Silicon Valley Stoics? Life-Hacking, Transhumanism, and Stoic Therapy

Abstract

This paper seeks to highlight and critically examine a particular oddity of the technological age: the tendency of Silicon Valley executives to turn to Stoic thinkers and Stoic discipline while embracing a view of nature and accompanying view of technology that is, at its core, fundamentally unstoic. I first explain and explore what I take to be the Silicon Valley approach to technology, nature, and the human body by examining the peculiar phenomena of life-hacking and transhumanism. In the absence of clear discussions on Stoic approaches to technology, the paper then turns to selected Stoic writings and interpreters to sketch what such a Stoic approach might look like. This preliminary sketch and comparison demonstrates tension between Stoicism and Silicon Valley, but more importantly offers a tentative explanation for the appeal of the Stoics to those who reject the bounds of nature.