Podcast Summary: “The Machine Wants to Kill Us”

Podcast: Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
Host: Ross Douthat (New York Times Opinion)
Guest: Paul Kingsnorth (Novelist, critic, environmental activist, and Orthodox Christian convert)
Episode Date: November 14, 2025

Episode Overview

In this riveting conversation, Ross Douthat sits with Paul Kingsnorth to explore the existential threats and profound changes technology brings to humanity. Kingsnorth, author of Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity, discusses his journey from environmental activism to rural retreat, critiques the “machine” of modern technological civilization, and delves into both the dehumanizing effects of technology and its spiritual dimension. The conversation intertwines critique, philosophical reflection, theological inquiry, and a sense of urgency about drawing lines to resist the totalizing force of technology.

Key Discussion Topics & Insights

1. Paul Kingsnorth’s Personal Retreat from the Machine

• Life in Rural Ireland ([02:25])
  • Kingsnorth describes moving with his family from urban England to rural County Galway as an effort to “escape the machine.” They homeschool their children, farm, and minimize screen time, seeking freedom in limitation.
  • Quote: “We wanted to try and escape the machine, escape the rat race if we could… We wanted to give them some time in nature. We wanted to take them away from the screens which are enveloping absolutely every aspect of education and life for children.” ([02:25])
• Practical Challenges ([03:38])
  • Although not off-grid, the family is semi self-sufficient and intentional about managing technology. Strict screen time rules are liberating, not puritanical.
  • Kingsnorth uses a detached cabin to concentrate writing and corral his own internet use ([04:08-04:30]).

2. The Meaning and History of ‘The Machine’

• Defining the Machine ([06:43])
  • The “machine” is more than smartphones or the internet; it is a technological, economic, and cultural system stemming from Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution, and a shift away from nature and religion.
  • Quote: “The machine is a giant technological, economic, cultural system which… stems from a particular way of seeing… a war against nature, including human nature, using technology.” ([07:00])
• The Net Tightening ([05:53])
  • Kingsnorth notes how dependence on screens has quickly become normal but remains deeply unsettling.
  • Quote (Kingsnorth): “There is a system that is surrounding us that is almost closing around us like a net… If we actually step out of it for a minute and look at it from the outside. We have become utterly dependent on this web of technology that's around us.” ([05:53])

3. Ecological and Human Threats of Technological Civilization

• Destruction of Nature ([09:33])
  • The ‘machine’ mindset leads to environmental devastation: climate change, mass extinction, ocean plastic, etc.
  • Quote: “If you have managed to change the climate of an entire planet … then you’ve got a major problem in your relationship with the natural world.” ([09:33])
• Techno-Solutions vs. Simple Living ([11:04])
  • Kingsnorth critiques the mainstream green movement for embracing technological fixes (wind/solar, lab meat) and sees a risk of dehumanization via “green dehumanization.”
  • Quote: “Do we mean sustaining the progress of machine civilization just without producing carbon… Or do we mean a society which actually is culturally and ecologically sustainable, where we can live human lives?” ([11:04])

4. The Human Soul, Spiritual Dislocation, and Technology

• Religious Journey and Shifting Focus ([13:11])
  • Kingsnorth’s spiritual quest led from pantheism and Wicca to Orthodox Christianity. This shift reframed his view of apocalypse and humankind’s role.
  • Quote: “If you become a Christian, it isn’t possible to be a catastrophist in quite the same way… I'm more concerned, I suppose, now…with the dehumanization of us as people.” ([13:11])
• AI and the War on Human Nature ([14:34])
  • New forms of technology, especially AI, accelerate alienation from ourselves. Technological ambitions amount to a “war against human nature.”
  • Quote: “When we start to talk about creating artificial life… uploading our minds… this is the war against human nature, which is presented as the next stage in progress.” ([14:34])

5. Debating the Story of Progress

• Does Modernity Tame or Entrap? ([15:35])
  • Douthat offers a counterview: tech brings dangers but also miracles; history is a struggle to master tools, not just creative decline.
  • Kingsnorth responds with biblical analogies and asserts human attempts to be as gods (Genesis, Babel) always end in disaster ([16:59]).
• Is There a Healthy Balance? ([20:35])
  • Question: Where is the “good” balance between invention and rootedness?
  • Kingsnorth’s “Four P’s”: people, place, prayer, past—make for a real culture ([24:28]). He points to pre-industrial societies for strong communities and meaningful lives, despite material poverty.
  • Quote: “I try to define what actually makes a real culture… the four P's, which are people, place, prayer, and the past. And I think those are the four legs on which the stool of a real culture is built.” ([24:28])

6. Cycles, Collapse, and Spiritual Renewal

• Can Societies Find Balance or Only Cycle? ([29:37])
  • Douthat asks if revival is possible, or if collapse is inevitable per Spengler/Toynbee. Kingsnorth is skeptical about lasting balance but optimistic that collapse breeds spiritual revival ([31:24]).
  • Quote (Kingsnorth): “Christianity, in particular, is a religion which actually flourishes best when things are collapsing… It's at times when things seem to be collapsing or crumbling, when all the new shoots come up.” ([31:24])

7. The Internet as a Spiritual Threat

• Is the Machine Demonic? ([34:08])
  • Douthat asks, is the Internet “the devil?” Kingsnorth says there’s a spiritual darkness in technology—a tool for “summoning” dark forces, or even the Antichrist.
  • Quote: “Sometimes I think the Internet is a giant Ouija board, and we use it to summon things, and things appear through it… Are we creating these things, or are we summoning them?” ([34:08], [35:08])
• Antichrist as Techno-Savior ([36:50])
  • Kingsnorth: the tech elite’s faith in AI closely mirrors the promise of a false savior. “That's the promise that technology is giving us at the moment. That's the promise that we're being openly given by the people who are creating these great superhuman intelligences… These things are going to bring us together. These things are going to solve our problem. These things will be rational. These things will overcome our human passions….It’s almost as if the technological system is coalescing towards the creation of a being which is seen to be and is promised to be our salvation.” ([39:00])

8. Is All Technological Progress Bad?

• Differentiating Good and Bad Tech ([41:12])
  • Douthat asks: Can we root for Musk’s rockets but not mind uploading? Kingsnorth is skeptical, seeing both as springs from the same rootless drive for limitless progress.
  • Quote: “There's something about these guys… We can go into space. We're going to terraform Mars… Instead of going on an outer journey… maybe we should try and go on an inner journey.” ([42:22])
• Limits as Virtue ([45:01])
  • Any society that cannot recognize limits is doomed to be “boys with toys all the way down.”
  • Kingsnorth: "We're a society which believes all limits exist to be broken. Okay? Culturally, socially, ecologically, technologically. If we see a limit, we just break it." ([45:06])

9. The Fictional Vision: Alexandria

• A Future of Human Uploading vs. Embodied Humanity ([46:09])
  • Douthat discusses Kingsnorth’s novel Alexandria, which imagines a future where most have uploaded their consciousness, while a few remain as embodied humans. Both visions, he says, are terrifying—neither mass digitalization nor radical pre-modern life seem palatable for billions.
  • Quote (Kingsnorth): “There's no way of escaping it, right?… The question is what relationship you can have with it and where you can draw your lines. What you want to do with technology and what you want it to do with you. And if you don't define your relationship with the machine, it defines it for you.” ([48:56])

10. Resistance and Hope

• Drawing Lines, Embracing Humanity ([50:02])
  • The imperative is for individuals and societies to consciously define how technology serves, not the other way around.
  • Quote: “Standing up against this progressive spiritual dehumanization, which is what technology is giving us at the moment, is quite imperative. You've got your lines. You're not going to upload your mind.” ([51:36])
• Christian Hope ([50:15])
  • Despite apocalyptic possibilities, Kingsnorth emphasizes Christian hope: “Be of good cheer for I've overcome the world.” The crisis invites a fresh grappling with the question: what does it mean to be human?

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the Net of Technology:
  “We've very, very quickly got into this situation where everyone's staring down at the screen if they're not surrounded by screens. Takes a huge effort to stay out of it.” —Paul Kingsnorth ([05:53])

• On Trade-Offs:
  “There's always an exchange. So we have a certain level of comfort which most of us don't want to give up. But there's a price to pay for that … But culturally and spiritually, we're not wealthier.” —Paul Kingsnorth ([22:36])

• On the Spiritual Darkness of the Internet:
  “Sometimes I think the Internet is a giant Ouija board, and we use it to summon things, and things appear through it… are we creating these things, or are we summoning them?” —Paul Kingsnorth ([34:08], [35:08])

Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment / Key Topic | |-------------|---------------------------------------------------------| | 02:25 | Kingsnorth discusses his move to rural Ireland | | 04:08–04:30 | Rules for technology in the Kingsnorth household | | 05:53 | The net of technology closing around society | | 07:00 | What is “the machine”? | | 09:33 | The machine’s destruction of nature | | 13:11 | Kingsnorth on his spiritual shift, Christianity, and AI | | 20:35 | Is there a healthy stage or balance in culture? | | 24:28 | The “Four P's” of real culture | | 31:24 | Spiritual revival in times of collapse | | 34:08 | Is the Internet the devil? | | 39:00 | Tech, the Antichrist, and the promise of false salvation | | 42:22 | Rockets, technology, and the lost inner journey | | 48:56 | Is escaping the machine even possible? | | 51:36 | The need to resist “spiritual dehumanization” |

Conclusion

This episode of Interesting Times is a deep, multifaceted conversation between Ross Douthat and Paul Kingsnorth about the perils and prospects of technological civilization. Kingsnorth’s voice is that of a gracious, thoughtful doomsayer—recognizing both the impossibility of full escape and the moral imperative to draw lines, seek rootedness, and reclaim the human in an age of accelerating machine logic. With warmth, challenging ideas, and theological reflection, the episode offers a bracing call not only to resist but to ask anew: what does it mean to be human, and what do we truly wish to keep—or to surrender—in the face of the machine?