June 30, 2025 • 50 mins
We're back to our regularly-scheduled Disintegrator programming! We've been hard at work on our book (buy it, wtf!) but have a number of killer episodes queued up for release.
Émile P. Torres is a philosopher of the end times. You'll most likely associate their name (and that of collaborator Timnit Gebru) with developing the acronym TESCREAL, a grab-bag of ideologies that undergird the romance between venture capital and Silicon Valley. We strongly recommend their podcast Dystopia Now! (w/ Kate Willett) and their newest book Human Extinction: A History of the Science and Ethics of Annihilation.
The T in TESCREAL is 'transhumanism,' a frequent topic of the pod, which tends to mean an application of technology to human bodies and in such a way that allows humans to transcend human limitations (e.g. speed, efficiency, senses, mortality). From there, the rest of the ideologies follow from a relationship between the human and its 'rationalized' extensibility through technology: E (extropianism), S (singularitarianism), C (cosmism), R (rationalism), EA (effective altriusim), and L (longtermism). Here's a gentle and clean explainer of all of the above.
In this episode, we talk extensively about some elements that aren't actively represented in TESCREAL but sit beneath it: accelerationism, extinction-neutrality, and left-adjacent positions with respect to both (e.g. l/acc, xenofeminism, ahumanism -- this episode might pair really nicely with our interview with Patricia MacCormack for this very reason).
Émile P. Torres is a philosopher of the end times. You'll most likely associate their name (and that of collaborator Timnit Gebru) with developing the acronym TESCREAL, a grab-bag of ideologies that undergird the romance between venture capital and Silicon Valley. We strongly recommend their podcast Dystopia Now! (w/ Kate Willett) and their newest book Human Extinction: A History of the Science and Ethics of Annihilation.
The T in TESCREAL is 'transhumanism,' a frequent topic of the pod, which tends to mean an application of technology to human bodies and in such a way that allows humans to transcend human limitations (e.g. speed, efficiency, senses, mortality). From there, the rest of the ideologies follow from a relationship between the human and its 'rationalized' extensibility through technology: E (extropianism), S (singularitarianism), C (cosmism), R (rationalism), EA (effective altriusim), and L (longtermism). Here's a gentle and clean explainer of all of the above.
In this episode, we talk extensively about some elements that aren't actively represented in TESCREAL but sit beneath it: accelerationism, extinction-neutrality, and left-adjacent positions with respect to both (e.g. l/acc, xenofeminism, ahumanism -- this episode might pair really nicely with our interview with Patricia MacCormack for this very reason).
Mark as Played
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.