Grief Repeating

Also: Anyone opposed to changing the name to Visible Labor?

What’s the word for useful information you wish you hadn’t learned?

Schadenwissen? Kummerwiederholen? Surely the Germans have something — who better to name the act of learning a simple lesson through tremendous suffering?

Maybe you’ve noticed a familiar feeling creeping in over the last six months, a sense of grief repeating. New technologies are promising to “supercharge your productivity.” People are defaulting on loans they never should have gotten. Whispers of “do more with less” are in the air. The girls are once again fighting on Twitter.

The mind may disagree, but the body remembers this particular score. My nervous system is sending squirrel signals like it’s 2008 all over again. Resources are scarce! Ration your stores! Smile more! Wait for treats to be tossed your way! Gather anything you can get!

The real recession indicator is when you start negotiating against yourself instead of your employer.

This time though, we have schadenwissen. Watching the careers we trained for evaporate before our eyes? We’ve done it. Trying to outmaneuver rising costs and stagnant wages? Been there brother. Some of the best nights of my life were spent trying to stretch $5. My favorite shirt is from the blowout sale at the thrift store. Don’t threaten me with a good time.

The last recession was painful, but boy was it illuminating. We saw what happened to lifelong employees. And in the aftermath, we learned that businesses were absolutely not tightening their belts alongside us. They were using 2008 to widen the wealth gap.

We suffered, but now we know. So here’s what we’re not going to do this time around:

1. Other people’s jobs. Scabs hurt everyone. Also, I am tired. Backfill that role or accept that someone will suffer the consequences, and it’s not going to be me.

2. Undersell ourselves. Business doesn’t block its blessings. If I offer myself at a discount, no company is going to talk me out of it. They will take that price, make it my ceiling and call it a cost-cutting measure.

3. Compete with colleagues. Yes, even that one. Say I prove that Diane is a no-good, do-nothing freeloader and I can do her job blindfolded with one hand behind my back. What do you think that does for me? See No. 1.

4. Invisible labor. People get paid to make coffee. I am not undermining my comrades on the Starbucks picket lines by refilling the office coffee pot, Earl.

5. Emotional labor. The great heartbreak of my 20s was finding out that the harder I worked to make people like me, the less they respected me. What’s true for boyfriends is true for business. It is not my job to make the boss feel loved. Again, see No. 1.

We should have known the jig was up when corporations started offering “mental health” days and recognizing Juneteenth. No way capital was going to be forced to care. This is the system trying to course correct. We have to steer into the skid.

Companies will try to pretend it’s 2008 because 2008 worked. Money flooded in, and business was propped up at any expense. At our expense. Many of us are still living with the pains of 2008 — shout out to student loan repayment. We can’t undo the suffering, but we can use what it taught us. We already know today’s graduates aren’t going to accept the same 3-in-1, $35,000 jobs we took out of school. So why would we fall for the “leave it all on the factory floor” mentality that broke the workers who came before us?

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Links to explain why

• “Billionaires have wild ideas about absolution.” Honestly, put it on America’s tombstone. At least we got some libraries out of it?

• The second best thing we can do to billionaires is watch them try to do people things. Not the Graza Drizzle!

• Sammy’s not the only one pretending to be a human. In true mouth-eating-tail fashion, we also have an AI-generated article with the “why god, why” title of “How Should Marketers Market to Consumers Under Stress.” What’s got people stressed out, do you think?

• Let’s hope for our sake Sam Altman stays as bad at making hardware as he is at making lunch.

• Good news! A nonprofit dedicated to helping whistleblowers blab without consequences. May it start by serving Palantir employees! We all know how much Peter Theil likes his secrets in the media.

• A video to explain why Carl who brought an abacus to elementary school is working for McKinsey now.

• A good reminder that the best way to save ourselves is to step outside and embrace the friction of being in community. Other people are both hell and our only hope. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Take the tech bros bowling 🎳

But never start feeling sorry for billionaires

Wraparound sunglasses ✔️

Gambling apps ✔️

Bill Belichick’s girlfriend ✔️

Madras shorts ✔️

4chan (still) ✔️

The late careers of Kanye West and Drake ✔️

Think of what we would have been spared if men had honest friends. But while the second-hand embarrassment is bad (immense, really), that won’t be what kills us. We’ll die because of the ways these men will warp the world just to LARP human friendship.

All his life, Mark Zuckerberg has been a wounded little boy trying to operate the chassis of a grown man. So it should come as no surprise that he believes the “demand” 🚩 for friends outstrips the supply 🚩🚩 and requires AI chatbots 🚩🚩🚩 to fill the gap — all of which he said publicly on a podcast 🚩x10.

Power through the reflex to give the guy a hug though, as this was after his AI chatbots had already impersonated therapists and used John Cena’s voice to groom kids.

Sorry John Cena, but we really can’t see you the same anymore.

That’s all dark as night, but it’s positively comedy next to the tragedy of Marc Andreessen's group chats. For what is the only thing more pathetic than using Clubhouse? Texting a bunch of equally delusional strangers in an attempt to replicate the experience. Unable to pop up as a corporate keynote speaker or require employees to return to office just to listen to him, Marc gathered all the other money-addled men he knew into group chats, likening himself to the dissidents who hand-copied and distributed newsletters to avoid Soviet censorship.

You know, because the men responsible for the collective movement of billions of dollars can only exercise power from under ground.

The result has been what Marc calls a “national vibe shift.” And while I would love to credit these men with shifting nothing more than hairlines, the evidence points to the collective psychosis of our oligarchs, pundits and political elites developing under names like “Free Speakerz” and “🤐Unsilenced 🚫.”

This free (private) exchange (volley) of ideas (delusions) is giving these men the one thing they want more than money — a sense of righteous belonging. Would they have taken to fiddling in politics if they had just one bro around to flick them in the balls and tell them to chill? We’ll never know. But when Elon Musk looks back on the first 100 days of DOGE, you can bet it won’t be the gutted worker protections or unspeakable grifts that warm his heart, but the ice cream-fueled sleepovers he had along the way.

Sadly, the most obvious solution isn’t available — no normal dude can look at these losers without wanting to shove them in a locker. All we can do is bully them so completely even their fake friends can’t soothe the burn.

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Links to Send Your Boss

• While they may hiss and scratch at each other in the private group chat, the power and the people who want it will always stick together at the expense of everyone else. See Reddit’s CEO agreeing to remove anti-Elon content and OpenAI floating interest in buying the new startup from Jony Ive and Sam Altman, leader of OpenAI. Think of it less like an ouroboros and more like a human centipede.

• “The business mindset is a religion for them. And the money is just a proxy metric for how valid they are as people.” A great quote to help you understand tech’s heel turn. It’s not about the money. It’s about the validation.

• How “AI-first” is becoming the new “return to office” — a desperate cry from a wounded managerial class.

• In the first ever instance of Restoration Hardware being relatable, the brand’s CEO let out a live “Oh shit!” after checking his post-tariff stock price on an earnings call. Did you know anyone can join an earnings call and raise their hand to ask a question?

• A new study looking at seven years of project labor agreements — which allow unions to negotiate for wages and workers’ rights before construction starts — actually lower the costs to taxpayers. Turns out when you use highly trained professionals and treat them well, the work gets done better and quicker.

• This month, OpenAI is making the paid tier of ChatGPT free to any U.S. college student. Sort of like training the cashiers to work the self-checkout, no?

• Related, now that universities can no longer profit from the name, image and likeness rights of student athletes, they’re pushing TikTok training to reap the benefits of having influencers on campus.

• Bill Gates does have an offer for the young people though: Launch an AI startup. “Today, somebody could raise billions of dollars for a new AI company [that’s just] a few sketch ideas.” Yes, Bill. That’s the problem.

• Perhaps a better bit of inspiration: Magpies and crows are stealing anti-bird spikes and using them to make nests. Use their weapons against them. Remain ungovernable.

One To Watch
Cole Escola on man’s greatest fear

One To Read
“I’m not ‘depressed,’ she said. Besides, I hate that word.
OK, what should we call it?
She fluffed the pillow behind her back, indignant.
I’m very faithful to my problems.”

—Amity Gaige, Sea Wife

Keep it simple, don’t be stupid

Some things feel almost dumb to write down.

Which is maybe why all week I have seen article after article after post after take festooning the obvious with context. Nuance, theory, history, data — all great for understanding how other people come to their beliefs and not at all necessary for figuring out your own.

You already know the state can’t be allowed to kick people out.

It feels dorky to talk about morals, like a youth pastor with a guitar. Intellectuals argue with all of the facts at the ready. But when you find yourself digging into the fine print of immigration status and disturbance ordinances, what argument are you actually having?

Morals are simple, and inconvenient. We don’t get to talk ourselves out of them, or decide when they apply, or choose who benefits. They don’t care about the details because the details don’t change them. Arguing over the difference between a green card and a visa implies that there’s some circumstance where it’s OK for the state to separate a family. Discussing the Alien and Sedition Acts* accepts that there is an “us” and a “them” where one side writes the rules. Pointing out that Mahmoud Khalil is just one man devalues the individual, and all of us by extension.

We can’t fight every fight. We have to fight the one: Is it right, or is it wrong? Is it OK for the government to disappear people? Is it all right for someone else to make decisions about your body? Should anyone have more than they need until everyone has what they need?

The Right benefits from boogeymen: student protesters and trans athletes and welfare cheats. They want us to carve people out and append caveats to our morals. And just like Charlie Brown, we keep doing it, hoping this concession will be the one that sticks and still missing the ball.

So instead of amassing all the details and preparing for a good-faith argument that’s never going to come, ask yourself: Is it right? You know the answer, and so do they. No one feels smart screaming “That’s not fair!” It’s childish. But if it sounds like the start of a temper tantrum, maybe it’s because we should all be kicking our feet.

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Some Links

The thing about thinking maybe if we just stop protecting these 10 people, or take a “hard line” on this issue is that we have tried it? It is literally all we have ever tried? Even the trans legislator is out here trying to talk about grocery store prices instead of pronouns? Why not roll the dice on what’s right for a change?

You really want to test those morals? Well here’s your chance, because the TSA union just had its contract tossed out for literally no reason other than Republicans didn’t want to honor it. You can let the government change the rules of play on a whim, or you can stand with the people who yell at you while your shoes are off. All of us or none of us.

Really, seriously, Amazon is already using AI to fight unionization. They have the money, the tools and the power. We have each other, and we have to start acting like it.

The guy famous for taking something tangible and profitable (commercial real estate) and turning it into something overhyped and bankrupt (WeWork) is now getting into publishing. Sorry Adam Neumann, but you’re late on this one. I’ve been taking valuable journalism and turning it into useless newsletters for more than 15 years.

Keep messing with their money, it makes them act like the sweaty estranged fathers they actually are, desperate to get your approval.

And here are 30 more things you can do. Scroll to the bottom for our new national anthem.

One thing to read

One thing to watch

*Also, and I know it does not matter, but I literally can’t not say it: Even in 1798 everyone knew the Alien and Sedition Acts were wrong, John Adams was a disappointment to his wife and the country. In the 20th century it has literally only been used to justify concentration camps. You have to wade through layers of evil to get to those laws as a justification. It’s like an evil egg, with the presidency at its orange center.

It’s good politics to look this bad

All spelling errors in this email are intended to draw you closer to me.

The AI has come for me. It doesn’t matter that the chorus of people claiming AI loves em dashes has already been disproven. The idea is out there. A bit of punctuation I use to capture my real, human brain — distractable, prone to tangents — will bring AI to mind. It’s too polished, too formal, too precise. One punctuation pundit says that no real person would bother to memorize a keyboard shortcut. If you want to prove your humanity, you have to go with the hyphen.

Don’t be too right. That’s just fake.

I won’t pretend “-” or “–” can communicate the elegance, the drama, the tension of “—”. But I also know being a pedant has never brought me closer to anyone (at least not to anyone I like). See? A parenthetical. I can change.

Maybe stripping off some of the polish is the best way to relate to each other right now. I don’t think the tone of this newsletter is really coming off as sarcastic nonchalance anymore, so much as a cry for help.

And, frankly, if you are sitting on your heels right now, taking it all in at a jaded remove, you are just as much of a troll as Elon Musk. Because no, no one told us that Google would rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, that it would happen this week and feel like two months. It feels good to see it coming. It feels bad to be a loser. You can’t rewrite reality to make yourself look better. That only works on maps.

So let your finger drop into the picture frame. Stet that spelling error. Keep your undereye bags so visible people trail off before they can finish asking how you are. Let them know. Because either they’re doing just as bad, or they’re lying to themselves. Or they’re Elon Musk, because so far he’s the only one who seems to be benefiting. And if it is him, give me a call. I have some things to say. Won’t even need to put me on speakerphone.

Some Links

Yes, “I have been prepared for evil, for greed, for cruelty, for injustice — but I did not anticipate that the people in power would also be such huge losers” is a perfect quote for our times. But this is the one that has been ringing in my head since I read it:

“Silicon Valley believes they are big enough now to create the future, rather than scale up to meet it.”

No one actually wants AI? We just want accessible healthcare and enough money to keep our teeth when we get old. But here we are, sitting across from some tech oligarchs who’ve decided to order “for the table.” This date sucks.

At least AI is starting by taking all of the tech jobs? Eat your own I guess.

Open AI CEO Sam Altman expects “the whole structure of society itself will be up for some degree of debate and reconfiguration” when AI matures. I mean it won’t, but if it did, who’s going to tell Sam he’s already at the top of the power structure he so badly wants to destabilize?

Instead of asking the computers to make art, how about we just ask them to say no for us.

You can kick my girl Lina Khan out of the government, but don’t think for a second that’s going to get her foot off the tech bro’s necks. I know the cult of personality has ruined our democracy, but I just really think she could save us?

There are a lot of bad things happening right now, but nothing is more evil than making me think fondly about George W. Bush. My god.

Ask for a raise. If your boss asks why, tell them the Chief Global Strategist for JPMorgan Asset Management told you. If they say no, quit. This human tie clip is literally calling you a wimp if you don’t.

Eat the rich, but save J.B. Pritzker for last.

“How do I put out a fire?”

I'm not sure this is the answer

Yesterday, a CEO sent me some copy to consider while we drafted a response to the fires eating L.A.

“I asked Claude. It’s not bad, right?”

It’s not. I see worse writing every day. It’s just that using AI to reach wildfire victims is sort of like lighting them all cigars. It may offer some comfort, but it’s going to make the problem worse.

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It’s true that every technology creates its own little wave of despair. The radio will turn us into an idle nation, the car will fracture our communities, the internet will drive us apart, social media will warp our reality. All true, maybe, but not intentionally. On some level, each technology was invented with a desire to reach people.

Look at me, nostalgic for the guy who just wanted to call his classmates ugly on the internet.

We know how all of those are going: misinformation and rising individualism. If that’s what happens when we design for connection, what do we think the unintended consequences will look like when we design for optimization?

I am not, unfortunately, an AI naysayer. It’s good, it’s going to get better, it’s probably not going to kill us, and it will always be a hair uncanny — just enough that it can’t make art. I’m not worried about that. I’m worried about where it leaves us. Because while we debate its interpretation of cubism, the money is looking to wedge it in anywhere a person might have gone.

AI will make a lot possible, but we have to decide what becomes real. And right now, we’re using it to automate our condolences.

Links to things that are more fun

An essay on how small compromises only make the strongman stronger ← Still more optimistic tbh!

The absolute biggest balls I have ever seen, tanking the U.S. economy, getting away with it, and then suing because you don’t want to prove you’re not going to do it again.

Pointing to the real date that tech gave up on content moderation, four years before Mark Zuckerberg’s complete abdication of responsibility.

Before there were “community notes” and AI-generated answers, there was Wikipedia, a place where beautiful nerds could actively work to stomp out misinformation. Now The Heritage Foundation is planning to dox those volunteer editors.

Speaking of moderating and volunteer labor, might be time to move this newsletter.

Everything we do right now is political speech. At least the Chicago Transit Authority understands.

If you ever worry about looking too “desperate” in the job application process, just know that the new head of the FTC, Andrew Ferguson, actively campaigned for the role, all the way up to bending the knee at Mar-a-Lago. Congratulations, it worked! Now you get to decide what to do with Ticketmaster.

OpenAI says it already knows how to make artificial general intelligence. I say that I know how to shovel snow, but the distance remains between theory and reality.

There is something so funny about Bing dressing up as the competition when people search for “Google.” So glad we have these big companies around to drive innovation, truly, no one does it like them.

If you’re going to spend any time thinking about Jimmy Carter — and you absolutely do not have to — do it while reading his Georgia Law Day speech. Come for the moral reckoning, stay to see exactly how genteel a southern “fuck you” can be.

But really, why are you reading this when you could be watching Tremors?

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