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San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston joins us for a wide-ranging conversation about the tech billionaire-backed astroturf campaigns that flooded his district with money and disinformation. We dig into how tech barons are reshaping local politics through alleged “grassroots” groups, what it means for democracy when dark money drives housing and policing policy, and how Preston sees the fight for tenants’ rights and progressive politics moving forward.

• The Guardian — Inside tech billionaires’ push to reshape San Francisco politics: “a hostile takeover” (Feb 12, 2024): www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/12/san-francisco-tech-billionaires-political-influence

• The "moderate" political takeover of San Francisco https://newrepublic.com/article/189303/san-francisco-moderate-politics-millionaire-tech-donors

• The Phoenix Project — How Dean Preston Lost (Dec 5, 2024): www.phoenixprojectnow.com/phoenix-review/blog/how-dean-preston-lost

• KQED — In San Francisco’s Local Elections, It’s Big Money Against Progressive Incumbents (Nov 4, 2024): www.kqed.org/news/12012416/san-franciscos-elections-big-money-against-progressive-incumbents

• SFGATE — “‘Fake news’ site publishes more false stories about San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston” (Oct 18, 2023): www.sfgate.com/politics/article/bnn-posts-more-false-stories-about-dean-preston-18429261.php

• Dean's Housing Record https://www.deanshousingrecord.com/

To become a sponsor and get an extra episode each week, visit us at https://www.patreon.com/c/DystopiaNow,

This week, we talked about what AI is doing to our emotions and our relationships. From AI Psychosis to AI Boyfriends, AI is breaking our brains and our hearts.

Further reading:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/audio/2025/aug/28/ai-psychosis-could-chatbots-fuel-delusional-thinking-podcast

https://futurism.com/paper-ai-psychosis-schizophrenia

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/08/19/ai-psychosis-chatgpt-explained-mental-health/

https://www.realtimetechpocalypse.com/p/why-you-should-never-use-ai-under

https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-enshittification-of-generative-ai/

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/technology/chatgpt-openai-suicide.html

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/ai-spiritual-delusions-destroying-human-relationships-1235330175/

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/ai-chatbot-god-religion-answers-1235347023/

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/ai-chatbots-concerns-kendra-tiktok-saga-rcna224185

https://www.reddit.com/r/MyBoyfriendIsAI/

To hear the rest of the episode and become a supporter visit us on Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/c/DystopiaNow

We are entirely listener supported and we appreciate your contributions so much!

This week, we were joined by Rachel Adjogah, of the brilliant Polemics.md blog. discussed The Argument, a new publication funded in part by Open Philanthropy. We also discussed Vox's Future Perfect, and the general problems of having EA/Rationalist aligned reporters cover...themselves.

This week we are off, so thought I'd unlock one of our Patreon eps from the series we did about the Zizians.

We discuss the origins of the Zizian ideology in the Rationalism community, MIRI, CFAR, Roko's Basilisk and Doom Circles.

To hear parts 2 and 3 become a subscriber on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/DystopiaNow

We'll be back on our regular schedule next week.

This week we answered questions from our Patreon supporters about the Bay Area cyberdelic scene, Church of the Subgenius, the persistence of eugenics, anarcho-primitivism, TESCREAL boardgames and what our personal tech (or tech free?) utopias would be.

To hear the rest of the episode become a sponsor at https://www.patreon.com/c/DystopiaNow. We use your $ to edit the podcast.

Further reading:

https://www.thetonearm.com/rhymes-against-reality-with-r-u-sirius-and-his-musical-mindfuckery-2/

https://www.wired.com/2015/07/tech-time-warp-week-wired-eccentric-mondo-2000/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_the_SubGenius

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/07/opinion/genetics-children-noor-siddiqui.html

https://www.vice.com/en/article/john-zerzan-wants-us-to-give-up-all-of-our-technology/

Organizations Mentioned:

https://www.stopai.info/

https://www.stopspying.org/

https://www.eff.org/

https://www.dsausa.org/

https://dair.ai/

Board game:

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/257732/pax-transhumanity

Become a supporter at https://www.patreon.com/DystopiaNow

This week we interviewed astrophysicist and science journalist Adam Becker, author of More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity. Becker contends that Silicon Valley’s grandiose fantasies cloak a hunger for control, often rooted in pseudoscience and elitism rather than real science or ethics Adam cuts through the bullshit of Mars colonization, sentient AI and digital immortality to bring us all back down to earth. Where we live. And are going to stay forever.

Futher Reading:

More Everything Forever:

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/adam-becker/more-everything-forever/9781541619593/

To hear the full ep sign up here: https://www.patreon.com/c/DystopiaNow

In the 1990s, at the height of the Grunge Era, a small but ambitious group calling themselves the Extropians dreamed of transcending the limits of the human body and mind, through technology, radical life extension, and an unapologetically libertarian vision of the future. In this episode, we trace their journey from obscure online mailing lists to their outsized influence on today’s transhumanist movement, Silicon Valley techno-utopianism, and AI ideology. We’ll unpack their proactionary principle, ties to effective altruism and longtermism, and the Network State movement.