The New Prometheans: Rescripting the Dreamscapes of the Hi-Tech Bros

Abstract The New Prometheans is divided into four sections. Section I, “The new political quadrilateral,” reviews the formation of a new quadrilateral in the United States: right-wing neoliberals, white evangelicals, Trumpian fascists, and rich tech bros. Each folds to some degree into the priorities and ethos of the others to form a larger resonance machine. It is also unstable. Section II, “Dreamscapes of the tech bros,” explores more closely the existential priorities, rage against death, crude understandings of intelligence, and economic patterns of insistence of the tech bros, focusing on quotations from figures such as Marc Andressen, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos. After advancing a preliminary critique, Section III, “Steps toward an alternative onto-cosmology,” presents alternative images of nonhuman modes of production, the porosity of knowledge, the element of creative responsiveness in thinking, the ubiquity of events, and the exploration of timescapes. These provide better ways to challenge and displace the shallow and cruel images of human mastery, smartness, computer brain uploads, time, and capitalist expansion. Critique is important but never enough. Finally, in Section IV, we look at how earthbound, entangled humanists can offer an alternative to the dreamscape of escape to Mars.