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Notes on AI and the New Tech Faith

They do not mean to sound like Marx. Most of them have never read him. They have read about disruption, about scaling, about the promise of exponential returns. Yet when they speak of a world without work, of machines that think and learn, they echo him—these new prophets of code, these tech-bro evangelists of the algorithmic age. Marx wrote that the means of production would someday outgrow the relations that contained them. He saw how the machine, invented to serve, would end by transforming the master. In the clean rooms of San Francisco and Shenzhen, this metamorphosis is nearly complete. The machine no longer takes orders; it anticipates them. The AI developers talk about abundance as if it were a product launch. They say we are approaching an economy of plenty, where labor will vanish and creation will be effortless. It sounds utopian, but it is also eerily familiar. The same rhetoric once surrounded the steam engine, the assembly line, the computer chip. Every new technology h...
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From Krypton to Kansas: The Refugee Who Became America’s Hero

 If you’ve been online lately, you might’ve seen the complaints. Superman, some say, has gone “woke.” They’re upset that the newest version of the Man of Steel is being described as an immigrant, a refugee, an outsider trying to find his place. But here’s the thing: that’s not a new spin. It’s not a modern rewrite. It’s the oldest part of the story. It’s where Superman comes from —literally and symbolically. To understand how we got here, you have to go back. Not to Krypton—but to Cleveland, 1938. Two young men—Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster—sons of Jewish immigrants, created Superman during a time when the world was teetering. Europe was slipping toward fascism. In America, antisemitism was rising. Immigration was tightly controlled. Refugees fleeing Hitler’s regime were being turned away at U.S. ports. The “other,” the outsider, was feared, vilified, shut out. And into that came Kal-El. An alien, cast off from a dying world, sent by his parents to survive among strangers. Raise...
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The Norse Code: Vikings, Violence, and the Unexpected Birth of Empire

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  "The Norse Code: Vikings, Violence, and the Unexpected Birth of Empire" You know, when most people think of European colonialism, they jump straight to the Spanish in the Americas, or the British in India, all red uniforms and tea. But long before that — before muskets, flags, and treaties — there were bearded men in boats, with axes, and an alarming tendency to show up uninvited. I’m talking, of course, about the Vikings. Now the usual story goes: the Vikings were raiders. Plunderers. Pillagers. Yes, they were that — but also something more. Because while they were looting churches in England, they were also accidentally building the foundations of European expansion . Take the year 793 — the infamous raid on Lindisfarne. It wasn’t just the shock of violence. It was the realization that the sea was a highway , not a barrier. The Vikings weren’t trying to build an empire. They were looking for farmland, trade, and a good reason to leave Scandinavia — where, incidentally,...
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