TESCREAL

TESCREAL is a neologism proposed by computer scientist Timnit Gebru and philosopher Émile P. Torres. An acronym, it stands for Transhumanism, Extropianism, Singularitarianism, (modern) Cosmism, Rationalists (the internet community, not to be confused with other uses of the term), Effective Altruism, and Longtermism.[1][2] Gebru and Torres argue that these ideologies should be treated as an "interconnected and overlapping" group with shared origins.[1] They claim these constitute a movement that allows its proponents to use the threat of human extinction to justify expensive or detrimental projects and consider it pervasive in social and academic circles in Silicon Valley centered on artificial intelligence.[3] As such, the acronym is sometimes used to criticize a perceived belief system associated with Big Tech.[3][4][5]

Technorealists, the silent majority? · Openness Praxis

you might find yourself standing in the unremarkable center

Effective Altruism: doing transhumanism better

Effective Altruism (EA) is a Trojan horse for transhumanism, through which EA movement leaders and funders aim to naturalize transhumanism as the logical extension of the existing global aid and development sector. This paper traces transhumanism's mainstreaming, first via its rebranding as a humanitarian effort to save lives, protect vulnerable populations, and ensure global flourishing (what I term transhumanitarianism), and later by embedding transhumanitarianism in EA (now under the rubric of longtermism). A key component of this strategy was inverting transhumanism's techno-optimism to instead focus on safety and preventing existential risks ( x-risk ) from emerging technologies like AI and biotechnology, while simultaneously advocating for the creation of these same technologies. The paper focuses on some components of this strategy: the use of inoculation, speculative ethics, anticipatory governance, and the mobilization of apocalyptic discourse as means for producing material outcomes in the form of policy and research agendas.

Pluralistic: A fascist paradigm (12 May 2026) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

Yesterday, I attended a workshop on systems thinking and political change, which included a presentation on the work of Donella Meadows, whose Thinking in Systems is a canonical work on the subject:

Major Tech Investor Calls Architect of Fascism a 'Saint' in Unhinged Manifesto

Silicon Valley's 'techno-optimism' cult believes we should let rich tech guys do whatever they want.

Neoliberalism | The Paper Pilot

The Paper Pilot's digital garden of thoughts on philosophy, politics, and sociology

Cyber-Marx

In this highly readable and thought-provoking work, Nick Dyer-Witheford assesses the relevance of Marxism in our time and demonstrates how the information age, far from transcending the historic conflict between capital and its laboring subjects, constitutes the latest battleground in their encounter. Dyer-Witheford maps the dynamics of modern capitalism, showing how capital depends for its operations not just on exploitation in the immediate workplace, but on the continuous integration of a whole series of social sites and activities, from public health and maternity to natural resource allocation and the geographical reorganization of labor power. He also shows how these sites and activities may become focal points of subversion and insurgency, as new means of communication vital for the smooth flow of capital also permit otherwise isolated and dispersed points of resistance to connect and combine with one another. Cutting through the smokescreen of high-tech propaganda, Dyer-Witheford predicts the advent of a reinvented, "autonomist" Marxism that will rediscover the possibility of a collective, communist transformation of society. Refuting the utopian promises of the information revolution, he discloses the real potentialities for a new social order in the form of a twenty-first-century communism based on the common sharing of wealth.

Palantir's social media manifesto is a blueprint for technofascism

The surveillance firm’s viral X post calls for hard power, conscription and the end of pluralism. AI expert and academic Mark Coeckelbergh on what happens when technology becomes the gateway to authoritarianism

Semble — Make sense of the web, together

A place for mapping the web, connecting ideas, and building shared knowledge.