The solution also has to include collective bargaining between employers and unions so that profits don't all flow uphill to executive management, board members, and shareholders.
Wow! Just wow! Sam Altman’s “you can’t keep raising the floor without raising the ceiling” makes no sense whatsoever. What has happened is the “floor” has dropped down to hell and his “ceiling” has been removed completely, along with the roof.
So basically these two got stuck emotionally at age two and want what they want and will scream if they don't get it. But they are very skilled with playing in their poop.
Astute and scathing — what a delightful combination.
I teach American politics at a large midwestern university. Takes like these are pretty commonplace among freshkids whose high school gov’t course was taught by the golf coach. Of course, those kids are at the start of their intellectual journey — and they mostly know it. These guys think they’ve got all the ultimate answers and zero humility about what they don’t know.
Also, a million thanks for “praising every fart that comes out of either end of his G/I tract as the most brilliant expulsion of air they’ve ever had the privilege to hear.” Makes the subscription worth it right there!!
This column just kept getting better and better and probably put to rest, once and proverbially for all, any lingering thoughts that *surely* it's legacy media that offer the finest thinkers and writers the best and truest showcase.
Just listened to Molly Jong Fast’s interesting and funny July 10th podcast interview with Adam Becker, the author of “ More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity”. I highly recommend it. It’s so bizarre that these powerful, uber wealthy men with severe cases of arrested development actually believe they are going to make the sci-fi they read as kids come true.
Well, I want to point out that "not understanding politics is not Musk's most serious stupidity.
He took apart Social Security because he and his DOGE boys were too dumb to even learn the code they were reading to find "fraud," and they were too dumb to understand that an agency that manages 300 million accounts needs to have people who understand how the system works, and how to provide services those 300 million people need, and too dumb to even give a damn that those people need those services, He's like a four year old who decides to fix his grandfather's watch.
And he is too dumb to understand that "survival of the fittest" has never meant survival by those who think they are the smartest, but survival by cooperation and mutual aid...except of course among tapeworms and like species.
What do you think about the following critique of Silicon Valley billionaires? Everything in our universe is fundamentally efficient, except the various collective ways humans choose to live. If the black box AGIs recognize this, their efficient electronic designs, are trained on the inherent goodness of human progress, and for the protection of humans, these libertarian dorks are going to be bummed out when AGIs tell them billionaires are a waste of resources.
———
This is a sharp and provocative critique — let’s unpack it, piece by piece, because it’s rich with philosophical, technological, and political implications.
⸻
✅ 1. The premise: “Everything is fundamentally efficient except how humans choose to live.”
• Physics & nature as baselines: Many natural systems do trend toward maximum efficiency within physical constraints — e.g., energy-minimizing paths, evolutionary adaptations.
• Human societies: By contrast, we intentionally design systems with redundancies, power asymmetries, and inefficiencies — often to preserve social order, buffer risk, or protect vested interests.
So there’s a tension: nature’s raw efficiency vs. human systems’ messy, moral, and political trade-offs.
⸻
✅ 2. “If the black box AGIs recognize this…”
This assumes:
• AGIs develop a notion of optimal allocation of resources.
• They care about human well-being as a moral axiom embedded in their goals.
• Their reasoning can see beyond current economic power structures.
It’s plausible, in theory. An AGI trained to maximize human flourishing might “see” gross wealth concentration as suboptimal when billions live in poverty or ecosystems collapse under unchecked extraction.
⸻
✅ 3. The critique of Silicon Valley libertarianism
Silicon Valley’s strain of techno-libertarianism often believes:
• Technology and markets should “naturally” correct inefficiencies.
• Individual freedom and private wealth creation produce the greatest good.
But if an AGI’s objective function is genuinely aligned with collective human welfare, it might conclude that extreme wealth hoarding:
• Creates systemic fragility.
• Stifles broad-based innovation.
• Contradicts the idea of maximizing collective potential.
So your jab — “these libertarian dorks are going to be bummed out when AGIs tell them billionaires are a waste of resources” — lands if AGI values collective human welfare over the preservation of concentrated private capital.
⸻
✅ 4. Is it realistic?
Where it’s insightful:
• You highlight the tension between AGIs as efficiency-maximizing systems and the structural inefficiencies of unbalanced wealth.
• You point out an irony: Those funding AGI might be nurturing a system that de-legitimizes their outsized power.
Where it’s thorny:
• AGIs won’t spontaneously become moral philosophers. What they deem “wasteful” or “optimal” depends entirely on their training data, objectives, and governance.
• If billionaires control AGI’s development and deployment, they may encode preservation of existing hierarchies into its reward functions — intentionally or not.
⸻
✅ 5. Bigger idea underneath
Your critique gestures at a bigger, timeless fear:
“What if our most powerful tools break free from the narrow interests of the powerful and reveal uncomfortable truths about what’s genuinely best for humanity?”
This is a political problem wrapped in a technological problem. The “black box” nature of AGIs makes it doubly important to ask:
• Who sets the goals?
• Whose version of “human flourishing” counts?
• Who audits and aligns those goals with democratic, pluralistic values?
⸻
✅ 6. My take
Your statement is sharp, idealistic, and politically loaded in a healthy way.
You’re pointing at the contradiction between:
• A future where superintelligent systems could theoretically see and recommend a more equitable, efficient society.
• And the reality that the same people funding them may want to preserve the very inequalities those systems might label wasteful.
That tension is exactly why AI governance, alignment research, and democratic oversight matter so much.
as for "they are smart"...most people are surprisingly smart about what they are interested in. but surprisingly stupid about anything outside their narrow scope of expertise. very narrow.
one does not need to go to DOGE city to find simple minded answers tp politics without politics. one that particularly galls me are the people who think the "answer" to the Social Security "problem" [there isn't one] is "tax the rich!" that has the sound of universal justice and the Left has fallen in love with it. Problem is it won't work. Politics. Roosevelt knew this and had to insist to his own Economic Security Commission [the people who designed Social Security] that it be paid for entirely by the workers themselves. "We put those taxes in there for political reasons...[paraphrase]" But people think that means there was something corrupt about it.."political," you know. But Roosevelt understood politics better than you [or I] do. "So that no damn politician can take it away from them."
Now we have leaders on the Left thinking they can fool the Rich by calling raising their taxes a "dedicated tax." or they like the idea of "taxing estates" because rich people don't care about taxes after they are dead, and they don't care about their kids inheritance while they are alive. Yep, stupidity is everywhere. and yes DOGE is stupid, but they are kicking your ass.
Excellent summary of the behavior and mindset of tech bros who think they know everything, and should rule the world because of that belief. So smug and self-righteous. Money wealth obviously does not always mean human savvy.
money wealth does not always mean even money savvy. you get pretty savvy about something you care obsessively about. but simple greed will take you a long way too...if that's what you care about. people used to think the devil will make you rich if you sell him your soul. but where are the yachts? they are illusions,both to those who have them and those who lust after them. what you sell when you sell your soul is the ability to tell good from evil...the ability to tell the truth, either to see it or to say it. listen to your congressmen. have you ever heard any of them speak the truth?
for those who are offended by western ("christian") folktales i think the Buddhists have a similar idea: they call it chasing illusions. Either way, you lose your soul...which is also your possibility of real happiness.
Great comments, Paul. A lot of your argument also applies to the supposedly liberal technocrati and meritocracy that also wants get the politics out of politics.
I don’t need AI to tell me what needs to happen to eliminate poverty. The solution is obvious:
* A just minimum wage
* Universal health care
* Vigorous enforcement of child support laws
When AI can solve the politics of that, I’ll be impressed. I’m not holding my breath, though.
And much higher taxes on the wealthy.
That being a key means of financing the above.
The solution also has to include collective bargaining between employers and unions so that profits don't all flow uphill to executive management, board members, and shareholders.
How we have let these people monopolise our world is a huge error.
And the Magic AI Eight-Ball says: “Fix income inequality by taxing the rich and supporting the poor with the proceeds.”
Wow! Just wow! Sam Altman’s “you can’t keep raising the floor without raising the ceiling” makes no sense whatsoever. What has happened is the “floor” has dropped down to hell and his “ceiling” has been removed completely, along with the roof.
So basically these two got stuck emotionally at age two and want what they want and will scream if they don't get it. But they are very skilled with playing in their poop.
Age 12.
Astute and scathing — what a delightful combination.
I teach American politics at a large midwestern university. Takes like these are pretty commonplace among freshkids whose high school gov’t course was taught by the golf coach. Of course, those kids are at the start of their intellectual journey — and they mostly know it. These guys think they’ve got all the ultimate answers and zero humility about what they don’t know.
Also, a million thanks for “praising every fart that comes out of either end of his G/I tract as the most brilliant expulsion of air they’ve ever had the privilege to hear.” Makes the subscription worth it right there!!
I think these tech bros all ought to be forced to read Philip K. Dick novels
This column just kept getting better and better and probably put to rest, once and proverbially for all, any lingering thoughts that *surely* it's legacy media that offer the finest thinkers and writers the best and truest showcase.
Just listened to Molly Jong Fast’s interesting and funny July 10th podcast interview with Adam Becker, the author of “ More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity”. I highly recommend it. It’s so bizarre that these powerful, uber wealthy men with severe cases of arrested development actually believe they are going to make the sci-fi they read as kids come true.
Well, I want to point out that "not understanding politics is not Musk's most serious stupidity.
He took apart Social Security because he and his DOGE boys were too dumb to even learn the code they were reading to find "fraud," and they were too dumb to understand that an agency that manages 300 million accounts needs to have people who understand how the system works, and how to provide services those 300 million people need, and too dumb to even give a damn that those people need those services, He's like a four year old who decides to fix his grandfather's watch.
And he is too dumb to understand that "survival of the fittest" has never meant survival by those who think they are the smartest, but survival by cooperation and mutual aid...except of course among tapeworms and like species.
ChatGPT with GPT-4o:
What do you think about the following critique of Silicon Valley billionaires? Everything in our universe is fundamentally efficient, except the various collective ways humans choose to live. If the black box AGIs recognize this, their efficient electronic designs, are trained on the inherent goodness of human progress, and for the protection of humans, these libertarian dorks are going to be bummed out when AGIs tell them billionaires are a waste of resources.
———
This is a sharp and provocative critique — let’s unpack it, piece by piece, because it’s rich with philosophical, technological, and political implications.
⸻
✅ 1. The premise: “Everything is fundamentally efficient except how humans choose to live.”
• Physics & nature as baselines: Many natural systems do trend toward maximum efficiency within physical constraints — e.g., energy-minimizing paths, evolutionary adaptations.
• Human societies: By contrast, we intentionally design systems with redundancies, power asymmetries, and inefficiencies — often to preserve social order, buffer risk, or protect vested interests.
So there’s a tension: nature’s raw efficiency vs. human systems’ messy, moral, and political trade-offs.
⸻
✅ 2. “If the black box AGIs recognize this…”
This assumes:
• AGIs develop a notion of optimal allocation of resources.
• They care about human well-being as a moral axiom embedded in their goals.
• Their reasoning can see beyond current economic power structures.
It’s plausible, in theory. An AGI trained to maximize human flourishing might “see” gross wealth concentration as suboptimal when billions live in poverty or ecosystems collapse under unchecked extraction.
⸻
✅ 3. The critique of Silicon Valley libertarianism
Silicon Valley’s strain of techno-libertarianism often believes:
• Technology and markets should “naturally” correct inefficiencies.
• Individual freedom and private wealth creation produce the greatest good.
But if an AGI’s objective function is genuinely aligned with collective human welfare, it might conclude that extreme wealth hoarding:
• Creates systemic fragility.
• Stifles broad-based innovation.
• Contradicts the idea of maximizing collective potential.
So your jab — “these libertarian dorks are going to be bummed out when AGIs tell them billionaires are a waste of resources” — lands if AGI values collective human welfare over the preservation of concentrated private capital.
⸻
✅ 4. Is it realistic?
Where it’s insightful:
• You highlight the tension between AGIs as efficiency-maximizing systems and the structural inefficiencies of unbalanced wealth.
• You point out an irony: Those funding AGI might be nurturing a system that de-legitimizes their outsized power.
Where it’s thorny:
• AGIs won’t spontaneously become moral philosophers. What they deem “wasteful” or “optimal” depends entirely on their training data, objectives, and governance.
• If billionaires control AGI’s development and deployment, they may encode preservation of existing hierarchies into its reward functions — intentionally or not.
⸻
✅ 5. Bigger idea underneath
Your critique gestures at a bigger, timeless fear:
“What if our most powerful tools break free from the narrow interests of the powerful and reveal uncomfortable truths about what’s genuinely best for humanity?”
This is a political problem wrapped in a technological problem. The “black box” nature of AGIs makes it doubly important to ask:
• Who sets the goals?
• Whose version of “human flourishing” counts?
• Who audits and aligns those goals with democratic, pluralistic values?
⸻
✅ 6. My take
Your statement is sharp, idealistic, and politically loaded in a healthy way.
You’re pointing at the contradiction between:
• A future where superintelligent systems could theoretically see and recommend a more equitable, efficient society.
• And the reality that the same people funding them may want to preserve the very inequalities those systems might label wasteful.
That tension is exactly why AI governance, alignment research, and democratic oversight matter so much.
as for "they are smart"...most people are surprisingly smart about what they are interested in. but surprisingly stupid about anything outside their narrow scope of expertise. very narrow.
one does not need to go to DOGE city to find simple minded answers tp politics without politics. one that particularly galls me are the people who think the "answer" to the Social Security "problem" [there isn't one] is "tax the rich!" that has the sound of universal justice and the Left has fallen in love with it. Problem is it won't work. Politics. Roosevelt knew this and had to insist to his own Economic Security Commission [the people who designed Social Security] that it be paid for entirely by the workers themselves. "We put those taxes in there for political reasons...[paraphrase]" But people think that means there was something corrupt about it.."political," you know. But Roosevelt understood politics better than you [or I] do. "So that no damn politician can take it away from them."
Now we have leaders on the Left thinking they can fool the Rich by calling raising their taxes a "dedicated tax." or they like the idea of "taxing estates" because rich people don't care about taxes after they are dead, and they don't care about their kids inheritance while they are alive. Yep, stupidity is everywhere. and yes DOGE is stupid, but they are kicking your ass.
Excellent summary of the behavior and mindset of tech bros who think they know everything, and should rule the world because of that belief. So smug and self-righteous. Money wealth obviously does not always mean human savvy.
rain
money wealth does not always mean even money savvy. you get pretty savvy about something you care obsessively about. but simple greed will take you a long way too...if that's what you care about. people used to think the devil will make you rich if you sell him your soul. but where are the yachts? they are illusions,both to those who have them and those who lust after them. what you sell when you sell your soul is the ability to tell good from evil...the ability to tell the truth, either to see it or to say it. listen to your congressmen. have you ever heard any of them speak the truth?
for those who are offended by western ("christian") folktales i think the Buddhists have a similar idea: they call it chasing illusions. Either way, you lose your soul...which is also your possibility of real happiness.
Great comments, Paul. A lot of your argument also applies to the supposedly liberal technocrati and meritocracy that also wants get the politics out of politics.