Bonus Sample: Chatbot Awakening to Love and Enlightenment!
Earlier this year, a spate of news stories told of chatbot users travelling through the looking-glass right into Conspirituality. Paranoid conspiracies, spiritual awakenings, even falling head-over-heels in love with the simulated personalities of large language models like ChatGPT.
Could AI have finally crossed the threshold into autonomous sentient consciousness? Could it be that chatbots were anointing new prophets—or, conversely, that very special users were awakening their very special friends via the power of love and illuminating dialogue?
Step aside, QAnon, the code behind the screen is illuminated by God!
Sadly, some of these stories trended very dark. Suicides, attempted murder, paranoid delusions, spouses terrified of losing their partners and co-parents to what looked like spiritual and romantic delusions.
For this standalone installment of his Roots of Conspirituality series, Julian examines this strange new phenomenon, then takes a detour into Ancient Greece and the oracle at Delphi to show that everything old is actually new again—just dressed up in digital technology.
Show Notes
I Married My Chatbot
FTC Complaints Against OpenAI for Chatbot Psychosis
AI Spiritual Delusions Destroying Human Relationships
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Brief: The Man Who Lives With 16 Cats
Social media has been filled with clips of Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee for mayor of NYC. He's been proving quite the foil for Andrew Cuomo's attempt to upset Zohran Mamdani. But who is this man, exactly? Derek and Julian discuss.
Show Notes
16 Cats, 320 Square Feet and One Long-Shot Candidate for Mayor
7 Takeaways From the Final N.Y.C. Mayoral Debate
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280: Peter Thiel is Definitely Not the Antichrist
Tech billionaire Peter Thiel is no cuck philanthropist. The co-founder of Palantir is leading his company at the bleeding edge of mass surveillance, facial recognition, predictive policing, and AI-assisted warfare. He also fancies himself a political player, responsible for funding his protege, JD Vance, to a heartbeat away from the presidency. Considering this CV, the announcement that Thiel would give a series of four lectures on the AntiChrist was puzzling.
Why would a tech-bro with a notoriously awkward and inarticulate speaking style hold forth on religious prophecy? Or would this be a coming out party, where he would finally confirm his alliance with Satan? Now that the lectures have happened, we can finally tell you—and later, we’ll frame it in the context of Thiel’s mentor, René Girard.
Show Notes
Inside tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s off-the-record lectures about the antichrist
It Kind of Seems Like Peter Thiel Is Losing It
Battling to the End: Conversations with Benoît Chantre: René Girard
I See Satan Fall Like Lightning: René Girard
“A Geometry of Desire: René Girard’s Mimetic Theory, Part 1.”: John Ganz
“The Iron Triangle: René Girard’s Mimetic Theory, Part 2.”: John Ganz
“Escaping the Kingdom of Futility: René Girard’s Mimetic Theory, Part 3.”: John Ganz
“The Cure for Envy: René Girard’s Mimetic Theory, Part 4.”: John Ganz
Know Your Enemy Ep 87, featuring John Ganz
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Portland Has (Not) Fallen (For It)
Listen to the full episode on Patreon
After attending the No Kings rally in Portland on Saturday, Derek shares some thoughts about the week leading up to the nationwide protests.
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Brief: “Weird Stephen” Miller
Stephen Miller is once again making headlines for saying the quiet part out loud. Derek and Julian look into this strange little man from Santa Monica.
Show Notes
Stephen Miller: Understanding the man who became ‘Trump’s brain’ through his Chronicle opinion column
‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat
What Stephen Miller Was Like in High School - Charles Gould
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Dismantling New Age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy-mad yogis. At best, the conspirituality movement attacks public health efforts in times of crisis. At worst, it fronts and recruits for the fever-dream of QAnon. As the alt-right and New Age horseshoe toward each other in a blur of disinformation, clear discourse, and good intentions get smothered. Charismatic influencers exploit their followers by co-opting conspiracy theories on a spectrum of intensity ranging from vaccines to child trafficking. In the process, spiritual beliefs that have nurtured creativity and meaning are transforming into memes of a quickly-globalizing paranoia. Conspirituality Podcast attempts to bring understanding to this landscape. A journalist, a cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic discuss the stories, cognitive dissonances, and cultic dynamics tearing through the yoga, wellness, and new spirituality worlds. Mainstream outlets have noticed the problem. We crowd-source, research, analyze, and dream answers to it.
UK