Charlie Stross (whose books I’ve never read, but will now) shares the text of a recent speech about the origins of today’s tech leaders and their ethos. We’re sorry we created the Torment Nexus:

I’d like to talk about something that I personally find much more worrying: a political ideology common among silicon valley billionaires of a certain age—known by the acronym TESCREAL—that is built on top of a shaky set of assumptions about the future of humanity. It comes straight out of an uncritical reading of the bad science fiction of decades past, and it’s really dangerous.

He starts off with a hilariously cynical (not inaccurate) reading of the whole movement:

Longtermism is the belief that we should discount short-term harms to real existing human beings—such as human-induced climate change—if it brings us closer to the goal of colonizing the universe, because the needs of trillions of future people who don’t actually exist yet obviously outweigh the needs of today’s global poor…It posits a destiny for humanity, which of necessity makes it a secular religion. It means that if you don’t believe in their plans, then you’re some kind of anti-science backsliding reactionary heretic. And if this sounds just slightly insane to you, well, that’s probably because you’re not Elon Musk or Peter Thiel.

He goes on to build a history of science fiction (predating Amazing Stories), making the case that the Musks and Bezoses and Thiels of our current dystopia drew their inspiration from a misreading of 70’s era terrible science fiction.

I have another 4 or 5 lengthy quotes saved but really, you should go read it yourself.