1517 — A dispute about indulgences fractures Western Christendom. Who mediates access to the divine? Strange coalitions form — princes, peasants, humanists back Luther for incompatible reasons. The printing press makes it go viral. Over the next few decades, Catholic or Protestant? restructures European politics. War soon follows.
Now — Another schism appears on the horizon, and it may fracture the species. Not over which institution mediates your salvation — but whether biological humans have a future at all. AI rises. The coalitions are forming. We are tracking them here.
Welcome to the bioconservative-successionist divide.*
Bioconservatives — want to keep the future human, indefinitely. Skeptical of radical enhancement, wary of AI systems that might replace or transcend us.
Successionists — open to post-human futures. View advanced AI or enhanced beings as a natural next step, less concerned with maintaining humanity in its current form.
* These terms are provisional. The actual coalitions will be messier — strange bedfellows, internal fractures, positions that don't map cleanly.