Talk:TESCREAL

Restoring this Page

This term has quickly common into common usage in a wide range of essays, news coverage and other discussion of AI and the culture of Silicon Valley and the tech industry in the US. I'm concerned that its deletion/ merge with the term's originator may have been a hasty decision spurred on by some editors with a bias against outside criticism of TESCREAL ideologies. As an editor who usually focuses on topics in the arts, I'd like to see if editors with less baggage related to the charged topics at hand might take a stab at developing a page for this subject that would quite easily qualify based on notability and other benchmarks. Mbroderick271 (talk) 23:33, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

I'd like to take a crack at improving this article, eventually, after exams are done.

I've mostly just been doing rando edits while exams are on for me haha.

I might go thru the WP:REFUND process to try my hand at this, when I have the time. User:Sawerchessread (talk) 05:39, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm concerned that its deletion/ merge with the term's originator may have been a hasty decision spurred on by some editors with a bias against outside criticism of TESCREAL ideologies

This bias is real. Viriditas (talk) 01:40, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

At the very least, I think the photos of the authors should be removed.. it may not be, but it conveys the appearance of self-promotion. 108.6.104.228 (talk) 00:10, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the photos of the authors should be removed. It's quite inconsistent with other articles.

In fact, if I can do it without messing the page up, I will do that now. Aurodea108 (talk) 00:52, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Just did delete the photos of the authors. Aurodea108 (talk) 00:55, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

fair enough. Would still like a photo or pic tho... im lowkey debating making some kinda venn diagram hahaha Bluethricecreamman (talk) 01:04, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Sure, an image that actually explains the concept could be helpful. Aurodea108 (talk) 04:10, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: rejected by reviewer, closed by AirshipJungleman29 talk 11:59, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

• ... that Timnit Gebru and Émile P. Torres created the acronym TESCREAL to describe a group of ideologies popular among people focused on existential risk from artificial general intelligence?

• Source: [1], [2]

• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Kelvite sounding machine

Moved to mainspace by Bluethricecreamman (talk), GorillaWarfare (talk), and JoaquimCebuano (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 21 past nominations.

GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 17:16, 1 July 2024 (UTC).

• The readable prose size is 1,119 words which is well short of the required 1,500 words. Notifying nominator.

  @PearlyGigs: DYK requires articles be greater than 1,500 characters in length, which this article exceeds (7,845). GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 20:32, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

  Characters? Oh, dear! My apologies, GorillaWarfare, and I'll continue. First one of these I've done. PearlyGigs (talk) 20:57, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

• Was a draft until today so new enough and, as I now realise, also long enough. I can't see any problems in the article around copyvio, POV or OR. Sourcing looks good overall and the hook citations appear to be sound and reliable. The hook is certainly interesting because it caught my eye immediately when I was checking my own nomination. QPQ has been done. I think this is fine and it should be promoted. PearlyGigs (talk) 21:17, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose this nomination: An article on this subject was deleted 7 months ago because of weak sourcing. There haven't been any new sources added other than a paper by the two proponents of this theory and lots of other really weak sources. Wikipedia's job isn't to promote anti-vaxx conspiracy theories or other conspiracy theories, of which in my and other people's opinions, this is one. The only people claiming that ANYONE adheres to these multiple philosophies is Torres and Gebru. ---Avatar317^(talk) 00:56, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Original admin who closed AfD undeleted it after i proposed appropriate changes. the AfD never came to consensus of conspiracy theory (just u), and deleted it due to lack of WP:N. if u want to delete this again, use AfD again or bug the original admin.Bluethricecreamman (talk) 01:12, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Agreed that that would be a conversation for AfD, not DYK. The article is neutral and adequately sourced. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 01:57, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

The LEAD is well written and neutral, thanks for that.---Avatar317^(talk) 03:34, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

• I was aware when I did the DYK review that the article is about ideologies, but I don't consider the article to be promoting those ideologies because it is neutral. The subject, in my opinion, is notable. I can't say I'm knowledgeable about TESCREAL but the article does appear to be adequately sourced. I've been reading it again and I still think the hook should be promoted. But, as I say, I am not an SME in this area so I will happily step aside if an SME is needed. Incidentally, the lead is the primary location of the hook material and its two sources. Thanks. PearlyGigs (talk) 09:55, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

• I have to second the concerns brought up above: this article was merged in November for poor sourcing and the fact that it seemed to lean very heavily into the op-ed angle of the source it did use. To be clear, I certainly have a great personal distaste for the majority of people who run the majority of software companies, and ethical objections to a good portion of the United States' GDP (I am a diehard Linux user with all of the political implications that entails). However, the implication that "global tech elites" are engaged in a deliberate scheme to carry out eugenics (as one of the sources said from the previous version of this article), based on a collection of op-eds and blog posts where people who hate them say this a bunch of times, seems to raise some rather significant BLP issues. It is somewhat concerning to vaguely imply this in wikivoice as though it's settled fact, and then the citations are to a journal of biosemiotics. jp×g🗯️ 02:17, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

• Posting on here same stuff as in the Talk Page section:

A) This article was merged for lack of WP:N. If you consider it still an issue, use WP:AfD or bug the original admin who deleted, merged, than undeleted this. It isn't a valid argument to suggest that it's settled that it deserves to remerged if we've added a ton of sourcing and improved on it. Settle it by starting the process to delete it if you want.

B) Are there reliable sources indicating that TESCREAL is a significantly derogatory epithet similar to Libtard/Chud? Marc Andreessen self-describes as TESCREAList. Many of these folks regularly ascribe to multiple of these philosophies as transhumanists, ethical altruists, long-termists, etc. Sourcing here does not necessarily imply that every TESCREAList is also a eugenicist, nor do we use WP:SYNTH to suggest that these folks are all eugenicists. There is no mention of eugenicist claims in the third section. Also, we have Big Tech as a wikipedia article along with criticism, which is also a similar "perjorative" against tech companies, and other significant "perjoratives" with negative connotations such as Democrat in Name Only and Cuckservative. These all explain what opinion writers and commentators mean, and why. This article is far more tame than many of those.

C) That more than a dozen opinions use a term like this should be notable enough. I suspect that any sort of article about philosophies will require opinionated sources or commentaries. Effective altruism includes sourcing from Centre for Effective Altruism and by extension the Effective Altruism Forum, study centers specifically invested in effective altruism and founded by leaders, as well as many opinions.

D) WP:OPINION applies here, especially for philosphical arguments. I looked for criticisms of TESCREAL. If more are published, we can include them. These sources are WP:SECONDARY, they contain analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources. Secondary sources are not necessarily independent sources.

E) If you want to settle WP:BLP, please post in the section on WP:BLPN. We've already started and done this argument. There are multiple sources on WP:PUBLICFIGUREs here alleging that many of these folks use TESCREAL to justify their tech projects, and we make sure to use the word "allege" correctly, as per WP:OPINION, along with the correct sourcing

Conclusion:) TESCREAL is unliked by some portion of folks on here for some reason. I'm happy to listen to arguments, but I want an argument about why we are suddenly so sensitive about criticism of Elon Musk/etc. for using human extinction for every time someone criticizes his behavior or cars or products. If you are just an elon musk/nick bostrum/etc. fan, than say it and stop throwing mud on an article that contains a criticism of philosophies that occurs often enough that we can gather 20+ sources, including 10 using the term in severe detail to directly dissect the argument that yelling extinction every 15 minutes doesn't mean you've justified your next mega project. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 04:39, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

 Note: In the interests of not duplicating every comment, I'll just note that there is a parallel discussion happening at Talk:TESCREAL#Neutrality (to/from which some of these comments have been copied). GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 12:02, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

GorillaWarfare, a neutrality tag remains on this article. If this is, as it seems, a continually-controversial topic, I am not inclined to promote, having no desire to get shouted at at WP:ERRORS. Do you think the issues brought up by a number of editors can be resolved? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:53, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't know whether the issues can be resolved, but I believe that this is and will remain a contentious topic, like many other articles in American politics. This topic is very new, and so the coverage of it is not what I would call "mature", which in my opinion makes it harder for an article to be stable, but GorillaWarfare will probably have a better insight on that than I.---Avatar317^(talk) 21:59, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

@Avatar317: The banner is not for controversial topics: it is placed when someone is concerned that the article does not use neutral language. This will need to be rectified before it is promoted, or this nomination can be withdrawn. Z1720 (talk) 00:50, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

at the end of the day, i think what avatar317 means to say is the topic is contentious and attracts complaints, spurious or otherwise. i personally believe we correctly attribute all opinions and statements but others do not.

is there a topic board or wikiproject we can notify to ask for more voices to confirm how to proceed? Bluethricecreamman (talk) 01:19, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

I suggest asking at WT:DYK.--Launchballer 11:37, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

• Commment. I only just saw this nomination having just participated on the AfD and voting to keep. My opinion here is that the article and nomination is being unfairly targeted due to its overt criticism of Silicon Valley-related movements and philosophies. I don't personally view this topic as controversial, having written about the criticism of technological utopianism for more than a decade. However, this topic is apparently controversial for some people, and I think those people are going out of their way to make this more controversial than it needs to be by deliberately engaging in maintenance tagging, attempts at deletion (this is the second), and now blocking this DYK. Because these people are unlikely to give up and will continue to disrupt this topic area, I would encourage closing this nomination at this time and revisiting it later in the article improvement process, perhaps as a GAN. I wish we had a way to stop this kind of disruption, but I've seen this kind of thing so many times before here, and there isn't anything anyone can do to stop it. There's even extreme examples that I can recall, such as the targeted campaign against Melanie Joy and carnism, which went on from 2006 to 2013, involving multiple deletions and discussions. This kind of thing resembles that dispute. So I would close this now as unpromoted and revisit it later when the involved parties are able to act in good faith. I should note, that I personally support this DYK and would like it to pass, but I don't see that happening. Viriditas (talk) 23:07, 9 August 2024 (UTC)
• It doesn't seem like this nomination will be moving forward anytime soon, so it is now marked for closure. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 00:21, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

wp:blp applies to poorly sourced material

please use discretion and do not delete large portions of an article without cause Bluethricecreamman (talk) 01:18, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

@Avatar317 stop editwarring on a newly recreated article and discuss on talk page or on the WP:BLPN

Most of the sourcing on this article comes from well publicized news sources, and most of these figures are WP:PUBLICFIGURE

Some are self-confessed TESCREALists and happily declare themselves to be. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 01:57, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

There were some sentences that were sourced only to Torres, which I agree need secondary sourcing. However I do agree that the sourcing is acceptable for the others. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 02:01, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Just seeing this is at BLPN now. Dropping the link for anyone else who may have missed it: Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons/Noticeboard#TESCREAL#Alleged TESCREALists GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 03:16, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Weasel word section

"Likewise, views that are properly attributed to a reliable source may use similar expressions, if those expressions accurately represent the opinions of the source."

@Avatar317 please self-revert. Every claim has multiple sources. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 03:25, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Multiple incredibly low-quality sources. See the previous Talk discussions, The Washington Spectator is a very low quality source, and a lot is sourced to it. ---Avatar317^(talk) 03:31, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm only seeing one mention of the Washington Spectator at RSN: a 2015 discussion where an editor referred to it as "obviously reliable".

I addressed several instances of vague {{who?}} wording earlier ([3], [4]), but when summarizing opinions presented in multiple sources you tend to end up with a laundry list of names that a reader can go to the references section to find. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 03:35, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

WP:OPINION applies according to WP:RSP. It can be used with attribution and without stating it as a fact, which we do.

Also, it is only used for Ray Kurzweiller and Musk. Idk if we need Kurzweiller if only a single source suggests he is TESCREALIST, as per what Avatar says.

But Musk has 5 others sources in addition to Washington Spectator. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 03:37, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

I've removed Kurzweil, as he's mentioned frequently and uncontroversially in the context of "TES", but not so much in the context of "CREAL". One could probably WP:SYNTH together various sources describing him as someone who has been influential to the CREAL world, but I think we should wait for secondary sources to focus on him in the TESCREAL context before listing him here. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 03:43, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

I think it would be healthier for the article to let other people engage with it. I made the first version and struggled for it, and you made several intervention then. Now other people took an interested, which i think is the best way to produce a less one-sided article. JoaquimCebuano (talk) 20:24, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

I see Bdnor has placed the weasel word template back on, as well as a neutrality template.

As we've stated on this talk section already, we use WP:ATTRIBUTION and WP:OPINION where necessary when discussing TESCREAL. All claims are well attributed and most claims often have multiple references. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 17:26, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Neutrality

I will repost here what I said at the DYK nomination: I have to second the concerns brought up there. This article was merged in November for poor sourcing and the fact that it seemed to lean very heavily into the op-ed angle of the source it did use. To be clear, I certainly have a great personal distaste for the majority of people who run the majority of software companies, and ethical objections to a good portion of the United States' GDP (I am a diehard Linux user with all of the political implications that entails). However, the implication that "global tech elites" are engaged in a deliberate scheme to carry out eugenics (as one of the sources said from the previous version of this article), based on a collection of op-eds where people who hate them say this a bunch of times, seems to raise some rather significant BLP issues. It is somewhat concerning to vaguely imply this in wikivoice as though it's settled fact, and then the citations are to a bunch of op-eds and a journal of biosemiotics.

In general, I would say that the term is pretty obviously a derogatory epithet, made up by two people specifically to describe other people with whom they have extensive political disagreements and personally dislike. We would not have an article called Chud (politics) or Libtard (politics) and then said in wikivoice a bunch of stuff about how they hated freedom et cetera, cited to clickpieces about same. We do have articles about pejorative terms, e.g. simp, SJW, Christofascist, cuckservative, angry white male, feminazi, but these are written to be about the use of the terms, they don't get distracted after the lead and then get into "But seriously, folks:". jp×g🗯️ 02:52, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

A) This article was merged for lack of WP:N. If you consider it still an issue, use WP:AfD or bug the original admin who deleted, merged, than undeleted this. It isn't a valid argument to suggest that it's settled that it deserves to remerged if we've added a ton of sourcing. Settle it by starting the process.

B) Are there reliable sources indicating that TESCREAL is a significantly derogatory epithet similar to Libtard/Chud? Marc Andreessen self-describes as TESCREAList. Many of the sourcing here does not necessarily imply that every TESCREAList is also a eugenicist, only two. Also, we have Big Tech as a wikipedia article along with criticism, which is arguably also a similar perjorative against tech companies.

C) That more than a dozen opinions use a term like this should be notable enough. I suspect that any sort of article about philosophies will require opinionated sources or commentaries. Effective altruism includes sourcing from Centre for Effective Altruism and by extension the Effective Altruism Forum, study centers specifically invested in effective altruism and founded by leaders, as well as many opinions.

D) WP:OPINION applies here, especially for philosphical arguments. I looked for criticisms of TESCREAL. If more are published, we can include them. These sources are WP:SECONDARY, they contain analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources. Secondary sources are not necessarily independent sources.

E) If you want to settle WP:BLP, please post in the section on WP:BLPN. We've already started and done this argument. There are multiple sources on WP:PUBLICFIGUREs here alleging that many of these folks use TESCREAL to justify their tech projects, and we make sure to use the word "allege" correctly, as per WP:OPINION, along with the correct sourcing. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 04:35, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

I dont think its sustainable to compare TESCREAL with "simp, SJW, Christofascist, cuckservative, angry white male, feminazi", they are not derogatory in the same sense at all. TESCREAL is an acronym, composed by the terms created and used by advocate's themselves. As a neologism, it is primarily an attempt of render the overlaps and interconnections between them visible. Its a concept of scholarly value, an analysis of contemporary ideological formations - "made up by two people specifically to describe other people with whom they have extensive political disagreements and personally dislike" - is extremely unjust to the actual context of their proposition and use.

Transhumanism relation with eugenics is not even controversial, even if some, or most, theorists attempt to dissociate and criticize this root. And the ideas of tech sub-culture already have a lot of bibliography dedicated to its analysis, even when its not flattering at all - The Californian Ideology, Technolibertarianism. JoaquimCebuano (talk) 05:36, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Actually, allegations that Elon Musk and Nick Bostrum use philosophies connected to eugenics is well documented too.

In terms of Musk's pronatalist views: "Mainstream demographers, anthropologists and other experts who spoke with Businessweek say this is because the movement writ large is synonymous with junk science, the heir to a legacy of racism and eugenics espoused by earlier generations of dubious population researchers" [5]

Nick Bostrum's Future of Humanity Institute is also dogged by commentary such as "Eugenics on Steroids". [6]

We should not worry about public figures facing criticism, and us summarizing that criticism. These opinions aren't random blog posts, they are published in reputable sources, and we correctly use WIKIVoice. If folks want to find more, or if you find appropriate criticism of the term TESCREAL, feel free to include it. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 05:46, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

You have given a great example of circular sourcing, that does not independently support the claim you are trying to make. Either you are not reviewing the sources you're linking, or you are misrepresenting them:

"dogged by commentary"

The "eugenics on steroids" quote in that article is directly from Emile Torres. This quote is, crucially, not being supported as a factual claim by the paper -- that's why they put it in quotation marks in the headline, they're saying that Emile said that. They are explicitly not making the editorial claim of agreeing with it.

"A quote of Emile Torres saying something" is not independent sourcing to corroborate that the quote is true, nor does casting vague aspersions with contorted, evasive phrasing like "use philosophies connected to". jp×g🗯️ 14:41, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, and in the provided article,[7] Torres implies that Bostrom is particularly concerned with dysgenic pressures by citing a subsection of a paper where Bostrom explains the concept and actually also writes that it seems very likely to have no significant effect at the relevant timescale: "In any case, the time-scale for human natural genetic evolution seems much too grand for such developments to have any significant effect before other developments will have made the issue moot."[8] It's unclear how the claim of Torres and the cherry-picking of The Guardian can be interpreted as genuine. Alenoach (talk) 21:42, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

This interpretation of a primary source appears to be WP:OR. The Guardian source at least attempts to provide context. Your quote ignores that context. The accusation of cherry-picking is ironic. Grayfell (talk) 22:41, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

The quote comes precisely from the short subsection that Torres mentions. I haven't made a deep investigation. And I did provide context by linking to both articles. If The Guardian had included a link to Bostrom's article for people to check the context, it would have been a sign of good faith. If you really want me to directly provide context inside my comment, it's a bit unusual and sorry for the lengthy response, but here is the quote from The Guardian:

"Torres has come to believe that the work of the FHI and its offshoots amounts to what they call a “noxious ideology” and “eugenics on steroids”. They refuse to see Bostrom’s 1996 comments as poorly worded juvenilia, but indicative of a brutal utilitarian view of humanity. Torres notes that six years after the email thread, Bostrom wrote a paper on existential risk that helped launch the longtermist movement, in which he discusses “dysgenic pressures” – dysgenic is the opposite of eugenic. Bostrom wrote:

“Currently it seems that there is a negative correlation in some places between intellectual achievement and fertility. If such selection were to operate over a long period of time, we might evolve into a less brainy but more fertile species, homo philoprogenitus (‘lover of many offspring’).”[9]"

It cunningly implies that Bostrom is particularly concerned with dysgenic pressures and at no point does The Guardian acknowledge, even briefly, that Bostrom wrote in the same subsection something that indicates the contrary: "In any case, the time-scale for human natural genetic evolution seems much too grand for such developments to have any significant effect before other developments will have made the issue moot." (section 5.3). To be clear, the label "eugenics" is another topic, it's misleading but technically not inaccurate (when people hear "eugenics", it makes them think about Nazis, not about letting parents or individuals the freedom of choice when it comes to enhancement; which is why the label "eugenicist" can be exploited as a cheap smear). Alenoach (talk) 00:19, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree about the Guardian, but to fix this we need to find conservative sources which talk about this, because in my opinion, both liberal and conservative news outlets often only tell half of the story (the half that makes their readership happy to continue reading their newspaper). In my opinion, some are worse this way than others, and the Guardian tends to less balanced than the NYT, even though both are considered liberal. ---Avatar317^(talk) 03:50, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

I caution against WP:FALSEBALANCE. More perspectives on TESCREAL are worth including, agreed, and it def could use some more criticism.

But if reliable sourcing is mostly stating some perspectives, and we correctly attribute it to the correct sourcing, we should not necessarily be unhappy that the perspective we want is not as represented. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 15:23, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

@Grayfell: You and I have agreed elsewhere that it is acceptable or even required to leave out misleading nonsense (as judged by Wikipedia editors) if it is hard or impossible to provide a substantive and easily understood rebuttal. Up to and including deletion of an article. What are your thoughts on why we disagree here while we agree in a separate deletion discussion? Jruderman (talk) 06:04, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

I have no patience for that brand of rhetorical game, and struggle not to find it insulting. I think at best your summary of my position has been simplified and abstracted past the point of usefulness. If it were strictly up to me, I would consign Bostrom's writing to the "misleading nonsense" bin entirely, but obviously it isn't up to me, and in this case it's not that simple even if it were. I do not know why we disagree or disagree in the abstract on this or any other article, nor do I think it particularly matters. Having looked at the Bostrom primary source in question, his mention of "dysgenics" on that page raises a big red flag, but as the Guardian article points out, this isn't even the only time eugenics has come up with Bostrom. Torres noticed these red flags, and the Guardian reported on it. If you have a specific question about changes to this article I have made or specifically supported/opposed, use direct language. Grayfell (talk) 08:18, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Do you agree with me that this article should be deleted? Jruderman (talk) 09:09, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

there are multiple independent and secondary sources discussing TESCREAL in detail, meeting WP:N. Opponents of this article keep arguing to delete this. I have challenged anyone who wants to delete this article to start an AfD, but have yet to see anyone do this challenge.

I suspect that if anyone ever does an AfD, it would be far harder to argue to delete this article, with the additional improvements done so far. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 16:49, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

As Bluethricecreamman says, the article has sufficient sources. While I have some quibbles about how the article is structured, I can't pretend I could've done any better. So no, I don't think the article should be deleted. To put it in another context, I think that it's reasonably likely that people will hear or see the term "TESCREAL" and type it into a search bar somewhere, so if we can explain it, we should.

I think the current article reads as if it is afraid it might inadvertently offend someone despite the facts on the ground. This is ironic since so much if the funding for these groups comes from outspoken opponents of political correctness. I get why the article is the way that it is, but I also don't accept the premise I see on this talk page that this is a manufactured controversy. Grayfell (talk) 21:32, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

I think the current article reads as if it is afraid it might inadvertently offend someone despite the facts on the ground.

Commenting on that: I see an exorbitant pressure against edits that minimally contradict TESCREAL preferred self-image, even when it consists only in neutral statements. Meanwhile, articles related to it are allowed surprising flexibility in their adherence to the principles of sourcing and weight. This is evident, for example, in Extropianism, which, until yesterday, had a whole section devoted to a self-published manifesto in a blog, and still contains considerable faults in its use of primary sources. JoaquimCebuano (talk) 22:15, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

From what I've seen of the articles about the T E S ...subjects themselves, I agree with you that many seem to be poorly sourced articles, but I don't have time or interest to work on them and while there are many low quality articles in Wikipedia, hopefully all articles will evolve over time toward what policy states they should look like. WP:LOCALCONSENSUS doesn't override policy, so those articles should NOT be "allowed surprising flexibility in their adherence to the principles of sourcing and weight." ---Avatar317^(talk) 00:17, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

It is somewhat exhausting to try to discuss content with someone who makes constant vague allegations like this.

If you genuinely think people are editing with undeclared conflict of interest, then this is a serious issue, so please make a report against specific people with specific evidence, so that they can be sanctioned and we can get on with it. Otherwise, if these are merely WP:ASPERSIONS, it is not appropriate material for a talk page. jp×g🗯️ 01:02, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Joaquim made no comment about conflict of interest, only that people come to this project with biases. (which is ok, everyone has biases, we can overcome them by discussing them and listening to them out). It's frustrating when people do not acknowledge their biases. (I def have them too!)

With regards to policing sourcing, per Joaquim's point, i think that its ok not to go to crazy about the most reliable sources for now, and to just put reliable tags on whatever source, if we can find another that is able to fill it out correctly, or find one that can replace it correctly. I think its mostly a problem when folks use unreliable sourcing to entirely fill out a wikipedia article or to change the lede or the entire article.

If you want, as you supposedly claim, i can compile a list of diffs of people throwing out arbitrary indefensible accusations in this page and related pages that I feel would satisfy Joaquim's definition of "exorbitant pressure against edits that minimally contradict TESCREAL" (as in criticism of the philosophies). I cannot make a list of diffs of "undeclared conflicts of interests", but that's a Strawman argument you've attributed to joaquim. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 01:26, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

On Wikipedia there are very high standards for the circumstances under which we are allowed to write huge walltext articles about how some person or group of people is villainous, or Communists, or Nazis, or far-right or far-left or whatever, or how "some argue" that they are. Currently I am involved in a dispute about a webcomic (formerly quite widely read and highly regarded) where the author has, in the last decade or so, gone completely whacko, and most strips nowadays are about how the Jews are ruining society and control the media. Even in such a blatant case as this, we are still not allowed to write in the article about the webcomic that it is anti-Semitic, or that the guy is nuts, or whatever. The only thing we can say is, based on an attributed citation to a scholar specifically on webcomics, that he said that the comic's political themes had gone on a "downward spiral". I wrote that sentence, and even that is being vigorously challenged by a couple people.

Neutrality and verifiability are something we take seriously, so it feels like a bad-faith insinuation to repeatedly invoke the idea of "exorbitant pressure against edits that minimally contradict preferred self-image". There is exorbitant pressure about lots of things, because we are an encyclopedia and not Twitter. We do this for everything. If this is objectionable to you, then the complaint must be made against Wikipedia's policies as a whole. jp×g🗯️ 02:27, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

All this says nothing against my commentary, some topics are highly polemic, others appear surprisingly permissive. This has nothing to do with policies, but with emerging informal dynamics. In lusophone wikipedia, we have been discussing this with relation to soccer articles, quite a brazilian passion with own niche of editors that barely engage with the general encyclopedia. In the past I said the same about anarcho-capitalist articles, here and there. You dont need to suppose that I am implying a big conspiracy about users in this article. JoaquimCebuano (talk) 02:38, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

"there are very high standards for the circumstances"

- We discussed this multiple times at WP:BLPN. If you want to resurrect this, either start a new section here or use WP:BLPN again. Nobody had a good rebuttal to the argument that if multiple sourcing describes Elon Musk as supportive of some TESCREAL ideals WP:PUBLICFIGURE should apply.

"The only thing we can say is, based on an attributed citation to a scholar specifically on webcomics,"

- Every statement that can be considered contentious is placed with WP:OPINION. We even attribute The Guardian, a well respected publication, because of its "liberal" tilt. Please point out which statement on here is not attributed correctly.

"so it feels like a bad-faith insinuation"

- I am ready to deal with every bad-faith insinuation that somehow editors on this page are secretly out to go "against wikipedia principles" by citing them in arguments. In general, if you think principles are being misapplied, use the text of the principle and correct me. i've gotten it wrong before and i'm happy to learn more, instead of getting vague answers that "its against the principles"

"If this is objectionable to you, then the complaint must be made against Wikipedia's policies as a whole."

- you're objections or mine don't speak for wikipedia as a whole. I mostly point out that some people are arbitrarily combative.

Conclusion

This has degenerated into WP:FORUM at least two levels ago. None of this is useful to wikipedia. I can keep dissecting poor arguments, but if you have an issue with the page, cite the appropriate policy, answer objections from editors, and we can do what needs to be done. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 02:45, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

I feel like this article is extremely cautious about using in-text attribution to avoid presenting things in wikivoice. Can you be more specific about where you think that's missing? GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 11:57, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank YOU for adding that attribution, and hopefully Bluethricecreamman will take those clues and write more like that. Those issues were a huge part of my complaint and removal of the "Alleged TESCREALists" section. ---Avatar317^(talk) 22:49, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

find reliable sourcing and we can put in attributed voice that many consider it a conspiracy theory Bluethricecreamman (talk) 23:03, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

I think this post from the previous deletion discussion for this article is relevant to this current discussion:

   It seems there's two relevant evaluations of the acronym: 1) There is a cluster of groups/ideologies, and it's reasonable to have a name for it; and 2) the coiners of the term are fond of making conspiracy-theoretic insinuations about the group.
   I think both are correct (except Cosmism doesn't belong). TheDefenseProfessor (talk) 20:28, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

• "the coiners of the term are fond of making conspiracy-theoretic insinuations about the group" this statement is more arbitrary and source-less than any sentence of the whole article. I was there during this deletion process, and this accusation of 'conspiracy' was sadly unjustified and yet repeated to exhaustion. Lets have a serious discussion of what qualifies as a conspiracy, if someone really intends to insist on this point. JoaquimCebuano (talk) 23:33, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

As I'm sure you know, this James Hughes (sociologist) post: [10] characterizes it as a conspiracy theory, but until TESCREAL gets enough publicity for a good solid source (like NYT, WSJ, etc) to do some thorough reporting on it, we don't yet have any strong sources calling it a conspiracy theory.

Note that no current sources say that TESCREAL is bad; the ones we have all attribute the claims of TESCREAL's malevalence to Gebru or Torres. ---Avatar317^(talk) 01:08, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

A sole source from someone that has as much convictions in play as Torres and Gebru; worth to add in the article as a critical voice, but cannot assert itself as a conclusive evidence. Also, if I could give my personal evaluation, Hughes text has some serious flaws, for example when he attempts to dismiss the presence of cosmism - even if this term is not the best possible choice, we have previous scholarship that provide an overview of the strength of ideologies which could be called 'space expansionism', see Daniel Deudney 2020 book.

"the ones we have all attribute the claims of TESCREAL's malevalence to Gebru or Torres" - in the sense that Gebru and Torres coined the term, I agree that logically they could be the only initial critics of TESCREAL, but each and every line of this ideology has received independent reviews that agree, at least partially, with Gebru and Torres, even if not naming it all as 'TESCREAL'. If you read their article, you will also see an abundance of sources investigating the social and political stakes of AI, transhumanism and so on and so on, especially the negative ones. Its not sustainable to say that the topic is understudied in this sense. JoaquimCebuano (talk) 01:46, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

• Gebru: linking eugenics with rationalism and effective altruism
• Gebru: linking eugenics with the entire TESCREAL acronym
• Torres: tescreal + "eternal return of eugenics"
• Torres: tescreal + "directly grew out of eugenics"

The entire thing is part of an elaborate exercise in applying Bacon's Law to guilt by association. Singularitarianism is linked to effective altruism, effective altruism is linked to maximizing human potential, maximizing human potential is linked to eugenics, and (often implied rather than stated) eugenics is linked to nazi "eugenics". Now anyone who has ever talked about AGI can be smeared as basically a nazi. It isn't a serious way to engage with the world and it isn't encyclopedic. Jruderman (talk) 18:39, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

use a reliable source to include this in a criticism section. also give a specific reason for why TESCREAL doesnt belong or start a WP:AfD if you think it should be deleted Bluethricecreamman (talk) 19:17, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

I want to make it clear that I don't want this debate to exist in article space. I don't want a reliable source to be quoted stating that they're acting in bad faith. Instead, I want their bad-faith attacks to simply not be on Wikipedia. On their bios, pick one of their coherent criticisms of longtermism to quote instead. Let this controversy die down. Let Gebru and Torres go back to doing the good work they were doing before they were doing this. Jruderman (talk) 19:27, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Wp:notaforum. it mostly sounds like because you disapprove and their politics don’t agree with yours you’d rather delete.

if you wanna delete this, cite the wikipedia policy and use the processes we have. we don’t just delete because people claim the article is bad faith Bluethricecreamman (talk) 20:06, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Sure Joaquim, I will provide primary sources of a coiner of the term making conspiratorial claims about the referents of the term, if it will improve discussion.

In this twitter thread, Dr. Torres alleges that longtermists are "extremely power hungry", "want to control the future direction of humanity", and "are infiltrating institutions like the UN". They demonstrate with a quote from a longtermist who is discussing activism strategies, likely taken from the public EA Forum. Note the loaded language- in particular, "infiltrate" indicates an inappropriate operation to covertly influence an organization, as opposed to eg civic activism in the UN via proper channels. Note also that the allegation is not about a subset of longtermists, but by implication any person who believes in longtermism. This is a claim that a group is acting secretively with aims of inappropriately influencing world events and controlling humanity.

In this thread, they claim that TESCREAL people constitute an existential risk- that is, a deadly threat to humanity. They state that "you" the reader should be afraid of adherents of these ideologies. They then imply that claims of benefitting humanity are an intentional lie. This is a claim that a group is dangerous, and ought to be feared and mistrusted.

Finally, in this thread they reiterate statements that the cluster of people is dangerous. They indicate that talk of value alignment of an AGI is a falsehood, and that TESCREAL people actually intend for AGI to benefit a small number of people to the detriment of all others. They state that there is "literally zero evidence" that these people mean what they say when they talk about "benefitting all humans", which implies that people in the group had an onus to somehow prove to the public they aren't secretly malevolent, and have failed to do so. Dr. Torres singles out an individual who is under suspicion of malevolent intent, and mentions Indigenous peoples, Muslims, and nonhuman animals as groups that are endangered. This is a claim that a group of people is dangerous, secretly plans to harm others, and is lying when they claim otherwise.

In the latter two cases, Dr. Torres is vilifying the whole TESCREAL bundle.

I'd say all three of these are patently conspiratorial. Are there objections? TheDefenseProfessor (talk) 05:02, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles rely on independent, reliable sources — not on individual Wikipedians' interpretations of tweets. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 14:31, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

I am not sure I understand the idea that it is inappropriate synthesis or original research to discuss the contents of an author's writings, on the talk page for an article about those writings, after being directly asked by another participant to elaborate on a previous claim about what the writings said. jp×g🗯️ 14:50, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

The talk page is intended for discussion of changes to the article, not just our own opinions on the article subject, and any changes to the article need to be based in reliable sources. No changes can be made based merely on whether some Wikipedians believe the coiners of the term to be conspiracists. My interpretation of JoaquimCebuano's reply above was that they were asking for sources that would support adding evaluation #2 to the article. If they were just asking for Wikipedians to chime in with their own opinions on Torres and Gebru, that would be better done somewhere that isn't Wikipedia. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 15:11, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

On 2nd thought, my reply was unhelpful and I apologize to all. I assume there is a guideline for new articles indicating different treatment if their topic is fringe. But after rereading I do not see any mention of such a guideline, so the fringe-ness was outside the scope of the discussion.

I agree that tweets and interpretation of them are not good for inclusion in articles. TheDefenseProfessor (talk) 02:01, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Something I'm having trouble figuring out, please nobody interpret this as sniping: I see several editing guidelines, such as on what constitutes primary vs secondary sources, indicating judgement is often needed. I see a bunch of claims made here that aren't grounded in article sources. I assumed that these were for explaining judgement calls, and that lower standards of evidence for judgement calls are usually okay. But in some cases I see replies that there's not strong citation for the claim, and everyone moves on.

It seems like I'm missing something. Is there an intro for proper ways to discuss judgement calls on the talk page? Or do they belong somewhere else?

For example, on the previous version of this page I thought a secondary source was low-quality because the journal had a likely POV, and since the source was a critical theory article in a primarily medical journal, the peer review was questionable. I would not have been able to come up with a high quality secondary source to support that claim. Would it have been kosher to just remove the cite and give a reason? TheDefenseProfessor (talk) 02:13, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

wp:brd if you have an idea for a change then do it already and if someone doesnt like it, we revert. then we discuss the specific change and come to consensus based on policy. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 02:41, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

@TheDefenseProfessor: You said: "Would it have been kosher to just remove the cite and give a reason?" - Yes. And remove whatever statement is sourced to that cite, unless the statement is also sourced to other cites. Discussions on the reliability of sources can be discussed here, but you can always delete the statement and cite with a good articulated reason, and see if anyone objects, and then discuss if need be. ---Avatar317^(talk) 00:06, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

The reason the policies seem vague and contradictory and hard to understand is twofold:

• First of all, because your very first Wikipedia argument is taking place on your 26th edit, on a politics article, against three people at the same time, two of whom are badgering every comment, and the other of whom is a rather distinguished and competent administrator in nearly her twentieth year on the project. Most people play Space Invaders the first time they go to an arcade, whereas you are playing, I dunno, 『東方花映塚 〜 Phantasmagoria of Flower View』【Lunatic】 or something.
• Second of all, because they are. What you're looking for might be WP:FRINGE (or the subsection WP:PROFRINGE), which is nominally about all types of unfalsifiable or non-rigorous claims that depart from the mainstream, but in practice is applied exclusively to the specific topic areas of alternative medicine, pseudoscience, perpetual motion, creation science, and crackpot magnets like "neuro-linguistic programming", mostly because it was written specifically to target bullshit papers on those subjects in the mid-2000s when these were the relevant culture war issues. You could also be looking for WP:RSOPINION, or maybe WP:DUE, or maybe MOS:W2W, or maybe WP:BLP.

jp×g🗯️ 01:28, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

@TheDefenseProfessor: Fringe: Per Wikipedia sourcing guidelines, we can't describe BRAND NEW topics/theories as fringe in Wikipedia when no mainstream or well-known scholars have authored any papers describing the new theory as an outlier or as way-out-there (fringe). We must (per policy) state all of this as CONJECTURE and not fact.

Antivax conspiracies during COVID spread so quickly on social media (gained sufficient publicity/notoriety) that newspapers picked up the conspiracy stories and interviewed multiple doctors and scientists who pointed out their falsehoods. This TESCREAL idea seems to currently be a niche subject for which that has not happened yet. Maybe if Biden mentioned this in a speech we'd have a storm of news articles investigating it. ---Avatar317^(talk) 20:16, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

WP:NOTAFORUM... discussing writings in terms of reliable sources we can use to improve the article should be fine.

Discussing tweets and dunking them because we disagree with the politics is silly, and then using our dunks on the tweets to try to destroy the other sourcing seems especially silly.

If you disagree with the politics of the discussion of TESCREAL, then fine. Adding opinions as they become available, from reliable-ish sources, makes the article better, as long as we use WP:ATTRIBUTION. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 15:14, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Still, not one reliable third source making the case for 'conspiracy theory'. None of these 'conspiratorial claims' seem conspiratorial at all, mostly are trivial assertions given the circumstances. Regulatory capture is a pretty established phenomenon. JoaquimCebuano (talk) 16:12, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

these are not good faith discussions anyways. best not to take them at face value except as partisan bickering Bluethricecreamman (talk) 16:57, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Please stop responding to every comment on this page with insults. jp×g🗯️ 18:38, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

There have been no comments in this section for a month. Are there outstanding concerns, or can the neutrality tag be removed? GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 16:17, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed it. The template is not meant to be a permanent part of article, and folks were mostly just complaining WP:IDONTLIKE instead of putting in actual changes to article they knew could stand up to scrutiny. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 17:58, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Please stop responding to every comment on this page with insults. jp×g🗯️ 06:01, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

No evidence for claims made in this article

There is no evidence that these ideas are connected to eugenics, scientific racism, or anything similar. The authors of the article that coined the term have a history of generating a lot of media noise by yelling "racist!" and "sexist!" at anything they don't like, and therefore this seems to by somewhat of a manufactured controversy. Partofthemachine (talk) 22:35, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

put it in a criticism section with reliable sourcing Bluethricecreamman (talk) 23:02, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

The article is filled with sources, this kind of blatant statement lack any value in a constructive discussion. You must criticize the specifics if you are interested in making any point. JoaquimCebuano (talk) 23:29, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Misleading claim about political orientation

Even the lead contains a statement from Gebru and Torres that is not just false, but at the opposite of reality: that the movements are "right-wing". I just checked a 2022 EA community survey that shows that 76.6% of left-leaning respondents vs 2.9% right-leaning.[11] Similar result with a poll of rationalists.[12] Alenoach (talk) 21:33, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

The claim is properly attributed as their opinion, per WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. If there are reliable secondary sources that challenge Gebru and Torres' description of the movements in the "TESCREAL bundle" it could be added, but using community polls like this would be WP:SYNTH. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 21:50, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

agreed. Its attributed. Undid the dubious tag. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 22:05, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Even if it is an attributed opinion and not a claim of fact, placing an allegation of political extremism in the lead strongly implies to readers that it is true, or at least that it's plausible enough to be worth mentioning.

If there is not a solid basis to believe that this claim is true, I don't think we should be featuring it so prominently there, as it seems like a rather nasty and unsubstantiated accusation against a bunch of living persons. jp×g🗯️ 02:34, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

It's still a lot more substantiated than a couple of polls of self-described rationalists on an internet forum. However this is handled, it really doesn't seem like an extraordinary claim. The body cites a defense of TESCREAL from the American Enterprise Institute, which isn't even that surprising. Per the body, this does appear to be a defining trait that should be in the lead. As for BLP, WP:BLPGROUP applies. This group is not so tiny that it must be treated similarly to a single person. Grayfell (talk) 02:57, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

WP:DUBIOUS states that we use the template if the statement is incorrect. That Gebru and Torres allege this to be a right-wing movement is not in question, and putting the DUBIOUS template back was a mistake.

If you suggest it was undue in the lede, we can remove the "right-wing" portion from the statement. That's a differing concern.

The lede currently does not suggest political extremism and only says that Gebru and Torres allege that TESCREALists use human extinction to justify projects.

If you are bringing "a rather nasty and unsubstantiated accusation against a bunch of living persons" as an argument, you need to separate that and handle this in WP:BLPN, or start a new section. We have litigated this already here [13] and above. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 03:03, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

As the person who added it to the lead, I agree that FACTUALLY it is extremely dubious because likely most subscribers to one or more of those philosophies would self-identify as left-wing. It is not at all dubious to say that "G & T ALLEGE that", which is what they do.

Perhaps it could be better worded; I tried to squeeze it in without much modification to the other text; but as it was "Gebru and Torres allege this is a right-wing movement" maybe sounds like a huge chunk of right-wing people support it or initiated it, when likely less than 1% of right wing people even know about it.

Maybe "Gebru and Torres allege this movement allows its proponents to use the threat of human extinction to justify societally expensive or detrimental projects, and they allege it is politically right wing." ? ---Avatar317^(talk) 22:25, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

could we just go back to the original version before the kerfluffle? reads more concisely, and didn't really have an actual issue.

left-wing/right-wing is a relative term. tbf, most things are right wing from gebru and torres' pov, and i think attributing it to them should be enough. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 02:23, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the details Avatar317. My concern was primarily towards unfamiliar readers that would see it and would have the reasonable prior that there must be some truth behind the allegations. Many readers have strong political opinions, and might mistakenly make their mind by the time they read "right-wing". So I'm a bit reluctant towards having this statement in the lead. Alenoach (talk) 03:23, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Argument for article deletion

I believe this article on TESCREAL should be considered for deletion.

The concept lacks notability, being a term coined by only two individuals with minimal coverage in reliable, independent sources. It doesn't meet Wikipedia's general notability guideline.

Much of the article's content appears to be original research, synthesizing claims from primary sources rather than reporting on secondary analysis. By dedicating an entire article to this concept, we may be giving undue weight to a fringe idea that hasn't gained widespread acceptance in academic or professional circles. Many claims in the article lack adequate support from independent, reliable sources.

There are also potential BLP issues, with claims about living persons being "alleged TESCREALists" that could be seen as contentious or poorly sourced. Any noteworthy aspects of this concept could likely be more appropriately mentioned in broader articles about technology ethics or Silicon Valley culture. I've attempted to improve the article by adding more context, balance, and criticism, but I believe these fundamental issues remain. Given all this, I think deletion should be considered. I am aware that the article was previously nominated for deletion. Bdnor (talk) 16:14, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

A) I undid your changes. Bentham's is unreliable as its WP:SPS

B) If you want to go through WP:AfD, do it. I'm happy to go through process and debate for this article.

C) Scientific american, the guardian, radio new zealand, and other sources are definitely WP:SECONDARY

D) Someone already raised WP:BLP concerns, and we've debated it to death. We came to consensus that WP:PUBLICFIGURE applies Bluethricecreamman (talk) 16:17, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Saw someone put up a WP:N template.

To continue my argument that TESCREAL is notable, I must point out the list of references of which most are reliable, independent, and secondary sources.

Only the first two refs are not independent, but are the sources that originate the term. Most of the claims that cite refs 1 and 2 are also supported by other claims about it as well. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 19:04, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

The currently cited sources appear to me to sufficiently show notability. Grayfell (talk) 20:35, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

There is literally 29 sources in the article, why dont you elaborate which ones you consider bad? Which sentences lack support? If you dont engage with the content, then its just claims, not arguments.

Also, if you think it should be deleted, just open the deletion process. JoaquimCebuano (talk) 00:05, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

Improvement banners such as template:notability are not intended to be indefinite badges of shame, they are intended to prompt improvement to the project. Since this talk page is reasonably active and there has been no other policy-based reasons discussed here, I have removed the template. Grayfell (talk) 20:43, 27 July 2024 (UTC)

• Listed: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/TESCREAL (2nd nomination) Jruderman (talk) 19:38, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

inaccurate reference

I am removing the following reference and statements relying exclusively on that reference because I have seen convincing evidence that the reference is inaccurate:

Wilson, Jason; Winston, Ali (June 16, 2024). "Sam Bankman-Fried funded a group with racist ties. FTX wants its $5m back". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077.

The evidence I have seen includes the following:

https://twitter.com/ohabryka/status/1802563541633024280

https://x.com/ohabryka/status/1802563571165073537

https://quillette.com/2024/06/19/enemies-of-free-thought-manifest-2024-jason-wilson-ali-winston/ Thiesen (talk) 20:58, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Twitter/X are not reliable sourcing. according to WP:RSP "There is consensus that Quillette is generally unreliable for facts, with non-trivial minorities arguing for either full deprecation or "considerations apply". Quillette is primarily a publication of opinion, and thus actual usage in articles will usually be a question of whether or not it is WP:DUE for an attributed opinion rather than whether it is reliable for a factual claim. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 21:00, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Also, Guardian includes information about receive the correction from ohabryka and have the story corrected accordingly after June 17th. We access and cite this story on June 29th. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 21:22, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I have never cited X or Quillette in regular articles, but I feel they are appropriate in a talk page because I am talking not about verifiability, but about truth. Even the Guardian admits, at the bottom of their revised article, that the claim that $5 million was transferred to the purchasers of the conference center is false, yet the headline "FTX wants its $5m back" remains. See Wikipedia:verifiable but not false. Also, the sentence with the phrase "liberal eugenicists" in it is inflammatory and violates NPOV. Thiesen (talk) 01:22, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

I think the following statement would be truthful, but I do not find it notable:

"A company controlled by Sam Bankman-Fried placed $1 million in the escrow account of a nonprofit that was purchasing a hotel that they were repurchasing to become a conference center for conferences and workshops associated with longtermism, rationality, and effective altruism. The nonprofit paid for the purchase in full, and the $1 million was returned to Sam Bankman-Fried’s company at close of escrow."

I do not doubt that Sam Bankman-Fried was associated with effective altruism. Surely you can find a truthful example to illustrate this. Thiesen (talk) 01:38, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

A) I mean to say I trust the guardian significantly more than either twitter or quillette. Just because some random guy tries to dispute the guardian does not mean the guardian is false. I also don't trust quillette to prove the truth about an argument on the internet.

B) Truth means it needs to come from a useful source. Quillette regularly fails at basic facts for the story.

C) the deleted section in the wikipedia article proposes that the FTX founders alleged that Lightcone owed FTX $5 million. We do not state it as a statement of fact. it appears that FTX trustees are still ongoing with the legal pursuit of funds.

D) sources suggests that Lightcone had significant amounts of money that they received from SBF, with up to 50-60% of Lightcone's funding coming from FTX. [14]

E) Even if the initial $1 million dollars on the lighthaven property was returned, other sourcing suggests that money that could have come from FTX was used for renovating the property [15]

F) The SFGate source in E points out that escrow accounts in california usually holds the money for 4-8 weeks, and that its unusual to claim that escrow accounts would still have funds. This is different than what the guardian source claims.

G) If twitter accounts are supposedly fairgame to determine truth, here is a twitter thread of an author from the guardian piece interrogating OHabyrka. [16] Ali Winston points out that legal briefings, unlike rando twitter threads, suggest that FTX believes they have a legal case that is ongoing. There is apparently disagreement on whether the money had actually been returned from the escrow.

If the guardian reports on the case and the only source we can identify to supposedly debunk it is the ceo of Lightcone, owner of lighthaven, we should not necessarily throw out large portions of this article as "false". Bluethricecreamman (talk) 02:10, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

My issue with this paragraph (and some other statements) is this: the connection to TESCREAL is rather tenuous: one mention in the Guardian article, "The revelations cast new light on so-called “Tescreal” intellectual movements – an umbrella term for a cluster of movements including EA and rationalism" - but the Guardian rightly classifies SBF as mainly EA, and with a little rationalism and longtermism thrown in, so he's only the last half: REAL.

It seems like WP:SYNTH to lump any individual associated with SOME of these philosophies into the bundle, (which is supposedly what this article is about) but I don't know any other way to word that paragraph if we are going to include it. ---Avatar317^(talk) 06:07, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Generally, news articles start out with a high-level introduction and summary before delving into the details.

A "single mention" of TESCREAL in an introductory paragraph before delving into the details of a Silicon Valley conference involving effective altruism/accerationism, realism, long-termism, liberal eugenics, pro-natalism, and the transhumanist Future of Life Institute seems like a useful article to include on a wikipedia page that becomes more useful when actual examples of alleged TESCREALists are given.

In general, I think we do need more criticism of TESCREAL in this article, but this Guardian article def applies and should be used as a reliable source that spends a significant amount of time overlapping and discussing much of what Gebru and Torres allege. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 10:44, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

I, too, generally trust the Guardian, I do not trust twitter, and I never heard of Quillette before. In this particular case I trust a particular twitter post and a particular Quillette article, and I distrust a particular Guardian artice because of what they said.

The Lightcone guy posted the final settlement statement. If he photoshopped it, don't you think he would be found out eventually?

The Guardian writer shows evidence of malice. Please look at the photo in the Guardian article. I see a low decorative wall covered with ivy or something. Would you describe this as "a walled compound"? Also note that the wall was already there before the property changed hands. The following sentence is pure innuendo: "It also raises questions about the extent to which people within that movement continue to benefit from Bankman-Fried’s fraud, the largest in US history."

The Guardian writer seems to delight in annoying people. He wrote, "The greatest joy I get from this kind of reporting is sending such a fine selection of people into a spiral of seething cope on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon. Don’t want the smoke? Don’t be this kind of person" His recent tweet says "It was bought with millions in stolen FTX funds." Why didn't he say "The lawsuit alleges..."? Thiesen (talk) 06:15, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

The Guardian writers seem to write in what I would call "liberal clickbait" style. That property is really cool, it is on the List of Berkeley Landmarks in Berkeley, California, #125 & 126. I stayed there...more than 20 years ago, the wall was there then. ---Avatar317^(talk) 06:53, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Sources do not have to be nice to be reliable. First-hand observations of a wall are not relevant or reliable. Self-serving tweets are not reliable and are very poor for providing context. Quillette is pseudo-intellectual outrage-bait, and it is neither reliable, nor impartial to this issue. Grayfell (talk) 07:11, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Are we really discussing the reliability of the Guardian article based on whether there is an actual wall on the former hotel or not? I mean then the question becomes, what is the meaning of a walled compound? That there is a single decorative wall? or that it is walled all over? Or that there is a wall between the property and public street? Bluethricecreamman (talk) 10:53, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

The argument seems to be that reliability can be judged by apparent bias in an article and if an mundane feature is promoted to imply an insidious meaning then the author's bias seems to draw questions as to it's reliability.

From my experience this has become a serious issue at the Guardian in recent years, where many authors are allowed to write what are clearly unlabeled opinion pieces.

I concur with other's that Twitter and Quillette are not reliable sources, I would also add that neither is the Guardian. An philosophical topic like this should have critiques from philosophy, not merely slobbering over the claims of two people that some journalists happen to like. JSory (talk) 18:35, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

As per WP:THEGUARDIAN, there are questions of possible bias (all news sources have bias) but the Guardian is considered highly reliable. This piece was not an opinion piece and despite that was still attributed correctly to the guardian.

The consensus on Wikipedia is subject to change and folks regularly upgrade/downgrade sourcing according. To start the convo on the Guardian being downgraded or placed with additional considerations, see WP:RSN Bluethricecreamman (talk) 18:52, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

"The Guardian is considered highly reliable"

Dubiously of course. Wikipedia doesn't accept news articles for WP:MED, and I would surely extend that to most domains outside of news media's actual job of describing an event that happened. Journalists are simply not equipped to report on internal disputes within fields, it invariably turns into providing a megaphone for whichever side either contacts the media, or is found by a sympathetic journalist. (See reporting on court cases for numerous high-profile examples of this).

"The piece was not an opinion piece"

When faced with a claim that the Guardian allows heavily opinionated works to be included in their news reporting unlabeled as opinion, you really think that a defeater is saying "But it wasn't labeled as opinion!".

This entire article is poor quality simply because it is being gatekept by individuals using the most liberal interpretation of Wikipedia rules to justify false claims and shoddy reasoning laundered by sympathetic WP:RS.

For an example of a similarly controversial topic see the Anti-natalism page. Anti-natalism is infact not a popular position outside of David Benatar's house, and has been mostly criticised (when it's not completely ignored since in philosophy it is essentially WP:FRINGE), and yet the article (correctly) focuses on the arguments made by proponents not on critics view. This is standard in philosophy articles and I see no reason we should not follow it here, and saying "but Wikipedia rules allow us to write slanted articles" is not sufficient. JSory (talk) 01:28, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

I am simply stating the status quo on wikipedia. The Guardian is allowable as a source here. And there is a difference between an WP:OPINION piece and a news source with an admittedly liberal bias.

If you want to suggest the status quo doesn't apply here, go to WP:RSN. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 01:54, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Yet, again. Your only defence is "the rules allow it". And that's why Wikipedia is not a credible source. You have unqualified editors able to dedicate inordinate amounts of time to defending shoddy work on the sole premise that they are allowed to do so. JSory (talk) 05:28, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

I would like to see the article improvement process continue. If there's a continuing, ongoing problem with the use of Wilson & Winston 2024 here, I would like to understand it a bit better. I've read the thread above, but it's difficult to catch the nuance. If you could briefly summarize the problem at hand for others to discuss, that would be helpful. Viriditas (talk) 09:43, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Overcitation

I get that folks who use WP:IDONTLIKEIT arguments keep yelling “not enough reliable sourcing”, but I think we should work on trimming citations as per WP:OVERCITE. I’m def very guilty of it as well, but as AfD continues, maybe we can focus on that. WP:CITETRIM seems to suggest that 3 citations should be enough for most statements. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 22:49, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

actually, we hadn’t overcited too much. just gave it a pass and found like only 4 or so statements that had more than 3 citations. I think bibliography went from 32 sources to 30 sources, but should be fine enough to support article. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 22:54, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Inclusion of WP:SPS description of conspiracy

Someone had been arguing with me about WP:SPS about descriptors of TESCREAL as a conspiracy theory. I would like to include more criticism about TESCREAL, especially as to balance out the article and remove the neutral tag.

Looking at the SPS section.: Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. Exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent, reliable sources. Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer.

I’m specifically thinking of this sourcing [17] from James Hughes (sociologist). I had originally removed it due to WP:SPS concerns but as James J Hughes is an expert in bioethics, his description is worth a mention in the criticism section? Bluethricecreamman (talk) 23:04, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

While I agree that Hughes is a reputed expert, any mention of his criticism of TESCREAL should also note that he is a transhumanist with personal and professional relations with alleged tescrealists such as Nick Bostrom and associated institutions. JoaquimCebuano (talk) 23:21, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

I still don't get the allegation that this is a conspiracy theory. There's an enormous amount of criticism of technological utopianism, none of which has anything to do with a conspiracy. Rich people hang out with other rich people and have similar interests and concerns. There's no conspiracy involved. Viriditas (talk) 00:54, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

i mean as long as its not given WP:UNDUE weight, especially while most reliable sourcing doesn't talk about it as a conspiracy, its probably fine. IMO, its the easiest way to bad-faith dismiss this article by people who WP:IDONTLIKEIT. there is now too much significant reliable sourcing talking about this to make AfDs successful (see the first AfD). Bluethricecreamman (talk) 01:08, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

I think one of the problems is that most people don’t realize how many different authors have discussed this. Gebru and Torres have only briefly touched upon the topic. Douglas Rushkoff covered this topic for years, eventually publishing his findings in Survival of the Richest (2022). I hope everyone here is familiar with the book and takes a moment to review his footnotes. It explains just about everything, leaving no stone unturned. All TESCREAL does is restate what we already know. That’s why I find the allegations of bias and conspiracy so unusual. This is all very well documented; there’s no surprises here. Viriditas (talk) 01:51, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia editors are mostly a self-selected group of folks who believe in the promise of tech and open-source style philosophies. That happens to intersect with techno-libertarianism and techno-utopian beliefs. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I don’t think you or I will change their core belief that they are purely rational folks fighting for techno futures… or that any criticism of their core beliefs given space in a single wikipedia is nothing more than a personal attack or an attack by misinformed non-rationalists.

Feel free to watch this page if you’d like, there is constant pressure from folks to delete large portions of it or use unreliable sourcing to destroy this page. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 02:15, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

What do you mean by "...most people don’t realize how many different authors have discussed *this*." - What *this* are you talking about? Technological utopianism ? If that is the case than why aren't the "Alleged TESCREALists" in this article also listed as "Alleged Tech Utopians" in the TU article, in which case many of them might self-classify as such? Why invent a new acronym/name? Are TESCREALists a SUBSET of TechUtopians? A super set?

I'd like to note that eugenics is not even mentioned in the Criticism section of TU, but it is G & T's most prominent criticism. ---Avatar317^(talk) 18:53, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't see anything to respond to here. These are old ideas, and none of these people are "alleged" tech utopians", they have been overt about it. We don't need to them to "self-classify" about anything, that's how these narratives are described in the literature. All TESCREAL does is unify the different ideas together one page and show how they are all linked together. Rushkoff has been writing about this for a very long time. The fact that another article fails to discuss something isn't altogether that interesting. I can't help but think you are playing coy for some reason, as you know perfectly well that eugenics is well documented in criticism of Silicon Valley philosophy and deeply part of its fabric, going all the way back to Leland Stanford himself, continuing with the Stanford-Binet IQ test, William Shockley, and its reinvention in the guise of longtermism. Saying this is G&T's most prominent criticism is a way for you to pretend this is some kind of fringe idea, but there's numerous authors who have addressed these ideas. Again, there's nothing new here, so I don't know why you are engaging like this other than to try to discredit the idea. Viriditas (talk) 20:22, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

You seem to have a bit of trouble with reading comprehension, or maybe logic: I'll repeat my question: "Why invent a new acronym/name? Are TESCREALists a SUBSET of TechUtopians? A super set?"

If this is, as you say, "nothing new" than why should we have a standalone article on it, and not have this as a part of the "Criticisms" section of the Technological_utopianism article? What is new about it to support its being a separate concept? ---Avatar317^(talk) 21:59, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

WP:LISTEN. Viriditas (talk) 22:10, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Title as -ism

It’s discussed as TESCREALism, as in a group of ideologies. Viriditas (talk) 09:49, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

It would make more sense to call this "Tescrealism", using a lower case acronym format like "laser". Viriditas (talk) 09:52, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

In general, I think the article is fine to describe it as TESCREAL unless/until Tescrealism becomes a more mainstream noun. It's clearer to explain as an acronym first especially as most of the sourcing mentions the concept first with TESCREAL. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 03:01, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

That’s fine, but I’ve been going on a lecture tour, listening to hours of podcasts about this, and apparently it started as TESCREAL but has now matured into a broader, unified theory that has more explanatory power as tescrealism. Just my opinion of course. I’m more interested in seeing this article improve, however, than arguing about a title. Viriditas (talk) 09:09, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I'd support renaming to Tescrealism. Whether or not we do that, the page should be restructured to cleanly present the philosophy, and it's 8 different facets, and not be about any one single paper. Where appropriate, we can acknowledge the seminal nature of a contribution, but it shouldn't be the focus of this page. Ben Aveling 10:05, 16 August 2024 (UTC) (This may be selling rationalism short, given that it seems to have rather more substance than the other facets, but we can try)

I will address these points in a new section, as this is just about the title. Viriditas (talk) 20:20, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

"TESCREAL" seems to me to be the most common name used in sourcing. A small number of sources use lowercase, but the majority use the uppercase format. "TESCREALism" is also occasionally used, but "TESCREAL" seems more frequent. I have created a redirect for Tescrealism, though. GorillaWarfare (she/her • talk) 16:24, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. Viriditas (talk) 20:20, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Re: Pharmaceuticals

I think the new section on pharmaceuticals relies on the kitchen-sink approach, which is not helpful at this early stage of article improvement. While there may be an argument to be made to include this idea at some point in the body, I don't see any good reason for it to have its own section. Furthermore, the connection between psychedelics and tecrealism is assumed and isn't made clear. I would recommend removing at this time and focusing solely on staying close to the original topic, of which a lot more can be said. Viriditas (talk) 21:49, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

If you read the source, you'd notice that it talks about TESCREAL, (apparently the one mention in the title and **47** other mentions in the source is not enough for you; maybe we should remove all other sources here which don't mention TESCREAL that often?). That source was introduced by others to source statements about Musk and MacAskill and the overall notability of TESCREAL.

Furthermore, the connection between psychedelics and tecrealism is assumed and isn't made clear. - Again we have your reading comprehension problem; Please read WP:CIR. ---Avatar317^(talk) 03:06, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

... I think what Viriditas is saying is that not every citation is necessary in this article to make a cohesive encyclopedia entry (see OVERCITE talk section above). And WP:PRIMARY sourcing should probably be seen with some additional qualifications.. I'll be honest, i wonder if we should even us TruthDig as sourcing, as it is WP:SPS, even if its by an expert on the topic (the actual originators of the term TESCREAL).

At the very least, FirstDayMonday as a primary source seems good as a peer reviewed journal, and I think primary sourcing on article so far is good enough, but Google Scholar says at least 54 articles connect to TESCREAL and not all are of best quality (tho that is obviously a subjective measure). Bluethricecreamman (talk) 16:45, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Asterisk Magazine

@Secarctangent the magazine retrieves direct financial support from Centre for Effective Altruism, and as such it probably makes sense to include that the two are affiliated. [18]

Please discuss on here so we get to a consensus version. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 20:59, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

As mentioned in my edit summary, the source you provide openly says that they share financial management, but also that they are an independent organization that keeps "full editorial oversight", so the term "affiliated" is not the most appropriate. On Asterisk's "About" page, they say "Our editorial perspective is shaped by the philosophy of Effective Altruism, but not limited to it." So, according to the two sources, they are inspired by EA, but the CEA doesn't tell them what to write. My edit was intended to continue mentioning the connection with EA, while not implying that CEA decides what they write, which doesn't appear to be the case. Alenoach (talk) 21:21, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

claim of editorial independence doesn't mean they aren't affiliated with the centre. and the direct financial support is clearly affiliated in most general places....

But yeah, I think I see your point, and it is a good enough compromise to state its a magazine that focuses on effective altruism. i'll self-revert, sorry. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 21:36, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

I think that's a fair compromise, especially since it doesn't appear that they currently receive funding from CEA. They have a different funding disclosure at https://asteriskmag.com/about , for example. Secarctangent (talk) 02:21, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Tescrealism and techno-fascism

This is the one topic that this article dances around and barely manages to address. We do get some glimmers:

It has also been suggested that Peter Thiel is sympathetic to TESCREAL ideas.

Dave Troy called TESCREAL an "ends justifies the means" movement that is antithetical to "democratic, inclusive, fair, patient, and just governance". Gil Duran wrote that "TESCREAL", "authoritarian technocracy", and "techno-optimism" were phrases used in early 2024 to describe a new ideology emerging in the tech industry."

Kelly Hayes recently addressed the techno-fascism of the tescrealists in her new August article, "The Frightening Intersection of Christian Nationalism and Techno-Fascism" but it only scratches the surface. With Thiel-financed JD Vance citing Curtis Yarvin, a lot more needs to be said here. In summary, the tescrealists are embracing what is being described as a kind of reactionary modernism. Viriditas (talk) 22:31, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Looks like the source from Kelly Hayes is a blog. And it's not very representative of the movements targeted by the term TESCREAL, which are mostly left-wing and atheist when looking at the surveys. Alenoach (talk) 23:54, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, what? I think you failed to read the article or understand what I was even talking about. Viriditas (talk) 00:27, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

New York Magazine covered this subject back in 2017 in "The Techno-Libertarians Praying for Dystopia":[19]

There are people who believe that the future of our species involves shedding our humanity in a marriage with AI; this is known as transhumanism, and it has not unreasonably been called a new tech religion. Though the movement has no explicit political affiliations, it tends, for reasons that are probably self-explanatory, to draw a disproportionate number of Silicon Valley libertarians. And the cluster of ideas at its center — that the progress of technology will inevitably render good ol’ Homo sapiens obsolete; that intelligence, pure computational power, is to be pursued above all other values — has exerted a powerful attraction on a small group of futurists whose extreme investment in techno-libertarianism has pushed them over an event horizon into a form of right-wing authoritarianism it might be useful to regard as Dark Transhumanism.

This was the entire subject of the 2020 book Survival of the Richest. The author of that book, Douglas Rushkoff, has talked about how he was writing about tescrealism before he became aware of the term, using the word "mindset" instead. This is nothing new, and this current article doesn’t cover the tendency of the tescrealists to turn towards and advocate for fascism. Viriditas (talk) 00:47, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Early critics of tescrealism

I was surprised to find that William Irwin Thompson was an early critic of what has now become known as tescrealism. This needs to be explored. Viriditas (talk) 09:00, 15 October 2024 (UTC)