Wow. There’s a very “room where it happens” vibe about this post. Lots of consequential people mentioned, and showing up in the comments. And it’s making me feel like...
Like, there was this discussion club online, ok? Full of people who seemed to talk about interesting things. So I started posting there too, did a little bit of math, got invited to one or two events. There was a bit of money floating around too. But I always stayed a bit at arms length, was a bit less sharp than the central folks, less smart, less jumping on opportunities.
And now that folks from the same circle essentially ended up doing this huge consequential thing—the whole AI thing I mean, not just Anthropic—and many got rich in the process… the main feeling in my mind isn’t envy, but relief. That my being a bit dull, lazy and distant saved me from being part of something very ugly. This huge wheel of history crushing the human form, and I almost ended up pushing it along, but didn’t.
Tech, which has always made progress in astounding leaps and bounds, is just speedrunning the cycle faster than any industry we’ve seen before. It’s gone from good vibes, to a real thing, to unicorns, to let’s build the Torment Nexus in record time. All in my lifetime...
I was lucky (by which I mean old) to enter this field when I felt, for my own peculiar reasons, that it was at its most interesting. And as it went through each phase, it got less and less interesting to me, to the point where I have little desire to interact too much with it now… In fact, when I think about all the folks I used to work on web shit with and what they’re currently doing, the majority are now woodworkers, ceramicists, knitters, painters, writers, etc. People who make things tend to move on when there’s nothing left to make. Nothing to make but the Torment Nexus.
Oh, damn. I feel so… Sad. For everyone. For the people who they once were, before moloch ate their brains. For us, now staring into the maw of the monster. For the world.
Wow. There’s a very “room where it happens” vibe about this post. Lots of consequential people mentioned, and showing up in the comments. And it’s making me feel like...
Like, there was this discussion club online, ok? Full of people who seemed to talk about interesting things. So I started posting there too, did a little bit of math, got invited to one or two events. There was a bit of money floating around too. But I always stayed a bit at arms length, was a bit less sharp than the central folks, less smart, less jumping on opportunities.
And now that folks from the same circle essentially ended up doing this huge consequential thing—the whole AI thing I mean, not just Anthropic—and many got rich in the process… the main feeling in my mind isn’t envy, but relief. That my being a bit dull, lazy and distant saved me from being part of something very ugly. This huge wheel of history crushing the human form, and I almost ended up pushing it along, but didn’t.
Or as Mike Monteiro put it:
Oh, damn. I feel so… Sad. For everyone. For the people who they once were, before moloch ate their brains. For us, now staring into the maw of the monster. For the world.