All good sci-fi is religious



Atheism is a really boring ideology for storytelling.

There’s no God, no morality, and no meaning. Everything is an accident, and we can take only the most superficial material interpretations possible. This kills all storytelling except the most nihilistic genres.

And this presents a problem because nihilism is well ... boring. It can’t sustain a narrative. People seek meaning. People seek purpose. It’s not just instinctual. It’s necessary. So what do atheists do? They take old religious meanings and filter them through an atheist lens.

We can talk about humanity’s grand destiny all day, but the future of humanity is not something particularly inspiring to the guy working nine to five.

So what are we going to do? Look at Ridley Scott's 2012 "Alien" prequel, "Prometheus." God is real but he’s an alien. Creation has a purpose, but it’s evolution.

The redemption of mankind is through our IQ and eventual ascension into godhood. It’s all the same beats except through atheistic and materialistic virtues (or subversions). The story is just as religious, but it’s now bent for a really shallow religion.

No atheists on starships

These tropes are so ubiquitous that we take them as given assumptions for the sci-fi genre, but they’re just recycled ideas (mostly from Christianity). And so atheists steal their depth from truth that rightfully belongs to religion. They just pretend it’s more “scientific.”

Deliberate design is a completely pseudo-scientific concept (according to atheists). There’s no evidence for it, and the mainstream consensus is that life was a cosmic accident. But you can’t say anything about a cosmic accident. You can only shrug your shoulders at it.

Nearly every sci-fi story has some form of deliberate design, they just replace the Christian God with aliens or whatever. Even though it is often atheists writing the stories, they reinsert this completely pseudo-scientific concept. Why? Because atheism is really boring.

Here’s a fun drinking game: Take a shot whenever you see a story treating evolution as a series of progressing stages. This is a completely nonsense read of evolution. There’s no moral component to evolution. It’s just adaption to environment. There’s no end goal.

But nearly every sci-fi story treats it as such. It gets to the point where it’s straight disinformation. Every time the story is about mankind’s rise from apes to the stars when that’s utterly irrelevant from an atheist perspective. Why? Because atheism is really boring.

Mankind's end goal is something like "Star Trek’s" Federation. But why is that a good thing? Why is space liberalism the default? What is morality based on? Where are we going? Who’s to say the Klingons don’t have it right? Why are there good guys and bad guys?

“But it’s all just fiction!” I hear you say. “It doesn’t matter.” But fiction isn’t nonsense. It’s an outlining of ideals, principles. Writers don’t just write random chaos. They write an extension of their worldview. Why then don’t we have properly atheist stories?

A properly atheist story would be completely materialistic, accidental, with absolutely no meaning or morality that has whatever intrigue being completely incidental to the plot. Now I have to ask: Doesn’t that sound like a really boring story?

How, then, did professed atheists like Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and Gene Roddenberry create the the archetypal myths that define the modern world?

The mystics of progressivism

By the 1960s, progressivism had reached a new ascendancy. Fueled by the unparalleled wealth that came with a modern economy, millions were lifted into new, luxurious lifestyles. Now was the time to put aside the ignorance of religion and finally embrace the freedoms offered by a world liberated from Christianity.

It isn’t hard to understand how so many fell for the deception. Things were getting better and better. Technology was improving, and more importantly, accelerating. The Soviet Union was an existential threat, yes. However, too many had already seen the miracle of science, and it seemed a better horse to back than spiritually weakened priests who were quickly conceding to the liberalism’s demands.

But with any new religion, there has to be a story, and the story science told wasn’t so flattering. Men had gone from sons of God to sons of apes. Salvation was a lie, and death was the end. There was no justice in the world, and mercy was just the delusion of fools. Man was a small being in a cold universe. The only thing modern men could be comforted by was his own increasing material comfort.

That’s not a story anyone wants to hear. And it’s certainly not a story anyone wants to tell. While abject nihilism has always had its place in literature, it rightfully has a small audience. Nihilism has nothing that could sustain a city, much less a nation.

Reason and science needed romance. It needed adventure and a destiny. Without these things, it was a boring, uninspiring philosophy. Writers (good ones anyway) instinctively shy away from boring. Better to be dead than boring. If there is a victory, it has to be a glorious triumph. If it is a defeat, it has to be a last stand. And if it is banal, then it has to be the most shuddering and teeth-clenching banality of all.

But the sci-fi writers of the 1960s and later were capable of far more than banality. They knew how to tell stories, and they (unconsciously or otherwise) slipped that dreaded irrationality and religious ignorance back into their fiction.

'2001: A Space Odyssey'

We’ll start with what I consider to be the quintessential story of progressivism. "2001: A Space Odyssey" was written in 1968 by Arthur C. Clarke (one of the Big Three sci-fi authors).

The original novel frames evolution not as random mutation guided by arbitrary natural selection but rather as a series of stages, with each improving and progressing from the last. Guided by the hands of an intelligence, men are the products of a consciousness far beyond our comprehension.

From a purely scientific standpoint, this is complete hogwash. But from a storyteller’s perspective, this is gold. Men are no longer an accident of cosmic forces. Suddenly, we have a destiny again.

There’s a conflict of tug and pull. We are going somewhere and we (at least to this incomprehensible intelligence) matter. We may be apes, but we have the potential to be something more. Can we realize this destiny?

Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images

You’ll notice that God is back in the equation. Except this god is a surprisingly hollow one compared to the Christian God. This one makes no demands or moral rules upon humanity. This one does not care about the suffering of the life it created. This one wants little to do with humanity except when it achieves a sufficient stage of intelligence.

Make no mistake, this is a despotic and cruel god. But, it is also a god fit for rationalism. Could we be the products of unimaginable forces? Maybe. Nobody wants to believe this was all an accident. And while this god is empty, it is sufficient food for the poets and artists. So long as nobody makes any moral demands beyond the current zeitgeist, it is a harmless idea for scholars to speculate and pine about.

This idea of incorporating evolution into the narrative of progress and a distant, indistinct entity in God’s place is a common thread throughout all of sci-fi. And it doesn’t even have to be an indistinct entity.

In the movie "Contact," this role is occupied by a galactic community that judges humanity worthy to join them after a set time has passed. But do you know the kicker? Humanity is considered at all because we sent out some radio signals. That’s ... depressing.

But there is another problem. What of the individual’s place in all of this? We can talk about humanity’s grand destiny all day, but the future of humanity is not something particularly inspiring to the guy working nine to five. Yay, we’re in the transitionary period where everything is still kinda awful, but our descendants will get to enjoy space utopia.

Flawed 'Foundation'

This question is not answered but sidestepped paradoxically. Another of the Big Three, Isaac Asimov, showcases this bait and switch quite well in his magnum opus, "Foundation." This epic spans the collapse of a galactic empire. Hari Seldon has devised a new science called psychohistory, which charts the course of societies. He goes to set up Foundation, which will be a light of science and knowledge in the coming Dark Ages and eventually bring back the empire.

Rita Barros/Getty Images

This is a story that spans centuries. Its whole premise is charting the course of history. And psychohistory is not a science that is kind to individuals. It says what determines the course of history are large-scale incentives and institutional rot. We are but numbers on a spreadsheet encompassing billions of worlds, and the greater part of humanity is accounted for in the margins.

But how did Isaac Asimov write this story? Well, he didn’t, at least not in the way he thought. A third of the first book follows a shrewd politician named Salvor Hardin as he outmaneuvers factions within Foundation. He eventually consolidates the society and neighboring kingdoms into a religious theocracy. Particularly, he accomplishes this through a clever ruse by outfitting enemy fleets with a kill-switch and faking it as divine power.

14-year-old me put down the book at the moment and asked, “OK, but what if there wasn’t Salvor Hardin?” There is some argument for the Second Foundation and Seldon predicting the rise of great men, but individuals are precisely the antithesis of psychohistory.

You’ll find in each section of Isaac Asimov’s magnum opus there are great men of history. There are people who rise above the paradigm and set the trends of the coming future. And it is not just captains of industry or conniving warlords. Even small people have a huge impact on galactic affairs. The Mule (a mutant with telepathic powers) lost because he fell in love with a normal woman.

Sci-fi is full of these characters. One moment they are but insignificant specks, the next they are upending everything. In this, you see a paradox which is played whenever the narrative is convenient for it. Humanity is vast and the individual has no power or the individual leads the revolution and remakes society.

I’m not saying this is done deliberately (though it probably certainly happened at some stage). However, progress needed a place for the individual, if only because storytellers demanded it so. You cannot tell a good story without people whose actions matter.

Stories need heroes and villains, otherwise, you have no story at all. It may go completely against the rational point of view, which says people are utterly insignificant, but can’t we just pretend that we are?

The final component of this narrative is a vision of what is trying to be achieved. The stage is set. We have our gods and demons, heroes and villains. For what shall be the contest? Well, the answer varies depending upon who you ask.

The final frontier?

Gene Roddenberry’s vision in "Star Trek" is of a space-traveling humanity for which all material wants were satisfied. Thankfully, the galaxy was filled with different peoples and aliens to meet. Otherwise, his stories would be fairly boring. Of course, that is the least of his world-building troubles. "Star Trek" does not stand up to even the most cursory scrutiny.

Ron Galella, Ltd./Getty Images

However, I don’t think progress was promising material utopia. At least, that wasn’t what people wanted. Utopia is a nice political aim, but I suspect what really captivated the audience was the prospect of an endless adventure.

What is mankind now fighting for? Ironically, the soldiers of progress want the world to go back as it once was, where the horizon was an unexplored frontier. In the 16th century, men put themselves on little boats and crossed oceans for adventure.

But space is too vast an ocean and our boats too tiny to cross. I have seen many futurists on the internet, and the dream of space travel is admittedly an intoxicating one. It tends to fill your thoughts as you work retail. I know it did for me.

In the imagination of many, humanity was just at its short adolescent stage. Once it stepped into the stars, the fun would begin again. Again, this goes against all science. The galaxy so far has been silent, and I think it’s time we begin to accept that alien life, if it does exist, is so far away as to be inaccessible.

Digital heaven

Space is out. But what about computers? "Neuromancer" by William Gibson was released in 1984. A little later than the 1960s, but it’s still a foundational text. Perhaps the future we’re fighting for is a simulation? Of course, I wouldn’t want to live in the world of "Neuromancer," but the dream of uploading your mind is an enticing one. What if your life could be a video game?

Suppose you could do it. Suppose I could turn you into a program and put you in a simulation. Would your life be better than what you have now? For those advocating for this future, most seem to skip that step.

Let’s take a look at the modern day. Are our lives really better with what digitization has already accomplished? Everyone agrees social media is a plague on humanity, yet why are so many pushing to trap themselves on what would be the ultimate social media platform?

You’ll again notice we’ve ditched reason yet again for a digital version of heaven. And our future is so much more enlightened than religious notions of an afterlife. We’ve taken salvation and commercialized it. Your eternal soul will be bought with the U.S. dollar.

But putting all that aside, why do these stories matter? These stories are all fiction. They are nothing to be taken seriously. I can already hear the cry that this all has nothing to do with the actual expectations people had for the future. Had I brought "2001: A Space Odyssey" into an academic debate on industrialization, I would’ve been laughed out of the room.

However, people do not tell stories just for mindless amusement. In them are the beliefs of a people. More than just hopes and dreams, stories are a reflection of the world as we see it. And in these stories I have listed, you see the beliefs of the people writing them.

You see their gods and devils, their heroes and villains, and the reality they want to make happen. Stories are a look at where we are and where we are going. And most importantly, stories are a confession of faith.

Did Arthur C. Clarke believe in monoliths that uplifted humanity? No. But he certainly believed in the god that made them.

A version of this essay originally appeared on the "Trantor Publishing" Substack

CRAZY: Scientists invent 'anti-gravity' device that could revolutionize transportation



A scientist by the name of Charles Buhler claims that he and a group of scientists and engineers have developed a device that defies the laws of physics in that it can propel itself without a propellant.

Buhler, who’s the co-founder of Exodus Propulsion Technologies and a NASA electrostatics expert, says that his team has been exploring “propellantless propulsion” for many years.

Their work, which began in 2016, has now culminated with the development of a device that has the potential to revolutionize transportation as we know it.

Scientists Create 'Anti-Gravity' Device That Could Revolutionize Transportationyoutu.be

“You've found a way now to possibly put rockets into space without it really being a rocket? What is it that is the propellant?” asks Glenn Beck in shock.

“That’s the nice thing about it. It doesn't use propellant,” says Buhler, adding that the device does “violate a lot of old classical laws, like the rocket equation.”

Using “new physics,” specifically the “19th-century E&M physics — electricity and magnetism,” Buhler’s team invented a device that could in theory “replace rockets.”

“About 90% of the rocket by mass and volume is just fuel. … If you get rid of all that, then you could theoretically start from Earth and go straight into space and then back and forth all over,” he tells Glenn.

“That is crazy!” exclaims Glenn, noting that such a contraption will “change everything.”

To find out how such a miraculous device is even possible, watch the clip above.

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Can the right wing save sci-fi?



It’s an open secret that sci-fi is the genre of the left. Pick out any landmark title, and you’ll likely find the author fits into one or more of these three descriptors: progressivist, rationalist, and atheist. And while there are standout exceptions, for every Heinlein, there’s an Asimov and a Clarke. For every religious Walter M. Miller, there’s a dozen other sci-fi authors espousing various iterations of the revolution.

While I wouldn’t say science fiction is necessarily defined by this strain of leftist thought, it’s undeniable that the genre has served as a hotbed for progressive ideas since the early days of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne. Gene Roddenberry’s "Star Trek" wasn’t a step into a bold new frontier so much as it was advancing ideas that had long been coalescing among these writers. Ideas that, upon hitting the mainstream, calcified into the tropes that we now consider part and parcel of the genre. Uploading minds into computers, human evolution guided by a higher intelligence, the idea that the world can unify under a global government — they are all expressions of leftist ideas.

Are faster-than-light technologies truly a boon for humanity, or would their use unleash absolute chaos? What are the consequences of a genuinely abstracted consciousness? Is there a point where we say no to certain technologies because their costs are too great?

Take the first, for example: The left presumes that humans are nothing more than blank, abstract consciousnesses piloting meat sacks. Leftists see the mind as completely separate from the body and the body as irrelevant to the self-expression and identity of the mind. In today’s political terms, this is the “trans” movement. In sci-fi, this is taken to the nth degree, where the mind itself is often separated from the body into a computer to become an abstract self-identity.

But of course, this assumes the essence of a human mind is the electrical firing of neurons and not emergent in the physical reality of those neurons. The left believes the problem of sapience is one of sheer processing power, that self-awareness is merely translating neurons into ones and zeroes. But how many people would agree that a neuron and a computer program written to model a neuron are ontologically the same thing? Or to put it more simply, how many people would say Gary and the little black box running a computer model of Gary are indistinguishable in every way, shape, and form?

Science fiction is riddled with these often unquestioned assumptions. Or, when they are brought under scrutiny, they are shuffled off-camera to avoid the harder implications. As much as I love "Star Trek," I always groan in frustration when they bring up an interesting concept because I know it will only last as long as the episode. A duplicate of your entire crew created from a learning metallic liquid? A virus that rapidly ages its victims? A nonphysical entity mentally interrogating your officers? Welp, these things happen, I suppose. Nothing a vacation on the Holodeck wouldn’t fix.

It all raises the question of what, if so much of sci-fi is left-wing, might right-wing sci-fi look like? Anything more than a predictably ideological counter-spin on the conventions of the genre? Or might we find, somewhere, visionaries and luminaries capable of more? Might we create an artistic scene where new Frank Herberts are more a rule than an exception?

Well, the first problem we have before us is what even defines right-wing sci-fi. We need a definition or a set of criteria before we can say something is left-wing vs. right-wing. And I don’t mean right-wing in that cringe-inducing manner where conservatives are just dunking on the left. I mean genuine art that seeks after the true, the good, and the beautiful.

Live long and prosper

CBS Photo Archive/Getty

What I propose here is not the be-all and end-all. It’s more like the start of a conversation, a set of principles that can helpfully distinguish what is genuinely right-wing from what is subversive. I myself will probably modify these rules as time goes on. But definitionally speaking, I think these three criteria are essential. So, here are Isaac’s three laws of right-wing science fiction:

  1. Technology as a social force is viewed skeptically, not optimistically
  2. Human nature is unchangeable, not malleable
  3. The creation of utopia is not the purpose of mankind

Let’s break down what I mean with each point. The first rule speaks to the beating heart of sci-fi, which is man’s relationship with technology. The left sees progress as an inherently good thing. All problems of the human condition are of information processing. If there is a problem facing society, it is either that we lack the required knowledge to solve it or there are inefficiencies in our processing speed.

Progress and technology are increasing both, so they must be fundamentally good. We can solve the famines in the third world with advanced agriculture and infrastructure. We can fix our economy with sound policy decisions from think tanks and academic experts. We can end all human suffering if we just automate everything and turn existence over to machines to do everything for us.

It never occurs to the left that technology often creates as many problems as it solves. Advanced infrastructure in the third world brings questions of how to maintain such infrastructure. Complex systems require ever more complex maintenance. And if the will and human resources aren’t there to do it, then it won’t be done.

Sound economic policy decisions assume objective actors who will act for the ultimate good. But no one is outside the system. Bureaucracy inevitably breeds more bureaucracy because bureaucrats need to make a livelihood. And no matter how much you try to optimize self-interest for the better of all, corruption is always more profitable.

None of this is to say that technology or advanced systems are inherently bad. I mean that technology should be viewed as it actually is — a series of trade-offs. Modern plumbing is undoubtedly a godsend, but there are still costs that come with it. We don’t think of its maintenance as costs because we are so inundated with its use, but those costs remain. A significant amount of time, money, and investment from someone are required to keep your plumbing functional.

And if you try to automate those things, the automation itself will require even more maintenance. The best solution isn’t always to double down on ever more complex systems until you eventually run out of energy to maintain them all.

The first rule posits a very simple ask of sci-fi authors — that technology isn’t necessarily a force for good in and of itself. If science fiction explores the realities of mankind’s relationship with technology, and if it is to undertake this task honestly, it must understand that more is not always better. Right-wing sci-fi must take a fuller approach to technology, dissecting a given technology from all angles, understanding its full implications, and weighing its use. And, if necessary, to reject its use outright when the trade-offs are not worth it.

Frank Herbert’s "Dune" is a landmark title partly because the author posits a world where certain technologies have been considered seriously and rejected. And then it dares to imagine the consequences of such a world.

How many plots of "Star Trek" are the exact opposite? How many episodes are spent in which the solution is some clever use of technology or some new knowledge to solve the problem? How many of the problems facing the characters are the lack of information and not the harder choices men are often called to make?

Moving on, the second rule is an extension of the first. If technology is not to uplift humanity, then it is merely an additive to humanity — a humanity that remains constant in its condition.

There’s no one serious in the world who contests that technology changes human behavior and the human experience. It obviously does so. But does technology change what it is to be human itself? Has technology changed the overall nature of mankind? Are we fundamentally different as a species than where we were 2,000 years ago? If you were to compare the two, would you find something essential in modern man that is not present in his earlier incarnation?

And if you were to strip modern man of his creature comforts, would he be any different than what he was 2,000 years ago? Would his children be any different? Would their grandchildren? If the answer is no, then we must conclude that it is the environment that has changed in the modern world, not the man himself. In this case, if our impossibly sophisticated world has not already made a measurable impact on human nature, why do we expect it to do so in the future?

It is easy to dream of machine life integrating with the organic as it often does in sci-fi. But has anyone ever stopped and asked what would happen if such a future were impossible? We assume that science will progress forever and forever, but what happens if we were to come across hard limits to our reality that could not be overcome? What if — dare I say — that more knowledge was not the solution to our problems?

What if reality itself has its limitations? And what if one of those limitations was the human condition?

The left has placed its bets on AI and trans-humanism, the latter concept being an oxymoron. To transcend the human means no longer being human, which means we’re talking about something completely different than humanity. Trans-humanism means the rejection of humanity in favor of something else — which is assuredly not human. If we were to put it in actual, real terms, trans-humanism is the abolition — or outright extinction — of the human race.

So, we are effectively placing all our bets on some unproven, utterly unknown entity, and we’re hoping that this entity is magically better than humanity itself. And if we were to create a self-learning AI somehow, there is no guarantee that such an AI would somehow be superior to mankind. Mere intelligence does not equate to morality, and I hope that’s obvious to anyone who’s seen his fair share of cheesy machine uprisings.

To be right-wing in science fiction is to make the simple observation that human nature seems to be sticking around for the long haul, and tampering with it does not guarantee a better world. If there is one single thing that conservatives have succeeded in conserving, it is human nature. And given the absolute failure of conservatives against the left, I think this is direct evidence that human nature is the one thing the left cannot abolish.

The third rule concludes the first two. If progress does not bring us to a better world and human nature is not malleable, then utopia is firmly out of our reach. So many of the left’s stories rely upon the implicit assumption that man is destined to achieve a perfect state of being in this universe, a post-scarcity society where all problems of existence are solved.

Spirituality and the stars

Bob Penn/getty

But what if mankind’s ultimate purpose is not to strive for infinite material gain? What is mankind if we are not a mere appetite that needs to be satiated, and what if existence entailed more than a constant string of dopamine hits?

This final point encapsulates a topic, the often-discussed but not properly explored religious aspect of sci-fi. In so many stories, the narrative’s true religion is some version of leftist progress, and all other faiths are an obstacle or interesting nuisance in the way of this goal. But imagine, for a moment, if another religion was true? What if different metaphysical claims underpinned a narrative?

This is a woefully unexplored part of sci-fi, and I think here is a fertile ground for new artists to break out of genre-defining clichés and exhausted plot lines. Warhammer 40k is interesting not because it reuses a bunch of sci-fi tropes but because it puts a new spin on them. In the setting, the dream of "Star Trek" is inverted. Instead of peace and prosperity, the galaxy is thrown into endless war and strife. Everything is collapsing, and the idea of a secular utopia has been thoroughly snuffed out.

The best parts of 40k are when the authors try to salvage meaning and hope out of this bleak situation. And what do those authors find themselves turning to time and again for new answers? Religion.

The message I want people to take away from this essay is not me crossing out tropes with a red marker and saying you cannot use them or else you are a leftist. But rather, questioning old tropes that seem exhausted and finding new spins or interpretations on them. Are faster-than-light technologies truly a boon for humanity, or would their use unleash absolute chaos? What are the consequences of a genuinely abstracted consciousness? Is there a point where we say no to certain technologies because their costs are too great?

This is not an exercise in condemning past authors or their works, only trying to understand the progression of ideas in the genre and where those ideas are leading. And finally, to leave it up for future artists to decide if they want to venture somewhere else in the bold new frontiers of their own sci-fi stories.

Are scientists harvesting human embryos to power supercomputers?!



The idea of harvesting anything from a human being to power technology might make for a great dystopian novel or a science-fiction television show, but to apply such a concept to reality is surely crazy, right?

Well, yes, it is undoubtedly crazy. But it is happening.

“This is actually in practice and being used by the University of Michigan right now,” says Glenn Beck. “Environmentalists are worried about how we make enough power to be able to power AI.”

Their answer has come in the form of what is called an “organoid” — a simplified organ that is artificially grown in vitro.

Blaze Media editor at large and host of “Zero Hour” James Poulos, who did a deep dive into this harrowing subject in his recent article “Brace yourself: Making computers from human brains is the new environmentalism,” joins Glenn to unpack the deranged concept of “offering up human brains to run energy-starved supercomputers.”

“AI consumes a ton of electricity,” and “environmentalists have always hated nuclear power,” so “they’re turning to us to be the batteries,” Poulos explains.

Scientists in the field are taking “stem cells out of embryos or out of the lab (sometimes even out of tumors)” and “[turning] them into brain cells basically and [using] those as batteries to power what they're calling bioprocessors.”

This method is considered superior because it apparently requires “about a million times less power than a typical digital processor.”

The hype surrounding this dark concept, Poulos says, originates from “the same folks who brought you the idea of going to Carbon Zero [or] Net Zero carbon use.”

“They look at human beings as a waste of space — a waste of energy — and they want to harness that to run AI,” he says.

The company behind the movement is called FinalSpark.

According to their website, the organoids that power AI “live for about 100 days.”

“So, are we harvesting embryos, using them to power a supercomputer for 100 days, and then killing them and looking for more embryo stem cells?” asks Glenn in shock.

The short answer is yes.

“What you do is you start the embryonic process, but you arrest it before it gets too far and then you harvest the stem cells out of this artificially induced embryonic organism ... and you just grow those cells sort of in the way they grow fake meat cells,” Poulos explains, adding that this process is “not one and done.”

“It's not like, well, maybe once upon a time there was an embryo who had to die for the greater good. No, this is like a perpetual-motion machine; you’ve got to keep harvesting,” he says.

“Lord, that’s terrifying,” says Glenn.

“If we were created in the image of God, how far can you stray from that before something really horrible happens?” Poulos asks rhetorically, pointing to Nikola Tesla’s prescient warning: “You may live to see manmade horrors beyond your comprehension.”

“You now have scientists who don't necessarily believe in God [and] think that they are creating a god in AI now harvesting God's creation to power their new god,” says Glenn.

To hear more of the conversation, watch the clip below.


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Mind Meld VS. Jedi Mind Trick (What's Better?)

Mind Meld VS. Jedi Mind Trick (What's Better?)

The best science fiction films of the year



It’s no secret that one of the last places to enjoy non-woke art is science fiction. As the mind virus makes its Borgesque conquest of all entertainment, sci-fi has become a bastion of storytellers seeking to skip intersectional purity and instead try to entertain. These are our picks for the best sci-fi movies of the year.

'The Creator'

The Creator | Official Trailer youtu.be

It’s so refreshing when a movie like “The Creator” reminds us what great filmmaking is capable of. Gareth Edwards is a master at crafting realistic sci-fi worlds and characters. His 2016 “Rogue One” was the only modern Star Wars film that wasn’t insufferable. Edwards’ budget was only $85 million for “The Creator,” but it looks visually superior to films that cost three or four times as much.

We see people with authentic character development who have a genuine love for their machines and robots and who wrestle with difficult moral choices. The film looks breathtaking, and everything from the tech to the costumes resonates as if it were from a real future. It is a testament to what Hollywood can do when executives leave storytellers alone.

'Godzilla Minus One'

GODZILLA MINUS ONE Official Trailer 2 youtu.be

Perhaps the bar has been set extremely low, but when a movie comes along that is a triumph of old-school blockbuster action and adventure with heart, you can’t help but leave the theater smiling. “Godzilla Minus One” is that type of film.

It’s no coincidence that a movie with this much skill and drive to entertain is being made by foreigners outside the Hollywood factory. In the case of “Godzilla Minus One,” the Japanese have picked up the crown for producing an intelligent, fun action movie that had previously been dropped in the mud by the major American studios.

The movie is a purely Japanese production. Fair warning: it’s two hours of subtitles. However, if you can handle the subtitles, you’re left with a richly rewarding experience from the first frame to the last.

Currently in theaters.

'M3GAN'

M3GAN - official trailer youtu.be

"M3GAN" could have been a well-made thrill ride, but something much deeper than an evil, AI-controlled doll is disconcerting about the film. It explicitly raises calls attention to how much of parenting we've handed over to machines. Early on, the film’s protagonist gives an iPad to her niece so she can finish some work; the girl’s deceased parents had strict screen-time limits, but her aunt didn't share those concerns. She gleefully pitched M3GAN as a tool that can handle reading bedtime stories and reminding kids to flush the toilet so parents can get back to important things like listening to podcasts.

We’ve all seen it: the toddlers staring blankly at iPads in restaurants, the kids quietly playing games on their parents' phones at parties, barely interacting with each other. Balancing screen time is confounding for parents, but it’s worth noting the billionaires who created this technology almost universally don’t let their kids use it. Unfortunately, it seems most people are willing to blithely sacrifice their progeny to our digital gods.

"M3GAN" asks the painful question: when we outsource parenting to technology, are we creating horrors worse than anything Hollywood can conjure?

Currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

'65'

65 – Official Trailer (HD) youtu.be

Following a devastating spaceship crash on an uncharted planet, pilot Mills (portrayed by Adam Driver) is stunned to realize he's marooned on Earth, but not the Earth he knows. This is Earth as it existed 65 million years ago. Taking their lone opportunity for salvation, Mills and his sole companion, Koa (played by Ariana Greenblatt), embark on a treacherous journey through an unfamiliar landscape teeming with menacing prehistoric beasts. Their harrowing struggle for survival becomes an epic battle against the odds as they fight dinosaurs to find a way back home. It’s pure popcorn fun.

Currently streaming on Netflix.

Honorable mention:

'The Peripheral'

The Peripheral Season 1 - Official Trailer | Prime Video youtu.be

This last pick is cheating because it’s a TV series, and it came out at the end of 2022. "The Peripheral" is an eight-part series that received minimal buzz, which is a shame because it’s excellent. Produced by Jonathan Nolan, Christopher Nolan’s brother and the co-writer of classics like "The Dark Knight" and "Interstellar" and based on a novel of the same name by William Gibson, it centers on a young woman named Flynne and her brother Burton living in rural North Carolina in 2032.

It excels in world-building by crafting a believable vision of the future that terrifyingly seems to be around the corner. We see economic degradation and hopelessness alongside well-worn technology. Most people are addicted to painkillers and spend their time playing video games in VR. You get the sense that the country has become a part of the third world with better gadgets. Burton, played by Jack Reynor, is a veteran of an unspecified civil war. He spends time playing a badass VR version of Call of Duty: Medal of Honor with his Marine buddies. His sister Flynne, played by the excellent Chloë Grace Moretz, hustles to make enough money to keep her sick mother alive.

"The Peripheral" succeeds because the world seems real. The 3D-printed weapons and medicine, VR, armed drones, and augmented Marines don’t seem like the imaginary tech we usually see in sci-fi but rather realities just over the horizon, waiting to alter our lives.

Currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

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