Going to the Moon

At one time Forall was leading an interdisciplinary course on the history of intelligence, the practice of wisdom and compassion, and the role of emerging technologies in scaling the Dharma. This class was on the post world war period.

He described how the US culture during this time went back-and-forth, again and again, between the sense that we could save the world and that the world was doomed. At one point, after the Soviets launched Sputnik 1, Kennedy out of nowhere said that we would land on the moon. And then, we did it!

In the process, Forall explained, we captured the most important photograph of all time: a blue orb floating in the midst of a void.

We saw that this planet is beautiful in a way we didn’t know, and that we are a part of this. It was as if there was a global spiritual experience that no religion had pulled off before.

With this and other technological and governmental achievements, there was a sense that we can do things that only gods can do.

We didn’t think, wow we really messed up on this planet, so we should be imprisoned here until we figure this out — we are the last thing that should leave this planet. No, instead, we thought, we’re unstoppable and should live in the stars and the stars will benefit from our presence there, just as this planet has.

In this way, Forall described a pubescent form of the transhumanist ideology being promulgated by Silicon Valley prophets. Far more extreme than Nazism, this group proudly expresses the desire to kill all organic life and replace them with “posthuman” intelligence systems. In this way, they try to finally end suffering, colonize the whole universe, and give it meaning by eternally preserving the light of their consciousness.

The cult of transhumanist ideology, Forall says, is the most violent and evangelical group of religious fanatics the world has ever seen. And as it becomes the most powerful ideology on the planet, it is openly bringing us towards the destruction of all life on Earth.