Recently, it occurred to me that I am unemployable. I am no longer equipped to be an employee.
Most employees are using tools that did not even exist 3 years ago.
Consider email.
Email used to be synonymous to white collar drudgery. Now it’s all automated. Just install an AI browser extension and the days of writing emails are gone.
From drafting newsletters and blogs to building presentations and summarizing meetings, AI has taken over all business tasks: marketing, sales, research, talent management, and pretty much everything else.
Now here is the thing.
I have never used AI and have no intention of ever doing so. What does that say about my employment prospects? My colleagues would finish their work before I even started mine. I might as well show up with a typewriter and fountain pen. Besides, I’d make a lousy culture fit, and I’d have nothing to contribute to those Ted Lasso discussions at the water cooler.
What I’m trying to say is this:
Work is not human any more.
It used to be that employees needed people skills. Now they need AI-prompt skills. Your average worker is glued in front of Zoom displays all day, faking nervous smiles to prolong their employment.
I decided I don’t want to play that game.
But even if I wanted to . . . that ship has sailed. Why hire a human when AI can run circles around average human output? Is it any wonder the tech industry is shedding thousands of jobs every day. Not a single day has gone by in 2024 without major lay offs. This week, Microsoft got rid of thousands, just as their market cap reached 3 trillion dollars.
Some observers claim that human workers are now useless. This is incorrect. Humans are not useless. The right word is disposable. Consider this progression:
Two centuries ago, humans were incentivized to show up at the factory conveyor belt.
Last century, humans were incentivized to show up at the office.
In 2020 they were incentivized to show up at Zoom meetings.
By 2030 humans will be incentivized to become data cows. Farmed, herded, and milked 24x7 for everything they perceive, feel, say, and do.
Since the onset of the industrial age humans have always been disposable units of production (human resources). The only thing that evolved was incentives:
Past: Humans gave their labor to factories and offices in return for central bank printed notes (i.e. fake monopoly money).
Future: Humans feed their life force into black mirror displays in return for dopamine infusions.
But let’s slow down for a minute and look at a recent example.
Did you hear about Rabbit?
It’s a small and inexpensive accessory that completes online tasks. Gone are the days of needing a smartphone to order dinner, get a taxi, or book travel. Rabbit uses AI to complete your everyday tasks with minimal interaction. There is nothing to learn and nothing to break.
To understand the monumental importance of this new product category we need to appreciate its true purpose.
You see, smartphones suffer from a major shortfall.
Depending on who you ask, smartphones have achieved a 90% average adoption. Why not 100%? Because 10% of the people cannot use them. Last year, I wrote:
If there is one thing that slows down our technocrat overlords is that old people don’t grok technology. They are not good at downloading apps, scanning QR codes, and producing digital IDs at a moment’s notice.
Old age, disability, digital ineptitude are a stubborn barrier to their absolute aspirations — decommissioning cash, for example, or mandating digital IDs and electronic health passports for everyone. As long as there is a 5%, or even 1%, that is unable to comply, then all their coercion efforts are rendered mute.
That’s where disposable AI gadgets like Rabbit come in.
Can’t use a smartphone? Here, take this plastic junk that lets you order junk food with zero effort. Hang it on a lanyard around your neck and you’re good to go. Undecided? Here is a free McBurger and free Uber ride to help with your decision. That’s how you nudge the masses.
Rabbit will retail for $199. Give it a year or two, however, and devices like Rabbit will cost next to nothing. Great! Now you can get a $10 Disney-themed tracker lanyard for your kids and grandma.
Please understand: You and I are not the real customer of those products. The real customer is governments who will eventually dole them out for free, just like all the other beautiful things they gave us for free.
So, there you go, a tracker for everyone: Smartphones for the able; plastic lanyards for the old, poor, and unable.
And when the next climate- or health-related lockdown happens, the masses will have no plausible excuse for not carrying a personal tracker.
Of course, some of us will “forget” or “misplace” them, but those edge cases will be dealt with by wrist-slaps and fines, akin to driving without a license. What? You walked down the street without your prison tracker? Bad boy, no Netflix for a week, that should teach you. What? You did it again? 100 points de-merit on your digital ID. Repeat offenders will have their digital money frozen, confiscated, or worse.
And then people will ask themselves, “how did we ever allow this to happen?”
I will tell you how.
Take a look at how Ray-Ban advertises their AI-powered sunglasses — go ahead, I’ll wait.
Is it cocaine, speed, MDMA, I can’t say for sure, but those Ray-Ban users appear to be on drugs.
Now, let me ask you: How did you feel when you slid your finger on your first iPhone? Or when you opened your first Facebook account, or when you first scrolled down Instagram? We’ve all experienced those highs. Eventually, our system metabolized this pleasure and it became our new baseline. Then the next convenience arrived at seemingly no cost:
Here, take Google Maps and never worry about navigating again — wink, wink.
As soon as we grew to expect effortless navigation, then came the next convenience:
Here, take Uber and never worry about driving again; just sit back and let us carry you around.
The first line of cocaine was free; Google Maps was free; Facetime video calls were free; infinite scrolling was free. Fueled by VC funds, loaded with billions of fake monopoly money, the unspoken mandate of the tech industry was to get humanity hooked.
Here, take ChatGPT and you won’t have to toil as a white-collar worker — wink, wink. Write a coherent piece of text? Done. Summarize a long book? Piece of cake. Think, strategize, plan, discern: who has time for difficult things? Let AI carry your burden. Just sit back and watch Netflix.
Wink after wink after wink, the slippery slope of addiction has become impossible to escape from. In 2022, I wrote:
Displays have been creeping up on humans for some time now. It started out slowly, slyly, and imperceptibly.
Cinema projection screens were dozens of meters away from our eyes. A few decades later, television displays advanced to within a few meters. Computers narrowed that distance to less than a meter. Phones and smartwatches shrunk that to a mere few centimeters.
Now, consider the optics of virtual reality headsets. How they wrap around the head like a Ridley Scott Alien creature.
We are now faced with a clear choice. Either we quit this multi-generational trap or we perish — spiritually, mentally, and physically.
But how could we ever give up on smartphones and ChatGPT when employers expect us to use them? Indeed, if we lose our job, how do we feed our family?
Who is going to pay the bills?
That’s a fair question.
EU citizens have to pay several hundred Euros in gas bills each month just to survive and not freeze. What are they supposed to do?
Well, let’s think about it. Only a few decades ago, every home had a fireplace and they were surrounded by trees ready to be cut and burned. What happened to that state of affairs?
What happened is: we gave up on fireplaces and forgot how to handle firewood.
Why?
Because, who has time for firewood? Let’s turn the smart thermostat on, cozy up on the sofa and watch Netflix.
Do you see it now?
Who has time to grow food? Who has time to cook? Who has time to drive? Who has time for hard things when instant gratification is a swipe away?
Don’t think in narrow terms. Zoom out and behold the magnitude of our predicament. Every hour we spend in front of black mirror displays is an hour away from growing food, gathering wood, and meeting our own needs.
Those black mirror displays are the reason we became slaves.
Smartphones and ChatGPT started as party tricks and novelty items. Now they’ve become entry slips for survival. Can you not see where this road is leading us?
What will you say when the only way to keep yourself and your family alive is by staying plugged in to a digital illusion all day, and when the physical world will have become a distant dream of the past?
“You didn’t answer my question. How do I feed my family without a smartphone and without ChatGPT?”
You can start by disconnecting from your black mirror, even if it’s just for a minute. Cancel your Netflix, Spotify, and cable TV. Get your kids off Xbox and Playstation. Firewall your life from smart devices. The more time you spend in the real world, the easier it will get for you to figure things out for yourself.
Every single day I try to take small steps to disentangle myself from this mess. I’ve reverted to GPS handhelds, books, offline MP3 players, fountain pens, and old-school wrist-watches. I’ve lived without a smartphone for a year, and it gets easier each day.
The last remaining smart device in my life is a laptop. Here are some recent changes I’ve made to how I use it:
I moved my calendar to a physical Moleskine weekly planner
Transitioned my journaling to pen and paper. Fountain pens are great for long-form writing
Deleted Twitter (my last social media account)
Unsubscribed from the vast majority of my Telegram groups
Committed to not using the laptop away from my desk — no more bed or sofa browsing.
My next challenge is to get all my writing done on pen and paper, including the articles for this publication.
Speaking of which . . .
Let’s shift gears for a minute, because I want to talk about the future of this newsletter.
Insanely Free is hosted on Substack, one of the few remaining platforms that respect free speech. Sadly, as of late, they’ve been under immense pressure to censor content that is not 100% politically correct. At some point they will need to choose: either become a martyr for free speech or tow the line, comply, and keep their business alive.
As some of you know, Insanely Free used to be hosted on a pay-as-you-go server instance. Self-hosting gives publishers freedom and ownership. The challenge with self-hosting, however, is visibility. This blog languished with only a few subscribers, until I joined Substack. Why? Because Substack is more than just a blog — it’s a social platform that makes it easy for content to be discovered and shared. You don’t get that with self-hosting.
I hope Substack continues to defend free speech. Ultimately, however, the writing is on the wall. Free speech is systematically erased from the internet. Why? Because the Internet was never about free speech. In 2022, I wrote:
Let me say that again for the people at the back. The Internet is not your friend. And for those naive enough to think that the Internet serves to liberate “oppressed” people living under “oppressive” regimes:
The Internet never was and never will support human rights, because those who built the internet do not believe in human rights.
Free speech was merely the cheese on the mouse trap. Now that the trap has snapped shut and everyone is hooked, there is no need for cheese. Free speech is one fake crisis away from disappearing from the internet. And it’s okay. Part of me welcomes the prospect of spending less time on my laptop.
But we are not there yet.
As long as Substack is happy to host me I will continue to reach out to each and everyone of you. If you enjoy my work feel free to send me some sats or buy me a coffee. If you want to make a Bitcoin donation, instructions are here.
Thank you for another great article. I feel a certain kinship with this blog as I too am going through a similar unentanglement from digital life. I've not quite reached your extreme, but I'm striving to fully reclaim my sovereignty. Should the day arrive when substack goes the way of the system, I truly hope that you're able to still get your voice out there. Your words and wisdom help to maintain focus through this fog of technocracy. Peace be with your friend
Excellent article . . I too do not put too much faith in technology or A.I. Both will come up against reality, as will the technocrats . . things like . . silicon chip lifespans, battery lifespans, energy to charge the battery, supply-chain disruptions, etc etc. My favourite quote is this:- "The maintenance of complex systems will be humanities downfall!" . . and this is not something the Technocrats or even A.I can fix . .