Philo aux Bains: How technofascists took power
2025-09-28 10:30 - 12:00 (Europe/Zurich)
What if real power was no longer wielded in ballot boxes or parliaments, but in lines of code, digital infrastructures and the messianic dreams of Silicon Valley? In their hard-hitting essay, Apocalypse Nerds, journalists Nastasia Hadjadji and Olivier Tesquet analyze the emergence of a new regime of authority they call technofascism: a distributed, opaque form of power, where the state reprograms itself like a start-up and visionary billionaires – Musk, Thiel, Vance, Yarvin – sketch out the contours of an anti-democratic future.
Combining journalistic investigation and philosophical reflection, the authors map this shift from the political to the technological, and highlight a disturbing recomposition of the imaginary of power. Far from a science-fiction dystopia, Apocalypse Nerds reveals a present already in progress, where the old tension between Enlightenment and Anti-Enlightenment, democracy and authoritarianism, emancipation and selection, is replayed.
We invite you to come and talk to Nastasia Hadjadji and Olivier Tesquet about this captivating investigation, which questions our relationship with technology, democracy and the future.
The meeting will take place under the Bains yurt, free admission.

Philo aux Bains: How to respond to the violence of capitalism? with Nicolas Framont
2026-03-15 10:00 - 11:30 | Yurt
How do we respond to the violence of capitalism? And what happens when this violence is no longer merely structural, but provokes irreversible action?
For this Philo aux Bains event, we welcome Nicolas Framont, sociologist and editor-in-chief of Frustration magazine, for a discussion based on two of his books: Parasites and Saint-Luigi: comment répondre à la violence du capitalisme.
In Parasites, Nicolas Framont dismantles a well-honed ideological mechanism: that of designating certain populations as “welfare recipients”, “profiteers” or “burdens” on society. Against this rhetoric, he asks a simple, incisive question: who is really living off whom? Through a sociological and political analysis, he shows how the accusation of parasitism serves to mask the true relations of exploitation and protect the interests of the dominant classes.
With Saint-Luigi, he takes a different approach, more directly rooted in a tragic news item: the murder of Brian Thomson by Luigi Mangione. Based on this event, Nicolas Framont proposes a reflection on political and social violence. What does such an act say about the times in which we live? How can we understand how an individual could commit such an irreparable act in the name of denouncing capitalism? And above all: how can we respond to systemic violence without tipping ourselves into a logic of destruction?
As always at Philo aux Bains, this meeting is intended as a space for collective reflection, taking the time to consider the tensions of our times – and the possible paths towards greater justice.
The meeting takes place as part of the FIFDH.
Under the yurt, free admission.

Philo aux Bains: Science, knowledge and mysteries of the animal body with Virginie Jean
2026-03-28 14:00 - 15:30 | Yurt
What if certain practices escaped the all-too-simple categories of “science” or “superstition”?
What if, between technical gesture and intuition, between accumulated experience and mystery, there were another way of inhabiting the world?
As part of the Festival Histoire et Cité, whose theme for 2026 is “Comme par magie” (As by magic), Philo aux Bains is delighted to welcome Virginie Jean, cow whisperer.
In contrast to a strictly technical vision of animal care, his work is part of an ancient tradition: that of the “rebouteux” and “rebouteuses”, who, through touch, close observation, listening to the body and empirical knowledge often transmitted outside academic frameworks, relieve, heal and rebalance.
Is it folk knowledge? An art of gesture? A form of magic?
What does it mean to “care” when you’re working with living beings, in close proximity to the body?
How can we think about these practices in a world dominated by scientific veterinary medicine? Opposition, complementarity, cohabitation?
This meeting will be an opportunity to explore the tensions – but also the possible dialogues – between rationality and belief, tradition and modernity, the visible and the invisible.
In the course of the discussion, we’ll also question our contemporary relationship with living things: what does caring for animals say about our way of being in the world? What is legitimate knowledge? Who decides what’s science and what’s folklore?
The meeting will take place at the Bains des Pâquis, on the pier, under the yurt. Free admission.
