Hello, how are you, welcome to the end times. As I’m running around Hereticon, playing host in a tux and Deadpool mask, my Pirate Wires crew has teamed up with a few young assassins from the Stanford Review (Julia Steinberg, Ahbi Desai, and Elsa Johnson). They’re floating around the conference, taking in the doom and heresy, and recapping what they learn in this here daily roundup. We’ve got a bunch of great, longer-form content on a handful of highlight talks and topics coming your way (probably next week after a round of edits). But, until then, here’s the bird’s eye view.

Enjoy, and hit us up on X to tell us what you think.

— Solana

--

Stratospheric Aerosol Injection: How to Make an Ice Age // Luke Iseman

I got covered in a fine white powder at Hereticon, and it’s not what you’re thinking. Two startup bros popped a giant balloon the size of a European car filled with dust as part of a demonstration by the co-founder of Make Sunsets, who believes climate change is bad, and we need urgent action to fight it. The best way to do that, Luke says, is to deploy reflective clouds of sulfur in the stratosphere, delivered by giant helium balloons. Isn’t this illegal, you might ask? The short answer would be “kinda,” but these are details. “Fuck the precautionary principle. We don’t have time and we never have time,” Luke says. — Julia

Exorcist // Gary Jansen & Mitch Horowitz

The Vatican-approved Chief Exorcist of Washington D.C. is working overtime, and Gary Jansen (in discussion with Mitch Horowitz) — who has worked with the capital’s head demon slayer as well as sitting Popes — told us demonic possession is an undeniable spiritual reality (with evidence!). What does exorcism look like, you ask? Imagine some spitting and facial distortion, minus the pea soup and head spinning you saw in The Exorcist. Levitation is a maybe, and if you see a “smokey snake” figure leave the host’s body and slip out the door, you know you’ve expelled the demon (watch a clip of the talk here). After doing a few whiskeys into the early hours of this morning, I’m over here fighting demons. Someone find Gary, please. — Kevin

Open Mic

Picture the most chaotic open mic ever, where someone casually suggests colonizing Healdsburg, CA with a private foreign legion while another guy explains why we should dump iron into the ocean to save the world. The real MVP? One guy got on stage and declared we need more dinosaur pets and mushroom skyscrapers — right after someone explained why GitHub will literally end civilization. Another highlight was the former evolutionary biology professor and misanthrope teaching everyone why we need fewer experts and more people saying “I don’t know.“ Also, we’re all supposed to be cool with human speciation now? TED Talk meets Burning Man, but make it more apocalyptic. Silicon Valley’s hottest club is definitely this basement full of people plotting to build monuments bigger than the Burj Khalifa while doing ayahuasca. — Elsa

Why the Na’vi Were Misguided // Palmer Luckey

Heretical idea: The ‘good guy’ Na’vi people in the Avatar franchise were actually the bad guys. Think about it: their whole thing is refusing to innovate, and — Palmer argued — this should be viewed as deeply selfish, and basically self-defeating. James Cameron wants you to think the Na’vi’s Luddism is virtuous, but no: it’s a sign of weakness. What else explains the fact that they fumbled their entire civilization to a group of, what, six human security guards? As innovation in tech continues to be threatened by regulators, the talk made one thing clear: we should avoid becoming the Na’vi at all costs. — Abhi

Terraforming Earth: Flood the Deserts, Save the World // Tomas Pueyo

If you’ve ever visited the southwestern US, you’d be a fan of what Tomas Pueyo has to say (unless you’re a freak who loves to say “but it’s a dry heat”). An outspoken advocate for flooding the deserts, Pueyo raised a bold question: why not geoengineer deserts entirely? Citing examples like the Dead Sea desalination efforts, he’s advocating for a world where we take a cue from nature’s own playbook (like when the Strait of Gibraltar broke through to create the Mediterranean sea) and do things like connecting the Baja California coast with the Salton Sea to make our own Amalfi Coast in the outskirts of Vegas. Why visit Europe if we can just build our own? — Abhi

Womanipulation // Diana Fleischman

Pirate Wires alum Diana Fleischman explored the evolutionary strategies women wield to influence social dynamics, which are often more subtle than men’s traditional reliance on force (i.e. violence). Shaping behavior without confrontation has plenty of utility, Diana argued — it enables women to effectively manage social situations, and modern society tends to reward non-confrontational social skills. In essence, women are highly skilled manipulators (womanipulators?), so underestimate that sweet but psycho girl at your own peril, folks. — Abhi

Icesteading the Equator // Roko

After Roko’s icesteading talk, I don’t even want to colonize Mars anymore. My new goal is to be CEO of an iceberg. What am I talking about? Reader, didn’t you know it makes much more sense to transport 100-mile-wide icebergs to Mediterranean latitudes, insulate them so they don’t melt (yes, we can insulate icebergs), and colonize the Pacific with them instead? That’s my new plan, and the first order of business will be programming my Tesla Optimus slaves to build a solar-powered yacht factory, which will be my iceberg’s main export. (Want to get in early? I’m hiring a trade czar, hit me up.) — Brandon

Bubbles: Insane, Irresponsible, or a Secret Third Thing? // Byrne Hobart & Tobias Huber

A world where rogue AIs are minting their own cryptocurrencies and sending them to absurd heights has left many doomers wary of the dreaded “B” word. But not Pirate Wires alums Byrne Hobart and Tobias Huber, authors of new book “Boom: Bubbles and the End of Stagnation,” who argued that bubbles are actually catalysts for innovation, serving as positive forces that, at their best, pull the future into the present in a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. The key? Having a “good” bubble, like Bitcoin or the Manhattan Project, that drives speculative capital towards a truly novel version of the future. These good bubbles fuel FOMO, but also massive investment in adjacent technologies. Remember, your favorite chatbot is running off GPUs originally bought for mining shitcoins in 2020. — Abhi

Don’t Die // Bryan Johnson

The world’s “most measured man” (and yes, that includes the duration of his nighttime erections) gave a talk on his heretical mission for humanity — “Don’t Die” (read Solana's banger interview with him here). Walking the audience through the logic of life extension, Johnson suggested that humans of the 25th century would be grateful we’d cracked the code to “not die” in our lifetime, especially as the AI singularity looms (in other words, get those boners strong, your grandkids are counting on you). Bryan closed his talk by underscoring the importance of getting eight hours of sleep each night, and while we may have seen him raging at the Grimes DJ set until 2:00 am, we’re choosing to let that apparent contradiction slide. Despite the rigorous health protocols, Johnson’s not a stiff (wait). — Abhi

Domestic Extremist: The Trad Wife Returns // Peachy Keenan, Kat Rosenfeld, Liz Wolfe

Peachy Keenan, Kat Rosenfield, and Liz Wolfe discussed the great tradwife panic of 2024. No, they’re not all 1963 cosplayers with Crisco hair and embroidered aprons — they’re just women choosing the home over the corporation. The internet’s convinced tradwives are some BDSM-meets-Little-House-on-the-Prairie situation (always about sex!), but really, they’re just making sourdough and watching their kids grow up. Yes, we acknowledge the Ballerina Farm types, but most tradwives are just regular folks who’d rather master homemaking than climb the corporate ladder. Less kinky than many thought, but just as cool. — Elsa

Based Health, and the Moral Case for Beauty // Raw Egg Nationalist, Pietro Boselli, Patri Friedman

Imagine rolling up to hear Raw Egg Nationalist and Pietro Boselli (yeah, that mathematician / model) channeling Patrick Bateman’s “you can always be thinner, look better” while actually looking like they live it. These guys, with Patri Friedman completing the trinity, are out here mogging everyone while dropping medieval philosophy between sets. Looking like they stepped off Mount Olympus and speaking like they just left Oxford, they explained how your body-mind separation is pure Cartesian cope, while your average modern “expert” looks like they’ve never touched a barbell. Two takeaways: 1) some people really do have it all 2) for the rest of us, there’s no excuse to not try to be both a nerd and a heartthrob. — Elsa

The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels // Alex Epstein

Yesterday, I went to reverse AP Environmental Science, where Alex Epstein — “the worst Epstein,” per his biggest fans (climate activists) — told us we’re in a climate renaissance, not a climate catastrophe. This being Hereticon and not… anywhere else, the audience did not need much convincing. Epstein’s argument is as follows: no energy source better promotes human flourishing than fossil fuels, which also give us the tools for “climate mastery” (the reason why climate-related deaths are at an all-time low). One detail: plant growth is at historic levels, thanks to the CO₂ we’ve been providing them. If plants could talk, they’d be thanking western civilization. — Julia

Culture Bound: You’re Not Autistic, You’re Just an Asshole // Mia Hughes, Andrew Gold, Christina Buttons

In a talk on “culture-bound” disorders, Mia Hughes, Andrew Gold, and Christina Buttons discussed the tangled web of culture and diagnosis. They argued that today’s psychiatric “epidemics” often mirror medieval delusions — like King Charles VI of France’s belief that he was made of glass, which sparked a social contagion of similar “afflictions” — more than genuine pathology. From gender dysphoria to the ADHD surge, the speakers contended that these diagnoses are often less about health and more about social validation or even virtue signaling. For the overwhelmingly Silicon Valley audience reading this, just a thought: maybe you’re not autistic, you’re just an asshole. — Abhi

Baby Bust: What Happens When the Population Crashes? // Simone Collins, Malcolm Collins

With their baby “Industry Americus” strapped to Simone’s back, the most pro-natalist couple in the universe, Simone and Malcolm Collins, told us that civilization is running out of humans. Their fourth infant is a small part of the solution. Current fertility rate numbers are brutal, and without significant changes, our world empties of humans — unless people like the Collinses win out. A thought: if we normalize giving babies names like Industry, people might start making them again? — Elsa

The Apocalypse Ball

At the apocalypse ball, I learned I really dislike absinthe (I am over 21, I promise). I also learned that a certain disgraced A-list Hollywood actor shares my hometown and that a string quartet can (and should) play Weezer. Women wore extravagant beaded gowns and men wore Avatar costumes, tuxedos, and ghillie suits. Over three floors, six bars, and one sushi station, the end of the world was celebrated by all. Don’t ask me about the various manifestos with the Pirate Wires logo littered around the tables. — Julia

--

Edited by Brandon Gorrell, Riley Nork, and Kevin Chaiken.