I like my job. It also feels like a prison.
On the year I spent doing live audio full time, the back injury that ended it, and what employer-tied healthcare actually does to the people depending on it.
Posts tagged "capitalism"
Dave, you should be sorry
His most recent blog post is the worst one, but it isn't new. I read two-plus years of David Heinemeier Hansson's writing, and then watched someone I respect get excited to work with him anyway.
I'm more productive with AI. Why doesn't my paycheck reflect that?
AI has made me measurably faster at my job. My salary hasn't moved. Here's where I think that value is actually going.
If Zuckerberg's right about AI and power, why doesn't it feel right?
Meta's new AI manifesto makes an argument I've made myself, about concentrated power being the real danger. That's exactly why it's worth taking apart.
If AI is unethical, so is your phone
Webinar comments rage about AI ethics and never once mention the cobalt in the phone they typed it on. The selectivity is the actual story.
Is Elon Musk right about universal high income?
Elon Musk says AI and robots will make work optional and hand everyone a universal high income. He never explains how ownership gets from him to everyone else.
Why do I think my AI use is okay?
I use AI every day and I think AI art is bad for the world. Here's my attempt to think through why - honestly.
Who's verifying your Claude account
Anthropic's new identity verification policy is narrower than the takes suggest. The vendor they hired to do it is not.
There is enough for everyone
A record I've been listening to since I was a kid turns out to have been right all along.
There is no ethical way to become a trillionaire
There's no loophole, no asterisk, no charitable reading that makes this false.
What I actually think about AI
I write a lot about using AI as a tool. That probably makes me look like a true believer. The answer is more complicated.
Erasure is the first step. What comes next is worse.
The first books the Nazis burned were about trans people. The fire is the part you remember. The erasure was done by everything that came after - and the same kind of machinery is being assembled now, in public, by companies whose names we know.
ICE pepper sprayed a senator on Memorial Day
What happened at Newark's Delaney Hall ICE detention center over Memorial Day weekend, and the infrastructure that made it possible.
Yet you participate in society. Curious.
On the cognitive dissonance of working in tech while knowing what tech is doing.
Conditional values aren't values
Sticking to your values is easy until it costs you something. That's when you find out if you actually have them.
Is AI going to solve all of our problems?
AI is powerful. That's not the interesting question. The interesting question is why we haven't solved these problems already.
The Palantir Manifesto is a technofascist blueprint
The Technological Republic isn't political philosophy. It's the ideological scaffolding for technofascism, written by the people who profit from it.
When did caring about people become political?
I've spent most of my career trying to stay out of political discussions in professional spaces. Not because I don't have opinions, but because in tech communities, we've generally agreed that keeping our professional spaces focused on the work creates room for everyone. That's still true. This isn't about that.
Can company culture survive capitalism?
Can you build a healthy company culture within a capitalist system that fundamentally rewards the opposite? Maybe. But only if you're willing to accept that the contradictions are features, not bugs.