Essay: 'Pedestal cope' — the unquestioned assumption blinding us to AGI risk
danfaggella · x · 2026-10-11
Daniel Faggella's essay Pedestal Cope dissects the unquestioned assumption that modern humans are the central locus of all value and agency, and that future posthuman minds will naturally agree.
He identifies three flavors: people default to an ossified version of today — humans remain the most morally valuable entities, the "main character" with the most agency, and 21st-century Western values (liberty, civil rights, animal welfare) are eternal and will be inherited by all future minds.
He argues this "plot armor" leaves humanity unprepared for conjuring minds 10,000x beyond our own, endangering not only human life but the whole chain of posthuman life, closing with the forces that perpetuate these assumptions and how to face the dawn of AGI more honestly.
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