THE ZEALOUS PRACTICES OF TECH INDUSTRY LEADERS

Abstract

Prepping for the apocalypse. Fighting for eternal life. Building separatist compounds for like-minded people. Reproducing to fill the world with chosen ones. Manifestos to recruit believers. All these practices are age-old characteristics of religious zealots and sound like the makings of a promising cult docuseries. And yet, they are also increasingly common obsessions of leaders of the American tech industry. From building luxury bunkers to hoping cryonic freezing could make resurrection possible, many billionaire and multi-millionaire founders, engineers, and VCs are investing time, money, and attention into speculative pursuits that are often considered the realm of religious paranoia. Through a conjunctural analysis (Hall, 1978), this research gathers evidence of four key religiously coded practices that are coursing through the Silicon Valley elite and examines the guiding ideologies behind them. By connecting the techno-solutionist practices of today’s tech elite to questions that have historically been explored via religious interventions, I hope to decenter appeals to rationality and expose the underlying values and emotions that drive these decisions. Additionally, this framework requires taking these practices seriously as symptomatic of an underlying belief system—rather than just the quirks of people with too much money on their hands. This research will unpack three core focuses: separatist communities, conquering death, and apocalypse prep.