Colonizing the Cosmos, Abandoning the Earth: A Call to Kinship Over Conquest
In 1903 a Hungarian child-prodigy named Jon von Neumann was born to a wealthy Jewish family in Budapest. At six Jon could divide two eight-digit numbers in his head and converse in ancient Greek. By adulthood, he had made significant contributions to quantum mechanics and the development of the modern computer. Ultimately he worked on the Manhattan Project, contributing to the design of the atomic bomb.
Jon is credited with being the first to coin the term “singularity”–– an idea that has become the theme of Sci-Fi’s and the fever dream of tech billionaires. In 1958, in a conversation with colleagues he said, "The ever-accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue." Here Jon alludes to a theoretical moment when artificial intelligence or other tech, advances so far, so fast, that it changes the course of humanity in unpredictable ways. One of those ways is that the human consciousness and that of AI merge into one singular being.
Many in the tech realm celebrate this possibility, heralding a new era of ease, peace, immortality, and freedom, one where all our challenges (i.e., climate change, war, poverty and disease) will be magically solved. “A person is a mind file. A person is a software program, a very profound one, and we have no backup. So when our hardware [body] dies, our software dies with it,” Raymond Kurzweil, computer scientist, author and one of the godfathers of singularity, told Rolling Stone. AI will allow us to upload our ‘software’ for eternity, he and others argue. This entire narrative is wildly naïve, reeking of spiritual poverty, unhinged rationalism, and child-like wish casting — merely the fear of death and discomfort disguised as benevolent futurism.
But these techno-utopian visions have a sinister and dark side we would be wise to track, for they are informed by a confluence of ideologies born of those who are deeply and profoundly insecure yet have exceptional influence, money and power. This confluence is known under an acronym TESCREAL. It describes a cluster of overlapping ideological movements, especially in tech and futurist circles. Here’s what it stands for, briefly explained:
Transhumanism — the belief in using technology to radically enhance human abilities and even transcend biological limits.
Extropianism — a worldview focused on endless improvement, expansion, and progress through technology, no matter the cost.
Singularitarianism — the belief in and preparation for a technological singularity.
Cosmism — a philosophy that values spreading intelligent life (often humanity or its successors) throughout the cosmos.
Rationalism — applying reason, evidence, and logic systematically to all domains of human life.
Effective Altruism — a movement that tries to use reason and evidence to do the most good possible, often with a global or future-oriented focus.
Alongevism — prioritizing radical life-extension or even immortality through medical or technological means.
Longtermism —a belief in prioritizing actions that positively affect the far future, assuming future people have equal moral worth to people alive today.
These movements overlap heavily in Silicon Valley, futurist discourse, and AI circles.
The TESCREAL movement has unleashed a fervor of unchecked ambition and biblical-like fanaticism, self-anointing those at the helm as kings and overlords of the new age. These oligarchs operate within and alongside our federal government — Musk, Thiel, Bezos, Altman, and Zuckerberg. Their veiled monopolies in social media (Meta), data harvesting and analytics (Palantir), retail (Amazon), intelligence (OpenAI), and communications (Starlink) are poised to accumulate all the world’s wealth in a dark and coordinated power grab that will, if unchallenged, change the course of world history forever.
Yet, there is a chink in the armor of the titan. Tech’s unchecked ambition reveals an existential insecurity, an Achillean vulnerability that gives us an inroad to our retributive triumph. You see, the lives of extreme privilege that these uber-wealthy white males have deprived them of the grit life hands the average person, grit that creates resilience and robust capacity to face death and discomfort. They are, in effect, like a pampered house cat — terrified of the outside world.
They may protect themselves with delusional hubris, underground bunkers, the promise of everlasting life, and more money. But in the end, they are fragile.
This fragility is a mental and physiological illness that results from extreme wealth and privilege. I believe it ultimately is a symptom of profound disconnection from nature, which includes all of life and even consciousness itself—the fundamental pathology of colonization. While we might be inclined to exonerate these individuals, in fact, in some ways they deserve our pity. These James Bond-like villains are very broken people. And TESCREAL is the definitive expression of colonialism and patriarchy at its very worst…the final flex of a massive, toxic-masculine backlash.
While the public is distracted by the clown car of the Trump administration, a far more sinister scenario is unfolding in the shadowy hallways of laboratories, at $50 million Venetian weddings, and within algorithmic outreach. As Time magazine put it, the worldview of TESCREALs may sound like the stuff of science fiction, but in their eyes, it is no more far-fetched than a weather forecast. This is not a fringe notion, but rather a serious hypothesis about the future of life on earth. Yes, the mind may recoil — there is an intellectual gag reflex that kicks in at the thought of super-intelligent, immortal cyborgs. And yet however preposterous it may appear at first glance, the idea of concepts such as Singularity deserves sober consideration.
This is scary. But I want to offer some hope here, for there is a much deeper and more powerful current than the fleeting ideas and infantile thrashings of the techno-utopian doomsday machine. She backs 3.8 billion years of evolutionary intelligence here on earth; she is the expression of all the galaxies; she is the atomic power found in the tiniest grain of sand to the largest supernova. She is nature — life itself.
Kincentrism is a world view that recognizes our connection with all of life. It is based on the evidence-informed understanding that we are part of an interconnected community that includes the rocks, the stars, the clouds and every being on earth and beyond. We may not know this is true, but our ignorance does not make it untrue. We are connected, whether we realize it or not. In the words of my mentor, Uncle Bob Randall (the Listed Custodial Elder of Uluru), it is only our misunderstanding that keeps us from knowing and experiencing this truth.
Kincentrism may sound alien to a society steeped in centuries of individualism and domination. But its roots lie deep in nearly every Indigenous and ancestral culture on earth, reminding us what we once knew but have forgotten.
Kincentrism meets the same fears that TESCREAL promises to soothe, but better. Where TESCREAL promises a fantasy of control, kincentrism offers the rooted strength of relationship. Where techno-utopians yearn for artificial immortality, kincentrism teaches us the true immortality of legacy, land, and lineage. Where they dream of engineered prosperity, kincentrism reveals the abundance that is already here, in reciprocity and thriving ecosystems.
And we are seeing this power move in the world even now. Consider the recent defense of America’s public lands, where hundreds of thousands of ordinary people, bonded to the places they love, rose up in record numbers to block a massive 3.3 million acre land sell-off. Nature is calling us home, reminding us we are its children, not its conquerors. When we align ourselves with the living world, she in turn aligns herself with us. And when that happens, unfathomable miracles occur.
I’ve seen it with my own eyes. When I align myself with the principles behind the evolutionary brilliance of nature, the laws of physics seem to literally bend: timelines change, circumstances shift significantly, insurmountable challenges resolve.
Wherever you stand, you can align with this most powerful force of all. The intelligence that made you, that made whales, wolves, coral reefs, and the cosmos. This is the true singularity, one that does not separate but connects. Sit beneath a tree. Listen to a bird. Place your hands on the soil. Let these simple acts remind you of your place in the family of life.
So how does this look in action? Kincentrism certainly supports practices that are nature-forward such as regenerative farming, non-violent approaches to animal training, and environmental activism, and there is an even more effective way to partner with the biosphere for real, sustained change:
Ritual and ceremony – these practices connect you with a greater consciousness, the elements, the ancestral realm, the directions and the totality of the time-space continuum. Plug into that conductor of energy with your intentions. Watch reality bend.
Prayer – expand this practice beyond religious dogma, and see it as a through-line to a greater power, however you define that. Your requests are heard.
Feel and experience – it’s not enough to merely intellectually consider your connection to all life, but to physically and somatically immerse yourself in the atomic co-mingling that is real between you and the world. Stop, drop in, and feel it.
Love of land and place – your devotion and protection of the places that evoke your love, awe and respect sends out a frequency and corresponding actions that in turn are reciprocated by the land and land’s mysterious capacity to influence events.
Love of animals – caring for your pets and the animals around you keeps you tethered to the kincentric approach to life, and therefore keeps you resilient and robust in the face of challenges.
Love for the Mystery – Nature works beyond the physics we understand.
Kincentrism is our greatest hope, our deepest genius, and our truest future. It is the singularity of belonging, the great web that will hold us when the empire of code inevitably collapses under its illusions. And it is here, ancient and waiting, ready for us to remember.
Resources:
More Everything Forever – AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silocon Valley’s Cursade to Control the Fate of Humanity by Adam Becker (astro-physicist)
Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI by Karen Hao
Kinship with All Life by J. Allen Boone
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
The Nerd Reich by journalist and former California Governor Press Secretary Gil Duran - a newsletter about the tech authoritarian politics of Silicon Valley plutocrats.
Watch this 35 minute informative video where journalist and author Karen Hao exposes the “quasi-religious” push for OpenAI in spite of social, economic and environmental costs.
For a brief and decent summary of the ideologies of Peter Thiel’s (Palantir and JD Vance funder), watch this 12 min video summarizing his interview with New York Times columnist Ross Douthat.
Kelly Wendorf is an ICF Master Certified executive and personal coach, published author, spiritual mentor, disruptor, and socially responsible entrepreneur.
As founder of EQUUS® she specializes in the liberation of robust leadership capacities in those who are most qualified — the empathetic, the conscientious, the accountable, the generous, and the kind.
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