TRASHFUTURE Episode: Lock, Stock, and One Infinite Wheel of Suffering feat. Adam Becker

Date: October 14, 2025
Guest: Adam Becker (author, astrophysicist, journalist)

Episode Overview

This episode weaves together nihilistic humor, acute economic critique, and sci-fi dystopianism, as the TRASHFUTURE crew welcomes astrophysicist and author Adam Becker. The discussion revolves around techno-utopian ideologies driving Silicon Valley—especially the cultish belief in AI, immortality, and infinite economic growth—and the psychic torment these beliefs inflict on society. Expect biting satire, absurdist riffs on philosophy, and a forensic examination of how "TestReal" thinking shapes our increasingly digital, disassociated world.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Buddhism, Sisyphus, and the Psychic Trauma of Capitalism

• Buddhism as Absurdist Coping: Nova likens escaping capitalism's cycle to escaping samsara—a Buddhist term for endless suffering and rebirth.

  • "[We] accidentally invented Giza Buddhism... Guy Ritchie... is intimately familiar with the cycle of suffering." (00:36 - Hussein).

• Steven Seagal as Bodhisattva: Joking about Seagal's lack of worldly attachments tying into Buddhist themes (01:22 - Hussein).

2. The AI & Tech Bubble as Fragile Fantasy

• Economic Boom Since 2009—Or Not: The group highlights how much of the post-2009 economic “growth” is built on shaky premises:

  • "If you strip out building Data Centers, the US GDP grew by 0.1% this year." (04:55 - Nova).
  • "80% of the value growth in the S&P 500 is down to AI related stocks..." (04:55 - Nova).

• AI Frenzy Is Circular & Untethered:

  • "This is trillions of dollars of value being exchanged, but none of it connected to any labor and none of it connected to any kind of product consumed by anyone." (06:59 - Nova).

• Taylor Swift as Economic Engine:

  • "If we replace the AI with Taylor Swift, that's definitely a more sound basis for this economy." (05:47 - Adam Becker).

3. DCART xr & Absurd Startup Satire

• Satirical pitch of an app, "DCART xr," transforming reality with AI—leading into a riff about philosophical vapes (08:27 - Adam Becker, 08:37 - Nova).
• "Cartesian dualism is where you have one vape in each hand." (08:37 - Nova).
• "The Neoplatonic vape is just an NFT." (09:23 - Adam Becker).
• Memorable dig: "If you distribute that to every reform UK Voter, you can then tell them that the election is sometime other than when it actually is..." (14:32 - Adam Becker).

4. The TestReal Ideology—Adam Becker's Specialism

• Adam introduces TestReal:

  • "TestReal is an acronym for a set of bizarre, formerly fringe ideologies... Basically the idea here is these are people who want to go to space and live forever and think that that is a real viable thing that can actually be accomplished and would be desirable. And they really believe technology will save them." (15:44 - Adam Becker).

• Highlights its previously fringe nature but warns it's now deeply influential among tech industry elites (16:56 - Adam Becker).

• Mars Colony Fantasies:

  • "We're not going to Mars... Mars is an absolutely terrible place." (18:12 - Adam Becker, 19:45 - Adam Becker).

• Faith in Tech—A Critique:

  • "There is this persistent belief that if you just build a big enough and smart enough AI, it will just solve these problems... That's not how the world works." (21:14 - Adam Becker).

5. The Power Fantasy of Billionaires

• The AI hype exports the billionaire "sycophant" experience to ordinary people, artificially affirming delusions:

  • "The AI will just give you sort of the sycophant experience of being an ultra wealthy person without the wealth or power..." (23:38 - Adam Becker).

• On "Elon Musk’s Mars Plan":

  • "He'd be lucky to get a person on Mars and back safely by 2050. One person." (27:38 - Adam Becker).

• Why are these powerful people so obsessed with limits?

  • "A lot of it is a fear of limits... It's why they're obsessed with brain uploading." (43:15 - Nova).

6. Tesla's "Master Plan" & the Gospel of Infinite Growth

• Tesla’s latest master plan and infinite growth delusion:

  • "Growth is infinite." (41:36 - Nova reading Tesla’s “axioms”).
  • "The false promise of endless growth as a singular utopia shines undimmed by considerations of the fact that if we continue growing our energy use at the same rate as we have since the Industrial Revolution, we'll be using all the energy that the Milky Way galaxy generates in about 37 hours." (43:56 - Nova).
  • "I think it was more like all of the energy in the observable universe in 3,700 years. So it's even worse... Even if you let them break one of the most fundamental laws of physics, you still can't have unconstrained growth." (44:16 - Adam Becker).

• Billionaire Infantilism:

  • "Bezos's desires are those of maybe like a 7-year-old... With Musk, you’re looking at something like a two year old. Someone who wants things but is never satisfied with anything and can't articulate what it is that he actually [wants]." (42:18 - Adam Becker).

7. Techno-Utopianism as Protestantism

• Nova and Adam riff on Silicon Valley as Protestant "build God" cult, waiting for miracles from data centers and AI:

  • "These guys are such fucking Protestants, I swear to God." (48:28 - Nova).
  • "They are just trying to build God." (48:31 - Adam Becker).

• The religious roots of "immortality through tech":

  • "When I say they want to go to space and live forever, this is an idea that fundamentally goes back to, you know, like a kind of Christian millenarian vision." (48:52 - Adam Becker).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the AI bubble and economic fragility:

  • "If the AI bubble pops, there's just nothing holding this together at all." (03:43 - Nova)

• On the absurdity of Mars colonization:

  • "Mars is too awful. The amount of technical challenges that you would have to solve just to send anyone there and back..." (27:54 - Adam Becker)

• On the delusional infinite growth premise:

  • "There is no world in which that happens. There are limited resources. There are limits to everything. And the fact that they can't recognize that... it just... you were talking about Bezos is childlike. I think that in the same way that, you know, maybe Bezos really is more mature than the rest of the billionaires and that Bezos his desires are the desires of maybe like a 7 year old or maybe like a 12 year old. Whereas I feel like with musk, you're looking at something like a two year old." (42:18 - Adam Becker)

• On techno-utopianism as secularized Protestantism:

  • "They're trying to build God in the sense of like... like a claw machine where you just like put in wishes. Because only Protestants think of God is basically a genie. And this is how they're imagining AI." (48:38 - Nova)

• On ultimate limits:

  • "Even if you let them break one of the most fundamental laws of physics, you still can't have unconstrained growth. And they don't care." (44:16 - Adam Becker)

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | Description | |-----------|---------|-------------| | 00:15-01:55 | Opening riff | Giza Buddhism, Sisyphus, Guy Ritchie, psychic trauma analogies | | 03:08-07:07 | Economic Symptoms | Since 2009, GDP fragility, role of AI bubble | | 08:14-14:19 | DCART xr & Startup Satire | App joke, vape riffs, mockery of digital escapism | | 15:44-18:12 | "TestReal" Ideology | Adam explains the core of his book's subject | | 18:12-21:14 | Techno-Utopian Mars Myths | Debunking Mars colonization fantasies | | 23:38 | AI as Billionaire Sycophant | How AI mirrors/creates the experience of billionaire "yes-men" | | 27:38-32:36 | Elon Musk's Mars Delusions | "Getting one person to Mars and back is massive, let alone millions by 2050" | | 34:35-36:31 | Bezos & Energy Fantasies | Bezos's claims about Earth's energy use and space expansion | | 41:36-44:16 | Tesla's Master Plan | Infinite growth fallacies, resource/energy realities | | 48:28-49:10 | Silicon Valley as Protestant Build-God Cult | Religious parallels |

Tone & Language

• Richly irreverent, heavily sarcastic, sharply satirical—TRASHFUTURE’s signature voice.
• Deeply skeptical, but never somber—humor and mockery carry the critique.
• Adam Becker speaks as an expert but with easygoing, exasperated warmth and wit.

Concluding Segment

• Book plug:
  • "You can find More Everything Forever wherever fine books are sold. But indie bookstores or bookshop.org. Or I suppose if you must, you can get it from Amazon." (54:47 - Adam Becker)
• Closing quip:
  • "Just kidding. [Don't buy from Amazon.]" (55:05 - Nova)

TL;DR

TRASHFUTURE eviscerates the cultish faith in AI and techno-immortality coursing through Silicon Valley—exposing it as a billionaire fear response to human limits and death. Astrophysicist Adam Becker brings both expertise and biting humor, arguing there are, in fact, hard limits to energy, physics, and planetary habitation—no matter what the high priests of VC hype decree.

“These fucking people want more everything forever. They believe in infinite growth. And there is no world in which that happens...”
— Adam Becker (42:18)