This chapter begins by defining ideology in a descriptive and amoral fashion. In doing so, it shows that Greimas’s semiotic square provides a useful means by which to conceive, and delineate, the ideology of infinite times from three alternatives that I respectively term the future primitive ideology, the ideology of extinction and the singularity ideology. In line with this framing, the chapter then completes two main tasks. First, it provides a recapitulation of the infinite times ideology; of the role it plays in bringing Alphabet’s diverse activities together; and of the role it plays in aligning the megacorporation’s interests with those of its users worldwide. Second, it explains how Alphabet is directly and indirectly encouraging developments that are consistent with the future primitive, extinction and singularity ideologies that are all, whatever else their differences, similarly opposed to the ideology of infinite times. Given these discussions, the chapter concludes by emphasizing that, as the ideology of infinite times is as finite as any other ideology, it provides one potential source of Alphabet’s ultimate demise.

Chapter 5 explores transhumanist conceptions of the self. Transhumanist conceptions of the self have been variously described as “informatic,” “quantified,” or “data-based,” and a number of scholars have shown how these conceptions of the self have emerged from a cross-fertilization between the fields of neuro-science, computer science, and artificial intelligence. However, in this chapter, I put transhumanist conceptions of the self in conversation with Alfred Irving Hallowell's work on “The Ojibiwa Self and its Behavioral Enviornment.” In so doing, the chapter provides some new insights into the way transhumanists conceive of the self and the future behavioral enviornments in which posthuman descendants will dwell. The chapter argues that like the Ojibiwa, transhumanists also envision a future in which personhood will not be the sole domain of humanity, but rather, distributed among an array of “other-than-human” powerful beings.