai-dreams-and-nightmares/

Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/DystopiaNow

This week we discussed Nick Land's series of essays "The Dark Enlightenment," considered a foundational document for right accelerationists (r/acc) and neoreactionary ideologies (NrX). Plus the Cybernetic Culture Research Unit, Mark Zuckerberg's AI friends, Bryan Johnson's penis de-aging, and AI spirituality.

Additional Resources: 

Segment 1: Bryan Johnson

• Vanity Fair: The bizarre journey of Bryan Johnson, his anti-aging endeavors, and his controversial experiment in penile rejuvenation.

  • Don't Die, Tech Mogul: Bryan Johnson's Quest

  • Bryan Johnson’s Blog on Penis De-Aging

Segment 2: AI Is Stealing Your Boyfriend

• Rolling Stone: How spiritual delusions about AI are fracturing human bonds.

  • AI and Human Relationships: A Cultural Shift

Segment 3: Nick Land

• Vox: Neoreaction as a segment of the alt-right

  • The Alt-Right Explained

• Slate: John Derbyshire

  • Derbyshire's "Advice" and the Fallout

• Nick Land's Foundational Text: A dense introduction to accelerationism, emphasizing the destructive potential of speeding up capitalist processes.

  • A Quick and Dirty Introduction to Accelerationism

• Mark Fisher (Tumblr): A reflection on accelerationism from the left

  • Terminator vs. Avatar: Notes on Accelerationism

• Viewpoint Magazine: Dark Enlightenment

  • The Darkness at the End of the Tunnel

• The Guardian: How accelerationism predicted our modern world.

  • Fringe Philosophy that Predicted the Future

• Financial Times: Dark Enlightenment

  • Archived Content

If you'd like to become a subscriber to hear more bonus episodes you can do it here: https://www.patreon.com/c/DystopiaNow

his Patreon bonus episode with Kenice Mobley about Bezos vs. Musk on space was so fun we decided to unlock it.

Bezos wants us to live in cylinders, Musk wants us to nuke Mars, but both of them want a future where we're all digital beings maximizing value. Some of the wildest information we've talked about so far.

Thanks for being one of our patreon subscribers!

For further reading:

Jason Hickel: https://www.jasonhickel.org/less-is-more

Astrotopia: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo184287883.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2023/12/15/forget-musks-martian-ambition-jeff-bezos-thinks-humans-should-live-in-giant-cylindrical-space-stations/

https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/nuke-mars-elon-musk-seems-serious-about-plan-terraform-red-ncna1045181

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/08/science/starship-spacex-explosion-elon-musk.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/11/technology/elon-musk-spacex-mars.html

Please join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/DystopiaNow

For the first half of the episode, we talked about the Semafor reveal of Silicon Valley groupchats and Marc Andreessen’s posting addiction + Èmile’s article on End Times Eschatology. We covered Yudkowsky’s “Fun Theory,” cryogenically freezing your head, and the connection between transhumanists and Christianity.

Then, we talked to author and former public defender Alec Karakatsanis about his new book Copanganda and the way we are all propagandized about policing and crime. Alec is the founder of the Civil Rights Corps, an organization designed to advocate for racial justice and bring systemic civil rights cases on behalf of impoverished people.

This was such a good interview. Apologies for Kate’s slightly bad audio in this, we had some internet issues and had to record on the phone.

Alec Karakatsanis – Resources

• THE BOOK! The New Press – Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our Communities
• Substack: Equal Justice Under Law
• Twitter/X: @equalityAlec
• Bluesky: equalityalec.bsky.social
• PDF: The Body Camera by Alec Karakatsanis (Yale Law)

Articles and People We Mentioned

• Truthdig – “The Endgame of Edgelord Eschatology”
• Vox – “Will AI become God? That's the wrong question.”
• The Guardian – “Tech guru Jaron Lanier: 'The danger isn't that AI destroys us. It's that it drives us insane'”
• Wired – “Doug Rushkoff Is Ready to Renounce the Digital Revolution”
• Semafor – “The Group Chats That Changed America”
• Harper’s – “A Letter on Justice and Open Debate”
• Mother Jones – “The Billionaires Who Want to Live Forever”

Chesa Boudin Recall

• Mission Local – $9 Million Spent on the Boudin Recall
• 48 Hills – GOP Donors & Big Money in the Recall

Portugal & Drug Decriminalization

• Scientific American – Portugal’s Drug Decriminalization Success
• TIME – What Can the World Learn from Portugal’s Drug Policy?

This week we answered some questions from our Patreon supporters. It's like a mini episode on a bunch of different topics, including the worst book I've ever heard of.  We covered Èmile's journey out of longtermism, Yudkowsky's Harry Potter fan fic, end-times narratives, and how we will one day beat the tech bros by withholding our labor. 

If you'd like to hear part 2 become a subscriber here: 

https://www.patreon.com/c/DystopiaNow

Articles Mentioned in This Episode and Further Reading

AI Ethics

• Louisiana is using a mysterious algorithm to decide who gets parole – The Verge https://www.theverge.com/news/647405/louisiana-tiger-algorithm-parole
• Why Sam Altman wants AI to say "please" and "thank you" – Quartz https://qz.com/open-ai-sam-altman-chatgpt-gpt4-please-thank-you-1851777047

TESCREAL and End Times

• End Times: How Fascism, the Far Right, Trump, and Musk are converging – The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/apr/13/end-times-fascism-far-right-trump-musk
• Overview of TESCREAL (by Èmile) The acronym behind our wildest AI dreams and nightmares – Truthdig https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-acronym-behind-our-wildest-ai-dreams-and-nightmares/

Effective Altruism & Scandals

• The sexual harassment scandal tearing Effective Altruism apart – TIME https://time.com/6252617/effective-altruism-sexual-harassment/
• Sam Bankman-Fried funded 'woke shit' for transactional purposes, prosecutors allege – VICE https://www.vice.com/en/article/sam-bankman-fried-funded-woke-shit-for-transactional-purposes-prosecutors-allege/
• The rise and fall of Sam Bankman-Fried – The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/23/sam-bankman-fried-rise-and-fall-details
• Defective Altruism – Current Affairs https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2022/09/defective-altruism
• Effective Altruism’s bait-and-switch: From global poverty to AI doom – Techdirt https://www.techdirt.com/2024/04/29/effective-altruisms-bait-and-switch-from-global-poverty-to-ai-doomerism/

Neoliberalism

• Neoliberalism’s World Order – Review of Quinn Slobodian's Globalists – Dissent https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/neoliberalism-world-order-review-quinn-slobodian-globalists/
• The Bastards of Neoliberalism – New Statesman https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2025/04/the-bastards-of-neoliberalism
• The Geneva School, Hayek, and Neoliberal Nationalism – Jacobin https://jacobin.com/2022/11/neoliberalism-geneva-school-nationalism-mises-hayek
• Review of Hayek’s Bastards by Quinn Slobodian – The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/books/review/hayeks-bastards-quinn-slobodian.html
• Race Science, Neoliberalism & Hayek – Jacobin https://jacobin.com/2025/04/race-science-neoliberalism-hayek-slobodian

Rationalism

• Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_and_the_Methods_of_Rationality

Transhumanism

• Beyond our ape-brained meat sacks: Can transhumanism save us? – The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jun/04/beyond-our-ape-brained-meat-sacks-can-transhumanism-save-our-species
• The Frozen Father of Modern Transhumanism: Upwingers and Downwingers – VICE https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-frozen-father-of-moden-transhumanism/

Please consider becoming a subscriber on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/dystopianow/membership

This episode we began with a discussion of Peter Singer and eugenics ideas in the Effective Altruism community. And more Sam Altman-- his firing at Open AI, his doomsday prepping and his version of utopia. 

Sam Altman & OpenAI

• Moore’s Law for Everything – Sam Altman’s Blog
• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Is a Survivalist Prepper – Futurism
• Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny – The New Yorker
• The Most Powerful Man in AI – New York Magazine

OpenAI Controversy

• The Real Story Behind Sam Altman's Firing From OpenAI – WSJ
• Former OpenAI Employee Sounds Alarm on Altman – Futurism
• Sam Altman Reinstated at OpenAI – The Guardian

Tech Utopias & Praxis

• Altman-Backed Praxis Eyes Kyiv and Athens for Tech Utopia – Bloomberg
• Praxis: Tech Dystopia as the Next America – The Nerd Reich

Science, Ethics & Philosophy

• Dyson Sphere – Wikipedia
• Simulation Hypothesis – Wikipedia
• The Matrix as Reality: Simulation Hypothesis Explained – Vox

Longevity & Biohacking

• Sam Altman Invested $180M in Anti-Aging Startup Retro Biosciences – MIT Technology Review

Ethics, Exploitation & Effective Altruism

• Red Cobalt: Mining in the Congo – NPR
• Shrimp Welfare Project – Official Site
• Introducing the Shrimp Welfare Project – Effective Altruism Forum
• Against Speciesism – Jacobin

Become a member on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/DystopiaNow

This week, we begin to explore the mystery that is Sam Altman of Open AI. We cover the AI Doomer coup, Sam's Worldcoin metal orb that scans your retinas, his friendship with Peter Thiel, and his views on restructuring our government with AItopia. We also talked about the weirdo tech billionaire plot to do a Mars colonization trial run on Greenland. An hour in, we had barely scratched the surface of Sam, so we'll be back with a Part 2.

The Inside Story of Sam Altman’s Ouster—and Reinstatement—at OpenAI – TIME https://time.com/6551117/sam-altman-openai-ouster-return/

Sam Altman’s Worldcoin Launches Amid Privacy Concerns – The Verge https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/24/23805254/worldcoin-sam-altman-iris-scanning-launch-privacy

Sam Altman Has a Big, Scary Plan for the World – The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/08/sam-altman-worldcoin-openai-ai-ethics/674928/

Sam Altman’s Secret Fundraising Spree – The Information https://www.theinformation.com/articles/sam-altmans-secret-fundraising-spree

OpenAI Drama: What Really Happened with Sam Altman – New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/22/technology/openai-sam-altman-chaos.html

The Worldcoin Controversy Explained – MIT Technology Review https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/07/25/1076412/worldcoin-biometric-id-sam-altman/

Greenland 'Freedom City'? Rich donors push Trump for a tech hub up north – Reuters https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/greenland-freedom-city-rich-donors-push-trump-tech-hub-up-north-2025-04-10/

I Went to Greenland to Try to Buy It – TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com/2024/11/15/i-went-to-greenland-to-try-to-buy-it-meet-the-founder-who-wants-to-re-create-mars-on-earth/

Peter Thiel Thinks the Next Great City Should Be in Greenland – InsideHook https://www.insidehook.com/internet/peter-thiel-praxis-next-great-city-greenland

Cybercity of the Future: How an Ambitious 29-Year-Old Plans to Build Praxis – NY Post https://nypost.com/2025/04/06/world-news/robo-cops-ai-schooling-food-from-3-d-printers-and-post-work-future-are-anticipated-for-praxians/

Tech Utopian Project Praxis Gets $525 Million in Commitments – Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/tech-utopian-project-praxis-gets-525-million-in-commitments-for-planned-heroic-city-f4623e98

Altman-Backed Praxis Scouts Kyiv, Athens for Tech Utopia Base – Bloomberg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-08/altman-backed-praxis-scouts-kyiv-athens-for-tech-utopia-base