In More Everything Forever, science journalist and astrophysicist Adam Becker challenges the sweeping technological visions promoted by Silicon Valley and its business leaders. He critiques promises of immortality, space colonization, and AI supremacy, arguing that these grandiose fantasies function more as ideological diversions than genuine efforts to improve humanity’s future. Instead of addressing urgent problems on Earth, Becker contends, such utopian schemes operate as elaborate distractions, shifting attention away from the immediate crises facing our world.
Questioning the Gospel of Endless Growth
Becker confronts a core Silicon Valley belief: that endless growth and technological progress will inevitably benefit everyone. He exposes the fallacies behind the startup mantra that exponential expansion and future innovations are inherently positive forces destined to improve life for all. His critique is both refreshing and disheartening. It is refreshing to offer a much-needed challenge to narratives that often go unquestioned in tech culture, yet disheartening for revealing how deeply these problematic ideologies have taken root, shaping the business leaders who are designing our technological future.
Silicon Valley’s Secular Theology
Becker frames the tech elite’s grand visions, rooted in AI supremacy, limitless growth, and immortal space civilizations, as a form of secular religion: a modern faith that technology can conquer anything, even death, and reinforce human transcendence. Figures like Sam Altman, Sam Bankman-Fried, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and others aren’t merely dreaming; they are funding, evangelizing, and actively reshaping our future through these visions.
Illusions on Mars—and Beyond
Becker’s skepticism is grounded in science. He debunks the myth of space colonization by pointing to the inhospitable realities of Mars, radiation, gravity issues, and toxic soil,remarking that even Antarctica seems more habitable by comparison. His takeaway: dreams of Mars and similar utopias obscure the more responsible path. Fixing Earth must take priority over fleeing it.
Becker offers a striking insight in the book: many prominent tech entrepreneurs and CEOs, though inspired by the science fiction found in books, TV and movies, often misunderstood—or outright misapplied—those futuristic visions when translating them into real technologies, everyday life, or imagined worlds beyond our own.
AI Fantasies & Real-World Costs
AI-driven futures form another pillar of Becker’s critique. He argues that AI hallucinations, biases, and limitations are often overlooked by techno-optimists who view “more data” as a cure-all. He warns that investing our hopes in speculative superintelligences distracts from tangible problems like climate change, inequality, and human suffering—issues that demand immediate attention. He challenges the belief, popularized by Marc Andreessen and Jeff Bezos, that using more energy is the key to preventing stagnation in technology innovation and AI.
“Longtermism”: Noble or Elitist?
Becker also examines the concept of what he calls “longtermism”, the philosophy that prioritizes future generations over present suffering. He highlights its troubling implications, citing thinkers who argue that preserving distant futures outweighs addressing current inequalities—or even suggest that lives in wealthy nations matter more due to their projected future influence. The result, Becker argues, is a moral hierarchy that justifies present neglect in the name of hypothetical, far-off gains.
The Echoes of Extremism
Perhaps the most disturbing section of the book traces how futuristic ideologies often carry pseudoscientific and racist undertones. Becker identifies the revival of “human biodiversity” arguments, eugenic ideas disguised in technological language, and a reductive obsession with intelligence as the measure of human worth.
What makes his critique important is the recognition that these concepts gain dangerous new potency when combined with advanced technologies. Unlike their historical predecessors, modern versions can be implemented with unprecedented precision and scale through genetic engineering, AI, and biotechnology. Cloaked in scientific legitimacy, these supremacist narratives become more palatable to mainstream audiences, even while perpetuating the same oppressive assumptions that have justified hierarchies throughout history.
Becker’s Call for Grounded Humanism
Becker isn’t anti-technology, but he warns that ambition is edging toward excess. He calls for sober realism: a human-centered approach that tempers technological dreams with accountability. His appeal for humanism isn’t about discouraging innovation or entrepreneurship; it’s about questioning where those dreams originate and who they truly serve.
Why It Matters
Urgent course correction: Becker urges readers to see beyond techno-utopianism and focus on real crises, climate change, inequality, democratic decay, that shape our actual future.
Belief vs. science: He reveals how speculative futures often masquerade as rational science rather than imaginative speculation or critique.
Ethical accountability: If advanced technologies will reshape the world, who has the moral authority to design that future? Becker insists those in power must answer.
Final Thought
As its title suggests, More Everything Forever serves both as a warning against unbridled ambition and ego-driven excess and as a meditation on humanity’s boundless potential. It offers a timely reality check. In an era where the future is marketed like a commodity, Becker challenges us (especially those in the tech industry) to discern between speculation and substance, dreams and danger, and hubris and hope. It's essential reading for anyone in the tech industry who follows or works for tech billionaires and AI company leaders but feels uneasy about their promises of technological transcendence.
Some Personal Thoughts
I’ve worked closely with some of the tech industry’s most iconic and visionary figures, whose accomplishments have reshaped the software industry and redefined what is possible. Yet behind the mythology, they remain deeply human: fallible, ego-driven, and often wrestling with self-doubt. At times, I aligned with their worldview and served as an evangelist, believing then, and still now, that many of those choices were the right ones. I don’t regret that role, though I recognize its double edge: the same ambition that fueled progress also risked excess, and the same visionary leaps that inspired innovation sometimes overlooked accountability.