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Bertrand Russell, a member of the Fabian Socialist society and the libertine Bloomsbury Group, was a leading humanist/atheist who rejected the concept of a transcendent Creator. In the 1950s, he predicted the rise of the world-wide scientific dictatorship:

"It is to be expected that advances in physiology and psychology will give governments much more control over individual mentality than they now have...enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda... The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. When the technique has been perfected, the government...will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen."

"A scientific oligarchy is bound to become what is called 'totalitarian', that is to say, all important forms of power will become a monopoly of the State [and its corporate partners]... Many 'progressives' were taken in by an argument for a new kind of oligarchy: "We progressives are the wise and good; we know what reforms the world needs; if we have power, we shall create a paradise." And so, narcissistically hypnotized by contemplation of their own wisdom and goodness, they proceeded to create a new tyranny, more drastic than any previously known..."

"I do not see how any internal movement of revolt can ever bring freedom to the oppressed in a modern scientific dictatorship... [however] I do not believe that dictatorship is a lasting form of scientific society, *unless it can become world-wide*..."

-- Bertrand Russell, "The Impact of Science on Society" (1953)

archive.org/details/TheImpactOfScienceOnSociety-B.Russell

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