Recursing Stapledon: why intelligent successor species keep creating their own destroyers
jd_pressman · x · 2026-09-30
- The author invokes Olaf Stapledon's narrative conceit in Last and First Men, where successive species of Man destroy themselves by creating a new form of Man—even after rising by destroying their own creators.
- He argues some thinkers so trust the 'Promethean element' in Man that they assume intelligent successor species will keep trying to create and control new intelligent life until Man reaches his final form.
- A philosophical AI-circle discussion using classic sci-fi as a metaphor for recursive self-improvement and its risks.
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