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🎃 🧟 Prof. Dr Beth Singler 👻 🎃

@bvlsingler.bsky.social

8.2K followers 3.8K following 930 posts

Anthropologist/Geek thinking about how you think about AI & robots. Assistant Professor in Digital Religions at UZH. Bvlsingler.com. She/her. 🌈 https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-mono/10.4324/9781003256113/religion-artificial-intelligence-beth-singler

www.taylorfrancis.com

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🎃 🧟 Prof. Dr Beth Singler 👻 🎃 @bvlsingler.bsky.social · Aug 15

I will never stop banging this drum! 🥁 There 🥁 is 🥁 no 🥁 AI 🥁 in 🥁 the 🥁 predictive 🥁 policing 🥁 in 🥁 Minority 🥁 Report!

Its three psychics in a paddling pool!!

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Reposted by 🎃 🧟 Prof. Dr Beth Singler 👻 🎃

lauren @lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · 4h

alan moore hated people like thiel misinterpreting his work so profoundly that he dropped out of public life to become a shaman and worship a snake deity

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 5h

thiel, man, what the fuck are you talking about

He describes the plot of Watchmen, a 1986 graphic novel involving superheroes grappling with moral questions about humanity against the backdrop of impending nuclear war:

The antihero Ozymandias, the antichrist-type figure, is sort of an early-modern person. He believes this will be a timeless and eternal solution – eternal world peace. Moore is sort of a late-modern. In early modernity, you have ideal solutions, ‘perfect’ solutions to calculus. In late modernity, things are sort of probabilistic. And at some point, he asks Dr Manhattan whether the world government is going to last. And he says that ‘nothing lasts forever.’ So you embrace the antichrist and it still doesn’t work.

Thiel later finds biblical meaning in the manga One Piece, discussing how he believes it represents a future where an antichrist-like one-world government has repressed science. He believes that the hero, Monkey D Luffy, represents a Christlike figure.

In One Piece, you are set in a fantasy world, again sort of an alternate earth, but it’s 800 years into the reign of this one-world state. Which, as the story unfolds, gradually gets darker and darker. You sort of realize, in my interpretation, who runs the world and it’s something like the antichrist. There’s Luffy, a pirate who wears a red straw hat, sort of like Christ’s crown of thorns. And then towards the end of the story, transforms into a figure who resembles Christ in Revelation.

Thiel, along with a researcher and writer at Thiel Capital, explored these ideas at greater length in an essay for the religious journal First Things earlier this month.

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Reposted by 🎃 🧟 Prof. Dr Beth Singler 👻 🎃

Ryan Turnbull @ryankturnbull.bsky.social · 15h

Wild to watch the end of education unfold before our very eyes.

Claire Zagorski, MSc, EMT-P @clairezagorski.bsky.social · 1d

A student on TikTok has been documenting her journey with a professor who “wrote” the anatomy textbook and it’s all a bunch of AI hallucinations.

She’s saying that, understandably, the students are doing super poorly!

Behold what we’re teaching the healthcare professionals of tomorrow:

A diagram of the bones and (some) deep muscles of the hand and forearm. AI says that we only have four digits. It’s also identified a tendon as the median nerve, another tendon as the ulnar nerve, among other issues.

An AI generated diagram of the muscles of the neck. It hallucinated the “ennocleidomasid” muscle, and the “anterior scalpalin muscle”.

An AI generated diagram of the muscles of the lateral thigh. It says that the gluteus Maximus (the big juicy butt muscle) is on the anterior side. It also points to the quadriceps muscle and says “attattment”. It also says that the same structure is the tibia AND the deep fascia of the leg.

An AI generated diagram of the bones of the hand and forearm. This time AI says we have 6 digits. It also says that the radius is the ulnar artery. Among other many issues.

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Reposted by 🎃 🧟 Prof. Dr Beth Singler 👻 🎃

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 5h

thiel, man, what the fuck are you talking about

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Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 8h

My cartoon for this week’s @newscientist.com

A comic strip in six panels. The panels inerlock like a jigsaw with knobs and sockets. Two stick figures walk right to left through all the panels.

Panel 1: Person 1 says "I hear you're working on a new theory."
Panel 2 & 3: Person 2 says: "Yes, I'm calling it the jigsaw model. I think it could change our whole View of reality."
Panel 4: Person 1 says "When Will you publish?:
Panel 5: Person 2 says "But a couple of things are still bothering me." (this piece/panel is a bit squint)
Panel 6: This piece is rotated ninety degees and fits to the others very badly. Person 2 is saying "Soon. I feel like I'm really close"
A second look at the whole comic shows that the last two panels read in the wrong order because the jigsaw has been put together incorrectly.

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🎃 🧟 Prof. Dr Beth Singler 👻 🎃 @bvlsingler.bsky.social · 8h

You also might like this paper: online.ucpress.edu/jrpc/article...

“American Wise Men Discover the Secret of Religion”Religious Content in the Civilization Computer Game Series

The Civilization series of computer games (1991–) is one of the most popular and influential series in the history of computer gaming. The game’s impact and exposure indicate that its treatment of rel...

online.ucpress.edu

Reposted by 🎃 🧟 Prof. Dr Beth Singler 👻 🎃

Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 8h

WELL THEN IT'S NOT MEANINGFUL IS IT, NICK www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

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รℓσαɳε ℓყรɓεƭɦ 🏳️‍🌈 @sloanelysbeth.bsky.social · 13h

imagine you’ve written a script and it gets picked up by a studio. they put a bunch of money in to it. you’re super excited that your movie is gonna get made. then the studio is like ‘…and jared leto will star!’.

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Reposted by 🎃 🧟 Prof. Dr Beth Singler 👻 🎃

Dr. Johnathan Flowers, Blade Wielding Bisexual (Lordean arc) @shengokai.blacksky.app · 13h

You can literally do an ethnography of American expectations of technology by watching all three Tron movies. Each one is a representation of our expectations and cultural narratives about technology.

Also, they’re a lot of fun.

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🎃 🧟 Prof. Dr Beth Singler 👻 🎃 @bvlsingler.bsky.social · 1d

Insta buy :)

Jacob Silverman @jacobsilverman.com · 5d

It's pub day for my book, "Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley," which chronicles the rise of the tech right and their role in the 2024 election. Thanks to everyone who helped along the way.
linktr.ee/gildedrage

Gilded Rage | Linktree

A searing look at the rise of Silicon Valley's far right. Out October 2025.

linktr.ee

Reposted by 🎃 🧟 Prof. Dr Beth Singler 👻 🎃

Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 1d

I wasted way to much time reading this this morning. There's nothing there except evidence that concentrated wealth/capital/leverage just disintegrates coherence. I got more out of a side trip into reading the Book of Daniel (NRSV) which is also incoherent but at least a bit poetic. 1/2

Purge Palantir @purgepalantir.bsky.social · 2d

"'I’m a libertarian, or a classical liberal, who deviates in one minor detail, where I’m worried about the antichrist,' Thiel said during his third lecture."

Okay, dude.

From The Guardian: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Inside tech billionaire Peter Thiel’s off-the-record lectures about the antichrist

The political svengali and investor has been giving lectures on ‘an evil king or tyrant … who appears in the end times’

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by 🎃 🧟 Prof. Dr Beth Singler 👻 🎃

Theo Priestley @tprstly.bsky.social · 1d

Will never forget a few years ago being at a big tech expo and there was a stage with pole dancing robots.

Nobody is mowing the lawn.

Adam Mallinger @bitterscriptreader.bsky.social · 1d

Every A.I. CEO is like “We invented a robot that can fuck your wife so you have more free time to mow the lawn!”

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Reposted by 🎃 🧟 Prof. Dr Beth Singler 👻 🎃

Molly Shah @mommunism.bsky.social · 1d

Living with a kid is being like “why is there a wilted pile of spinach leaves on my coffee table”

Living with a teen is when you have the same question and they try to gaslight you by denying they are there and then claiming you must of done it.

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Reposted by 🎃 🧟 Prof. Dr Beth Singler 👻 🎃

Annalee Newitz @annaleen.bsky.social · 2d

Waiting for a reboot of The Omen where Thiel fights Yudkowsky, hopefully with breath weapons and maybe like lasers that shoot out of their fingers www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

“In the 17th, 18th century, the Antichrist would have been a Dr. Strangelove, a scientist who did all this sort of evil crazy science,” Thiel said in his Sept. 15 opening talk, according to the recordings. “In the 21st century, the Antichrist is a Luddite who wants to stop all science. It’s someone like Greta or Eliezer,” he said, referring to Thunberg and Eliezer Yudkowsky, a prominent critic of the tech industry’s approach to AI.

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Reposted by 🎃 🧟 Prof. Dr Beth Singler 👻 🎃

Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 2d

Mark my words, "Toward an Inflatable Liberationist Theology" is gonna fill an auditorium at AAR.*

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Reposted by 🎃 🧟 Prof. Dr Beth Singler 👻 🎃

Sunny Moraine @dynamicsymmetry.bsky.social · 2d

I know so much of the apocalyptic AI doomer stuff has been about playing AI up to be much more than it’s turned out to be but it does seem like it possesses the capacity to be an existential threat because of the sheer fucking stupidity of the people who are super into it

Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 2d

“In September, scientists at Stanford reported they had used A.I. to design a virus for the first time.”

Opinion | The A.I. Prompt That Could End the World

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by 🎃 🧟 Prof. Dr Beth Singler 👻 🎃

Stephen Nuñez @socio-steve.bsky.social · 2d

THANK YOU. THIS IS WHAT WE MEAN WHEN WE SAY EVERY BILLIONAIRE IS A POLICY FAILURE. IT'S THE INSTABILITY LARGE CONCENTRATIONS OF POWER CREATE. NOT THE LOST REVENUE.

Liberal Currents @liberalcurrents.com · 2d

“The problem with billionaires isn’t that they’re hoarding money that would otherwise pay for a Scandinavian social utopia. It’s that their money has become a source of wildly distorted political power that allows a few men with extremist views to wreak havoc on the rest of us.”

Billionaires Are Hoarding Power, Not Money

Billionaire money has become a source of wildly distorted political power that allows a few men with extremist views to wreak havoc on the rest of us.

www.liberalcurrents.com

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Dr. Holly Walters @manigarm.bsky.social · 2d

Breaking News (over a picture of Indiana Jones): Archaeologist blunders his way through yet another discovery without any actual archaeology. Dozens dead. "He really is quite bad at this" says every other archaeologist.

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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 2d

He wants X thing so he gets X thing is not a given. And to me that's the thing to uproot from people's consciousness. Because we're less than a year in and many people seem already defeated.

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Outspoken™️ @out5p0ken.bsky.social · 2d

Nobel Peace Prize awarded to María Corina Machado, a Venezuelan democracy crusader:

The Venezuelan opposition leader has become a symbol of democratic resistance against an increasingly authoritarian regime.

Guess we extra know why Trump didn’t even make the list

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Reposted by 🎃 🧟 Prof. Dr Beth Singler 👻 🎃

Prof Anna Watts @profannawatts.bsky.social · 2d

Lol the Nobels can't even acknowledge women's contribution to discovery. But sure let's acknowledge The Machines.

Headline from an article in Nature this week that states "Prizes must recognize machine contributions to discovery. The future of science will be written by humans and machines together. Awards should reflect that reality."

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Matthew Cheney @melikhovo.bsky.social · 2d

At an academic conference and the most common conversations I've had is stuff like, "How many faculty is your school trying to fire? Do you still have professional development funds? Do you still have an English department?" Fun times!

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Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 2d

Okay this is a good headline

Guardian Australia @australia.theguardian.com · 2d

You won’t believe what degrading practice the Pope just condemned

Communication must be freed from clickbait and misguided thinking, head of Catholic church tells journalists The Pope has condemned clickbait as a “degrading” part of journalism, at a private audience with global newswires. Australian media representatives were among those to hear directly from Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican on Thursday with about 150 members of newswire alliance MINDS International. Continue reading...

www.theguardian.com

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Ted Olsen @tedolsen.bsky.social · 2d

“Hoard your wealth in case you need it to stop the antichrist“ is very Antichrist.

Gil Durán @gilduran.com · 2d

News: I have obtained full transcripts of Peter Thiel's Secret Antichrist Lectures (as have multiple other journalists).

They were supposed to be embargoed until 9 a.m. tomorrow, but Reuters has a story up. (They may have gotten them from a different source)

www.reuters.com/world/us/pet...

www.reuters.com