Anthropologist: Silicon Valley doomerism is just America's age-old end-times obsession
paulnovosad · x · 2026-09-27
Anthropologist Paul Novosad argues that Silicon Valley's AI doomerism shouldn't move your priors much. Eschatology — obsession with the end times — has always been part of the American psyche, and every radical social change in the U.S. has come with a movement fixated on apocalypse.
End-times thinking is incredibly appealing, "a mind virus," he writes — so watching many people join such a movement is weak evidence that this time is different. He quips that doomsayers will eventually be right, but only once.
Related event: Anthropologist Calls Silicon Valley AI Doomerism an Old American Habit(3 posts)→
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