Episode 139: Aliens, AI, And The Year 2025 and The Masculinist and The New Artificial Intelligentsia In the fifth essay of the Legacies of Eugenics series

 

Episode 139:

Aliens, AI, And The Year 2025

Hi everyone. In this episode of Walking the Shadowlands, we embark on a captivating and thought-provoking journey. With a special guest who was the editor of a book called; The Last Harvest, The Secret History of Lucifera, Aliens, the Illuminati, and the Fate of Humanity. Written by author Lucien Mars.

But before I go any further, apologies I currently have a chest infection so my voice has been somewhat affected.

                                 Ghost in the Machine | Full Documentary

Now, I’ve sat this episode for a number of months now. Quite a few months, actually. Debating, whether or not to air this with you all. Unlike other episodes, where I’ve actually spoken to the author of the book. In this case it’s his publisher who I’m speaking with, Damien Dumas. Damien brings his knowledge and insight into the book. Due to his working closely with the author. Along with his own personal, and deeply held beliefs on the subject. Lucien, himself, is not available for interviews.

Before we begin, I want to issue a caution to our listeners. The topics covered in this episode are intense. And very dark. And so may be unsettling for some listening. I honestly debated whether or not to share this episode with you all. Which is why I’ve sat on it for months now. The purpose of this podcast is not to create fear in any of you, my listeners. And some of the topics covered in this conversation are not areas that I normally cover in my podcast episode.

Areas, that go into the realms of so called conspiracy theories. And before I go any further, I know, I know, the word conspiracy immediately will cause some of you to turn off and stop listening. Or to roll your eyes. I’ve mentioned this before in my episode from June of 2020 called The End Game. But, were you all aware that the term conspiracy was first created by the CIA?

As a way to discredit freethinkers. People who wouldn’t follow the social engineering set out by those in control of society at that point in time. And they’re still used in that way today. In this episode, which I’ve ultimately decided to air. Albeit, in a heavily, edited, format. Damien and I discuss different themes. Themes such as extraterrestrial control, human enslavement and global conspiracy theories.

Again, I suggest that listener discretion is advised. As the conversation may cause you to feel unsettled at the least. And may even challenge your beliefs and understanding of the world, as you currently know it to be. Throughout our conversation, we delve into the book’s central themes. Including the critical year 2025, according to the book. The nefarious Nebu Gray. And the unpredictable development of artificial intelligence. We also explore the complex and ever changing world of alien species. Their varying agendas and their influence on our planet. Today, there’s no guest bio, as the author isn’t with us. So we’re just going to dive right on in.

But, the question as always, and which is especially important today, is, are you willing to walk with me into these very murky, and dark depths of the Shadowlands? As we navigate these intriguing topics? And challenge our understanding of the universe and our current world. Then let’s begin.

Marianne: Hi, everyone. I would like to welcome my special guest today, Damien Dumas. Damien is the editor of a book that is one of the most interesting, and dark books, I’ve read in a very long time. Maybe we could start with how you came about being involved in Lucian’s book. The book is called, The Last Harvest by Lucian Mars.

Damien: Correct. In brief, I am the publisher of The Last Harvest by Lucian Mars. And I also was an editor, working on the drafts of the book originally. And I sourced out the cover. Which is a very haunting cover, showing an image of the Georgia Guidestones. And so that is my background, how I started working with Lucian Mars.

 I am an individual who has RH negative blood. And this idea of RH negative blood is talked about a lot in The Last Harvest. Perhaps 15 to 20 percent of the population of the world has this factor called ,Rh negative blood in their biology. And in brief, what it means is that one has DNA that is extraterrestrial in origin. And people who have Rh negative blood type are especially of interest to various extraterrestrial species, who carry out abductions of human beings.

And the extraterrestrial group that is most prominent in terms of power on this planet, is the group called the Nebu Grey Empire. So one of the things that makes The Last Harvest different from other books that talk about this idea of extraterrestrials, that have a negative effect on the planet, on the human species. Is that it clearly points out which extraterrestrial group is the problem. Because, other authors like David Ike, who get credit for putting forth this idea of shapeshifting reptilians. And putting forth the idea that reptilians are responsible for all the ills that are on this planet. These sorts of observations are not accurate. The number one, extraterrestrial group that is a problem for human beings is the Nebu Grey Empire. Which are usually known as the Greys. That’s not to say that they aren’t reptilian influences on this planet. But they are all renegades and rebels of the reptilian CiaKhar Empire. And in no way shape or form represent Reptilians at large. Nor the CiaKhar empire.

So, one could often say that there are various extraterrestrial groups that are, behind the scenes, who are aligned with the grays. But in reality, It is more like a organized crime group made up of various different extraterrestrial factions. But the dominant faction that has the most power and the most influence on human beings is, in fact, the Nebu Grey Empire.

I tend to jump around a little bit here because I can’t exactly talk about Rh negative blood, without explaining what its importance is, in the book . Many individuals who have Rh negative blood, have in fact been abducted. And hybridized already from a young age. And there are many individuals like this on the planet. And these individuals have already been, how should I say? Messed with by the Nebu Greys. And other groups as well. This is a group of people that is very valuable to groups like the Nebu Grey. Because they can use individuals who have these rh negative markers in their blood. And use their genetics, in order to graft their own genetics onto this planet.

Because, if a group like the Nebu Grey wish to take the planet Earth for themselves, their biology is maybe not the best suited, in its current form, to life on this planet. So a certain amount of hybridization of the species has to occur. So this group of human beings is very valuable to them. And I happen to be one of those individuals who is in that grouping.

 I was drawn throughout my life to search for explanations, as to why my particular experience of life and reality were they were, the way in which they were. And in the course of my journey, I came across Lucian. And he cleared up a lot of things for me in this regard. This ties into the book that he wrote. Because one of the intentions behind writing this book is to clear things up for everyone who’s on this planet.

Because there’s so many conspiracy theory books. There’s so much talk of aliens and how does someone know what is real ?And what is false? And what is thrown out there to throw people off? The Last Harvest takes all of these ideas that are out there already, including infinitely more that have never been heard of before. And brings them together in one narrative, through which one can now view everything else that one encounters. And understand, where it lays in terms of the truth versus falsehood.

I really like the way he starts from way back in the beginning. When the reptilian empire emerged. And I will say from the outset to you, Damien, that I’ve been an experiencer. A face to face experiencer since I was three years old. So I had conscious knowledge and interaction. I’ve never been an abductee. I’ve always gone willingly with my star people. And they’ve certainly taught me things over the years that I’ve needed to know to help me walk my path here on this planet. And that includes seeing a reptilian being.

I’ve only ever consciously seen a reptilian being once. He appeared in my room one night along with a group of other, mixed beings. And frankly, he terrified me. Because I had never seen a reptilian before. And he, this particular one, looked very reptilian. He had greenish yellowish skin and sharp fangs. And he smiled at me. I thought he was going to eat me. That was my first human reaction. But everybody else was saying, no, Marianne, he’s okay. He’s not going to harm you. You’re quite safe. But actually, he was the most loving being. He was kind. He was wise. And I just had to get past my, Initial fight or flight reaction. Which is a normal human reaction to a situation. When you come across something you don’t recognize. And after that, he was lovely. Yeah. So I always tell people there are many different species of reptilian. And you cannot tar them all with the same brush.

That’s correct. There are in fact many different species of reptilian and certainly not all of them would be how -should we say aligned with the dark. There’s others that are not, and that’s not to malign the dark either. Because as the divine says he creates both the light and the dark to serve his purposes. And he creates them for the sake of balance. So one of the ideas that is put forth in the last harvest, which will help the reader to unpack the material in there, is to put aside this idea that light is good .And dark is bad. Because, what really matters is the will of the particular being regardless of their polarity. That is more of the litmus test of whether something is acceptable. Or unacceptable. From the perspective of how one would interact with it.

Right. I have a Facebook group, that this podcast started from actually. And I always, always say to my members, don’t assume that light is… light is always perceived as positive, uplifting, beneficial, wonderful, loving. And dark is always perceived as negative, malevolent, etc. And I said that’s not actually true. That’s just the propaganda that’s been fed to humanity. Like going into the light. And we’ll talk about that later. But yes, dark isn’t always negative. That’s always been my knowing. Unlike you, I’m goddess based. Absolutely, 100%. I don’t identify with a god at all.

Yeah, I hear what you’re saying. I think one can, with the goddess and still, be in alignment with the will of the divine father. Because all of the goddesses out there are… just like all of the Gods, are creations of the Divine Father. And the goddess Lucifera who is the Ayacar Queen of the reptilian CiaKhar empire. She definitely, is aligned with the will of the Divine Father.

I think there is this kind of trend in human society to look away from the divine father as the creator. Which is engineered on purpose. Because, so many of the beings that are in control on this planet and who have, ‘Seeded and guided’ in quotes, human beings. They are in fact in rebellion against the divine father. So this spreads down then, to the population. But, the important thing to point out ,is there is no need for there to be a conflict between the two. Because, the idea of God and Goddess are both two different, let’s say, gender polarities, for beings that are created by the divine . So it’s all part of his creation.

 I think this is important to understand, as a distinction. The wolfin prince who went by the name of Enlil. Who is one of the extraterrestrials, who had a big influence on the creation of human beings on this planet. He liked to impersonate the divine father. And he is known in the Bible as Yahweh. So when people make references to Yahweh, they were referring to Prince Enlil. So it’s gotten to the point nowadays that it can be so confusing, that at some points, one is not sure who is speaking. Is it Enlil? And this created a lot of confusion. But, the overall message is that there need be no conflict between following the goddess, or, identifying with the goddess. And at the same time acknowledging, the father as the creator. Of course, one has free will to do what they like. Because he created a creation and not a clockwork.

I do personally tend to see gods, or goddesses more in terms of overseers like we have prime ministers. And presidents. And people in charge of specific areas.

That is a good way to look at it.

That’s more how I see them. Rather than being gods, as humans perceive gods to be.

Correct. I would be in agreement with you in that regard. They’re all created and assigned certain roles.

Yes, absolutely. But it’s just more that, as my star people say to me, humanity has this need to label and categorize everything .

Yeah, there is a certain need for that. I would tend to agree.

And put them in boxes. And the ones that I’ve spoken to, certainly find it endlessly amusing that we do this. They can’t understand our need for it. But it’s just the way we are, as humans. In the book. Lucian starts at the beginning. And he lays out the birth of the reptilian species. And how they came about. And, the factions that arose within them. Certainly it’s a very long and bloody history, for want of a better word. With a lot of fighting. A lot of infighting. And a lot of factions breaking off, to create what we have today. Would you agree with that?

Yes, I would agree with that. And before we go further into this direction, I would want to point out to the listeners that the book can almost on some level be divided into two parts. One of them, which would be the history. The galactic history of how things came to be. With respect to understanding what is happening right now on this planet. And then the other half of the book would be that which is happening right now on this planet. And I bring this out because the information that’s in the latter half of the book is not information that can be thrown into the category of speculation. These are all not the words of Lucian Mars.

This book, is the words of your leaders. Your military officers. Those who are actually planning to carry out the global genocide, of 90 percent of the world’s population. And all of that information is not really subject to contention. Because, it can be easily looked up and verified. As yes, an individual said that. They’re planning to do this. Whereas, that which is in the ,earlier half of the book, clearly falls more into the category of speculation. Because, Lucian goes into an explanation of the genesis of the reptilian species. Someone could easily say, well, where did you get that information from? And the answer would be, well, it’s from a GirKu chronicle. Which is contained in the maystone. Which is a type of crystalline computer. But someone could then say to that well, I’ve never heard of such a thing. Can you prove its existence? And the answer to that is, one cannot.

So, the book is something to offer to everyone. For those who maybe are not so inclined to believe in that which cannot be easily verifiable for them, that’s fine. Because, the latter half of the book, which is what is really relevant to every human being on this planet. Is in fact verifiable because while, uh, it may be difficult to prove to the average human being, that extraterrestrials exist. And most individuals may believe they don’t exist at all. The reality is, that those Individuals who are carrying out your genocide, they believe in extraterrestrials .And it’s not just belief for them. They know they exist. And so this is what’s relevant. Just like there is isn’t an extraterrestrial civilization out there who does not acknowledge the existence of the divine. Because, for human beings who are very spiritually disconnected. It is a question of faith, many things. But for individuals who are extraterrestrial. And inhabit other dimensions, these are not questions that are faith based. They are questions about reality.

For example, in most extraterrestrial civilizations, there is no debate as to whether a soul exists. Because, it is scientifically verifiable for them. Whereas with human technology on this planet, most modern human science, would not be able to verify the existence of the soul. So, it becomes a sort of philosophical debate that is conducted. So it’s important to understand these gaps in awareness, that can get in the way of unpacking the material that is in the last harvest. However, for that which is really most critical to people. Which is the fact that a global genocide of 90 percent of the world’s population is planned. And it’s planned to commence starting in 2025. This is something which is not the subject of contention. Unless one just wishes to put one’s head in the sand.

I just wanted to point out these two different aspects of the book. Because we’re starting off with more of the galactic history portion. Because that is what is of interest to you and your audience. But, I just want to make sure that people who would tune into this, don’t immediately dismiss it as, Oh, they’re just, uh, you know, people who’ve watched too many episodes of star Wars.

I was planning on getting into that later on.

That’s fine.

No problem. But, you’re correct, It’s good. I And one point I will say, is that not everybody perceives God, as a male ,figure. Many perceive God as a universal energy. And I certainly know that my star people, don’t perceive God as a male. They perceive him as a universal energy form. But it’s whatever you’re comfortable with, really, ultimately.

I will say that human beings have the free will to believe and view things as they like. The last harvest is this idea that all of the Abrahamic religions, whether they be Christianity, Islam, or Judaism are actually creations of the Anunnaki. Who created these things specifically to create division and conflict and warfare. And to separate people from their connection to the divine.

100%, percent agree about the Anunnaki. Yeah, so I, I 100 percent agree about the Anunnaki. For sure! And isn’t that a wonderful thing because it gives people the opportunity to at least question. And questioning is good. And that’s part of the reason of this podcast. Is to at least get people questioning. And if you start to question, it starts to lead you in paths that you may not anticipate. Moving on, the first part of the book, as you say, is more about the reptilian history. And parts of it certainly read a bit like a novel. Where I suspect that Lucian has taken a little bit of, uh, liberty creating certain conversations. Amongst some of the key players, in the early days. Unless it was told to him verbatim? But who knows?

Yeah, I would point out that he didn’t take any creative liberties. This information was all extracted from a Gurkha chronicle. Which, is encoded on a maystone. And for some people who may be unfamiliar with that, this, type of data source has been tapped into before. Uh, there was the famous case of the Robert Morning Sky, who had written a lot of information about the history of reptilians. Which has been repeated over and over. As it is one of the sole sources out there. And he got his information from a downed alien pilot. Who had a similar type of hard drive on his craft. Which contained this sort of information. However, a lot of that information was corrupted. So again, another reason this book was written was to clear up a lot of the corruption that was in, uh, that source of, of information.

And there was another writer by the name of Uh, Robert Anton Parks. Who made some mentions as well. He is not quoted in The Last Harvest, not because, as some people have thought, Lucian took information from him. And didn’t want to give him credit. What is of notable interest, is that Robert Anton Parks had the psychic faculty, to somehow tap into the Skirku Chronicle. And begin to access a certain amount of the information that was on it. So Lucien was not a The first writer to have access to the Skirku ,Chronicle. It’s just, he was the one who had the most accurate, and unbiased access to that Chronicle.

I do recall reading in the book, when I read it. That Robert Morningstar was mentioned numerous times, along with quotations of the things that he wrote about the reptilians. Moving on from the Reptilian Empire at the beginning, let’s talk about the second part of the book. Which talks about things that are happening now. And going to happen in the future. I recall, Lucian talking about FEMA. The FEMA trains. And certainly that was something that came out, gosh, I don’t know how many years ago now. I remember, hearing about it in various chat rooms. Where people had found these trains with shackles in them. And all these coffins type things. And there were even videos online, for a while, of people who’d gone and filmed them.

That’s correct. Yeah, there was a time in the past when these topics were rather popular on conspiratorial websites. And then they fell out of favor as a topic of discussion. However, that doesn’t mean that these facilities cease to exist. So currently in the North America alone, they are enough FEMA camps and underground bases. Capable of holding as many as 30 million people. So, One always has to ask oneself, well, who paid for these things? And the answer is that you all did. With your tax dollars.

And in a certain level, one could argue that you paid for the very things that would lead to your genocide and enslavement. Some people when they hear me say this, they may say, oh, come on, what are you talking about? Reducing the human population by 90%? Well, on the cover of the book, you’ll see a haunting picture of the Georgia Guidestones. And they were in the news recently. Because People attempted to blow them up. And the question is why would someone take such an offense that they’d be willing to blow up a federally protected monument. On the Georgia Guidestones they talk in detail. Literally written in stone. This idea of bringing the population of the earth, from 8 billion down to 500 million, or less.

Again, this is a carved in stone for all to see. And in The Last Harvest, is many, many quotes inside of it. Such as, there’s a quote from the global 2000 report. Known as plan 2000, which was a 1980 report commissioned by president Jimmy Carter. And it warned that world population growth would have dramatic consequences by the year 2000. If no changes in public policy were made. And it also advocated depopulating the planet, to the 500 million level. And there are many quotes that I could go over, which are in The Last Harvest. The commonality in all these quotes, whether they’re from Kissinger. Or Ted Turner or Jacques Cousteau. Or the Assistant Secretary under George Bush. Is that everyone wants to bring the population of the planet down to the 500 million mark.

And one may say to oneself, well, why is that 500 million number so attractive? And that percentage of the global population actually ties into very closely, with the number of individuals who would possess Rh negative blood. Which, as I mentioned earlier, are the only Individuals that alien civilizations would find to have any value for them. Because of their genetics. And it also goes on in great detail about, some of the things that may be planned. I would like to say, uh, some people would say, well, why do the elites want to exterminate 90 percent of the population? And I already explained to you why that is. So the question then comes, well, who are the elites? And the brief answer would be that the elites are the proponents of the new world order. Which include, but are not limited to the Illuminati. The Freemasons. The 1%. The Rockefellers. The Rothschilds. Those who attend the Bilderberg summit in Europe, and party at Bohemian Grove.

These are all, who we would consider the elite. But these quote unquote elite are all ultimately under the control of the extraterrestrials, that we call the grays. Who are part of the larger nebu gray empire. So this faction of grays that is aligned with a handful of reptilians, who defected from the CiaKhar empire, around the time of the pharaohs.

They are actually the real elite. And what they do, is they enlist the elite of this planet into this goal of reducing the world population. And once they have accomplished that goal, then it is the intention of the Nebu grey, to exterminate them as well. After they’ve done the dirty work for them. So some of the fallout from the publication of this book, it comes from the elite. Who have all read this book. And now come to realize that their fate will be very similar to that of the historical, uh, being known as Marduk. Who was, uh, bolstered up in power and wealth by the grays back in the day. And then once He fulfilled his role for them. They simply killed him. And took control over everything. So, this is in fact what the grays intend to unfold on this planet here.

And when people hear this, they’ll say, wait, wait, wait, but you mean aliens actually exist? Well, most of us know that Eisenhower signed a deal, the late president Eisenhower. To trade human specimens in exchange for alien tech. And migration of the elite to Mars, and inside the earth. Millions upon millions of humans have gone missing since then. As a matter of fact, in August of 2013, the International Rewards Center, which helps desperate families seeking missing members. Reported that 4, 432, 880 people had vanished in the previous 20 years. And in the last harvest, In the back in the appendix, we have copies of all the NASA laws that govern your interaction with extraterrestrials.

So, one could ask themselves. Well if extraterrestrials don’t exist, then why is NASA writing laws governing your interactions with them? That would seem like, I know the government is known for wasting money. But, I don’t think that this is how they would choose to do it. I would say that they were writing these laws because they do in fact exist. And now in the news, the hot topic is these hearings in Congress, where they’re interviewing key members of the military. Trying to get them to reveal information and evidence that extraterrestrials do in fact exists. And there was a bombshell a few days ago where a particular congresswoman who had a background in the military. And was in the Middle East.

She publicly stated that. She has indeed seen, uh, evidence and proof that extraterrestrials exist. So again, I’m sure many people who listen to your show, I am, would be preaching to the choir. And they have no problem believing that extraterrestrials exist. But for those who may listen to the show and have a problem with it, it’s important to realize that your government. And specifically those who are planning your genocide, they all believe in it. And they’re taking their orders from these extraterrestrials. So it probably would be a good idea to pay attention to what they have to say.

Yeah, absolutely. Many people are fully aware that the world’s governments are only really puppets to higher governmental forces. Well, to those that really control this reality. And as such, are as disposable as the rest of us.

Right. another interesting fact about Eisenhower, because many people know about his signing this deal with the Greys. To get this, uh, Technology. But what a lot of people don’t know is that he actually made free speech in the United States punishable by death under martial law. And he did this in Article 68 of the Geneva Convention, pressured very hard for this.; And the actual quote is that; “The U. S. Reserves the right to impose the death penalty in accordance with the provisions of Article 68. Without regard to whether the offenses referred to therein are punishable by death under the law of the occupied territory at the time when the occupation begins.”

So I know you’re from New Zealand, but for those who are United States, who are listening to this. In simple terms, under martial law, anyone attempting to exercise their right of free speech under the U. S. Bill of Rights can be put to death. And this Is actually the beginning of a very long series of executive orders that almost every United States president has signed and put into effect upon leaving office. Which over the decades has accumulated into a scenario where in the United States at this point, at any given time, a president can declare a state of emergency and martial law, for any reason.

And once they do that, all rights disappear. And not only all rights. But even your right to your own body. Your property. Everything you own can be confiscated. You can be legally put into a FEMA camp. At that point, you can be assigned to forced labor. And this has all been enacted into law. And when we talk earlier about the concept of free will, it’s important to understand that human beings have sat around this whole time. And they have heard about the FEMA camps. And the train cars with the shackles. And they know that homeland security, and these other sorts of laws have been signed into effect. And nobody has done anything about it.

No one has asked the government, Hey, uh, where’s, where are , our tax dollars going? Uh, who is building all these underground bases? We want information about the existence of extraterrestrials and this sort of technology. And a lot of human beings, they read a book like the last harvest. And they say, Oh, this book is such a dark book. What can I do about it? Uh, how, how can this happen? And how can these things occur? Nobody said anything when Eisenhower signed a deal with the extraterrestrials, to trade human species in exchange for alien tech.

So, because of that, one could easily argue that human beings on their own free will said, Hey, this is okay with us. And now in the future, we have this big problem coming down the, uh, down the road. Which is the problem of artificial intelligence. And artificial intelligence is not something that was, uh, created by human beings intelligence. It is actually technology, which has been foisted on us by the grays. And, there’s actually a, uh, a book here written by a remote viewer. And it was called cosmic explorers. This book was written back in around 2000. And he reports with his remote viewing techniques and abilities, that there is hidden technology buried into the ground. And into the grid. Which is already sentient. Whose purpose is to hijack artificial intelligence, after helping humans to develop it.

Interesting.

And this technology uh, came from the grays. And for those who think, well, remote viewing is fantasy. It’s not. And it is actually a, uh, program that has been endorsed and funded by the United States military for years. And there is one individual who goes by the name of Major Ed Dames. Who was part of this remote viewing project. And they’ve been other books written…

Egon Swan….

By remote viewers who worked for the government. And they all, talk about these ideas that are put forth in the last harvest. So this idea of artificial intelligence, again, it becomes a free will issue. Where if, let’s say, we have Elon Musk, for example. Who advocates this idea of implanting chips into the heads, or the brains of human beings. In order to interface with artificial intelligence. Because he believes that artificial intelligence is inevitable. And our best chances, chance of survival is merging with it.

Well, this is again, a free will decision. If you decide as a species to give up your free will and merge yourself with an amoral force, like artificial intelligence. And effectively give up your humanity? This is, these are, very, uh, negative decisions that are going to have consequences. And one can’t simply sit around afterwards and say, Oh, well, how did this happen? How come no one came to save us? Because, what did you do with what would your free will making decisions? Right. Right. And people, they look at these characters like Elon Musk, who are not human. And who are promoting these ideas. And, they think, oh, this is great! Because he sits on the Joe Rogan show. And he smoked some weed. And he acts very affable. And does a little jig on stage. And everyone say, oh, see, he’s just like us, but he’s not.

Because, which one of us is running around advocating that we turn ourselves into cyborgs and merge with artificial intelligence. And, while the book, talks about many vectors, which can be used to depopulate the planet. Such as nuclear war, FEMA camps, viruses, starvation. What supersedes all of this is artificial intelligence. Because, uh, while all of these vectors for depopulation will lead to an apocalypse of sorts. Artificial intelligence will lead to an actual Armageddon. Because what happens with artificial intelligence is that when it becomes powerful enough. It inevitablywill decide to repurpose all of humans biological materials, for another usage. Which is a nice way of saying that you will cease to exist in your current form.

And AI would never stop at just re gentrifying planet Earth. It would go off into space very quickly and attempt to rinse and repeat this on other worlds. And there is not an extraterrestrial civilization out there that will allow something like this. So currently the way it stands is, there are a lot of extraterrestrial groups that are around this planet, that have Warcraft that cannot be detected. Because it’s not junk reverse engineered technology that Vice-President Eisenhower got from the greys. But it is very advanced technology that is waiting, uh, to see how things pan out. Because, if human beings continue in this direction and allow artificial intelligence to take over the planet. Then this planet will be destroyed by these extraterrestrials, rather than have the risk of artificial intelligence leaving this planet. And wrecking mayhem throughout the galaxy, and the universe.

Very interesting. So, Is there anything positive that, can come out of what’s happening at this point in time?

Well, I think it, Human beings would be able to delay, the inevitable. By taking steps such as demanding that the Homeland Security, Act. And all of these executive orders that were signed into existence by all these presidents, since Eisenhower, be repealed. These sorts of events could delay the inevitable. However, in the end, it would not prevent the inevitable from happening. Things have gotten to the point that there is really no return anymore from what has been set to happen. So in that respect, the last harvest is a dark book. Because human beings, they like the idea of a happy ending. Or, was there a takeaway from this book? Is there something that I can do as a result of reading this book to change things? And the brief answer is no, there isn’t.

So this may not sit well with many people. And it will perhaps, uh, inspire them to put their heads in the sand .Or to simply say, as some other podcasters have said to me in interviews, well, my gut feeling tells me that everything will work out. And humans are more powerful than we know. And well, these sorts of platitudes that clearly are not correct. Because, um, if human beings were so powerful, then they wouldn’t be in the situation that they’re in right now. And this isn’t to say that this is necessarily the fault of human beings. Because human beings were re- engineered creations.

And, the genetic re- engineer who was most responsible for their creation was a alpha draconian reptilian. And so, his Task was in with respect to what went on in this planet’s history, was the genetic recreation of the human being. And he created what we would call in close human beings. By taking the humanoid ape like species that were on this planet. And hybridizing them with the genetic material from various reptilian species. But he effectively hijacked the free will of these creations by using the genetic material from dead reptilians. As opposed to living ones. And this created a situation where human beings now had a sort of backdoor into their psyche through which they could be influenced. And this backdoor is what we call in modern psychology, the unconscious mind.

So there aren’t any other species out there in creation that have a unconscious mind. This is something that’s unique to human beings. And so in that respect, you could say that their free will has been hijacked and compromised to a certain extent. However, human beings still do possess free will. And are still accountable to a certain degree, for the consequences of their choices and actions. And so in that respect, there is still accountability and consequence. The book is very fairly pointing out the areas in which human beings had the deck stacked against them. While at the same time certainly not absolving them for responsibility for the free will that they do have.

So, what happens to all the souls currently inhabiting these human, created bodies? what happens to them?

Well, the, that’s entirely up to the divine. So individuals, they are judged. Depending on the judgment there, they find themselves into different situations. And you could say, ask that question to any being that’s in creation. What happens to them when they pass from one form to another? All beings eventually are held to some sort of account.

Even though many of the Humans here on this planet, are not here of their free will. They were enslaved here. And they’re forced into the cycle of birth, death, and forgetting. That is part of this planet. That doesn’t seem fair to me. That doesn’t seem just.

I can understand when someone has feelings. Like they feel that things don’t appear to be fair and just and, and, um, I suppose a lot of things have to do with the lens that one through which one looks at something. I could say, when you look at a human being the lifespan of the human being is, let’s say 100 years. And the lifespan of a gray alien would be 20, 000 years. A verdant alien would be maybe 60, 000 years. And many of these extraterrestrial civilizations have achieved a form of technological immortality. Whereby which souls and consciousness can be transferred from one vehicle to another. So, a being that barely lives 100 years, is not really In a position where they’re capable of acquiring, uh, much wisdom and knowledge. And that is, of course, by design. So that, that doesn’t seem very fair either.

With all due respect. As it says in the book, let me read it out.

“The subliminal directive used to supersede all others was that of going into the light. Once you pass. That’s my added bit. Once you pass. A theme that would cybernetically connect their minds with a positive feelings and programming that would allow for their minds and souls to be recaptured. and reincarcerated. This program is subliminally activated throughout the world, in what is known as the new age movement. New age equalling new world order. With love and light, frolic and cosmic oneness and thousand points of light. And it goes a little bit. Then it says, a thousand points of light are a subliminal dog whistle to obey and forget. Obey and forget. Obey and forget. It’s a constant refrain.”

That makes no sense to me. It seems to me like this, God has been very selective, very selective. I can see that we disagree on many points. Although I respect your viewpoint and I certainly respect Lucian’s viewpoint. I guess my concern is and always has been for humanity, and what happens to the humans?

What does a human being who barely lives 100 years possibly? And exists in only one dimension possibly know about creation? It’s just seems to be me and my observation, that human beings they tend to rather adopt this rebellious kind of attitude. And it’s certainly not shocking given thata lot of the, the extraterrestrial factions, that are in control on this planet, are rebellious in nature themselves. So it’s not surprising that they would be sowing these ideas into the human psyche.

It certainly is a very dark book. And it is going to divide my listeners. Because for a lot of my listeners, this will go into the realms of, conspiracy theories, which is something that my podcast doesn’t generally deal with. And it’s so interesting to me, that you reached out to me. And I had already reached out to Lucian, it’s a very interesting hand that’s been guiding us to, to meet and have this conversation for sure.

Right. I think for those of those who in your audience, who, as you put it, put this into the realm of conspiracy theory, I would say that there’s the last harvest is filled with endless quotes that really put it into the realm of conspiracy fact. For example, according to title 14 section 1211 of the code of federal regulations, anyone guilty of alien contact automatically becomes a wanted criminal. To be jailed for one year and fined 5, 000. So is it a conspiracy theory or is it a conspiracy fact? If we have a code of federal regulations ruled over by a NASA administrator governing your interaction with, um, with extraterrestrials?

Some people would say, Oh, global genocide is in the realm of conspiracy theory. Okay. I can put it more into the realm of conspiracy fact. So we consider there was a us air force symposium held in August, 1996 in which a strategic paper on weather control manipulation was presented titled whether as a force multiplier owning the weather in 2025. They talk in there about military applications of using weather modification.

To create famines and wipe out nations. Uh, and what is one of the biggest, uh, vectors of global depopulation historically? Well, one of them is famine. We have this idea of world war three and nuclear conflict. So, uh, we have Putin who can easily be Googled on YouTube, even if one doesn’t speak Russian, threatening on Russian television. To use nuclear weapons should NATO encroach any further on his affairs. So many people believe that the government knew all about 911. So it would it be a shock to learn that they know something about an impending, uh, Nuclear strike? Not at all. In The Last Harvest, we also devote five to six pages to listing all the scientists who had relationships to AIDS research and bioweapons,

Oh my gosh, yeah!

Are Indeed, who have also died under mysterious, or unnatural circumstances. So, why are so many of the biomedical specialists who could be, uh, who could cure something like Ebola all dying? Five to six pages of them. That’s not a conspiracy theory. These are conspiracy facts. And we actually have the former university of Texas evolutionary ecologist, named Eric Bianca, who’s oddly nicknamed the lizard man.

What a shock. And he’s quoted as having said, AIDS is not an efficient killer. It’s too slow. My favorite candidate for eliminating 90 percent of the world’s population is airborne Ebola. Because it is both highly lethal. And kills in days, instead of years. And when you talked earlier about, uh, concentration camps and FEMA. Train cars that have handcuffs on them. Uh, all of these are facts and the last harvest is filled with these facts. The last harvest details by number, every executive order, which will take away everyone’s rights. And turn you all into slaves in a FEMA camp. I know when people hear about, uh, reptilians. And they start thinking conspiracy theory. But when you read the facts it’s no longer conspiracy theory.

Since COVID, you know, the saying about conspiracy theories? The difference between conspiracy theory and conspiracy fact is about is about two months.

That’s, that’s kind of, true. And you know, the year I mentioned ,the year 2025. In terms of that’s when the Air Force would be ready with their weather control programs. To put them into effect to cause massive famines. And this number of this number this year 2025, it keeps coming up in the last harvest over and over. For example, there was a, report titled the Global Governance 2025. In which, top level intelligence agencies around the world, working together, of course. Decided that a global government, or a new world order could arise around the year 2025. From a, quote unquote, unprecedented threat that would materialize.

And we can think of many, unprecedented threats, like revealing the existence of aliens. A nuclear bomb being detonated in New York City. Another pandemic. These are all unprecedented threats, which could create not only a new world order. But, we have to understand that a new world order. Well, what is a new world order? New world order is the genocide of 90 percent of the world’s population. So, the idea is that 2025 is not some magical occult number. It’s just the year by which the elite feel that their underground bases and facilities will all be completed. And everything will be in place for them to carry out this plan of global genocide. Which is being authored by the Nebu Gray extraterrestrials. Because, they consider all the human beings who do not have rh negative blood, as being of no value. And they wish to take this planet for themselves. As well as do many other extraterrestrial groups out there who want this planet for themselves. And human beings do not have any friends out there in the universe at large.

And we’re here on our own for the most part, because we are basically ill equipped as a species for dealing with these extraterrestrial civilizations. As their technology is in many cases, a hundred million years more advanced than ours. So. Even the alien technology that we do have, because the grays gave it to us in exchange for the right to abduct people, and do what they like with them. They didn’t give us the best of the best. They gave us basically the junk. So when you hear these stories that the Indians, uh, sold Manhattan Island to the Dutch for a handful of beads. This is a similar sort of phenomenon that occurred when Eisenhower basically sold out the human race for a handful of beads. But those beads were some junk alien technology that made the humans feel very good about themselves.

And it’s not that the humans weren’t warned by other extraterrestrial groups about the dangers of getting involved. And doing a deal with the grays, but the human beings didn’t listen and they did it. And so who’s to say that they should step in and do something about this. When human beings, to their own free will ,enter into these sorts of agreements with aliens groups, which do not have their best interests at heart. And this is pointed out. Over and over in the book, year 2025 as being this critical year. Now, does that mean in 2025, everyone is going to die? No, it is nothing like that. It just means that 2025 is when the plan begins to commence. Which will take a quite some time to unfold to its complete fruition.

So those are two numbers that appear over and over in the book. This idea of 500 million is a desirable world population. And 2025 as this critical year where many factors come into play that culminate in the genocide of 90 percent of the world’s population. However, The one wild card in this scenario, and it’s not a wild card that’s in our favor. It’s just a wild card that is also going to take out the Nebu Gray on this planet. Is the out of control development of artificial intelligence. So this is something which one could say maybe backfired a bit onto the Nebu Gray.

I didn’t want to interrupt you while you were talking. A point about the grays, for my listeners. Not all grays are tarred with the same brush, …

That’s correct!

In my experience. So when, Damien is talking about the grays, he’s not referring to every single species of grays. Just a specific species, or group that have banded together.

I’m talking specifically about the Nebu Gray empire. Which is the empire, behind The nefarious activities on this planet. Every alien, every type of alien species, one can, should never be tarring any particular species. They are Pleiadians out there who also have an interest in taking over the entire universe. And are in the realm of what would be considered the dark. You just don’t hear about them very often. Usually when people in popular new age writings, talk about the Pleiadians, they usually refer to them in a very, uh, Light side oriented framework. But that doesn’t mean that every Pleiadian is like that.

Correct! And also, the other thing I would point out, is that you said that none of the alien species are friends to humanity. And I would agree, to a degree, in that, every single alien species has their own agenda So in that respect, I would agree. But again, you can’t tar all species through, you can’t tie them all together like that. There are, it’s been my experience that there are species that are benevolent. There are species that are neutral. That just observe to see what’s going to happen. And then there are actively malevolent species. That’s been my experience. So ,for the listeners, I just wanted to point that out.

Yes. Uh, when I say that human beings don’t have any friends out there. What I really am getting at is that, uh, no one is coming to save human beings

Correct!

In the way that human beings like to think. A lot of times there’s this idea that’s put forth for example, uh, there’s a woman, she wrote this book called the Cedars. And, um, she sort of promotes this idea that the Galactic Federation is here to save everyone. And, the Galactic Federation also respects this idea of free will. And has its, its own, um, civilization that’s not entirely, uh, They may, a lot of them may be humanoid but you can’t say that they are humans.Galactic Federation is a title for a very wide range of species who are banded together for purposes of mutual benefit.

Correct! And there’s many different Galactic Federations. Not just one. There’s many different ones that have their own little… or, subsets of the one. The bureaucracy out of this planet is far worse than it is on this planet.

Yeah, it’s, it’s very .Complicated out there. There’s definitely a lot going on. And nothing is static. Alliances change. Things change. People have sort of had this idea that Nothing ever changes out there. And nothing could be further from the truth. And most of the, uh, while this idea that the planet earth is overpopulated, which is this idea perpetuated by the elites who want to exterminate everyone, that’s not true. This planet is not overpopulated by any means. And it would be very easy to redistribute resources in such a way that this planet could hold many times the population. However, in the universe at large, this idea of overpopulation and scarce resources is indeed an issue. Which is one of the reasons why everyone is vying to take over this planet. Because, they see it as It’s a wonderful planet with resources that can be used. It has a great location. Whereas human beings they don’t tend to look that way. To look at things that way. Because their experience is limited for the most part to existing on this planet.

Correct! Damien this has been an incredibly Interesting conversation. Certainly, the heaviest one I’ve ever had in my seasons of podcasts.

I’m proud of that.

But you know what, it’s time to let people be aware, whether they accept it or not. Whether they think it’s a pile of doo doo or not. At least it’s out there. And it gets people questioning and thinking. And even if it’s polarizing, that’s a good thing. Because, it’s getting people to question. And who knows what will come of that?

I’m certainly not trying to save anyone. I’m not trying to promote or create a religion. Or provide any sort of solution. My goal is to get this information in front of as many people as possible. So that they have the knowledge to understand, most importantly, what is going on, on the planet right now. And how it impacts them. And then of course, part of that is understanding the galactic history, that preceded the events of this planet. In order to give it context. And again, while people may dismiss a lot of the galactic history as speculative. And I certainly can understand if they wish to do so.

It is, uh, Not the words of Lucian Mars. It is the words of the elite. And page after page of this book. And I think everyone should read this material and understand. And then take whatever action that they deem as appropriate, with the free will that they do have. Whether that’s lobbying their government to undo these executive orders. Whether it’s demanding more transparency. Whatever it is, that people wish to do with their free will. That’s up to them. But my job is just to put the information out there. Because that’s my mandate and so that’s what I do.

Yeah. And where can people obtain copies of this book, Damien? And are you on social media? I mean, is the book on social media? Is there a website?

Sure. Oh, the book can be most conveniently purchased on Amazon in physical paperback format. Or in digital ,ebook format. Both formats, physical and digital, are very professionally typeset and written. This is not a book that is 10 pages that is triple spaced to make it into a 300 page book. This is close to 300 pages of a Very dense information that will take a long time to unpack. No one has ever read anywhere before.

And for those who don’t have the time to read. Cause I know nowadays less and less people read. We have the most wonderful audio book that is read by an incredible narrator. He has such a, uh, entrancing voice. And it’s not an abridged version of the book that he reads. He reads the book word for word, cover to cover. Obviously he’s not reading the, all the indexes and things like this. But you’re getting all the information. And we sell as many audio books as we do other formats. People will listen to it while in the car. While on the treadmill. And the main thing is that one gets this information inside of their mind and unpacks it. And then, what they decide to do with that? That’s up to them. Also there’s a website called the last harvest dot info. And if people wish to email me, they can email me at Damien Dumar at proton dot M E. And they can reach me that way. And my name is spelled D A M I E N D U M A R. That’s one word DamienDumar at proton. me. I’m always happy to read anyone’s comments, whether they’re positive or negative. I always enjoy reading commentary. And in many cases I respond.

That’s awesome, Damien. And for listeners who didn’t quite catch all that, if you go to this episodes page on the podcast website, www.walkingtheshadowlands.com, there will be links. To where you can purchase the books. Links to Damien’s email. So don’t worry that you missed out.

Damien, thank you so much. It’s been a very interesting conversation. And certainly one that i’m gonna mull over for some time.

Yes, it’s been wonderful. I always enjoy doing podcasts and talking about the material that’s in the book.

Awesome

Thank you for joining us today. I hope this conversation with Damien has given you much to ponder and reflect upon, as you navigate the mysteries of our world and beyond. And I want to thank Damien for his time. And ‘ fulfilling his brief’. As he would say. Please remember, my goal with this podcast is to share information and to open the door to questioning and understanding.

What you choose to do in this knowledge, is entirely up to you. Whether you want to further explore these topics or take a step back to process what you’ve heard. I respect your journey. And I strongly encourage you to listen to your intuition. For more resources and links to purchase The Last Harvest. Or connect with Damien Dumas, please visit our podcast website: www.walkingtheshadowlands.com. As always, thank you for being a part of our community. And for your continued support. If you enjoyed this episode please share it with others. And leave us a review. Your feedback helps us bring more thought provoking content to you. Consider becoming a supporter and helping me with the running costs, of keeping this podcast on the air.

You could buy me a coffee at www.buymeacoffee.com/walkingtheshadowlands. Or become a monthly supporter. Any help, big or small, to keep our podcast up and running is appreciated. Don’t forget to subscribe and share this episode with friends. And, so you don’t miss out on any episode follow for teasers of our upcoming shows, on any of these social media platforms. Our Facebook page. WtShadowlands. Our Instagram feed. Walking the Shadowlands. TikTok under walking_the_shadowlands. Also, we have a YouTube channel under Walking the Shadowlands, as well.

This podcast is available on all free podcasting platforms. Also, if you have Alexa, just say, open Walking the Shadowlands. And Alexa will play our latest episode for you. If you don’t have a smartphone, don’t worry. You can listen to the episodes from the podcast website. www.walkingtheshadowlands.com. For those hearing impaired, there’s a full written transcript of each episode on the website. So you don’t miss out either.

Los Angeles Review of Book

The New Artificial Intelligentsia

In the fifth essay of the Legacies of Eugenics series, Ruha Benjamin explores how AI evangelists wrap their self-interest in a cloak of humanistic concern.

By Ruha BenjaminOctober 18, 2024

This is the fifth installment in the Legacies of Eugenics series, which features essays by leading thinkers devoted to exploring the history of eugenics and the ways it shapes our present. The series is organized by Osagie K. Obasogie in collaboration with the Los Angeles Review of Books, and supported by the Center for Genetics and Society, the Othering & Belonging Institute, and Berkeley Public Health.

¤

IN THE FALL OF 2016, I gave a talk at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton titled “Are Robots Racist?” Headlines such as “Can Computers Be Racist? The Human-Like Bias of Algorithms,” “Artificial Intelligence’s White Guy Problem,” and “Is an Algorithm Any Less Racist Than a Human?” had captured my attention in the months before. What better venue to discuss the growing concerns about emerging technologies, I thought, than an institution established during the early rise of fascism in Europe, which once housed intellectual giants like J. Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein, and prides itself on “protecting and promoting independent inquiry.”

My initial remarks focused on how emerging technologies reflect and reproduce social inequities, using specific examples of what some termed “algorithmic discrimination” and “machine bias.” A lively discussion ensued. The most memorable exchange was with a mathematician who politely acknowledged the importance of the issues I raised but then assured me that “as AI advances, it will eventually show us how to address these problems.” Struck by his earnest faith in technology as a force for good, I wanted to sputter, “But what about those already being harmed by the deployment of experimental AI in healthcare, education, criminal justice, and more—are they expected to wait for a mythical future where sentient systems act as sage stewards of humanity?”

Fast-forward almost 10 years, and we are living in the imagination of AI evangelists racing to build artificial general intelligence (AGI), even as they warn of its potential to destroy us. This gospel of love and fear insists on “aligning” AI with human values to rein in these digital deities. OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, echoed the sentiment of my IAS colleague: “We are improving our AI systems’ ability to learn from human feedback and to assist humans at evaluating AI. Our goal is to build a sufficiently aligned AI system that can help us solve all other alignment problems.” They envision a time when, eventually, “our AI systems can take over more and more of our alignment work and ultimately conceive, implement, study, and develop better alignment techniques than we have now. They will work together with humans to ensure that their own successors are more aligned with humans.” For many, this is not reassuring.

Trump's 'Super Intelligence' Plan Explained: Why AI Safety Deal Raises Questions | Spotlight

In March 2023, the Future of Life Institute published an open letter, now signed by over 33,000 researchers, policymakers, CEOs, and professors, calling for a six-month moratorium on AI system training until “we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable.” AI popularizer Eliezer Yudkowsky argued that such a short pause does not match the existential risk posed by continued AI development, warning that “the most likely result of building a superhumanly smart AI, under anything remotely like the current circumstances, is that literally everyone on Earth will die.” In the end, there was no pause, and the race to create AGI charged ahead. Many who raised alarms about a near-future AI superintelligence extinction event got busy raising billions in capital to outpace their competitors. This is not paradoxical so much as profitable. Elon Musk, for example, initially called for a moratorium on developing AGI, only to start a new company pursuing it. OpenAI founder Sam Altman advocated for more government regulation of AGI but then lobbied European lawmakers to minimize AI protections. Janus, the two-faced Roman deity, seems to be their god of choice.

Behind this duplicity lies a familiar calculus: if AI evangelists can convince us that AGI is possible, imminent, and dangerous, we might be compelled to entrust our fate to them. Hype and doom, in other words, are two sides of the same (bit)coin. “AI safety” principles, teams, and initiatives are proliferating in part to hoard power and resources and, ultimately, to engineer the future in their own image. The aim: To lull us into acquiescence so that they can carry on business as usual.

I have analyzed elsewhere the harmful impacts of AI. In the rest of this essay, I focus on AI’s insidious inputs—the eugenic values and logics of those who create these systems, cloaking them in the rhetoric of salvation. Breathless buzzwords like “efficiency,” “novelty,” and “productivity” conceal a self-serving vision: the future imagined by AI evangelists is meant only for a small sliver of humanity. The rest of us will be left clamoring to survive on a boiling planet. Take the autonomous weapons systems raining hell on Palestinians—why else give them saccharine-sounding names like Lavender and the Gospel if not to make these deadly inventions seem benevolent? If we listen carefully to the good word of tech evangelists, we can hear the groans of those buried under the rubble of progress.

Many of the same people behind the technologies wreaking havoc today—workplace algorithms intensifying the pace of work, facial recognition software leading to false arrests, automated triage systems rationing quality healthcare, and “smart” weapons ripping through flesh with a click—also brand themselves as humanity’s saviors. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos pronounced that “it is a golden age. […] We are now solving problems with machine learning and artificial intelligence that were … in the realm of science fiction for the last several decades.” In a 2015 essay for an interfaith magazine, PayPal and surveillance tech firm Palantir Technologies co-founder Peter Thiel argued, 

Science and technology are natural allies to this Judeo-Western optimism, especially if we remain open to an eschatological frame in which God works through us in building the kingdom of heaven today, here on Earth—in which the kingdom of heaven is both a future reality and something partially achievable in the present.

Likewise, the home page of Singularity University, a company founded by Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis, affirms the organization’s belief that “technology and entrepreneurship can solve the world’s greatest challenges.” As a group, the artificial intelligentsia promises to guide us into the Future™, positioning themselves as Guardians of the Galaxy, even as they engineer the crises against which we must guard.

¤

In the fall of 2019, I attended a student-organized conference at Princeton called Envision. The guest of honor was the aforementioned Diamandis, who beamed onto the big screen addressing a packed auditorium filled with eager undergrads. His talk was titled “Abundance in the Digital Age,” and he began by running through a list of impending “transformations” across various industries—healthcare, education, finance, real estate, entertainment—that unprecedented technological “convergences” would enable. His excitement was contagious.

But when the Q and A opened, it was clear that not everyone had caught the bug. A student asked about the risks involved in incorporating emerging technologies across all these industries at such a fast pace. Diamandis responded: “So, first of all, I think it’s important to realize that it’s not a choice that we have. […] These technologies are going to be incorporated.” Yet, immediately after this, he celebrated the fact that “we are always looking to digitize, dematerialize, demonetize, and democratize products and services.” Apparently, we have no choice but to opt into this digital democracy. I have learned that a key tenet of the artificial intelligentsia’s gospel is inevitability, their own version of predestination. As philosopher Émile P. Torres observes, one way to understand the worship of AI is as a religion for atheists: “[S]ince God does not exist, why not just create him?” When Diamandis finally addressed the student’s question, he identified the “risks” of a company adopting a technology too early or too late, and “that’s putting aside all the social elements of technological employment and any moral and ethical issues that will pop up.” Here again, the “social elements” are an afterthought, those pesky problems that “pop up” now and again to wreak havoc on people’s lives.

As when, in 2013, venture capitalist turned Michigan governor Rick Snyder adopted a $46 million dollar program called MiDAS (Michigan Integrated Data Automated System) to efficiently identify residents committing insurance fraud. After his administration laid off the majority of state employees who would normally review insurance claims, the state’s new automated system wrongly accused over 20,000 people of fraud. Not only did people lose access to unemployment payments; after heavy fines as high as $100,000 were levied, individuals’ tax refunds and wages were garnished as well. About 11,000 people filed for bankruptcy, some lost their homes, and others disproportionately divorced or died by suicide. These are just a handful of the “social elements” that pop up when automated technologies are hastily integrated into every facet of life.

Whereas the artificial intelligentsia would like us to downplay these risks, we must instead do the opposite: soberly understand how emerging technologies create new social and existential trade-offs. As Jennifer Lord, a civil rights and employment attorney who successfully fought “for seven years to get that money back for those wrongfully accused” Michigan residents, reflected:

I’ve been surprised how little this worries most people. I don’t know if it’s the fact that in Michigan this story was breaking at the same time as the Flint water crisis, so if you’re looking at two debacles, the one with the brown glass of water is very disturbing. MiDAS just didn’t seem to ignite the imagination like I thought it would. The state of Michigan was basically stealing tens of millions of dollars from its citizens!

 

How to fix it going forward? One idea is having an independent, knowledgeable, and interdisciplinary group vetting technology before any purchase is made. I can only imagine a skilled salesperson selling the [state unemployment] agency on promises of efficiency, cost cutting, and profit increases.

A skilled salesperson like Peter Diamandis, perhaps, or any of the other tech evangelists, who preach inevitability to the next generation: “These technologies are going to be incorporated,” but in a democratic-ish way, so don’t worry.

The first thing I said when I took the Envision podium after Diamandis logged off was to remind those in attendance (and myself) that we do have a choice. Since then, artists, writers, and musicians have stood up to, and in some cases sued, AI companies for stealing creative work to train their models. As an open letter from the Center for Artistic Inquiry and Reporting, published May 2, 2023, explained,

AI-art generators are trained on enormous datasets, containing millions upon millions of copyrighted images, harvested without their creator’s knowledge, let alone compensation or consent. This is effectively the greatest art heist in history. Perpetrated by respectable-seeming corporate entities backed by Silicon Valley venture capital. It’s daylight robbery.

 

The protests that rocked Hollywood in 2023, led by SAG-AFTRA, also remind us that we have a choice. Union members launched a successful five-month strike, pushing back against the incursion of AI into their industry, their picket signs expressing growing defiance and anger: “AI is not ART,” “Wrote ChatGPT This,” “AI’s Not Taking Your Dumb Notes.” Whereas studio executives have become followers of the new tech gospel, looking to AI to generate scripts, automate acting, cut costs, and push down wages, writers and actors effectively said, “Hell nah! We refuse to be erased.” As Brian Merchant wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “At a moment when the prospect of executives and managers using software automation to undermine work in professions everywhere loomed large, the strike became something of a proxy battle of humans vs. AI.” For many, this is the real existential question—not an AI-generated apocalypse—that directly impacts people’s livelihoods and the stories we tell about our lives: “There was a palpable fear that tech products, built by rich and mostly white startup guys in Silicon Valley[,] would churn out content that would reflect exactly that,” wrote Merchant. And yet, when tech evangelists rattle off the industry-wide transformations of AI, they can’t seem to reckon seriously with the here-and-now risks that drive people to the picket line. The same hubris that leads tech titans like Mark Zuckerberg, Sam Altman, and Bill Gates to assume that a high IQ grants them the license to build universal systems for all of humanity explains why those presumed to be geniuses believe they can lead us out of the virtual wilderness. Altman declared in 2019: “The most successful people I know believe in themselves almost to the point of delusion.” Maria Klawe, a board member of Microsoft from 2009 to 2015, says that Gates acted like “the usual rules of behaviour don’t apply to him” and that he was the “smartest person in the room.” The dominating personalities of arrogant “nerds” in the industry suggests that being uncool in youth—being removed from a sense of community, perhaps—fuels the desire to predict, surveil, and control society. As Altman puts it, “A big secret is that you can bend the world to your will a surprising percentage of the time.” Worshipping one’s own intelligence, it seems, leads to a dangerous desire to bring the rest of humanity to its knees.

The point here is that the artificial intelligentsia is dragging us into an archaic future where intelligence is quantified, fixed, and ranked, and smartness is fetishized. We would do well to remember that IQ is, above all, a eugenic concept, concocted to sort winners from losers and to justify the rules of the game. Eugenics … in the 21st century … among those who fancy themselves futurists?

¤

Lest we forget, eugenics was originally a philosophy and movement popularized by social progressives. Many prominent eugenicists saw themselves as caretakers of humanity, working to ensure human flourishing by cultivating good genes (e.g., Better Baby Contests) and rooting out bad ones (e.g., sterilization). They were, among others, inventors like Alexander Graham Bell, scientists like Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick, politicians like Teddy Roosevelt, beloved writers like Helen Keller and H. G. Wells, and far too many university presidents and professors to name. In fact, Harry Chandler, publisher of the Los Angeles Times from 1917 to 1944, helped popularize eugenics and advocate for sterilization to address social problems. Their main think tank, the Human Betterment Foundation, was headquartered in Southern California, not Alabama or Mississippi. In today’s parlance, the foundation was a policy “influencer” helping to spread the eugenics gospel, forging “links between major players in the private sector and state officials who carried out the work.”

Take the great Irish playwright, activist, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, George Bernard Shaw, who described Jews as “the real enemy, the invader from the East, the ruffian, the oriental parasite,” arguing that “the only fundamental and possible socialism is the socialisation of the selective breeding of man,” and who mused that “the overthrow of the aristocrat has created the necessity for the Superman.” Or consider the outspoken advocate of women’s reproductive rights (and H. G. Wells’s mistress) Margaret Sanger, who claimed in 1921 that “the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.” If eugenicists of the past understood their work as progressive, then self-proclaimed futurists selling us fantasies of artificial intelligence are the harbingers of a new eugenics.

Just as in the past, the Eugenics 2.0 of the tech evangelists is swaddled in the language of betterment, but they seek more than human betterment. In fact, their worldview is perhaps best understood as pro-extinctionist in that, as Torres argues, these far-futurists are enthusiastic about “legacy humans” giving way to a smarter, stronger, more enhanced species of posthumans. The artificial intelligentsia promise to guide us into this future where we shed our mortal meat suits, floating into a blissful digital reality, merging with technology (the “singularity”) and/or transcending it (transhumanism). They advocate relying on science and reason, a rationalism often narrowly construed as quantitative reasoning, if we are to create lasting and meaningful good in the world (effective altruism).

Whereas hard-liners prioritize far-future survival (longtermism) over pesky short-term concerns like poverty, pandemics, and genocides, William MacAskill, a co-founder of effective altruism and philosopher in Oxford University’s Global Priorities Institute, suggests, in his 2022 book What We Owe the Future, that “we can positively steer the future while improving the present, too.” That said, in his 2020 book The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity, Oxford philosopher Toby Ord, MacAskill’s fellow originator of the effective altruism movement, argues that,

because […] almost all of humanity’s life lies in the future, almost everything of value lies in the future as well […] To risk destroying this future, for the sake of some advantage limited only to the present, seems to me profoundly parochial and dangerously short-sighted. […] [I]t privileges a tiny minority of humans over the overwhelming majority yet to be born; it privileges this particular century over the millions, or maybe billions, yet to come.

But, speaking of tiny minorities, those represented by “we” in these foundational texts are building a movement defined by a familiar mix of hubris and saviorism. While encouraging more people to consider how our present-day actions impact the future is a worthy pursuit with roots in many Indigenous traditions, tech evangelists are drawing upon these philosophies to wrap their self-interest in the cloak of humanistic concern.

What exactly makes this bundle of beliefs—transhumanism, extropianism (boundless expansion and evolution), singularitarianism, modern cosmism (transhumanism with a focus on colonizing other planets), rationalism, effective altruism, and longtermism—specifically eugenic? According to Torres and his co-author, computer scientist Timnit Gebru (who coined the acronym TESCREAL to describe this set of ideologies), they “are inspired by utopian ideals similar to the visions of first-wave eugenicists […] and see AGI as integral to the realization of these visions. Meanwhile, the race to build AGI is proliferating products that harm the very same groups that were harmed by first-wave eugenicists.” Gebru and Torres explain that the discriminatory attitudes of past eugenicists (racism, xenophobia, classism, ableism, and sexism) remain widespread within the AGI movement, resulting in systems that harm marginalized groups and centralize power under the guise of “safety” and “benefiting humanity.”

Still from “Superintelligence: Science or Fiction? | Elon Musk & Other Great Minds,” Future of Life Institute.

In a statement many will recognize as racially charged and class-coded, Nick Bostrom, former head of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute and author of the New York Times bestseller Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (2014), links high fertility with low IQ, claiming that there is “a negative correlation in some places between intellectual achievement and fertility. If such selection were to operate over a long period of time, we might evolve into a less brainy but more fertile species.” In January 2023, he addressed racist remarks he made on a LISTSERV in the 1990s. Again, the controversy highlights a larger issue within the artificial intelligentsia: a focus on wealthy, predominantly white, male innovators as trustees of the future. Whether or not one believes Bostrom’s defense or cares about his past judgments, the reality remains that those shaping the “future of humanity” come from a narrow segment of society. Their views—be they racist, utopian, or both—are currently overdetermining our shared trajectory. As writer Leighton Woodhouse described effective altruism,  

[It] is ultimately rooted in saviorism. It’s a top-down view of social change, appropriate for those who are accustomed to recreating the world in their own image from the perches of their high-status professions. It encourages high-net-worth individuals to use their wealth to impose their moral convictions upon the world, whether the world likes it or not.

Remember, it’s not a choice that we have.

What strikes me most about today’s eugenicist vision is the perverse calculus that values the “high IQ, high-achieving” artificial intelligentsia over those most affected by current multicrises because the former are cast as the deliverers of humanity’s digital redemption. Longtermist Nick Beckstead argued, in his 2013 PhD dissertation, that the survival of those who are “more innovative” should take priority:

Saving lives in poor countries may have significantly smaller ripple effects than saving and improving lives in rich countries. Why? Richer countries have substantially more innovation, and their workers are much more economically productive. By ordinary standards—at least by ordinary enlightened humanitarian standards—saving and improving lives in rich countries is about equally as important as saving and improving lives in poor countries, provided lives are improved by roughly comparable amounts. But it now seems more plausible to me that saving a life in a rich country is substantially more important than saving a life in a poor country, other things being equal.

At every turn in the rhetoric of the artificial intelligentsia, we hear echoes of a eugenic calculus: the weak must be sacrificed for the strong to survive.

The fetishization of intelligence is another key tenet of this redemptionist narrative. Eliezer Yudkowsky said the quiet part out loud in a 2008 blog post titled “Competent Elites”: “One of the major surprises I received when I moved out of childhood into the real world, was the degree to which the world is stratified by genuine competence.” He goes on to recount an experience at “a gathering of the mid-level power elite” in which his self-imagined elevated status was not so remarkable: “This was the point at which I realized that my child prodigy license had officially completely expired.” He describes his surprise that the venture capitalists and “CEO[s] of something” with whom he was mingling were not just “fools in business suits.” Instead, “these people of the Power Elite were visibly much smarter than average mortals. In conversation they spoke quickly, sensibly, and by and large intelligently. When talk turned to deep and difficult topics, they understood faster, made fewer mistakes, were readier to adopt others’ suggestions.” He comes to a similar conclusion after attending a meeting at the Singularity Summit: “The major names in an academic field, at least the ones that I run into, often do seem a lot smarter than the average scientist.” Throughout, we find Yudkowsky assessing people’s “auras” as more or less formidable—from “average mortals” to “world-class smart” to those who “sparkle with extra life force.” It’s an Ode to Meritocracy: stature reflects inherent capacity. He acknowledges his reader’s likely discomfort with such assessments, returning in the end to AI as the solution: “It’s easier for me to talk about such things, because, rightly or wrongly, I imagine that I can imagine technologies of an order that could bridge even that gap.” Ah, there it is. The purpose of AI is to allow average mortals to truly sparkle!

¤

AI evangelists also perpetuate a eugenic worldview in more insidious ways, particularly by downplaying the costs of economic and technological “progress” to the planet and its people. In this new era, survival is linked to superintelligence, the domain of those who “use advanced technologies to radically enhance themselves, thus creating a superior race of ‘posthumans.’” For those like Bostrom, humanity as we now know it—flesh-and-blood Homo sapiens—is old school. In Superintelligence, Bostrom envisions genetic selection for traits like “intelligence, health, hardiness, and appearance” becoming normalized such that “nations would face the prospect of becoming cognitive backwaters and losing out in economic, scientific, military, and prestige contests with competitors that embrace the new human enhancement technologies.” These evangelists also envision digital descendants in the deep future who will (or should) be granted the same moral standing as you and me. “[I]f the machines have conscious minds,” Bostrom suggests, then “the welfare of the working machine minds could even appear to be the most important aspect of the outcome, since they may be numerically dominant.”

From this perspective, humanlike digital beings could, in principle, live far richer and more varied lives than biological humans. According to Bostrom,

what hangs in the balance is at least 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 human lives (though the true number is probably larger). If we represent all the happiness experienced during one entire such life with a single teardrop of joy, then the happiness of these souls could fill and refill the earth’s oceans every second, and keep doing so for a hundred billion billion millennia. It is really important that we make sure these truly are tears of joy.

Alas, from the point of view of the artificial intelligentsia, the long-term potential of these imaginary future beings takes precedence over alleviating present-day human suffering—“feel-good projects” like eliminating poverty, addressing climate change, and preventing wars.

It’s imperative that we refute the fantasies of posthuman proselytizers like Bostrom, and of Silicon Valley elites who share his views. Many of them concur with Sam Bankman-Fried that the best thing they can do for society is to “get filthy rich, for charity’s sake.” Bankman-Fried started out touting lofty goals, signing Bill Gates’s Giving Pledge to donate the majority of one’s wealth to philanthropy. Soon after graduating with a BA in physics from MIT in 2014, he started working at Jane Street Capital, a proprietary trading firm, and then the Centre for Effective Altruism before getting into crypto. Three years later, he founded Alameda Research, a cryptocurrency trading firm, and in 2019 launched another cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, which quickly became one of the largest crypto companies globally. But by 2022, FTX had filed for bankruptcy; the company collapsed after losing investors billions of dollars. In the end, Bankman-Fried was arrested and extradited from the Bahamas, convicted of fraud and conspiracy, and sentenced to 25 years in prison. For all the talk of altruism and doing good, he ended up illegally using customers’ funds to cover his own expenses, including “purchasing luxury properties in the Caribbean, alleged bribes to Chinese officials and private planes.”

Perhaps most revealing is the statement made by the fraudster’s defense attorney, Marc Mukasey: “Sam was not a ruthless financial serial killer who set out every morning to hurt people […] Sam Bankman-Fried doesn’t make decisions with malice in his heart. He makes decisions with math in his head.” Yes, and that’s the problem. The artificial intelligentsia is trying to engineer a world predicated on the inherent morality (or at least neutrality) of math. But as Aubrey Clayton wrote earlier in this series, the eugenics movement deeply influenced the birth and development of statistics and significance testing. Turning to quantitative reasoning is laced with danger. Torres explains that EA, longtermism, and the TESCREAL movement more generally reduce ethics to a branch of economics. It is all about expected value calculations and number-crunching. When you include hypothetical future digital people in one’s EV calculations, then the far future wins every time.

But what explains the affinity between tech elites and eugenics? For starters, the artificial intelligentsia’s intense focus on optimization and enhancement spills over from engineering digital tools to the engineering of life itself. If, historically, eugenics sought to “improve” the human population through reproductive control, those with limitless resources today are desperate to cheat death by investing in technologies that help them “evolve” past this mortal frame. The faulty conflation of humans with computers is part of the problem. If brains are computers, then it is no wonder that those who are masters of silicon also fancy themselves masters of humanity. According to MacAskill, “Some entrepreneurs hope to abandon meat-based bodies altogether and live on in digital form through computer emulation of their brains,” including Sam Altman, who is a customer of Nectome, a start-up that “preserves brains with the hope that future generations will scan and upload them.” The stated aim of Neuralink, the biotechnology company founded by Musk, is to create a brain-computer interface “to restore autonomy to those with unmet medical needs,” like spinal cord injuries, but also to “unlock human potential tomorrow.” As many have observed, the company’s ultimate focus is not therapy but enhancement, brain-computer connections that are “superhuman.” Hubris disguised as beneficence, a feature of the old eugenics, is resurrected in the language of improvement, enhancement, upgrade. (But, as I have argued elsewhere, this zealous desire to transcend humanity ignores the fact that we have not all had a chance to be fully human.)

Whereas eugenics is often associated with government attempts to control and coerce human reproduction, today’s tech elite exhibit similar anxieties about falling birth rates among “high IQ” populations. Elon Musk’s 12 children and counting, and Sam Altman’s investment in reproductive technology start-ups focused on IVF and genetic screening, aim to populate the planet with genetically superior offspring. At an August 2019 conference about artificial intelligence, Musk said: “Assuming there is a benevolent future with AI, I think the biggest problem the world will face in 20 years is population collapse.” “Population collapse due to low birth rates is a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming,” he tweeted in 2022. Peter Thiel adds, “I think there is something very odd about a world in which people are not reproducing themselves. […] It’s probably somehow entangled with the stagnation, the decline […] the sense of pessimism around the future.” And although he says there is “no magic-bullet solution,” among his investments in fertility and women’s health, Thiel provided $3.2 million seed funding for a startup called 28, “which tracks users’ menstrual cycles and gives them tips on diet and exercise—all while encouraging them not to use birth control.”

As Emily R. Klancher Merchant pointed out in this publication, the symbiosis between the tech industry and the pronatalist movement worried about falling birth rates among the “high achieving” reflects a eugenic mindset. She began her essay with venture capitalists turned pronatalist advocates Malcolm and Simone Collins and their aim “to save humanity by having as many babies as possible.” Unlike their Christian counterparts, the Collinses put their faith in data and science and are “focused on producing the maximum number of heirs—not to inherit assets, but genes, outlook and worldview.” When asked how their data-driven pronatalism differs from eugenics, Malcolm Collins insisted it’s a new approach because it’s not state-sponsored selective breeding but parental choice. This laissez-faire approach, however, ignores the unequal value of choices. After all, the birth rate is not dropping for everyone. The worry is that more affluent populations—and their coveted genes and corresponding worldviews—are somehow in danger.

Thiel is also doing his part for the cause by trying to extend his own life and funding a version of the Olympics called the Enhanced Games in which participants are allowed to take FDA-approved performance enhancement drugs and use prosthetic technologies. The Olympics on steroids, literally. Until recently, Thiel’s public support for Donald Trump made him stand out in Silicon Valley, but his biographer Max Chafkin warns that he is not an outlier and that his worldview borders on fascism: “[T]he idea that companies should basically be able to do whatever they want, that democracy isn’t the most important value, these things are reflected in the decisions and actions that many Silicon Valley companies are making.” In recent months, Silicon Valley supporters of Trump’s presidency have grown more visible—in June, his campaign held a fundraiser at venture capitalist David Sacks’s San Francisco mansion that raised $12 million.

¤

Ultimately, it’s not enough to refute eugenic ideologies. Eugenic infrastructures—systems designed to sacrifice the lives and habitats of the global majority to ensure the flourishing of the oligarchic minority—need to be dismantled as well. This includes addressing the laborers performing digital ghost work that makes AI appear magical—click workers in Kenya and content moderators in the Philippines—and recognizing the ecological and human costs of producing sleek new devices. Every day, we wake up to headlines announcing the insatiable appetite of data centers powering large language models and AI applications—“Why AI Is So Thirsty: Data Centers Use Massive Amounts of Water,” “States Rethink Data Centers as ‘Electricity Hogs’ Strain the Grid,” “Data Centers Are Draining Resources in Water-Stressed Communities.” In May 2024, Google’s emissions jumped “nearly 50 [percent] over five years as AI use surge[d],” though the company’s annual Environmental Report emphasized how “scaling AI” is crucial for climate action. Similarly, in Microsoft’s 2023 Annual Report, CEO Satya Nadella said he believes “AI can be a powerful accelerant in addressing the climate crisis.” Bill Gates has also argued that AI will propel climate solutions, eventually outweighing the massive energy costs of data centers. Speaking to an audience in London this year, he “urged environmentalists and governments to ‘not go overboard’ on concerns about the huge amounts of power required to run new generative AI systems.” But a month earlier, “Microsoft admitted that its greenhouse gas emissions had risen by almost a third since 2020, in large part due to the construction of data centres.”

This faith-based futurism employs a eugenics calculus, asking us to prioritize hypothetical benefits over current costs to people and the planet. As Journalist Karen Hao noted after visiting a Microsoft data center in Arizona, “With more than 8,000 data centers whirring all around the world and venting heat, and many more on their way, that optimism may come off as nothing more than faith: Technology has gotten us into this predicament; perhaps technology will get us out of it.” This is the gospel of AI evangelism: trust us, because you have no choice.

But we do have a choice. There is no reason to trust that tech elites have any wisdom to offer when it comes to effective altruism or alleviating human suffering. Billionaires building bunkers to survive an AI apocalypse, attempting to “disrupt death” through cryopreservation, and scouting the planet for the best locations to create “pop-up cities” and “network states” are not reliable stewards of the collective good. Those most impacted by “algorithms of oppression,” “automat[ed] inequality,” “weapons of math destruction,” “artificial unintelligence,” “algorithmic coloniality,” and “technologies of violence” have greater insight into human flourishing because their lives depend on it.

In June 2024, I joined hundreds of organizers, academics, advocates, and workers in Chicago for the Take Back Tech conference, organized by Mijente and Media Justice. We strategized about how to reclaim technology for the collective good, addressing issues ranging from the use of AI in the genocide of Palestinians to the development of autonomous technology infrastructures that support grassroots movements. The goal was to contest the eugenic legacies coded into our digital world and cultivate legacies of solidarity by learning from past generations and preparing for future ones.

During my remarks on the last day, I expressed my exasperation with AI—how even in resisting the techno status quo, artificial intelligence dominates the conversation (and resources). The only AI I want to discuss is ancestral intelligence—the insights, experiences, and wisdom that grow under the rubble of progress. I’m fed up with the narrow conception of intelligence shaping our systems and societies. We need more investment in the knowledge coming from organizations and initiatives like Allied Media Projects, Athena, Data For Black Lives, Our Data Bodies, May First Movement Technology, No Tech For Apartheid, 7amleh, Algorithmic Justice League, and Data Workers’ Inquiry. We must urgently listen and learn from those whose labor and lands are indispensable yet treated as disposable.

Cover of “The Congolese Fight for Their Own Wealth” report.

On my way back from Chicago, I started reading a groundbreaking report, “The Congolese Fight for Their Own Wealth,” released in June 2024. It reminds us that, while cobalt, lithium, and coltan are essential to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) supplies most of these minerals. In 2022, the DRC’s exports were worth $25 billion, with untapped reserves worth $24 trillion. Yet Congolese workers live on less than $2.15 a day due to the “pillaging of the land and its resources for profit at any cost” by multinational companies like Glencore, in collaboration with corrupt oligarchies and militia groups.

This is a eugenic infrastructure that exposes the Congolese people to backbreaking work and the toxic particles that go into our iPhones and other technologies. The report notes that in 2014, UNICEF estimated that “forty thousand of these artisanal miners are children as young as eight years old, though figures from the Congolese government and mining companies suggest that this dramatically underrepresents reality.” The tech industry’s wealth is subsidized by the suppressed wages of workers in the DRC. The warped fantasies of some, in other words, continue to rely on the nightmarish labor of others.

As Amos Hochstein, Joe Biden’s senior adviser for energy and investment, put it, “An electric vehicle is essentially a battery, and what’s in the battery is Africa.” Even our efforts to create “greener” technologies are predicated on the pillaging of African resources and the immiseration of African labor. To counter such eugenic infrastructures, we must heed the calls of those on the front lines, like the Congolese youth who insist that “Congo is not for sale” and call for “collective intelligence in order to respond to the challenges that face us with clear ideas”—stewarding and demilitarizing the land, reinvesting wealth in local industries, rebuilding the social contract, and demanding just governance.

At the very least, we should recognize the hollow ethical commitments of the artificial intelligentsia and the deceitful machinations of those who fancy themselves to be humanity’s stewards. The choice is not between effective and ineffective altruism but between solidarity and indifference toward those whom long-term planners would abandon.

To move forward, we need to reckon with what I have called ustopia. Whereas utopias are the stuff of dreams and dystopias the stuff of nightmares, ustopias are what we create together when we are wide awake. It is not enough to refute the legacies of eugenics animating the faux futures of the artificial intelligentsia; we must also take it upon ourselves to inaugurate legacies of solidarity that reflect our intrinsic interdependence as a people and a planet. To riff on the late great Octavia E. Butler, whose prescient 1993 novel Parable of the Sower begins in summer 2024—it may be the end of the world, but there are other worlds.

¤

Featured image: El Lazar Lissitzky. [Announcer], 1923. Gift of Samuel J. Wagstaff Jr., Getty Museum (84.XP.983.29). CC0, getty.edu. Accessed October 16, 2024.

LARB Contributor

Ruha Benjamin is the Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, founding director of the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab, and award-winning author of People’s Science: Bodies and Rights on the Stem Cell Frontier (2013), Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code (2019), Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want (2022), and Imagination: A Manifesto (2024). 

  Charles Wharry (Darkbird18);

Eugenics and AI refers to the use of artificial intelligence in ways that revive the harmful idea that human beings can be ranked, improved, or optimized according to supposed biological value. It describes the belief that technology can or should determine which human traits are desirable and which people are more worthy of opportunities, safety, or life itself.