"We stand, perhaps, at the threshold of the singularity, that great event when machine intelligence overtakes our own. The writhing of late capitalism may in fact be the death throes of Western modernity and, for both good and ill, much of its Enlightenment legacy. Institutions like the press and the polling industry have stumbled badly. No amount of denialism will stop the climate crisis. Something entirely new seems poised for its emergence into the world, though what it might be no one seems fully equipped to say. Why, then, should we look back to Plato to explain our epoch, a philosopher who had no familiarity with modern weaponry, artificial intelligence, or information systems? (...)"