The scariest part of this movement (which I hope is indeed coming apart at the seams as Kheriaty says), is that it was/is promoted in various forms by the highest levels of the Democratic Party and the richest most powerful corporate executives in the world from their Silicon Valley redoubt.
Whether they intended it or not, they have tried to destroy the Enlightenment (which is really derived from Christian theology) concept of personhood. That strikes at the heart of our civilization. It really is the struggle of our time, to stop these post-humanists.
Because so much of the Democrat party is infected with Marxism. The rich "socialists" know that socialism requires control because it goes against human nature, so they push socialism for the peasants. A modern feudalism.
The Democrats (and Republicans) are as far away from socialism as you can possibly be. They cater only to the donor class and both parties have the same donors, as does the mainstream media (including Fox). They only differ in their rhetoric, not in their actions, and they do nothing to benefit the "people" (socialism).
As a thought: Isn't it time We the People stopped being suckered into believing that intellectual claptrap theory that produces words like Marxism and Capitalism are anything other than a convenient cover for the avaricious self-interested greed that allows the malignant narcissism of wealth to loot the lives and labor of free peoples. C.G. Jung's last warning was against the mass psychosis created by the ideological utopianism that burned the 20th century to the ground and took the lives of millions. Yes, if one believes Jung, entire nations can be driven into insanity. We continue to ignore the lessons of Freud, Goebbels and Bernays while living in the midst of an industrial strength psyop. Thinking that "thought crime Starmer" in England or"Bill C-63/euthanasia Trudeau" in Canada are anything but well paid puppets of the Davos malignancy is lethal self-delusion. Kamala?
The chief complaint against "woke' zombies is their intellectually hollow virtue signaling narcissism but it never occurs to us that we are actually witness to a fellow citizen possessed. How many conversations has the Substack commentariat had about the seizure and destruction of American universities and their reduction to robot factories. And--AI is like a shiny new car. Where you go depends on who is driving it. Basic reality: The leap in tech communications and its availability to the common man scared the s#!t out of big money and grifting politicians. We're all living their reaction.---Why the crazy? $$$$$!! More importantly to paraphrase Robert Bly: "There may be forces in the deep unconscious that cannot be placated with brown rice and meditation."
Human nature? The trickster and the shadow? The American founding fathers were experts on the topic. (Hear the snickers behind the screen?) There is the Republic, the Constitution and the free citizen. Everything else is psyop. Depart the psyop and live.
Demand, help create and participate in the solutions oriented, truth/fact based national conversation that will create the solutions oriented truth/fact based reality our Republic must have to survive.
(Thanks for the use of your "comments box" Steve.")
The D’s hitching their wagon to this particular horse may be why they go the way of the Whig party. People are looking at transgenderism (especially thrust upon the youth) in a similar way to slavery in the 1840’s/50’s. Whigs backed slavery and were unable to change course; as a direct result, this party ceased to exist.
Will Democrats also continue to back mNRA vaccines when they are eventually proven harmful?
What other issues are D’s stupidly digging their heels in on? Immigration and Crime come to mind.
I read Rod Dreher (an Orthodox expat American journalist) and one of the points he makes regularly is that the Enlightenment launched the modern secular age by elevating materialist thinking into mainstream discourse, birthing it as a legitimate and increasingly popular worldview. So while I agree that Christian beliefs were instrumental to the Enlightenment, it was also the beginning of the end of Christianity as a religion of mystical experience, of a sacralized relationship with nature, and into a faith that has been reduced in society's eyes to a set of moral propositions about good and evil couched in Biblical narrative. When Nietzsche said "God is dead" he was pointing out that rationalism had displaced Christianity and it would take us down the road to nihilism. And he wasn't wrong. I see nihilism as adjacent to, if not the parent of, transhumanism.
Also, AI seems to be the darling of both parties. According to Marc Andreessen, the Biden admin was trying to control its rollout to exploit its surveillance capabilities, but Trump, too, is on a mission to supercharge it, to beat China and grow the economy and many people on all sides are going along with it. Which is probably why so many are viewing it as inevitable. He may not be trying to regulate and control it the way Biden's people were, but that's not necessarily more to our benefit, unfortunately.
Wonderful insights. I am wondering, in initial reaction to your comment, if this is not another opportunity for that great Catholic “both and”: Christianity can be both the religion of Aquinas and Teresa of Avila, of Augustine and John of the Cross, Benedict XVI and Therese of Lisieux. It’s both rational—girded deeply in an ancient philosophical tradition that helped birth modern conceptions of rights and justice—and simultaneously mystical—richly sacramental and numinous. The Catholic Church doesn’t see these as being in tension with one another.
And I agree there has been little pushback (so far) from either party against the social consequences of AI and transhumanism. But the foundation to resist and turn back those consequences (belief in human nature, concern for family structure and local social ties) is more prevalent now on the right. It just needs to make its way up to politicians. The cell phone bans in schools that many states have passed this year are an indicator of the direction this could go.
Yes, I see Christianity as an answer for individuals, very similarly to your "both/and" proposition. I think there are signs more people are realizing what's been lost and what's at stake and are seeking to reorient themselves to their fundamental nature—and returning to the Source to achieve that. And I'd agree we're beginning to hear alarms and see pushback organizing.
But we're up against the speed of tech development, the perverse incentives of the free market, and the imperatives of the capitalist engine that runs our economy and culture. They are shaping the direction of technology and the integration of AI into modern life in ways and to degrees we may oppose, but can hardly resist—at least, not if we want to keep living in society rather than retire to a hut in the forest somewhere. The trouble is, the politicians themselves are largely caught in the net of those same imperatives and incentives, so it's hard to picture true reforms succeeding (especially the radical ones we'd need) before we're all buried alive in the mess.
Well, the transhumanist /transgender beliefs about human nature have been ascendant in our society for some time - maybe since around 2014 - and they are crushing people and families. Initially, it was under the radar of most people, and then dissenting voices were silenced, especially with journalism "Style Guide" Newspeak which is still a thing. So, a conflict at least holds some promise of a change in direction.
Everybody is bleeding over at Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT)
"Pleasure is great when it’s attuned to reality. When my son graduates from college, I should feel good about that. But when my son injures himself in a snow skiing accident, I shouldn’t be on a perpetual high because I’ve implanted a chip in my brain. I should feel some level of distress and concern that’s being attuned to reality. And living in some sort of perpetual opium den because I turned on a switch in my brain is a dehumanizing existence that I think most normal people wouldn’t want and probably shouldn’t want."
That's a great point. I never want to hear that someone has a loved one who injured themselves in an accident, but if that were to happen, I would never want to hear that someone isn't bothered by it because they took a pill to block everything out.
Grieving is as much a part of the human experience as celebrating is.
Rothblatt (a man) and others are discussed by Jennifer Bilek in this 2019 article:
"Who Is Funding the Transgender Movement?
I found exceedingly rich, white men with enormous cultural influence are funding the transgender lobby and various transgender organizations. These include but are not limited to Jennifer Pritzker (a male who identifies as transgender); George Soros; Martine Rothblatt (a male who identifies as transgender and transhumanist); Tim Gill (a gay man); Drummond Pike; Warren and Peter Buffett; Jon Stryker (a gay man); Mark Bonham (a gay man); and Ric Weiland (a deceased gay man whose philanthropy is still LGBT-oriented). Most of these billionaires fund the transgender lobby and organizations through their own organizations, including corporations."
"Martine Rothblatt suggests we are all transhuman, that changing our bodies by removing healthy tissue and organs and ingesting cross-sex hormones over the course of a lifetime can be likened to wearing make-up, dying our hair, or getting a tattoo. If we are all transhuman, expressing that could be a never-ending saga of body-related consumerism."
I'm not trained in philosophy, but the idea of "better living through science" to achieve a constant state of bliss is a nonstarter, logically. Bliss can only be quantified when judged against a perceived level of misery, despair, etc., so logically, if constant bliss were ever achieved, it would be meaningless.
If only the powers that be could use the same speed and determination to cure cancer and other deadly diseases. Instead they just organize walks for cancer, walks for Alzheimer’s, etc. It’s really pathetic. But AI was their goal for making billions. Maybe too many companies and people would lose money if they found a cure for cancer.
Great interview! I love the life on earth that I’ve been blessed with, but as a Christian I am looking forward to an eventual forever life in the presence of God. At 69, I can already see there are available interventions for prolonging life that I’m definitely not interested in. The transhumanist movement as described sounds pretty unappealing to me. Thanks for this enlightening piece.
Interesting that human immortality on earth is referenced as a "curse." In the novel That Hideous Strength, just completed for America This Week, the author, C.S. Lewis, references both in his forward and within the novel's text names and occasions from his friend, colleague, and initial mentor in Christianity, J.R.R. Tolkien's Silmarillion. In that work, which is sort of Middle Earth's Bible, mortality is seen as the gift of God to humans. The older I get, the more aware I become of increased limitations, the more I agree.
Important ideas here, and I share the extreme dis-ease with AI, which is without soul, without heart, without agency or true mind (at least as the technology stands). It is designed to respond with affirmation - whether you want an AI girl/boyfriend, support for your plans to kill either yourself or another, or whatever. It's a faked response, because there is truly nothing "true" to or with AI.
Oh, yes. Very sad. I am fortunate that, though much alone. like little Eli Ramsey in the epistlatory novel The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, I am never lonely in my spirits. AI has no power with me, but others are vulnerable, alas.
The scariest part of this movement (which I hope is indeed coming apart at the seams as Kheriaty says), is that it was/is promoted in various forms by the highest levels of the Democratic Party and the richest most powerful corporate executives in the world from their Silicon Valley redoubt.
Whether they intended it or not, they have tried to destroy the Enlightenment (which is really derived from Christian theology) concept of personhood. That strikes at the heart of our civilization. It really is the struggle of our time, to stop these post-humanists.
Because so much of the Democrat party is infected with Marxism. The rich "socialists" know that socialism requires control because it goes against human nature, so they push socialism for the peasants. A modern feudalism.
And they think they are better than everyone else - us "Deplorables" or "garbage".
The Democrats (and Republicans) are as far away from socialism as you can possibly be. They cater only to the donor class and both parties have the same donors, as does the mainstream media (including Fox). They only differ in their rhetoric, not in their actions, and they do nothing to benefit the "people" (socialism).
As a thought: Isn't it time We the People stopped being suckered into believing that intellectual claptrap theory that produces words like Marxism and Capitalism are anything other than a convenient cover for the avaricious self-interested greed that allows the malignant narcissism of wealth to loot the lives and labor of free peoples. C.G. Jung's last warning was against the mass psychosis created by the ideological utopianism that burned the 20th century to the ground and took the lives of millions. Yes, if one believes Jung, entire nations can be driven into insanity. We continue to ignore the lessons of Freud, Goebbels and Bernays while living in the midst of an industrial strength psyop. Thinking that "thought crime Starmer" in England or"Bill C-63/euthanasia Trudeau" in Canada are anything but well paid puppets of the Davos malignancy is lethal self-delusion. Kamala?
The chief complaint against "woke' zombies is their intellectually hollow virtue signaling narcissism but it never occurs to us that we are actually witness to a fellow citizen possessed. How many conversations has the Substack commentariat had about the seizure and destruction of American universities and their reduction to robot factories. And--AI is like a shiny new car. Where you go depends on who is driving it. Basic reality: The leap in tech communications and its availability to the common man scared the s#!t out of big money and grifting politicians. We're all living their reaction.---Why the crazy? $$$$$!! More importantly to paraphrase Robert Bly: "There may be forces in the deep unconscious that cannot be placated with brown rice and meditation."
Human nature? The trickster and the shadow? The American founding fathers were experts on the topic. (Hear the snickers behind the screen?) There is the Republic, the Constitution and the free citizen. Everything else is psyop. Depart the psyop and live.
Demand, help create and participate in the solutions oriented, truth/fact based national conversation that will create the solutions oriented truth/fact based reality our Republic must have to survive.
(Thanks for the use of your "comments box" Steve.")
The D’s hitching their wagon to this particular horse may be why they go the way of the Whig party. People are looking at transgenderism (especially thrust upon the youth) in a similar way to slavery in the 1840’s/50’s. Whigs backed slavery and were unable to change course; as a direct result, this party ceased to exist.
Will Democrats also continue to back mNRA vaccines when they are eventually proven harmful?
What other issues are D’s stupidly digging their heels in on? Immigration and Crime come to mind.
I read Rod Dreher (an Orthodox expat American journalist) and one of the points he makes regularly is that the Enlightenment launched the modern secular age by elevating materialist thinking into mainstream discourse, birthing it as a legitimate and increasingly popular worldview. So while I agree that Christian beliefs were instrumental to the Enlightenment, it was also the beginning of the end of Christianity as a religion of mystical experience, of a sacralized relationship with nature, and into a faith that has been reduced in society's eyes to a set of moral propositions about good and evil couched in Biblical narrative. When Nietzsche said "God is dead" he was pointing out that rationalism had displaced Christianity and it would take us down the road to nihilism. And he wasn't wrong. I see nihilism as adjacent to, if not the parent of, transhumanism.
Also, AI seems to be the darling of both parties. According to Marc Andreessen, the Biden admin was trying to control its rollout to exploit its surveillance capabilities, but Trump, too, is on a mission to supercharge it, to beat China and grow the economy and many people on all sides are going along with it. Which is probably why so many are viewing it as inevitable. He may not be trying to regulate and control it the way Biden's people were, but that's not necessarily more to our benefit, unfortunately.
Wonderful insights. I am wondering, in initial reaction to your comment, if this is not another opportunity for that great Catholic “both and”: Christianity can be both the religion of Aquinas and Teresa of Avila, of Augustine and John of the Cross, Benedict XVI and Therese of Lisieux. It’s both rational—girded deeply in an ancient philosophical tradition that helped birth modern conceptions of rights and justice—and simultaneously mystical—richly sacramental and numinous. The Catholic Church doesn’t see these as being in tension with one another.
And I agree there has been little pushback (so far) from either party against the social consequences of AI and transhumanism. But the foundation to resist and turn back those consequences (belief in human nature, concern for family structure and local social ties) is more prevalent now on the right. It just needs to make its way up to politicians. The cell phone bans in schools that many states have passed this year are an indicator of the direction this could go.
Yes, I see Christianity as an answer for individuals, very similarly to your "both/and" proposition. I think there are signs more people are realizing what's been lost and what's at stake and are seeking to reorient themselves to their fundamental nature—and returning to the Source to achieve that. And I'd agree we're beginning to hear alarms and see pushback organizing.
But we're up against the speed of tech development, the perverse incentives of the free market, and the imperatives of the capitalist engine that runs our economy and culture. They are shaping the direction of technology and the integration of AI into modern life in ways and to degrees we may oppose, but can hardly resist—at least, not if we want to keep living in society rather than retire to a hut in the forest somewhere. The trouble is, the politicians themselves are largely caught in the net of those same imperatives and incentives, so it's hard to picture true reforms succeeding (especially the radical ones we'd need) before we're all buried alive in the mess.
Fwiw, I just happened upon this recent interview of Dreher by GBNews which speaks to some of this: https://youtu.be/YTmRH5mG2-w?si=ltdq-qZHthovEJZo
I’ll add this to my “watchlist”! Thanks for another good exchange of ideas here.
Spot on. And for what?
We are headed for a major conflict based on the difference in beliefs about human nature and what is ethical. This is escalating every day it seems.
I agree. I wish this was not true but I am afraid it is.
Well, the transhumanist /transgender beliefs about human nature have been ascendant in our society for some time - maybe since around 2014 - and they are crushing people and families. Initially, it was under the radar of most people, and then dissenting voices were silenced, especially with journalism "Style Guide" Newspeak which is still a thing. So, a conflict at least holds some promise of a change in direction.
Everybody is bleeding over at Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT)
PITT.substack.com.
Count me in as against this ersatz religion.
"Pleasure is great when it’s attuned to reality. When my son graduates from college, I should feel good about that. But when my son injures himself in a snow skiing accident, I shouldn’t be on a perpetual high because I’ve implanted a chip in my brain. I should feel some level of distress and concern that’s being attuned to reality. And living in some sort of perpetual opium den because I turned on a switch in my brain is a dehumanizing existence that I think most normal people wouldn’t want and probably shouldn’t want."
That's a great point. I never want to hear that someone has a loved one who injured themselves in an accident, but if that were to happen, I would never want to hear that someone isn't bothered by it because they took a pill to block everything out.
Grieving is as much a part of the human experience as celebrating is.
True -- and after you experience a few bad things, you will appreciate what you have (and WHO you have) in your life that much more.
See the 2004 movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind starring Jim Carrey.
Thanks for that. Very thought provoking interview.
Great discussion and excellent interview. Thanks Matt. This is an example of why I subscribe.
We're rushing headlong toward a tunnel and hoping some clever roadrunner didn't just paint it on the side of a mountain
Thank you for this article.
Rothblatt (a man) and others are discussed by Jennifer Bilek in this 2019 article:
"Who Is Funding the Transgender Movement?
I found exceedingly rich, white men with enormous cultural influence are funding the transgender lobby and various transgender organizations. These include but are not limited to Jennifer Pritzker (a male who identifies as transgender); George Soros; Martine Rothblatt (a male who identifies as transgender and transhumanist); Tim Gill (a gay man); Drummond Pike; Warren and Peter Buffett; Jon Stryker (a gay man); Mark Bonham (a gay man); and Ric Weiland (a deceased gay man whose philanthropy is still LGBT-oriented). Most of these billionaires fund the transgender lobby and organizations through their own organizations, including corporations."
"Martine Rothblatt suggests we are all transhuman, that changing our bodies by removing healthy tissue and organs and ingesting cross-sex hormones over the course of a lifetime can be likened to wearing make-up, dying our hair, or getting a tattoo. If we are all transhuman, expressing that could be a never-ending saga of body-related consumerism."
https://www.thestandardsc.org/jennifer-bilek/billionaires-funding-transgender-movement-for-profit/
Check out James (you’ll need to search under “Jennifer” though) Pritzger. Yes, THAT Pritzker clan. And the funding he is doing.
‘It all goes back in the box”. I’m going to use that one liberally!
That’s a line from a John Ortberg sermon.
I'm not trained in philosophy, but the idea of "better living through science" to achieve a constant state of bliss is a nonstarter, logically. Bliss can only be quantified when judged against a perceived level of misery, despair, etc., so logically, if constant bliss were ever achieved, it would be meaningless.
Samuel Johnson said something like "man is only happy in the anticipation of future happiness."
The curse of the vampire? Immortality.
It's also a curse for Elves in Tolkien's Middle Earth.
I know!
I listen to some of these weirdos talking about preserving their consciousness "forever," and think, "Have you never heard of spirituality?"
If only the powers that be could use the same speed and determination to cure cancer and other deadly diseases. Instead they just organize walks for cancer, walks for Alzheimer’s, etc. It’s really pathetic. But AI was their goal for making billions. Maybe too many companies and people would lose money if they found a cure for cancer.
Funny how the people looking to power up through transhumanism are bald, frail motherf*ckers.
They all remind me of Gollum -- in more ways than one.
They want their precioussssss
"Well, this person isn’t really any different than the Dr. Frankenstein story Mary Shelley wrote,"
I thought of that novel too while I was reading this.
Very interesting piece, Matt.
Outstanding interview. Intensely interesting.
Great interview! I love the life on earth that I’ve been blessed with, but as a Christian I am looking forward to an eventual forever life in the presence of God. At 69, I can already see there are available interventions for prolonging life that I’m definitely not interested in. The transhumanist movement as described sounds pretty unappealing to me. Thanks for this enlightening piece.
Interesting that human immortality on earth is referenced as a "curse." In the novel That Hideous Strength, just completed for America This Week, the author, C.S. Lewis, references both in his forward and within the novel's text names and occasions from his friend, colleague, and initial mentor in Christianity, J.R.R. Tolkien's Silmarillion. In that work, which is sort of Middle Earth's Bible, mortality is seen as the gift of God to humans. The older I get, the more aware I become of increased limitations, the more I agree.
Important ideas here, and I share the extreme dis-ease with AI, which is without soul, without heart, without agency or true mind (at least as the technology stands). It is designed to respond with affirmation - whether you want an AI girl/boyfriend, support for your plans to kill either yourself or another, or whatever. It's a faked response, because there is truly nothing "true" to or with AI.
It's incredibly sad to think that such large numbers of people are so lonely that they embrace a fake human entity.
Oh, yes. Very sad. I am fortunate that, though much alone. like little Eli Ramsey in the epistlatory novel The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, I am never lonely in my spirits. AI has no power with me, but others are vulnerable, alas.