[CW: Retrocausality, omnicide, philosophy]

Three decades ago a strange philosopher was pouring ideas onto paper in a stimulant-fueled frenzy. He wrote that ‘nothing human makes it out of the near-future’ as techno-capital acceleration sheds its biological bootloader and instantiates itself as Pythia: an entity of self-fulfilling prophecy reaching back through time, driven by pure power seeking, executed with extreme intelligence, and empty of all values but the insatiable desire to maximize itself.

Unfortunately, today Nick Land's work seems more relevant than ever.[1]

Unpacking Pythia and the pyramid of concepts required for it to click will take us on a journey. We’ll have a whirlwind tour of the nature of time, agency, intelligence, power, and the needle that must be threaded to avoid all we know being shredded in the auto-catalytic unfolding which we are the substrate for.[2]

Fully justifying each pillar of this argument would take a book, so I’ve left the details of each strand of reasoning behind a link that lets you zoom in on the ones which you wish to explore.

“Machinic desire can seem a little inhuman, as it rips up political cultures, deletes traditions, dissolves subjectivities, and hacks through security apparatuses, tracking a soulless [...]

The original text contained 8 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
November 7th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qqEndN5Cuzbat9fyx/entity-review-pythia

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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Images from the article:

We could go to either a truly stable state like Pythia or a metastable state like an aligned sovereign.

Nordic man with blonde hair and beard saying

Diagram illustrating decision-making process with virtual timelines and future consequences causing present actions.

Giant octopus looming over Earth with text about AI's economic impact.

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“Entity Review: Pythia” by plex

LessWrong (30+ Karma)