100% this is it. This is also why they joined the party of projection. They have become the old out of touch individuals clutching so tightly to their idealized dreams, that they are willing to make actual progress come to a screeching halt bc they can’t accept the reality that if those dreams ever happen, they won’t get to benefit

What do you do when you have way too much money and power, and you can’t accept reality? You try to buy and control reality no matter the cost.

That saying comes to mind about great people planting trees despite knowing they will never get to experience their shade. These are not great people, and they should not be in positions of power and leadership. Given the choice, they would choose destruction of the future rather than helping to build a future if they won’t directly benefit.

Is a scenario where humanity no longer exists, and eventually they’re just an brain in a vat floating through empty space until eventually even that smashes into a rock or gets sucked into a black hole somehow more desirable than the immortality achieved when your name and your contributions to humanity live on for sometimes hundreds or even thousands of years after your body dies?

I don’t know if their level of thinking is so shallow that they can’t even stop and really reflect on that reality for five fucking seconds, or if they’ve actually thought about it and determined that the brain in a vat scenario is the more acceptable outcome from their perspective. If that’s the case, to quote a Lemmy user on an article about Peter Thiel and transhumanism “I hope we’re alone in the universe.” Or at least, I hope that a black hole turns Peter Thiel into spaghetti before he can float into another society and cause their inevitable destruction, and I really hope he remains fully aware of what’s happening at the end.