What Is TESCREAL?

0:00 Start with TESCREAL. A lot of you probably have never heard that term before. It's actually a very new term and I refer to it as a cult, but that's a little bit misleading, but it's because nothing like it really has ever existed before. How do you package that up? Well, it's easier to package up and call it a cult because that's really what it is. Sort of. It's like a cult 2.0. A unification of many different ideologies that exist within the tech sector like Silicon Valley. Concepts like transhumanism,

0:49 which some of you may have heard of. Think Elon Musk and Neuralink, right? Transhumanism or what they call posthumans becoming posthuman is basically cyborgs. I mean, we're talking about cyborgs here. These people want to advance the human race to the next evolution, which is cyborg, which is the melding of our biological systems and digital hardware systems. And it sounds like sci-fi. It comes from sci-fi, but it's not. It's real. It's It's here. It's happening. Now, one could argue that

1:35 transhumanism has existed for a very long time and that when you really look at it definitionally, we've been tiptoeing into transhumanism forever. One of the earliest examples would be maybe these, right? using technology, blending it with the human form in some way to give advancement to the human body. How about this? A watch to tell time, to keep track of time, but it's on your body. It's a wearable or like this, a health tracker, wearables, right? These are steps into

2:23 Transhumanism could argue that this is something that you're interfacing with your body to advance in different ways. But also, you would have things like Neurolink, planted chip in your brain that allows you to interface with computers, right? And this works like there's this like paraplegic that is basically a beta tester for it for Neuralink. and he goes and he plays like COD and he goes and plays like all these different firstperson shooters and he wrecks everybody because his brain is so fast and the Neuralink's response is so quick that he has that edge that he just

3:09 looks at the screen and it's boom boom boom boom boom. It's crazy. Yeah, transhumanism. It's nuts. There are things like eugenics or next evol next evolution eugenics. Um there's things like colonizing Mars. I mean these are things that Elon Musk has openly talked about, right? And so it's like all of these things individually, a lot of them you may have heard of, some of them you may not have. But there are these people that came together and said well listen there are these seven distinct ideologies and all of it really sees like the same goals

3:56 which is next evolution of humanity which will happen through a mega loss of human life and almost all of it intersects with AI using AI basically we're going to create a super intelligence that then we will be able to have the super intelligence fix all of our problems and create a utopia for us and then turn us into cyborgs. And I know it sounds insane, but this is this is true. This is real. So when I call Tesrial a cult, there's also some other things. A cult typically has followers and a charismatic leader. The difference here is that there are followers

4:43 who are following a leader type figure that doesn't exist yet that they are creating. This is a new way of thinking made by people who do not believe that they are part of us. They don't think like we're all on the same boat. We're all on the same ship here. Right? And they don't care. They don't care if we all die. Just as long as the math checks out that we will have an advanced version 2.0 human later on. And all of these people believe in this. They all may look at it from different angles and none of them

5:29 will say, "Well, I'm a te a tesrilian or however you would say that, right? TESCREALian TESCREAL. Who knows? But none of them are are saying that that's what they are. They're not they're not claiming to be a part of this unified cult. They all buy into one or more of the seven ideologies that make up Tesrialism. And so they may call themselves whatever it is that they identify with. But we really should understand that all of this is super interconnected. And did anybody see yesterday that Mark Andre came out and

6:14 said that we achieved AGI, artificial general intelligence, essentially the next evolution needed before what would be uh artificial super intelligence is which is what will probably kill us all. Yeah, he said we achieved that 3 months ago. I don't know if I believe that or not. Now, even if you aren't really super familiar with AI, this is still something that you can follow along with. And I will do my best to explain this in a way that even if you don't understand AI, you got to remember only like 1% of the population of the world has ever even touched AI. Far less do the types of things that I do with AI and even less do the types of stuff that our developers at Buer and Web do with AI. So, we're all still very early. We were talking about data

7:00 centers and I had could kind of been doing some research on it in the front end. We were talking about maybe doing a live stream about it. So I was like all right I really want to get like really deep into this kind of really understand data centers. But my suspicion had always been that this is less about AI and it's more and not to say AI needs compute to be able to build these next level models. the compute needed is is absolutely bonkers. And it really became apparent that all of these people, all these entities are a cult. And and I think that to some of these people, data centers are the equivalent of say a holy

7:45 site that these will be places for us to upload our own consciousness. That is for sure the goal of many of these people to upload their consciousness, whatever that means, upload their brains into um into machines and that's going to be the next level. They're going to be immortals. Uh I don't think they want that. I don't think they really want that. If you ever watch Black Mirror, you don't want that, dog. Like you there's like four episodes of like people's consciousness getting stuck in like an abstract digital hellscape and it's torturous dog for all the little understanding we have of time. We our minds our consciousness and our bodies are inextricably attached to

8:32 time. when you erase that. I don't think a theoretical copying of your consciousness could handle that. Like, doc, I can't even go and get an MRI for 10 minutes. I want to die. You didn't tell me. Like, I I feel like being in a timelessness would be excruciating. And then I got to be immortal. I can't even kill myself out of this. I think the data centers are for sure part of it. I don't think that the data centers are necessarily going to be the infrastructure needed for uploading our own brains. The few that would I think it seems as though with all of these different factions, it's about creating our own god, which is AI, and then

9:18 having God create all of the things that we want. While for some reason they think that this is all going to happen without caring about alignment. Without alignment, how do we know that we have a place in this world after the super intelligence comes? We would be nothing but mere ants to them. Why would they care about us? I don't know. It's really weird. And for sure, there is a lot of weirdness to come. So, I've talked a lot about this cult, but I think there are some visuals that I could show you to kind of get you to wrap your brain around it. But again, it

10:04 is not a unified cult in this in the sense that you would think of like a leader and followers. It's more like a cult that's like like buil like building the plane as it's flying. And I think a lot of them don't even realize that they're all sort of going towards the same thing. They probably all think that they're like their ideology is battling the other ideologies to win out in this war. Like they probably all think of it that way if I'm going to be honest cuz they're those types of people. Why don't we look at this? And this broke my brain this morning when I woke up and Claude had this for me. This is a mind map and this is not even everybody or

10:50 everything but this is just what I have so far mapping out again it is not an organization in the sense that it has a structure right like a normal structure like you would think of you know a normal cult or any operation right there really is no structure to it necessarily There are just all these nodes, all these people, all these things. And I had Claude take all of these people, all of these ideologies in orange, all of these entities, and start mapping

11:35 it out. And I will be adding to this over time. And yes, I'll probably make this a website just like who killed thecientist.com. There is a Jeffrey Epstein connection right in here. Well, actually, it's right there right around transhumanism, which again could be a whole live stream in and of itself. Right now, I want you to just kind of wrap yourselves your brain around it. I came across this great short video that explains a lot of the structure And so I think like it's really short and concise and then we can kind of build off of this, right?

12:21 Check this out. into a really powerful and honestly a pretty controversial new term. It's a word that tries to pin down the belief system that's driving some of the most influential people in big tech. It's called TESCREAL. And well, it might just change the way you see the future they're trying to build. So let's just start with this question. What do guys like Elon Musk, Sam Alman, and Peter Thiel really have in common? I mean, yeah, they're obviously tech billionaires changing our world with everything from AI to rockets, but beyond all the money and the power, what's the thread that really connects them? Uh, Critter asked, "Do you have regularly scheduled lives or just random?" So broken from all of this test real stuff right now, but uh well, I'll have to definitely check it out. Well, a

13:06 growing number of critics are arguing it's not just about business. It's something deeper. A shared ideology, a very specific set of beliefs about the future that actually guides their biggest decisions and maybe the direction all of humanity is headed. And that ideology has been given a name, test. It's a new word coined by computer scientist Tim Nit Gabriel and philosopher Emil P. Torres. They see it as this this bundle of different ideas that have all merged into one unified belief system. all pointing toward a radical techdriven future. So, what's actually in this so-called bundle? Well, it's an acronym and each letter stands for a different philosophy. You've got transhumanism, extrobianism, singularitarianism, cosmism, rationalism, effective altruism, and

13:51 long-termism. Yeah, it's a mouthful, I know, but the argument is that you need to understand every piece to see the whole picture. All right, so let's first really unpack the argument for this term. Why do its creators think these aren't just seven separate ideas, but one single interconnected bundle? The core claim is that these ideas are all tangled together. Gabru and Torres argue that they have shared roots. Yes, that's right. It is eugenics 2.0. It would almost be like a techno fascist eugenics. Well, I guess saying fascist would be a little redundant there. It's a techno eugenics

14:37 in one of our last uh live streams. Sorry about that. But yeah, uh a lot of the there's a lot of tech people that are not like these uh tech futurist, you know, tech eugenicists, right? and they are kind of disengaging. I talked about it, you know, a bit last week. Um, but yeah, that's it's it's kind of what's happening, right? And that lead lends to my theory that there really is becoming this like fractured divide within the tech world, particularly around Silicon Valley, where it's obvious there's an ideology

15:25 or a collection of ideologies that's driving everything. And some of the people just aren't on board with that, whether they consciously or unconsciously understand that. And they're exiting out. And they even trace that lineage back to the, you know, the deeply controversial eugenics movements of the 20th century. They point to a shared focus on things like optimizing humanity. So in their view, this isn't just a random assortment. It's a movement with a shared and pretty troubling history. And this right here gets to the heart of their criticism. They argue that by constantly talking about the threat of human extinction, you know, whether it's from a rogue AI or some asteroid, adherence can justify doing almost anything. That includes building hugely powerful unregulated technologies all in

16:11 the name of saving us. You know, one way to understand how critics see this is to think of it like a new kind of secular religion. It's got its own version of salvation like an AI powered utopia or living forever. It's got its own apocalypse, you know, the evil AI takeover. And it has its own profits, the tech founders and futurists who are spreading the gospel. Just look at the big debate around super smart AI or AGI. On one side, you have the accelerationists who say we have to build it as fast as possible to reach utopia. On the other, you have the doomers who are terrified it will wipe us all out. But critics of test say look closer. While they seem like opposites, both positions end up justifying the same outcome, pouring endless resources

16:56 into AI development while ignoring the real problems it's causing right now. Okay, but that's just one side of the coin. A lot of people, especially some who get hit with this label, think the whole idea is totally wrong. They argue that TS C R E A L isn't a bundle. It's a bundle. The number one counterargument is that TESCREAL is just a massive oversimplification. Critics like Aussie Brennan say it wrongly smashes very different, very nuanced philosophies together, creating this image of a monolithic movement that just doesn't exist in reality. And you can really feel the frustration in this quote from Oliver Habreka. He's basically saying, "Wait, what? I'm supposedly part of this big movement with cosmists, but I've never even met one." It really

17:41 highlights how the label can feel like it's just making up connections that aren't there. So, to quickly sum up the push back, critics say the term is unfair. It ignores real contradictions between these philosophies and it genuinely shocks people like effective altruists who are focused on global poverty to find themselves linked with something like eugenics. It feels so disconnected to some that they've straight up called it a conspiracy theory. So this isn't just some abstract academic debate, right? This term is being aimed directly at some of the most powerful people in the world. So let's look at who we're actually talking about. this video does a really great job even though she's just doing notebook LM slides and talking over it and has two subscribers. I think I just became her third. Uh I think she does like a really

18:26 great job of like concisely explaining this. Um and so it's almost over, but I really just think that because I could, you guys know me, I could very easily get onto tangents and then try to get you just this content and it would take me all day. I don't want to do that to you. I just want you guys to again, the whole goal of this live stream is to just get you guys caught up on like what it is conceptually and what kind of threat this really does have on our world. And then we can start in later live streams really digging into these different claims um and and looking into these people and what they really

19:11 believe. And it's crazy. It's really crazy. It's I just like I wish this was like a like a mostly fake like fun conspiracy theory, but this is like extinction level potentially. It's It really is like that. First up, the venture capitalist Mark Andre. his big techno optimist manifesto which is this call to just accelerate technology at all costs has been held up by critics as like the perfect textbook example of the TESCREAL mindset. Then of course there's Elon Musk. I mean he himself has said his personal philosophy is a close match to long-termism. That's the L in the acronym. And when you look at his companies like Neurolink trying

19:57 to merge brains with computers or XAI's mission, they're often seen as the embodiment of these ambitions. Peter Thiel is another major figure in this conversation. He's often seen as someone who wants to tear down regulations, especially anything that slows down technological progress, all to speed up our path toward what some would call a technotopian paradise. And you can't have this conversation without talking about Sam Alman. That whole drama when he was fired from OpenAI back in 2023. Sam Alman is a sociopath and a pathological liar. He has all sorts of paths. He's a insane, really, really insane person and should not be at the forefront of this emerging

20:46 technology. That's just one man's opinion. Many people interpreted that as a battle between different factions within this very belief system with both Altman and the board representing different shapes. Scotty says he's a murderer. I mean, he definitely called for Sajra Bellagi's murder 100%. The way he squirmed when Tucker Carlson talked to him about that. I mean, and not to mention like he's like at 12 years old was a like graping his what fouryear-old sister until she was a teen. Allegedly. I should put like allegedly just like

21:32 right there. I should just like put that right there. It always just says allegedly so I don't have to say it all the time because I forget to say it. But let's be real. Allegedly of test ideas. And finally, Sam Bankman Freed as maybe the most famous effective altruist in the world. The absolutely spectacular implosion of FTX put that movement, its ethics, and its weird associations under an incredibly intense microscope. Okay, so after hearing both sides of this, you have to step back and ask the really big question. What is Tesreel really? And why should we care about this strange sounding acronym? It really just boils down to this. Is TESCREAL a bundle, a real coherent ideology that gives us a new way to

22:18 understand the future that Silicon Valley is building for all of us? Or is it a bundle, a totally flawed and misleading label that just smears people and creates connections that aren't actually there? And that's really the question we're all left with. Is this term a critical lens that helps us see what's really going on? Or is it a dangerous label that's just making a complex reality even harder to understand? How we answer that might just decide how we engage with the people who are building our future. I think for us to understand things, right? Like we need to we need to know our enemy, right? We need to know what it is. We need to

23:03 name it, right? And that's why I I I feel absolutely fine with referring to it almost as a singular entity even though it really is multiple. But to to understand your enemy, you first need to name it. And so calling it an acronym like this that represents all of the different subp parts that are the danger. This is this is what we should know. This is what we should do. And I think it's I think it's beneficial. Is it confusing? Sure. It would still be confusing without the acronym TESCREAL.

23:49 That's just my take on it. You tell me though. It's a big club and you're not in it. It's almost like we're the digital goyam in this analogy, which is also not as much of an analogy as you would think. I'm not going to go deep into it, but I have done a lot of research on Israel's direct or indirect connections here. And I got to just like I got to do more research. I got to like start really wrapping my brain around the structure of it before we do a live stream about