I had the curious thought late last night, while thinking about Kubrick and Arthur Clarke and 2001 and Childhood's End and other things, that the techbro crowd might really and truly have internalized Clarke's notion that Earth is little more than a cradle from which humanity's supposed to escape into the stars.
In Childhood's End it's presented in the most stark fashion possible. There's a last generation of humanity that's actually human in the conventionally accepted sense, and their children transform into some mystical thingummy and destroy Earth, almost casually and carelessly, like a child learning for the first time that they're free to pull off their teddy bear's head. It's been so long since I've read the book that I couldn't possibly guess in what spirit Clarke intended us to take this catastrophe, but I can easily guess that there's a lot of apocalyptically minded nerds who take Clarke's material as literally as they can, placing themselves in the position of the superintelligent mystical children, leaving behind their infancy and discarding Earth like an empty candy-wrapper as they ascend into The Singularity.
Obviously I can't say for sure whether Elon Musk and Sam Altman and the rest of these terrifying geekbros actually believe that they're the Star Children. They shelter behind so many layers of marketing doubletalk and ironical posing and memetic jokes (and a screen of protective Internet fans) that it's tough to know whether these people actually believe in anything at all. But if they really do believe that they're a final generation of humanity that's ascending into superbeing status...then it's not exactly possible to falsify such a belief, is it? It explains everything. It explains why they're rich. It explains why they're hated. It explains why they can never seem to convince others (outside their gullible fandoms) of their genius and their good intentions—obviously the common herd is now too brutish and stupid to grasp the cosmic profundity of their thoughts.
cw: discussion of drug abuse in techbro circles and how it might feed their sense of superhuman superiority
Also it must be said, if they do believe such things about themselves, their beliefs have likely been amplified and inflamed into a near-religious passion by their drug experiences—it's widely known that corporate technocrats are positively soaking in recreational drugs which they can abuse with an impunity not available to the ordinary mortal, and that techbros rationalize their massive substance-abuse problems as a "transhuman" thing, as if they're transforming themselves into superior beings by the simple act of swallowing some terrifying "research chemical". I've got nothing against drug visions per se but one must be skeptical and critical of the spiritual information thus gained—but it's unlikely that the tech execs are applying much critical thought to their ecstatic experiences.
There's been hints in the news that collective drug use has become a problem in this world. There were recent news stories about Elon Musk pressuring business associates to do drugs with him. Of course he issued some standard non-denial denials ("I never failed a drug test" is cute) but even if Musk himself isn't doing this sort of thing, it's easy to guess that the practice is commonplace among tech executives who are not enduring constant public scrutiny. It fosters the same sense of compulsory loyalty that exists within a criminal conspiracy: you've shared in the same transgression, a transgression that's bound to be held over your head if your loyalty wavers. More importantly, though, it's possible for one person to browbeat others into sharing in the same ecstatic vision. It's like "charismatic" Christian preachers who can induce an entire audience into chanting a stream of gibberish; the pressure to join in the same experience is so intense that most people simply yield to it, especially because there's harsh consequences for breaking away. I can scarcely imagine how nightmarish it would be to do drugs with Elon Musk, then commit the sin of harshing his particular buzz.
Am I right about this? Are Musk and other tech executives getting high together and collectively daydreaming that they're the Star Children, soaring away from Earth and the petty concerns of the common herd, thinking thoughts that no ordinary human animal could possibly hope to understand even if they could be put into words?
If my guesses are correct, there's one slender thread of hope to be found in this situation: we can hope that they all collectively start having a lot of bad trips. It would be amusing to arrange. Not that I like Dune and its "Kwisatz Haderach" nonsense too much, but I find myself thinking of a line...
"Try looking into that place where you dare not look. You'll find ME there, staring back at you."
~Χαρά