S6E18 - The Resurrection (Cosmism)

1
00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:56,650
Kayla: Fyodorov defined the common task as regulating the forces of nature to defeat death and bring ancestors back to life so we can all achieve a utopian society and govern the universe. So, like, the cosmism part of cosmism, of russian cosmism, kind of grows out of this defeat of death. Like, if we elevate ourselves to this, like, to this technological status of being able to defeat death, we also have the capability to, like, go out and colonize the universe. Okay, today is kind of a weird episode of culture. Just weird. I'm Kayla, by the way. I'm a tv writer. I write tv, and I also watch a lot of tv. And I also do this.

2
00:00:56,770 --> 00:00:57,186
Chris: Yeah.

3
00:00:57,258 --> 00:00:57,868
Kayla: Who are you?

4
00:00:57,954 --> 00:01:05,352
Chris: I'm Chris. I do this as well. And I guess my background is in game design and data analytics.

5
00:01:05,416 --> 00:01:24,332
Kayla: The perfect people to be talking about cults. Welcome back to the podcast again, where we talk about cults. Also talk about just weirds. If you'd like to support our show, you can head over to patreon.com culturgesweird. And if you'd like to talk more about the cults or the weirds, you can find us on discord linked in the show notes.

6
00:01:24,416 --> 00:01:30,900
Chris: You know, I like what they say. I like what Michael Hobbs says on his shows, where it's like, if you like to support the show, you're already doing that by listening.

7
00:01:30,980 --> 00:01:31,828
Kayla: That's true.

8
00:01:31,924 --> 00:01:33,860
Chris: I like that he starts with that. I think that's nice.

9
00:01:33,940 --> 00:01:35,444
Kayla: Let's just steal from other podcasters.

10
00:01:35,492 --> 00:01:38,628
Chris: That's all we. All we do is steal. Great artists steal.

11
00:01:38,764 --> 00:01:43,348
Kayla: Before we hop into the show proper, we just want to say one quick, I guess, mia culpa.

12
00:01:43,444 --> 00:01:44,452
Chris: Oopsie.

13
00:01:44,636 --> 00:02:19,612
Kayla: Do a little oopsie in season six, episode 14. So episode 14 of this season, I don't know why it's recursively probably cut it. The episode is titled the Future of Humanity TESCREAL. It was one of our interview episodes with Doctor Emile Torres. In our discussion, you referenced a columnist named Mary Harrington to talk about how birth control is one of those things where we see a widening income gap between countries that have easy access to birth control versus countries that do not have access to birth control. And that was a point.

14
00:02:19,636 --> 00:02:51,918
Chris: Or people. Or people. Yeah, it was sort of in response to what Emil was talking about regarding the idea of upgrading inequality. Like, when we get a new technology, does that make inequality better or worse? And the contention, the sort of the supporting point there was, I had seen this TikTok with this person who was saying that, hey, we already have an example of that with a transhumanist technology, birth control in her estimation. And that sort of was a point in favor because that also upgraded inequality, quote, unquote.

15
00:02:52,014 --> 00:03:08,278
Kayla: And so while we thought this was an interesting point on, like, how transhumanism is already here and how, you know, the ways it might affect our future, we've done a little more research into Mary Harrington's journalistic voice, and I should.

16
00:03:08,294 --> 00:03:09,718
Chris: Not have quoted her on the show.

17
00:03:09,814 --> 00:03:20,890
Kayla: The kinds of things that she's reporting on and the stance that she's reporting from, and we find her stance to be particularly anti trans and not. She's not necessarily somebody that we would be quoting on the show.

18
00:03:20,930 --> 00:03:23,482
Chris: Otherwise we're going, it's not just Andy Strahm.

19
00:03:23,626 --> 00:03:26,986
Kayla: There's a lot of stuff going on. She's not somebody that we would really want to.

20
00:03:27,018 --> 00:03:36,498
Chris: She has a whole little package platform on the show, and, like, the people that she credulously talks to and the organizations that she gets platformed by, I.

21
00:03:36,514 --> 00:03:38,830
Kayla: Forgot that she did an interview with the Epoch Times.

22
00:03:39,490 --> 00:03:42,130
Chris: Yeah, that's what I'm kind of dancing around.

23
00:03:42,250 --> 00:03:44,610
Kayla: We will be probably leaving.

24
00:03:44,730 --> 00:03:56,554
Chris: Yeah, we'll leave it in and we'll maybe put, like, a little blurb before that to be like, hey, this point might still be okay, but, you know, maybe not because this person's not good.

25
00:03:56,602 --> 00:04:07,434
Kayla: But for anybody who has already listened to the episode and wasn't planning on going back, we wanted to make sure to drop this little bit of information in here so we didn't, you know, platform somebody that we wouldn't have wanted to platform otherwise.

26
00:04:07,522 --> 00:04:23,418
Chris: And as the heartbreaking meme tells us, even the most odious people can still be right twice a day. But it's worth pointing all of this out because it makes it. It pushes her way further out of the trust network.

27
00:04:23,474 --> 00:04:24,146
Kayla: Oh, yeah.

28
00:04:24,298 --> 00:04:41,612
Chris: So it calls into question, like, I don't know, like what she said, that the data supports the fact that birth control exacerbated inequality. I don't know that's true. Now I would have to. I would have to look in a bunch of different places that aren't her right. To confirm that cute little point.

29
00:04:41,756 --> 00:04:54,460
Kayla: Don't know if it stands. All right, back to the episode. Why did I say that this is a weird episode, and we need another word besides weird? Because every episode is weird because this is cult or just weird.

30
00:04:54,500 --> 00:05:00,384
Chris: Even the cult episodes are weird. Yeah, it's more like cult or cult and weird, right.

31
00:05:00,512 --> 00:05:09,608
Kayla: This is anomalous episode, and that's because it's kind of two episodes, but not in a, like, part one, part two. Just in a like. We're gonna do two episodes in one.

32
00:05:09,704 --> 00:05:10,120
Chris: Oh.

33
00:05:10,200 --> 00:05:28,510
Kayla: Because if you remember from last week, we're tackling cosmism, but there's kind of, like two cosmisms, and they're both. There's two different kinds of cosmisms, but they're both kind of tied up in this big, weird, like, TESCREAL cryonics, life extension futurist bundle that we've got going.

34
00:05:28,670 --> 00:05:42,342
Chris: So is this like one of those situations where when you're pregnant with twins and then one twin, like, consumes the other one or whatever, and then they have DNA from two entirely different people? Is that like, this episode? Is that chimera, I think it's called?

35
00:05:42,446 --> 00:05:46,398
Kayla: I don't know. Hold that question and answer it yourself when we're done.

36
00:05:46,574 --> 00:05:50,290
Chris: Okay, that was totally, like, a legitimate question. In good faith, too.

37
00:05:51,320 --> 00:06:04,488
Kayla: Okay, let's start with a little game. I'm going to make a series of statements without knowing anything. You are going to tell me if you think I'm talking about russian cosmism.

38
00:06:04,584 --> 00:06:05,120
Chris: Okay.

39
00:06:05,200 --> 00:06:07,656
Kayla: Or modern cosmism. Or just cosmism.

40
00:06:07,768 --> 00:06:14,568
Chris: Okay, so russian cosmism would be. Sounds older than modern because there's a modern.

41
00:06:14,584 --> 00:06:15,416
Kayla: I don't have the word modern.

42
00:06:15,448 --> 00:06:17,120
Chris: Ok. Ok, sure. Yeah, let's do it.

43
00:06:17,160 --> 00:06:21,566
Kayla: Let's start with an easy one. This philosophy was founded by Nikolai Fyodorov.

44
00:06:21,718 --> 00:06:22,622
Chris: That's russian cosmicism.

45
00:06:22,646 --> 00:06:32,570
Kayla: That is russian cosmism. This philosophy grew out. This is a new question. This philosophy grew out of the Ekstropian movement and has roots in the singularity movement and shares DNA with long termism.

46
00:06:33,990 --> 00:06:39,470
Chris: That's modern. Condom. I feel like I know some of this. I feel like I'm cheating based on the fact that I already.

47
00:06:39,550 --> 00:06:50,710
Kayla: Okay, this is just a little gimmick. You're right. That's cosmism. Modern cosmism. New question. Proponents of this philosophy popularized the term artificial general intelligence, or AGI.

48
00:06:52,050 --> 00:06:53,282
Chris: Modern.

49
00:06:53,426 --> 00:06:54,190
Kayla: Correct.

50
00:06:54,890 --> 00:06:59,830
Chris: Wait, so it was cosmists that introduced AGI as a term.

51
00:07:00,130 --> 00:07:02,386
Kayla: Correct. Or popularized it?

52
00:07:02,418 --> 00:07:03,946
Chris: Popularized it. Okay.

53
00:07:04,098 --> 00:07:09,710
Kayla: The founder of this philosophy developed an idea called humankind's common task, which seeks to defeat death.

54
00:07:11,450 --> 00:07:15,378
Chris: I'm gonna go with that. Sounds russian to me.

55
00:07:15,434 --> 00:07:15,858
Kayla: You're right.

56
00:07:15,914 --> 00:07:16,108
Chris: I.

57
00:07:16,154 --> 00:07:18,020
Kayla: Okay, that sounds russian to me.

58
00:07:18,560 --> 00:07:20,976
Chris: It was the backwards r. This philosophy.

59
00:07:21,008 --> 00:07:24,592
Kayla: Promotes ancestor worship and discourages romantic relationships.

60
00:07:24,776 --> 00:07:27,880
Chris: Oh, what? Jedi?

61
00:07:27,960 --> 00:07:29,864
Kayla: It's the Jedi. I threw that in there.

62
00:07:29,912 --> 00:07:30,952
Chris: Russian cosmism.

63
00:07:31,056 --> 00:07:31,872
Kayla: Correct.

64
00:07:32,056 --> 00:07:32,736
Chris: Okay.

65
00:07:32,848 --> 00:07:38,800
Kayla: And I should say that. I should say more like a philosopher in russian cosmism. It's not necessarily all russian cosmism, but.

66
00:07:38,840 --> 00:07:40,456
Chris: Hashtag, not all russian cosmists.

67
00:07:40,528 --> 00:07:49,520
Kayla: Exactly. The founder of this philosophy purports that humans will develop scientific future magic much beyond our current understanding and imagination.

68
00:07:50,140 --> 00:07:58,044
Chris: Cool. Yeah, that sounds like an Arthur C. Clarke thing. Russ, Russian.

69
00:07:58,172 --> 00:08:00,252
Kayla: Oh, I'm sorry. I knew it.

70
00:08:00,276 --> 00:08:01,484
Chris: I knew that was the one you're gonna like.

71
00:08:01,532 --> 00:08:02,876
Kayla: That's a modern cosmos thing.

72
00:08:02,948 --> 00:08:03,492
Chris: Okay.

73
00:08:03,596 --> 00:08:05,644
Kayla: Okay, two more.

74
00:08:05,772 --> 00:08:06,380
Chris: All right.

75
00:08:06,500 --> 00:08:12,200
Kayla: This philosophy is considered to have birthed transhumanism and is one of its early iterations.

76
00:08:12,540 --> 00:08:15,068
Chris: Okay, well, based on the timeline, that's russian cosmism.

77
00:08:15,164 --> 00:08:28,652
Kayla: Correct. Last question. This philosophy is considered to have been birthed by transhumanism. And is its next iteration modern cosmism? Correct. Okay, does this help separate these two out a little bit?

78
00:08:28,756 --> 00:08:44,416
Chris: Yeah. So it's like cosmism is the grandfather. Sorry. Russian cosmism, grandfather, transhumanism, father and modern cosmism, son, one birth the other, but then rebirthed back into cosmos.

79
00:08:44,448 --> 00:08:48,432
Kayla: I wish there was a way to make, like, a holy trinity comparison, but no, it's that. You're right.

80
00:08:48,456 --> 00:08:49,504
Chris: No, because it's a timeline.

81
00:08:49,592 --> 00:08:49,912
Kayla: Yeah.

82
00:08:49,976 --> 00:08:50,360
Chris: Yeah.

83
00:08:50,440 --> 00:09:08,358
Kayla: If there's one thing I want listeners to walk away from this episode with, it's this. Russian cosmism is the precursor to transhumanism, which is the precursor to modern cosmism. It's a pretty clear and steady continuum. Okay, but let's break things down a little further. First, russian cosmism.

84
00:09:08,454 --> 00:09:13,590
Chris: So just to be clear, this is the sea in tesreal. When we did those TESCREAL interviews, the sea.

85
00:09:13,630 --> 00:09:23,398
Kayla: The sea in tescreal is specifically modern cosmos, not russian cosmism. However, modern cosmism doesn't exist without russian cosmism, even though they're different ish.

86
00:09:23,454 --> 00:09:25,454
Chris: So should it be Rc TESCREAL?

87
00:09:25,542 --> 00:09:33,890
Kayla: No, because the TESCREAL bundle. These people are nothing. Russian cosmists. They're not, like, 18th century russian philosophers.

88
00:09:33,930 --> 00:09:35,834
Chris: So should it be Rick Tescriel?

89
00:09:35,922 --> 00:09:36,922
Kayla: I don't think so.

90
00:09:37,066 --> 00:09:37,706
Chris: Okay.

91
00:09:37,818 --> 00:09:38,950
Kayla: I don't think so.

92
00:09:39,330 --> 00:09:41,426
Chris: Should we just add every letter to it?

93
00:09:41,498 --> 00:10:04,888
Kayla: It's just gonna be the Alphabet. Yeah, it's just the Alphabet. Interestingly, russian cosmism is a good place to start here because it's a direct jumping off point from our last three episode arc about the church of perpetual life. Because if you remember, that church, which was founded by buy and for life extension enthusiasts, had two prophets, Arthur C. Clarke, who you already mentioned, and russian philosopher. From our questions up top, Nikolai Fyodorov.

94
00:10:05,064 --> 00:10:10,512
Chris: So one of their two prophets is the father of russian cosmism.

95
00:10:10,576 --> 00:10:26,578
Kayla: Correct. Wild Fyodorov, like you said, father of russian cosmism. His writings and teachings inspired a number of folks in the test krill bundle, including that congregation. But let's get into who he was and what he was doing.

96
00:10:26,674 --> 00:10:27,590
Chris: Oh, boy.

97
00:10:28,810 --> 00:10:29,634
Kayla: I like him.

98
00:10:29,722 --> 00:10:30,106
Chris: You like him?

99
00:10:30,138 --> 00:10:30,610
Kayla: I like him.

100
00:10:30,650 --> 00:10:30,882
Chris: Okay.

101
00:10:30,906 --> 00:10:35,426
Kayla: Nothing wrong. I mean, I'm sure there's stuff wrong.

102
00:10:35,618 --> 00:10:37,310
Chris: Yeah, there's always something wrong.

103
00:10:38,770 --> 00:11:10,986
Kayla: If he had a twitter, I don't think it would have been a good place. However, what we do know, he's got some interesting things. Russian cosmism emerged as a movement in Russia, generally around, like, the 19 hundreds. Like Fyodorov lived. He was born in 1829. We'll get to that. It's a broad philosophy with a number of representatives outside of Fyodorov, but he's largely considered the most influential. It's a philosophical, spiritual, cultural and scientific movement combining religion, ethics, history, evolution, the origins of existence, and the future of the universe and humanity.

104
00:11:11,098 --> 00:11:12,970
Chris: Yeah, you always gotta get all this stuff.

105
00:11:13,050 --> 00:11:13,730
Kayla: It's the Alphabet.

106
00:11:13,770 --> 00:11:18,970
Chris: It's gotta be everything. You know, it's like when we did theosophy. You know, it's like everything all at once, all the time.

107
00:11:19,050 --> 00:11:27,710
Kayla: It's also a bit syncretic in that it draws from eastern and western philosophical traditions, but uniquely, it also draws from the russian orthodox church.

108
00:11:27,830 --> 00:11:28,302
Chris: Really?

109
00:11:28,406 --> 00:11:28,902
Kayla: Yeah.

110
00:11:29,006 --> 00:11:31,590
Chris: That does sound interesting. I like their onion domes.

111
00:11:31,670 --> 00:11:51,270
Kayla: Yeah, me, too. While there are a number of thinkers, writers, scientists and artists that make up this movement, just focusing on Fyodorov for a moment, because he's, you know, he's the prophet, he's the father, he's the. He's everything we want. When we're talking about the history of a movement, he is referred to by some as the Socrates of Moscow.

112
00:11:51,770 --> 00:11:53,738
Chris: Socrates of Moscow. That's a good title.

113
00:11:53,794 --> 00:12:13,390
Kayla: He had a lot to say about philosophy, art, futurism, religion, and all the things that would blossom into transhumanism, he was really big into his idea of humankind's common task, which we'll define a little more deeply, but essentially, it's defeating death. And he really wanted to resurrect people.

114
00:12:13,740 --> 00:12:15,860
Chris: Like, actually bring back from the dead.

115
00:12:15,900 --> 00:12:18,564
Kayla: Wanted to resurrect everyone who has ever died.

116
00:12:18,692 --> 00:12:21,868
Chris: That doesn't sound as scientific as some of the other things that.

117
00:12:21,924 --> 00:12:23,668
Kayla: He's not a scientist, he's a philosopher.

118
00:12:23,804 --> 00:12:35,404
Chris: Okay. Okay. I also. If he posits that the common task of mankind is defeating death, totally understand why? That he would be a prophet in the church. Perpetual life.

119
00:12:35,452 --> 00:12:48,468
Kayla: Yes. A quote from him. We can become immortal and godlike through rational efforts, and their moral obligation is to create a heaven to be shared by all who ever lived. He wanted to resurrect everyone.

120
00:12:48,564 --> 00:12:51,080
Chris: That sounds nice, but how?

121
00:12:51,380 --> 00:13:27,776
Kayla: Well, we haven't done it yet. So, Fyodorov was born in 1829, like I mentioned, in the village of Kliuchi in what is now Russia. While he was an illegitimate child, his mother was of lower class nobility, and that granted him access to education until about 1851, when his trust fund essentially ran out. He became a teacher for many years and eventually a museum librarian. And he was one of the first librarians there to systematically catalog the books, which I just. Like, what were they doing before that? Thank God for Fyodorov to be like. Here's a system for categorizing books.

122
00:13:27,848 --> 00:13:30,520
Chris: Yeah. Had Dewey decimal been born yet?

123
00:13:30,600 --> 00:13:34,280
Kayla: I don't think so. I don't know. I don't think so. He had his name, something.

124
00:13:34,320 --> 00:13:34,904
Chris: Dewey.

125
00:13:35,032 --> 00:13:36,616
Kayla: His name wasn't Dewey Decimal.

126
00:13:36,728 --> 00:13:38,120
Chris: I think Decimal was the.

127
00:13:38,200 --> 00:13:39,624
Kayla: No, his name was Dewey Decimal.

128
00:13:39,672 --> 00:13:40,540
Chris: Oh, okay.

129
00:13:42,890 --> 00:13:46,546
Kayla: He also held a weekly intellectual discussion club, naturally.

130
00:13:46,738 --> 00:13:51,510
Chris: Yeah. Yeah. This is so, like, what is with Russians, man? This is exactly like Ayn Rand.

131
00:13:52,090 --> 00:13:55,498
Kayla: Oh, yeah, well, no, this part isn't. He was an ascetic.

132
00:13:55,634 --> 00:13:56,362
Chris: Oh. Never mind.

133
00:13:56,426 --> 00:14:00,670
Kayla: Owned little property, gifted most of his pay to others. Refused.

134
00:14:01,170 --> 00:14:03,266
Chris: No, that is very not randian.

135
00:14:03,378 --> 00:14:06,426
Kayla: Refused raises and walked everywhere he went.

136
00:14:06,618 --> 00:14:07,106
Chris: Wow.

137
00:14:07,178 --> 00:14:15,022
Kayla: He refused any photographs or portraits, so the few, like, painted images of his likeness were made in secret. Any drugs?

138
00:14:15,086 --> 00:14:16,382
Chris: Why did he refuse?

139
00:14:16,486 --> 00:14:40,518
Kayla: I think he thought. This is me speculating. I think he thought it was narcissistic individual. He was against the idea of books and ideas as property, and so therefore, he never published anything while he was alive. He died in 1903 in a poor house. Was buried at the Saro monastery, which is the coolest.

140
00:14:40,574 --> 00:14:44,014
Chris: Sorry, there's. What is it called? The sorrow monastery.

141
00:14:44,062 --> 00:15:24,542
Kayla: The sorrow monastery. Extremely cool. Again, unpublished and poor. His grave was eventually destroyed in a mass grave desecration practice carried out by the Soviets. Eventually. While Fyodorov never published his writings while he was alive, they were published posthumously, which obviously helped bring him to a more widespread audience outside of his weekly discussion group. He was a big utopia guy, so his vision for the future included the eventual perfection of humanity as individuals, and that included things like immortal lifespans, space colonization, and then again, the resurrection of the dead.

142
00:15:24,726 --> 00:15:40,990
Chris: Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. We've mostly been talking about them not wanting to die. But it's called cosmism. So is the centerpiece like, that transhumanist, I don't want to die bit, or is the centerpiece, let's go into space for Fyodorov.

143
00:15:42,610 --> 00:15:44,074
Kayla: It's the resurrection thing.

144
00:15:44,162 --> 00:15:44,682
Chris: The resurrection.

145
00:15:44,706 --> 00:15:46,690
Kayla: Defeating death and resurrecting everybody.

146
00:15:46,730 --> 00:15:49,498
Chris: Why is it called cosmism? Why isn't it called resurrectionism?

147
00:15:49,674 --> 00:16:10,960
Kayla: And these beliefs kind of go hand in hand. Okay, we'll answer some of these questions along the way, but a lot of the folks who were interested in russian cosmism or contributed to russian cosmism had these kind of. They were, like, early TESCREALists. They had these overlapping Venn diagram beliefs. So some guys were more like, cool, let's go to Mars. And some guys were more like, cool, let's defeat death.

148
00:16:11,460 --> 00:16:12,108
Chris: Okay.

149
00:16:12,204 --> 00:16:16,804
Kayla: The resurrection thing kind of kept tripping me up because it felt so specific.

150
00:16:16,932 --> 00:16:17,332
Chris: Yeah.

151
00:16:17,396 --> 00:16:25,300
Kayla: But I think it ultimately ties back to what can be described as anti individualist stance adopted by Fyodorov.

152
00:16:25,380 --> 00:16:30,452
Chris: Anti individualist. To resurrect people. Why? What is hedgest?

153
00:16:30,586 --> 00:16:59,496
Kayla: He felt individualism, by definition or by necessity, made other people expendable in favor of the individual. Remember, this guy was a proponent of ancestor worship. So to him, people's genealogical relationships were extremely important to their place in the world. Essentially, he was saying, you did not just fall out of a coconut tree and you existed in the context of all in which you live. And what came before you. That was his thing.

154
00:16:59,528 --> 00:17:01,500
Chris: Kayla, let's not get political here, okay?

155
00:17:01,870 --> 00:17:36,016
Kayla: Like, your place in the world, in history, in society, is directly tied to your genealogical lineage. So, like, if the people alive right now or alive whenever immortality is achieved, if they get to live forever, it's philosophically unsound to not also try and resurrect the dead and grant them immortal life. We cannot say we've defeated death until death has not affected anyone. It's, like, only half of the equation. If the people who are alive right now never die, that's not fully completing humankind's common task.

156
00:17:36,088 --> 00:17:41,300
Chris: Right. Okay. I both understand that and think that it's a little bit crazy.

157
00:17:41,600 --> 00:17:43,752
Kayla: Yeah, I don't think that's wrong.

158
00:17:43,896 --> 00:18:06,506
Chris: I get the logic of, like, well, no. Defeating death means defeating all death, not just some death. That sounds logical, but also, holy shit. And again, totally impossible. But, man, if you could bring back, like, Alexander the great and Jesus and Genghis Khan, even just a regular God, we could all do the thing where it's like, who would you have at a dinner party. That'd be amazing.

159
00:18:06,578 --> 00:18:07,210
Kayla: I also think it's.

160
00:18:07,250 --> 00:18:12,150
Chris: Capitalism would absolutely eat all of those historical figures for lunch.

161
00:18:13,090 --> 00:18:17,826
Kayla: Well, it was not a capitalist society that he was living in.

162
00:18:17,858 --> 00:18:18,898
Chris: Oh, right.

163
00:18:19,034 --> 00:18:20,770
Kayla: So maybe he had a better view of it.

164
00:18:20,850 --> 00:18:23,450
Chris: I don't know. No, he was living in Tsarist Russia.

165
00:18:23,530 --> 00:18:24,026
Kayla: Yeah.

166
00:18:24,138 --> 00:18:25,194
Chris: I don't know if that's better.

167
00:18:25,322 --> 00:19:12,172
Kayla: Yeah, that's true. I also think that there's something kind of like. Again, philosophy is not a hard science, and there's some poetry in it, and it's something that's very poetic to me. And it reminds me of the Marconi project or Marconi belief, the guy who invented the radio. Forgive me if I'm speaking out of turn, but I. And again, this isn't philosophy. This is, like, this guy should have been, you know, really thinking logically. But alas, sometimes poetry creeps in. He had a whole thing of, like, sound never actually, like, stops. It just fades to a level that is, like, too quiet to be perceived. And that theoretically, we could invent, like, a machine or something that could pick up ancient, essentially ancient sounds.

168
00:19:12,196 --> 00:19:16,060
Chris: Like, if you built a receiver powerful enough, you could hear ancient sounds.

169
00:19:16,100 --> 00:19:19,112
Kayla: And he was really big on. He wanted to hear Jesus sermon on the mount.

170
00:19:19,256 --> 00:19:19,656
Chris: Okay.

171
00:19:19,688 --> 00:19:26,872
Kayla: And to me, that's something very, like, I don't think that's true, but it's very, like, poetically beautiful.

172
00:19:26,976 --> 00:19:29,992
Chris: Oh, yeah. It's a really beautiful belief to have.

173
00:19:30,056 --> 00:19:33,400
Kayla: Yeah, I kind of think that of this.

174
00:19:33,520 --> 00:19:43,900
Chris: Yeah, I see the analogy there mainly for the dinner party, which you'd have to subscribe to the dinner party app on your iOS device. And then what I could do is.

175
00:19:44,470 --> 00:20:00,170
Kayla: Strangely, or maybe actually not strangely, he was a pro religion guy, and he viewed his beliefs as a true expression of Christianity, particularly his advocacy of humankind's common task. He was like, this is the right way to be a Christian.

176
00:20:00,710 --> 00:20:05,614
Chris: I mean, Jesus stuff sometimes does talk about defeating death. Like his sacrifice.

177
00:20:05,702 --> 00:20:06,246
Kayla: He did it.

178
00:20:06,318 --> 00:20:11,038
Chris: He did it was to defeat death for mankind. So I can see that's, like.

179
00:20:11,054 --> 00:20:13,458
Kayla: The crux of being Christiane is that you don't die.

180
00:20:13,594 --> 00:20:14,270
Chris: Right.

181
00:20:14,850 --> 00:20:45,788
Kayla: To expand on his beliefs a little bit, like, Fedorov defined the common task as regulating the forces of nature to defeat death and bring ancestors back to life so we can all achieve a utopian society and govern the universe. So, like, the cosmism part of cosmism, of russian cosmism, kind of grows out of this defeat of death. Like, if we elevate ourselves to this. Like, to this technological status of being able to defeat death. We also have the capability to go out and colonize the universe.

182
00:20:45,884 --> 00:20:49,040
Chris: We're gonna have to, because it's gonna get crowded if we do that.

183
00:20:49,500 --> 00:21:08,120
Kayla: To him. This was not just the greatest goal of science, but a cause that could unite everyone on earth, regardless of their nationalities, differences, class disparities, et cetera. He was essentially that guy in watchmen. Spoilers for watchmen. I get to spoil watchmen.

184
00:21:08,870 --> 00:21:18,254
Chris: Yeah, I think the statute of limitations is out on watchmen, but spoilers for watchmen. It's funny you said cause, and I'm like, oh, wouldn't it be funny if it was causism?

185
00:21:18,382 --> 00:21:19,326
Kayla: It was actually spelled differently.

186
00:21:19,358 --> 00:21:20,734
Chris: C a u s e. Cause.

187
00:21:20,782 --> 00:21:48,144
Kayla: He should have spelled it like that. He viewed the existence of death as an indicator of humanity's imperfection and the root cause of evil. And he also viewed humanity as the pinnacle of evolution. As evolution sought to increase intelligence, and for mankind to evolve into masters of the universe, we would need to increase our intelligence to achieve the common task. So in order to get smirt enough to be able to resurrect everyone, we'd have to become cyborgs.

188
00:21:48,272 --> 00:21:55,336
Chris: Did he use the word evolution? Cause. Wasn't this right around when evolution was being posited as a thing?

189
00:21:55,448 --> 00:21:56,620
Kayla: I think he did.

190
00:21:57,200 --> 00:21:57,896
Chris: Interesting.

191
00:21:57,968 --> 00:21:58,528
Kayla: I can learn.

192
00:21:58,584 --> 00:22:01,734
Chris: I wonder what the timeline is specifically between him and Darwin.

193
00:22:01,832 --> 00:22:16,442
Kayla: Me? Look. Yeah, I just double checked, and Feodorov specifically used the term evolution. He said that the human evolutionary process, or the evolutionary process, is about increasing our intelligence.

194
00:22:16,586 --> 00:22:37,522
Chris: Okay. While you were looking that up, I also looked up the published date on the origin of species, and it was November 24, 1859. So I guess if we're talking, like, late 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds, when Fyodorov Washington, you know, publishing all his stuff, then, yeah, that tracks with the timeline. But it would have been, like, super fresh.

195
00:22:37,626 --> 00:22:41,162
Kayla: I mean, he was on top of his stuff. He knows what he was doing.

196
00:22:41,226 --> 00:22:42,202
Chris: He was a fresh dude.

197
00:22:42,266 --> 00:22:56,282
Kayla: I also think it's interesting that he views death as indicating humanity's imperfection and the root of evil cause. That, to me, kind of speaks to terror management theory kind of stuff.

198
00:22:56,346 --> 00:22:57,474
Chris: Like, absolutely.

199
00:22:57,522 --> 00:23:00,164
Kayla: If humans are bad, it's because we're scared of dying.

200
00:23:00,362 --> 00:23:13,584
Chris: Absolutely. I think that is a very particular belief. I don't think. I don't share that belief, but I think it fits very neatly within terror management theory. Yeah.

201
00:23:13,712 --> 00:23:43,508
Kayla: So what does this have to do with transhumanism? It's easy to see the roots of something like you already mentioned. Life extension. Bill Flunes church. But what about becoming cyborgs and uploading to the cloud and having robot bodies? And like, I just mentioned that, yes, that is exactly what he advocated to achieve his common task. He believed that humans needed to adapt the power of technology to overcome the inherent weakness of the human mind and body.

202
00:23:43,644 --> 00:23:49,524
Chris: So what was the technology back then that he was, because, like, computers were like 80 years away, like a boat.

203
00:23:49,612 --> 00:23:50,520
Kayla: I don't know.

204
00:23:50,900 --> 00:23:52,932
Chris: What was he gonna upload his mind to?

205
00:23:53,116 --> 00:24:26,672
Kayla: I don't think he was, he definitely didn't say, like, upload your mind. But he was like pro technology guy and human. I think he saw the connection between humans and our technology are like, so symbiotic and they make our technology makes us separate from animals and is like grows with our intelligence or our evolution or whatever you want to say. And so I think that he could, you know, even if he doesn't have the Internet, he can see things like, I don't know, what's the technology they had back then?

206
00:24:26,816 --> 00:24:27,620
Chris: Trains.

207
00:24:28,440 --> 00:24:30,528
Kayla: He could see like, yeah, trains.

208
00:24:30,584 --> 00:24:31,104
Chris: No, I think.

209
00:24:31,152 --> 00:24:34,160
Kayla: And he could be like, you could merge with a train and go extra.

210
00:24:34,240 --> 00:24:55,132
Chris: Oh, that would be cool. You'd be like a transformer, but like a steampunk transformer, you know? Like it's probably has something to do more with like, medical technology. Like observing the advances in medical technology, extrapolating out and saying like, well, we keep eradicating this disease and that disease. So, ergo, 40 years from now, we will eradicate all forms of death.

211
00:24:55,196 --> 00:24:58,972
Kayla: And I also think some of this was just like having good imaginations, like Arthur C. Clarke.

212
00:24:59,036 --> 00:24:59,684
Chris: That's true.

213
00:24:59,812 --> 00:25:39,148
Kayla: Had foresight and like, Isaac Asimov had foresight, and all these guys had foresight into like, what the future would look like and sometimes had very accurate predictions, even when they didn't necessarily have the realities that we have now. They were living in like, a pre Internet world, right? But they still predicted hell or whatever the fuck. This guy Fedorov, he wanted people to improve their bodies with technology to achieve things like flight. So, like, if you see the, I don't know when the Wright brothers were, but people were doing flight way before the Wright brothers or talking about flight or thinking about flight. So if you could see somebody be like, oh, I could sit on an airplane versus I could become the airplane.

214
00:25:39,324 --> 00:25:42,236
Chris: I think Kitty Hawk was like, 1905 or something. I want to say.

215
00:25:42,268 --> 00:25:46,476
Kayla: Yeah, he died in 1903, but like, da Vinci was talking about.

216
00:25:46,548 --> 00:25:49,100
Chris: Yeah. Oh, no. People have been talking about human flight for eons.

217
00:25:49,180 --> 00:26:01,680
Kayla: So he wanted flight. He thought we could enhance our vision. He thought we could, you know, alter ourselves to carry out space travel and space colonization. Honestly, colonization in any type of environment, he also wanted, like, he wanted to see ocean colonization.

218
00:26:02,020 --> 00:26:05,268
Chris: Mmm. This also sounds like Superman powers.

219
00:26:05,404 --> 00:26:15,302
Kayla: I mean, it's not. Not that Superman. He was. He wasn't a transhuman. He was an alien. But he was definitely, like, ubermensch.

220
00:26:15,366 --> 00:26:25,878
Chris: Yeah, he was definitely conceived. Superman was definitely conceived as, like, his original iteration was. He's, like, the pinnacle of man or whatever, not necessarily, like, superpowered.

221
00:26:25,974 --> 00:26:40,810
Kayla: So Feodorov's thing was like, how can we defeat death if not by improving our intelligence of the mind with the intelligence of technology? So, yes, you can trace a direct lineage from some of Fyodorov's beliefs to what transhumanists eventually have now come to believe and advocate for.

222
00:26:41,310 --> 00:26:44,718
Chris: Okay, is he pro Mars or pro Venus in terms of colonization?

223
00:26:44,814 --> 00:26:46,174
Kayla: I have absolutely no idea.

224
00:26:46,262 --> 00:26:46,846
Chris: That's important.

225
00:26:46,918 --> 00:26:49,686
Kayla: And they knew about Mars and Venus back then. They knew about Mars and Venus for a long time, right?

226
00:26:49,718 --> 00:26:51,170
Chris: Yeah. Yeah, we knew about those.

227
00:26:51,790 --> 00:26:54,414
Kayla: I don't know. He'd probably be both. He'd probably say both.

228
00:26:54,502 --> 00:26:56,574
Chris: Both. Okay. Why? Porcay nolos dos?

229
00:26:56,622 --> 00:27:12,102
Kayla: Yeah, exactly. The defeat, as much as we've been talking about the defeat of death and the promotion of transhumanism weren't Fyodorov's only beliefs. So, like, just touch on a few more, he was pro renewable energy and wanted to see a shift from coal mining to solar and wind energy.

230
00:27:12,206 --> 00:27:17,094
Chris: What? Dude, this guy was, like, so far, I'm, like, having trouble with the timeline. I know, because he was so far.

231
00:27:17,142 --> 00:27:19,158
Kayla: That one kind of threw me, because.

232
00:27:19,214 --> 00:27:23,710
Chris: That was right around when were like, oh, shit, we can use oil. We don't have to keep killing whales.

233
00:27:23,790 --> 00:27:25,078
Kayla: Yeah. Yeah.

234
00:27:25,214 --> 00:27:26,814
Chris: It's, like, a hundred years ahead of his time.

235
00:27:26,862 --> 00:27:30,450
Kayla: I think part of it was because it was coal mining was very dangerous to the miners.

236
00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:32,912
Chris: Okay. Huh. Wow.

237
00:27:33,056 --> 00:27:38,456
Kayla: He was pro climate engineering and praised russian experiments with cloud seeding because apparently they were doing.

238
00:27:38,568 --> 00:27:40,792
Chris: Didn't even know you could cloud seed back then.

239
00:27:40,896 --> 00:27:50,232
Kayla: He was critical of progressivism and nationalism, as he viewed these ideas as essentially like, newer generations rejecting their ancestors. And wherever he was, like, you should.

240
00:27:50,256 --> 00:27:52,944
Chris: Worship your ancestors woke mob. Yeah.

241
00:27:53,032 --> 00:28:02,360
Kayla: He criticized socialism as materialistic and focused on replaceable individuals, while he believed all people who had ever lived are irreplaceable.

242
00:28:02,980 --> 00:28:03,844
Chris: But I thought he was.

243
00:28:03,892 --> 00:28:06,468
Kayla: I just think he was kind of anti anything that wasn't his stuff.

244
00:28:06,524 --> 00:28:08,428
Chris: Yeah, that's what I'm getting here.

245
00:28:08,524 --> 00:28:15,340
Kayla: Everything was about. If it wasn't, like, focused on the common task, then it was admitting that human beings are replaceable. And he did not believe that.

246
00:28:15,420 --> 00:28:19,788
Chris: If I disagree with 5% of what you say, I disagree with all of what you say.

247
00:28:19,924 --> 00:28:27,050
Kayla: He disliked standalone cemeteries, preferring cemeteries to be connected to churches, or, as he proposed, built in universities.

248
00:28:28,310 --> 00:28:31,414
Chris: This guy's got an eclectic set of beliefs, man.

249
00:28:31,502 --> 00:28:38,310
Kayla: He promoted the scientific study of the afterlife and resurrection, coming up with experiment ideas reminiscent of the modern day practice of cloning.

250
00:28:38,470 --> 00:28:39,670
Chris: Holy shit.

251
00:28:39,790 --> 00:28:51,782
Kayla: He believed in eradicating poverty so that everyone had the means to study science. He believed all people must have access to universal scientific education so that we can all participate in humankind's common task.

252
00:28:51,926 --> 00:28:57,642
Chris: See, now that he's talking about poverty, I'm like, he's not billionaire oriented enough at this point, so.

253
00:28:57,706 --> 00:29:01,274
Kayla: No, he was ascetic. He was like, oh, you gave me $5. I only need one. You take.

254
00:29:01,322 --> 00:29:04,266
Chris: Yeah. No, he needs to realize that this is all for the billionaires.

255
00:29:04,378 --> 00:29:28,470
Kayla: He had a negative view of sexual and romantic relationships, believing that also, like, a very heteronormative view, obviously. He believed that men becoming involved with women isolated them from their ancestors because they were like, I'm focused on this bitch and not focused on those bitches behind me. I don't understand it. But that was his thing. Okay, so he lived as. As a result, he lived a celibate life.

256
00:29:28,890 --> 00:29:42,250
Chris: So when you're a teenager and you're, you know, participating in activities that teenagers do frequently, and you're, like, get stressed out or anxious that, like, your ancestors are, like, watching you. So it's. He actually thought that.

257
00:29:42,290 --> 00:29:55,900
Kayla: No. Cause I think he thought it was like, that your ancestors are all dead, but, like, you should be worshipping them, not like, trying to make a new generation. I don't really know. It doesn't really follow for me, and he's not alive for me to, like, ask him.

258
00:29:55,980 --> 00:29:58,840
Chris: I mean, if my ancestors were Pamela Anderson, then that would work.

259
00:29:59,820 --> 00:30:04,212
Kayla: I don't think he was advocating. I think he just. I think he didn't like sex.

260
00:30:04,356 --> 00:30:08,388
Chris: Yeah, I know he was a sex. It sounds like he may have just been, like, asexual without a word for.

261
00:30:08,404 --> 00:30:17,104
Kayla: It, potentially, but he also found, like, a philosophical reason for it to, like, fit in his framework for him. Anyway. He had answer to the Fermi paradox before it existed.

262
00:30:17,152 --> 00:30:19,688
Chris: What? He believed Fermi wasn't even born yet.

263
00:30:19,744 --> 00:30:29,180
Kayla: I know, but he had answer. He believed that aliens probably existed but did not participate in the common task, hence their absence.

264
00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:34,136
Chris: Okay, so aliens existed, but they're like, eh, we can die, it's cool. And then they die.

265
00:30:34,248 --> 00:30:42,040
Kayla: That's. He was saying, if aliens participated in the common task, we would see them, we would meet them, but instead, they're just accepting death.

266
00:30:42,380 --> 00:30:51,644
Chris: I have to say that of my favored Fermi paradox explanation, that's actually pretty good.

267
00:30:51,732 --> 00:30:52,612
Kayla: It's not bad.

268
00:30:52,756 --> 00:31:17,436
Chris: And that's pretty close to modern explanations, too, because you don't necessarily need radio telescopes to come to the conclusion that, where are the aliens? It's not necessarily that you can't see them. We might even expect them to be everywhere if their civilization lives long enough and they have a way to travel between stars. It's not just why can't we see them in the telescope. It's why aren't they right here?

269
00:31:17,508 --> 00:31:18,124
Kayla: Right, right.

270
00:31:18,172 --> 00:31:21,676
Chris: So that's actually not a bad explanation.

271
00:31:21,748 --> 00:31:46,066
Kayla: Especially because he views the common task as being achieved by super duper ing our technologies. If you super duper your technology enough, you'll achieve space colonization via this attempt to solve the common task. So if the aliens aren't trying to solve the common task, they're not enhancing their technology, and therefore they're not hanging out with us. Okay, got his answer.

272
00:31:46,178 --> 00:31:46,870
Chris: Yeah.

273
00:31:47,250 --> 00:31:55,386
Kayla: And most notably, he viewed his beliefs as objectively morally right. And specifically morally right in a christian framework.

274
00:31:55,538 --> 00:31:57,578
Chris: It's one of those he'd feel at home on.

275
00:31:57,594 --> 00:32:17,332
Kayla: Less wrong, probably. And that's a pretty quick rundown of Fedorov and his contributions to russian cosmism and eventually transhumanism. It's not a comprehensive. It's not a comprehensive view. There's a lot more here, obviously. It's very interesting. It's a very interesting field. So if you're interested, go to your library, because he was a librarian.

276
00:32:17,396 --> 00:32:30,956
Chris: So, again, going back to why it's called cosmism, it's sort of like the idea of destiny among the stars is that even though that's not necessarily the central bit, definitely does still seem to be the conquering death bit.

277
00:32:30,988 --> 00:32:53,162
Kayla: Right. And again, that was very much his thing. Other cosmists came along or came up at the same time, actually. Let's touch quickly on some of those other russian cosmists and their beliefs to give us a more well rounded picture. Along with Fyodorov's philosophical branch of russian cosmism, there were also early artistic and scientific branches.

278
00:32:53,266 --> 00:32:53,706
Chris: Cool.

279
00:32:53,778 --> 00:33:43,350
Kayla: There's one guy. Oh, hold on to your butts. Alexander Scribiande, an artistic cosmist, russian cosmist believed that art could be used to achieve the common task. And I don't mean in a, like, make art about the common task. Then you inspire people to go be scientists. I mean, his unfinished musical work, mysterium, was proposed as a week long performance in the himalayas with no audience, only performers, including an orchestra, a choir, dancers, visual effects, incense and other sensory items, and a continually changing atmosphere. And after the performance was complete, it would be followed by the end of the world, and humans would be replaced by nobler beings. He died before he could finish the work. And I'm very sad.

280
00:33:44,650 --> 00:33:53,724
Chris: I. Okay. Whoa. Is mind blowing.

281
00:33:53,772 --> 00:33:55,964
Kayla: Yes. I love him.

282
00:33:56,132 --> 00:34:00,612
Chris: I don't have words. Should have sent a poet. Speaking of cosmis stuff, in regards to.

283
00:34:00,636 --> 00:34:15,676
Kayla: The scientific branch, early russian cosmists proposed ideas concerning rocket propulsion, space exploration, cosmonautics, space colonization, pan physicism, which is the, like, I think it's the idea that, like, everything is conscious kind of thing, or the universe.

284
00:34:15,708 --> 00:34:16,706
Chris: Oh, panpsychism.

285
00:34:16,828 --> 00:34:20,774
Kayla: Is it called panpsychism? I can't read. So panpsychism, explain it to me.

286
00:34:20,902 --> 00:34:30,630
Chris: Yeah, no, I don't have to explain it. It's what you said. It's the idea that everything has some modicum of consciousness, whether it's a lot or a little. The universe itself is.

287
00:34:30,670 --> 00:34:45,889
Kayla: And kind of following that. Some believed, didn't believe in capital g, God, but believed in some sort of cosmic being that governed humans. So they had these big cosmic beliefs, hence russian cosmism.

288
00:34:47,070 --> 00:35:02,878
Chris: Okay. Okay. Actually, that makes a little more sense even then, because it's not just cosmism in the outer space sense. It's cosmism in the cosmic beings and other worldly, unknowable big thought stuff.

289
00:35:02,934 --> 00:35:20,396
Kayla: It's putting the fun science stuff of, ooh, how do we travel among the stars in also, it's like Sci-Fi it's just, it's all, like, big high concept Sci-Fi stuff. What if we go to Mars that has tangible things like rocket propulsion?

290
00:35:20,468 --> 00:35:23,908
Chris: Yeah. Like, what if we travel to Mars and also God is there?

291
00:35:23,964 --> 00:35:29,220
Kayla: Yeah. And, like, that's not an invalid question.

292
00:35:29,380 --> 00:35:46,276
Chris: No, I mean, there's. Yeah, I don't want to get too much into stuff that I don't know about, but, like, the idea that heaven exists as this separate dimension from ours is not the only formulation of where God might exist.

293
00:35:46,348 --> 00:36:05,282
Kayla: Right. And God is defined by Christianity is not the only definition of God, particularly for scientists and science minded people. I think many of them, if they have a view of God, it is more similar to the universe, or is a very specific word.

294
00:36:05,476 --> 00:36:06,166
Chris: Totally understand.

295
00:36:06,238 --> 00:36:13,854
Kayla: Now, other cosmists believed in the possibility of human rejuvenation, be it via things like blood transfusion, like, talking about blood boys.

296
00:36:13,902 --> 00:36:14,246
Chris: Holy shit.

297
00:36:14,278 --> 00:36:23,566
Kayla: But I read this one thing where it was, like, symbiotic blood boy. Where, like, not only would the elder person benefit from the young blood, but the young person would benefit from the old blood.

298
00:36:23,718 --> 00:36:25,462
Chris: So would they, like, get smart from it or something?

299
00:36:25,526 --> 00:36:26,570
Kayla: I think so.

300
00:36:27,110 --> 00:36:28,926
Chris: That'd be cool as fuck. Yeah.

301
00:36:29,118 --> 00:36:34,358
Kayla: Others propose the concept of the neurosphere. No oo sphere, which is essentially.

302
00:36:34,374 --> 00:36:35,638
Chris: What is the noosphere? Again, I knew that.

303
00:36:35,654 --> 00:36:41,182
Kayla: It's a biosphere of humanity's rational activities. It's like its own biosphere, but it's like humans. Like.

304
00:36:41,246 --> 00:36:43,198
Chris: Like the human thoughtosphere.

305
00:36:43,254 --> 00:36:43,942
Kayla: Yeah.

306
00:36:44,126 --> 00:36:53,342
Chris: Okay. T h o u g h t. Not thought. T h o t. Although that's its own sphere, composed of lots of very excellent spheres.

307
00:36:53,406 --> 00:37:03,680
Kayla: Yes. We're also talking about heliobiology or the sun's effects on biology. Some concluded that communism is necessary to support future space colonization.

308
00:37:04,380 --> 00:37:12,252
Chris: That's interesting because we sort of have the. I feel like at least in the west, we might have the opposite take. Like, well, the only way. But, I mean.

309
00:37:12,276 --> 00:37:12,972
Kayla: Yeah, I mean, theater.

310
00:37:13,036 --> 00:37:16,612
Chris: Soviet Union did. Like, they were neck and neck with us for a long time.

311
00:37:16,676 --> 00:37:24,732
Kayla: Yeah. I don't think you can say capitalism and the way we have capitalism is the only way you can do space travel. Because case in point, right?

312
00:37:24,756 --> 00:37:25,260
Chris: It was done.

313
00:37:25,340 --> 00:37:31,366
Kayla: It was done. One russian cosmist even discovered lunar tectonic activity.

314
00:37:31,518 --> 00:37:32,014
Chris: Wow.

315
00:37:32,102 --> 00:37:35,158
Kayla: Yeah. So, like, in short, these guys were cool as hell.

316
00:37:35,214 --> 00:37:37,250
Chris: Yeah, these guys were bonkers, man.

317
00:37:37,590 --> 00:37:46,670
Kayla: But, okay, what do they have to do with the second topic? This episode covers modern cosmism. We're on to part two.

318
00:37:46,710 --> 00:37:51,764
Chris: Now, I've been chewing on that question, like, how does this tie into the t and then back into the circumental?

319
00:37:51,802 --> 00:38:40,194
Kayla: Right? So we mentioned that in the TESCREAL acronym, the C explicitly refers to modern cosmism, not russian cosmism, even though there's some guys that, like, I think Elon Musk likes some of these russian cosmis guys. Like, you know, like, names, conference rooms after them kind of thing. Like, they like these individual sciency guys, sure. But any lingering russian cosmis beliefs that might still be around, which are few and far between, are generally covered by the t. Transhumanism. But doctors Emile Torres and Timnit Gebru have identified this specific evolution of transhumanism as the C in their acronym. So specifically, they're defining modern cosmism as, like, a concept largely developed by a computer scientist named Doctor Ben Goertzel.

320
00:38:40,322 --> 00:38:45,270
Chris: Yeah, that name rings a bell. It might because I talked to Emile about him offline.

321
00:38:45,670 --> 00:38:54,310
Kayla: Oh, interesting. Okay, this. I'm pulling. I'm pulling a lot here from the paper that these two doctors published that you talked about in your interview.

322
00:38:54,390 --> 00:38:56,830
Chris: Right. The key paper, the TESCREAL paper.

323
00:38:56,870 --> 00:39:13,000
Kayla: The TESCREAL bundle. Some of our listeners outside of this show may have also heard of Ben Goertzel. He is a transhumanist who participated in the extropion movement, which you might remember was the Max Moore developed. Like, it was like a utopia movement.

324
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:18,696
Chris: But like, utopia libertarian sort of way of manifesting transhumanism.

325
00:39:18,808 --> 00:39:27,304
Kayla: He's also a businessman who founded Singularitynet, which is like, essentially distribution for artificial intelligence data via blockchains.

326
00:39:27,472 --> 00:39:28,768
Chris: I've heard of Singularitynet.

327
00:39:28,824 --> 00:39:30,416
Kayla: I don't know what that means, but.

328
00:39:30,528 --> 00:39:31,032
Chris: I don't know either.

329
00:39:31,056 --> 00:39:33,640
Kayla: It has the word blockchain in it, so you know it's got the funding, right?

330
00:39:33,680 --> 00:39:34,104
Chris: It's got the funding.

331
00:39:34,112 --> 00:39:35,000
Kayla: I don't know if it's got the funding.

332
00:39:35,040 --> 00:39:36,928
Chris: It's buzzwords to get funding.

333
00:39:37,064 --> 00:39:49,552
Kayla: He's also the brains behind Opencog, which is a project aiming to build an open source AI framework. He was the chief scientist at Hanson Robotics, which is the company behind Sophia the robot. You know Sophia the robot, right?

334
00:39:49,656 --> 00:39:50,792
Chris: Is that the creepy one?

335
00:39:50,856 --> 00:39:54,392
Kayla: Well, she's that robot. She, like, looks human. She's bald. She was.

336
00:39:54,496 --> 00:39:55,088
Chris: Oh, yeah.

337
00:39:55,144 --> 00:39:58,280
Kayla: She was at south by Southwest in 2016. I think she's, like, on social media.

338
00:39:58,320 --> 00:39:59,800
Chris: She's been, like, interviewed or whatever, right?

339
00:39:59,840 --> 00:40:04,572
Kayla: Definitely interviewed. I think she has been granted personhood in some country.

340
00:40:04,676 --> 00:40:06,020
Chris: That's okay. Yeah, yeah.

341
00:40:06,060 --> 00:40:38,936
Kayla: It's claimed that she's a social robot who can mimic love and human behavior. Her internal workings include a chat system, scripting software, and since 2018, Opencog AI. Side note, other, like, AI, quote unquote. Experts have claimed that she's nothing more than a PR stunt. Enhancing robotics claims about her capabilities are misleading, including, like, meta's chief AI scientist, this person called Sofia, quote, complete bullshit. Which makes me very sad, because I like Sophia the robot.

342
00:40:39,008 --> 00:40:40,616
Chris: Well, grain of salt. That's from meta.

343
00:40:40,688 --> 00:40:57,204
Kayla: Yeah, it's grain of salt for all of this. Because what is real? I don't know. Goertzel has given talks about AI at the singularity summit, which is founded by names we all know. Eliezer Yadkowski, Ray Kurzweil, and Peter Thiel.

344
00:40:57,332 --> 00:41:10,284
Chris: The usual suspects. Okay, so this guy sounds like he belongs in that he is test real. Yeah, like, he sounds real. Like, if I say Eliezer Utkowski, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel. I should also say Ben Goertzel.

345
00:41:10,332 --> 00:41:25,382
Kayla: I think so. He was also chairman of the artificial General Intelligence Society, vice chairman at Humanity plus. And as mentioned before, he's really big into AGI. Like, artificial general intelligence. Like, really big, so.

346
00:41:25,566 --> 00:41:31,350
Chris: Oh, and you said at the top of the show that helped popularize the term. Popularize the term AGI. Okay.

347
00:41:31,430 --> 00:41:41,494
Kayla: In 2007, he spoke at Google about his approach to AGI and has since come to postulate that AGI will replace 80% of human jobs and will solve human problems like climate change.

348
00:41:41,622 --> 00:41:42,238
Chris: Oh, sick.

349
00:41:42,294 --> 00:41:46,810
Kayla: He is against AI regulations, which you might be shocked to hear.

350
00:41:47,310 --> 00:41:48,542
Chris: So shocked. Kayla.

351
00:41:48,606 --> 00:42:05,546
Kayla: And so when we say AGI, we're talking about a type of AI that surpasses human abilities across a wide range of tasks. So think of it as like a how from 2001 versus, like, a narrow AI that is designed for a specific task. Like social media algorithms.

352
00:42:05,578 --> 00:42:11,442
Chris: Right. Like the computer, like deep blue that is built specifically to beat Gary Kasparov at chess.

353
00:42:11,506 --> 00:42:12,322
Kayla: Right, right.

354
00:42:12,426 --> 00:42:17,322
Chris: Couldn't also make a recipe out of potatoes.

355
00:42:17,426 --> 00:42:17,730
Kayla: Correct.

356
00:42:17,770 --> 00:42:18,306
Chris: I don't know. Whatever.

357
00:42:18,338 --> 00:42:21,442
Kayla: It's like trying to make a human brain versus trying to make a part of a human brain.

358
00:42:21,506 --> 00:42:22,060
Chris: Right.

359
00:42:22,210 --> 00:43:01,470
Kayla: Ben Goertzel has also written and published a variety of articles and books. He's quite prolific, and he's been publishing since 1992. One of his books is titled Artificial General Intelligence, and I think he got that term. He'd been talking about this stuff with people like Eliezer Yudkowski. He wasn't super happy with the terms that were around or the title of the book that he was trying to publish. And he asked one of his contributors, one of his writers, like, what do you think we should be calling this? And they came up with artificial general intelligence to describe this type of AI, and then ended up titling the book that, which might be one of the main reasons AGI is in our current cultural lexicon.

360
00:43:02,410 --> 00:43:14,894
Kayla: He also wrote a book in 2010 called the Cosmist Manifesto, which outlines a techno utopian future among the stars, achievable only by the development of AGI and by embracing transhumanism.

361
00:43:15,082 --> 00:43:26,050
Chris: Okay, so it's. Again, this is. This is why they made the term testrail, because it's like, it's always all of these things, like, kind of all come as a package, right.

362
00:43:26,710 --> 00:44:13,262
Kayla: In that paper on the TESCREAL bundle doctors Gebru and Torres argue that Goetzel claims that, quote, cosmism subsumes the transhumanist goal of radical human enhancement, yet goes beyond this in various respects. And I kind of just want to read the rest of this passage from their paper because it explains exactly why and how modern cosmism is the next iteration of transhumanism. Okay, so, Goetzel's book, they state, affirms that humans will merge with technology, which will inaugurate a new phase of the evolution of our species, and that we will develop sentient AI and mind uploading technology that permits an indefinite lifespan to those who choose to leave biology behind and upload.

363
00:44:13,406 --> 00:44:26,170
Kayla: But cosmism also predicts that we will spread to the stars and roam the universe, create synthetic realities, that is, virtual worlds, and develop spacetime engineering and scientific future magic much beyond our current understanding and imagination.

364
00:44:28,990 --> 00:44:44,600
Chris: Okay, so I don't like the idea of billionaires doing. Of billionaires doing a New Zealand apocalypse where they don't care if everybody dies of climate change.

365
00:44:45,300 --> 00:44:46,060
Kayla: I don't care for that.

366
00:44:46,100 --> 00:44:50,320
Chris: I don't care for that. But some of the stuff you were just saying sounds pretty fun.

367
00:44:50,780 --> 00:45:18,514
Kayla: I think that's part of why it was necessary for these two academics to define TESCREAL, because its component parts don't necessarily individually seem like there's any sort of negative here. It's just kind of when there's this weird combination and amalgamation and, like, shitty ass stakes and motivations at play that it becomes something that's, like, kind of necessary to think about because, yeah, I want to be. I want to be among the stars.

368
00:45:18,642 --> 00:45:23,090
Chris: Yeah, it sounds cool. I want to go to Venus. I want to go into the.

369
00:45:23,210 --> 00:45:24,390
Kayla: You want to go to Jupiter?

370
00:45:25,570 --> 00:45:28,026
Chris: Just like I was promised in elementary school.

371
00:45:28,218 --> 00:45:59,442
Kayla: So, again, their whole argument is that modern cosmism is, like, the next phase, the next extension of transhumanism, in which a transhumanist society, aided by AGI, colonizes space and shapes the wider universe in our transhumanist image. So modern cosmism is different than russian cosmism? Yes, but modern cosmism does not exist without transhumanism, which does not exist without russian cosmism, or at least not in the way that we understand them.

372
00:45:59,466 --> 00:46:12,682
Chris: Now, I will say that, and I don't know how I personally feel about this, but there is definitely a sort of, like, european colonizationist thread.

373
00:46:12,786 --> 00:46:15,082
Kayla: Yeah. Can we colonize the universe if the aliens are already there?

374
00:46:15,186 --> 00:46:23,606
Chris: That's what I mean. Right. And even if the aliens aren't already there, like, if we colonize the universe, there will not ever be new life.

375
00:46:23,718 --> 00:46:24,486
Kayla: Oh no.

376
00:46:24,598 --> 00:46:57,074
Chris: Or aliens. Yeah, right. If there was a cosmist civilization before us, we wouldn't be here talking about this right now. So there's like this expansionist, like, winner take all, like, consume the resources around us, make things in our image that sounds very similar to some of the like, values that we have inherited from our recent ancestors here in the west. And I think that is a, not to speak for them, but I think that's a big part of the critique coming from folks like Doctor Torres and Doctor Gebru.

377
00:46:57,122 --> 00:47:43,264
Kayla: I wonder if this ever comes up in these conversations because we've talked about how, especially the rationalists, and we'll get into some things on future episodes talk about ultimately we have to put everything into AGI right now because that'll help the trillions and trillions of people in the future versus caring about what's going on with the millions of people right now. We need to help the trillions in the future to maximize happiness. I wonder if they ever talk about that in like, oh, could we be hamstringing even greater happiness if we do not colonize the universe? Does that allow the universe to have even like trillions more of other types of sentient beings? Can our colonization hamper that? And if they're not talking about that, I want them to talk about it now.

378
00:47:43,352 --> 00:48:26,126
Chris: Yeah, I think about this sometimes with the whole Fermi paradox thing and like, what's, what people are calling grabby aliens, which is basically, like, it doesn't necessarily need to be aliens. It could be us grabby species, whatever. But the idea that like, you know, you look at a lot of life on Earth and it tries to expand and consume resources, and that's essentially what we're talking about with colonizing space. And if we're bringing that, you know, the sort of like european colonization attitude to it, that might not be good. Like, most of the stuff that we've done so far, I think with space exploration has been very careful to be like, don't contaminate places that might already, like, don't fuck with Europa.

379
00:48:26,318 --> 00:48:34,614
Chris: Because when we go there, we have to be very careful to like, be super, you know, like, whatever instruments we send to Europa are gonna have to be clean as fuck, right?

380
00:48:34,662 --> 00:48:40,770
Kayla: Yeah. So, and if you read 2010 space Odyssey, just don't fuck with.

381
00:48:41,190 --> 00:49:07,876
Chris: Right. That was kind of the whole thing there. Yeah, but, you know, but NASA is very cognizant of that, right. When they're I trying to search for life on other planets because if you just bring your own life, you might not know. Right. Yeah. So it's a thing. But like, will that attitude continue once we've moved past pure exploration mentality and we've moved into colonization and commercialization mentality?

382
00:49:07,948 --> 00:49:08,764
Kayla: I'm scared.

383
00:49:08,892 --> 00:49:09,652
Chris: I know.

384
00:49:09,796 --> 00:49:10,868
Kayla: Oh, man.

385
00:49:11,044 --> 00:49:18,712
Chris: I know. And again, I like space. I like going to space. I like Star Trek. But theres a lot to also be concerned about.

386
00:49:18,776 --> 00:49:23,856
Kayla: Yes, thats a good point. A lot to think about. A lot for the test. Guerrero to think about.

387
00:49:23,928 --> 00:49:24,936
Chris: Yeah, you think about that.

388
00:49:24,968 --> 00:49:56,186
Kayla: Okay, Ben, and just to kind of wrap up this episode, to reiterate how I put it up top, russian cosmism is the precursor to transhumanism, which is the precursor to modern cosmism. Its a clear and steady continuum. Okay, that is it for the sea intestrial. We've hit transhumanism, extropionism, cosmism and rationalism explicitly. There's a few more letters for us to go before we can bring this all to the criteria, which is probably its own episode.

389
00:49:56,298 --> 00:50:00,362
Chris: Yeah, I kind of feel like we're just doing this because we're completionists, but.

390
00:50:00,386 --> 00:50:02,386
Kayla: You gotta hit them all. You gotta catch them all, right?

391
00:50:02,418 --> 00:50:04,306
Chris: You gotta catch them all. Check all the achievements.

392
00:50:04,418 --> 00:50:17,178
Kayla: So join us next time on culture. Just weird as we keep making our way through the TESCREAL bundle or the entire Alphabet, however you want to view it and maybe, I don't know, eventually out into the stars with all our ancestors in tow.

393
00:50:17,354 --> 00:50:18,322
Chris: That would be fun.

394
00:50:18,426 --> 00:50:24,058
Kayla: This is Kayla, this is Chris, and this has been cult or just, you.

395
00:50:24,074 --> 00:50:26,690
Chris: Just want to say weird this time? Cult is just weird. The actual title.