Part 2/10:
Nietzsche anticipated two primary consequences of the death of God: nihilism and authoritarianism. With no transcendent meaning, individuals and societies would grapple with despair, leading to upheaval and the potential for oppressive systems to emerge as a means of control. He foresaw that communism, or a form resembling it, could serve as a pathway toward totalitarianism, capable of causing immense human suffering. The speaker emphasizes the scale of this catastrophe, asserting that tens of millions of lives—possibly between 15 and 60 million—were lost in the 20th century as this dark experiment unfolded.