Wednesday, August 27, 2025

#239 / The Great Replacement



Those reading this blog posting may have heard of the "Great Replacement Theory." Here's the definition provided by Wikipedia: 

The Great Replacement, also known as replacement theory or great replacement theory, is a debunked white nationalist, far-right conspiracy theory espoused by French author Renaud Camus. The original theory states that, with the complicity or cooperation of "replacist" elites, the ethnic French and white European populations at large are being demographically and culturally replaced by non-white peoples—especially from Muslim-majority countries—through mass migration, demographic growth and a drop in the birth rate of white Europeans. Since then, similar claims have been advanced in other national contexts, notably in the United States. Mainstream scholars have dismissed these claims of a conspiracy of "replacist" elites as rooted in a misunderstanding of demographic statistics and premised upon an unscientific, racist worldview.

Support for the "Great Replacement Theory" comes from people like Tucker Carlson - and, as the picture I have used at the top of this blog posting implies, Mr. Elon Musk. 

Rolling Stone magazine has published an article that discusses Musk's support of this "great replacement" theory, but I think you'll have to be a subscriber to read it. You can click right here for another article, speaking to the same point about Musk, but you shouldn't have to jump over a paywall to get to it. 

My blog posting today IS about Musk - but it's not about the "Great Replacement Theory." It is about another "great replacement" proposal in which Musk is involved. I am hoping to get you to focus on this other kind of "great replacement" effort that I think is even more serious. 

On Thursday, June 12, 2025, The Wall Street Journal ran an article with the following headline: "Musk Says Tesla Robotaxi Launch Tentatively Planned for June 22." That article, too, is almost certainly paywall protected, so let me quote from the article, so you can see what struck me most forcefully: 

In a flurry of posts on X late Tuesday, Musk hyped up the launch as a vital step toward Tesla’s autonomous future. The first use of Tesla’s robotaxis will start with 10 to 20 Model Ys driving on public roads without a human behind the wheel, before expanding the size of the service based on how well the technology performs, Musk has said. 
“The streets will change very rapidly,” he said in a post. “Autonomous cars will be very common throughout the world in two to three years.” 
In a clip shared by Musk and Tesla, a driverless Model Y SUV turned a corner through a busy intersection in Austin. The video is one of the first times a Tesla has been documented driving without a human in the driver’s seat. A label across the passenger side of the car identified it as part of Tesla’s service, which it calls “Robotaxi.” 
“​​These are unmodified Tesla cars coming straight from the factory, meaning that every Tesla coming out of our factories is capable of unsupervised self-driving!” Musk wrote on X.

The "great replacement" that Musk is trumpeting here is the replacement of human beings by technology.

If you have been reading my blog postings on some sort of regular basis, you will not be surprised that I am talking about this topic, once again. We are acting as though it will be a great advance in our human situation when we have been able to create, by ourselves, technologies that will replace us. 

Who needs "human" intelligence, when an "artificial" intelligence that we have created ourselves is even smarter than we are (allegedly, anyway)? Who needs real, flesh and blood people at the wheel of the cars that convey us around? 

Figuring out how to make human beings superfluous is NOT a step ahead. Speaking theologically - which I sometimes do, even when it's not a Sunday - we are back with Moses, watching the crowds worship the Golden Calf. 

Even "friends" are getting to be "artificial," all of a sudden, but repairing to "Replika," to "find some friends" is not what I have been talking about, as I have been urging us all to start finding some real friends, and to get involved with those friends in "running the place."

That "Great Replacement" idea has put a target on your back. It really has. Musk, and those other "tech-bro" wizards, want to replace YOU (and all of us). 

Flawed as we all may be, that's not the solution to the problem of being alive as a human being!


1 comment:

Thanks for your comment!

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)