TESCREAL: A Quick Guide to the Mythologies Driving Tech Power
Silicon Valley's elite build more than products. They build realities. Behind their inventions sit belief systems: warped, fervent, wildly resourced.
I take those imaginations seriously. Ruha Benjamin reminds us that those who monopolize resources also monopolize imagination. They build the tools, the infrastructures, the platforms. They shape what most of us believe the future can or should be.
Thanks to computer scientist Timnit Gebru and philosopher Émile P. Torres, we have language for this tangled worldview: TESCREAL, a cluster of ideologies quietly guiding tech's most powerful decisions. I'm grateful to them for the language, and the lens.
TESCREAL fuses multiple belief systems. Each carries its own logic, its own fantasy of "saving" the world. Together, they reveal the internal mythologies of the techno-elite.
Transhumanism
Core belief: The human body is outdated. Technology should enhance or replace it.
How it shows up: Brain chips. CRISPR edits. Longevity labs. Immortality startups.
What it ignores: The wisdom of limitation. The value of impermanence. The politics of who gets "upgraded."
Extropianism
Core belief: Entropy is the enemy. With enough tech, we can defeat decay.
How it shows up: Radical life extension. Energy-abundant futures. Post-death consciousness uploads.
What it ignores: Grief. Cycles. The role of surrender. The sacredness of death.
Singularitarianism
Core belief: A superintelligent AI will soon surpass humans. We must align with it.
How it shows up: Alignment theory. AGI safety labs. Doom-and-salvation discourse.
What it ignores: Current harm. Real workers. Non-sci-fi ethics. The political economy of AI now.
Cosmism
Core belief: Earth is just a launch pad. Our destiny is among the stars.
How it shows up: Mars colonization. Terraforming projects. Billionaire bunkers.
What it ignores: Climate collapse here. Indigenous land. Stewardship. Repair.
Rationalism
Core belief: Logic and reason are the only valid paths to truth. Emotion is a flaw.
How it shows up: Hyper-quantified morality. Forum-based thought leadership. Cults of "intelligence."
What it ignores: Embodiment. Story. History. Feelings as knowledge.
Effective Altruism
Core belief: To do the most good, we must maximize impact through evidence and logic.
How it shows up: Spreadsheet philanthropy. Charity as optimization. Ethical career calculators.
What it ignores: Context. Power. Community. The messiness of care.
Longtermism
Core belief: The moral priority is to protect the far future, even over present lives.
How it shows up: Billions of future people > current suffering. Ethics for hypothetical descendants.
What it ignores: Urgency. Injustice. The people dying now.
You don't need to believe in TESCREAL to live inside it.
Every time a human is treated like a dataset, every time grief is automated, bodies are optimized, or communities are labeled "inefficient," you're feeling the operating system of someone else's future.
These ideologies have become hiring strategies, product roadmaps, and policy frameworks. They're embedded in the systems shaping our lives. We're not fighting for the same world. Let them upload their minds, freeze their bodies, colonize the moon. We are not their problem to solve or upgrade.
We are what they've forgotten: fragile, feeling, flawed, alive. You are not a meat suit. You are not a node in their simulation. You are part of something wondrous and unfinished. You don't need permission to imagine otherwise. The future needs more than capital. It needs care.
They might have a plan. But we have a pulse.
