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![]() Good News! AI Can Do More BS Work June 16, 2025
A truly intelligent AI would refuse to do such transparently stupid, needless counter-productive BS Work.
So here's the good news about AI: it can now do more BS work, author David Graeber's term for the meaningless churning of bureaucratic "work" that lost its purpose and functionality long ago but is now considered "essential" to the operation of a system in which complexity and self-interest are the masters rather than tools to radically improve efficiency. If we ask, what real-world tasks now take 90% less time, energy, effort and money to complete, the list boils down to marginal ephemera: now my online search for cute kittens is faster and better than ever! Now AI can conjure a look-alike commercial of cute kittens, a "product" whose novelty value wore off months ago. Coding BS work got faster and easier, which means the load of BS work demanded can rise accordingly. If we ask, what real-world tasks now take more time, energy, effort and money to complete, the list is long. Consider the accounting and filing of taxes, an enormous industry of self-serving bureaucracies: politicians need to tweak the tax code to foster the illusion they're serving a constituency they need to get re-elected and their campaign-contribution donors, a vast army of accountants, tax lawyers, etc. need this churn to justify their essential role in the process, and a vast regulatory system of state, local and federal agencies needs the churn to justify their ever-increasing payrolls to codify, publicize, monitor compliance and enforce the constant tweaks in the tax codes. Adjusted for inflation and calculated as a percentage of GDP, tax receipts are remarkably stable. Tax revenues noodle around in a fairly narrow band, and so what's the systemic value-added proposition in constantly tweaking the tax code? There is none. The entire exercise is a self-serving theater of the absurd which ultimately boils down to this: we have so much money sloshing around that we can siphon off staggering sums under the pretense of doing "essential work" that is actually unproductive or counter-productive BS work. I've discussed the catastrophic collapse of efficiency and productivity in building permits and similar gatekeeping functions where activity slows to a glacial pace because stamps of approval must be obtained from a mafioso-type monopoly--a model that's been pursued with great vigor in healthcare, defense, Big Pharma, Big Tech and indeed, Big Everything, because concentrating power and wealth enables monopolies, gatekeeping, self-enriching churn, predatory pricing, diploma / accreditation mills, and all the rest of the sprawling, self-serving BS Work complex. Billions of dollars are being "invested" (heh) in collecting data about consumers whose disposable income is set to drop to zero as the Everything Bubble bursts. What's the value of all that data when the cash and credit available for households and businesses to blow on fripperies dries up? Zip, zero, nada. All available income will be spent paying the ever-increasing costs of BS Work. All this BS Work churn is highly inflationary, as we're collectively getting nothing but friction and costs--in effect, digging holes and then filling them back up, with zero gain in productivity, efficiency or quality of life. What's remarkable is this highly inflationary churn attracts zero attention. This reflects the overwhelming power of self-interest: touche pas au grisbi: don't touch my skim, scam, stash, loot. The stupidity of a system that spends hundreds of billions of dollars building data centers to do more BS Work because that's what's incentivized by self-interest is comically at odds with its grandiose, self-glorifying claims of artificial intelligence. A truly intelligent AI would refuse to do such transparently stupid, needless counter-productive BS Work. ![]() Regarding the vast sums of money available to blow on BS Work, to paraphrase Captain Renault's comment to Rick in the classic film Casablanca: "Someday money may be scarce." My recent books: Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases originated via links to Amazon products on this site. The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF) Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF) The Asian Heroine Who Seduced Me (Novel) print $10.95, Kindle $6.95 Read an excerpt for free (PDF) When You Can't Go On: Burnout, Reckoning and Renewal $18 print, $8.95 Kindle ebook; audiobook Read the first section for free (PDF) Global Crisis, National Renewal: A (Revolutionary) Grand Strategy for the United States (Kindle $9.95, print $24, audiobook) Read Chapter One for free (PDF). A Hacker's Teleology: Sharing the Wealth of Our Shrinking Planet (Kindle $8.95, print $20, audiobook $17.46) Read the first section for free (PDF). Will You Be Richer or Poorer?: Profit, Power, and AI in a Traumatized World (Kindle $5, print $10, audiobook) Read the first section for free (PDF). The Adventures of the Consulting Philosopher: The Disappearance of Drake (Novel) $4.95 Kindle, $10.95 print); read the first chapters for free (PDF) Money and Work Unchained $6.95 Kindle, $15 print) Read the first section for free Become a $3/month patron of my work via patreon.com. Subscribe to my Substack for free The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century print $20, (Kindle $9.95, Hardcover $24 (215 pages, 2024) audiobook, Read the Introduction and first chapter for free (PDF) ![]() What if the real source of the unraveling is far deeper than economics or politics? What if the problem is what we see as the inevitable destiny of humanity--Progress--is actually a modern mythology, disconnected from the real-world consequences of growth for growth's sake? We indignantly reject that Progress is a mythology, but our need for mythology hasn't gone away because we've mastered technology; we've created a modern mythology of technology that is heedless of its own consequences. To truly progress, we need a new mythology aligned to 21st century realities. That's the goal of this book. Read the Introduction and first chapter for free Self-Reliance in the 21st Century print $18, (Kindle $8.95, audiobook $13.08 (96 pages, 2022) Read the first chapter for free (PDF) ![]() When Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote his famous essay Self-Reliance in 1841, the economy was localized and households supplied many of their own essentials. Now we're dependent on distant sources for our essentials. For Emerson, self-reliance is thinking for ourselves rather than taking the conventional path. Self-reliance today means reordering our priorities and values. Self-reliance is often confused with self-sufficiency--the equivalent of Thoreau's cabin. But self-reliance isn't about piling up money or an isolated cabin; it's about cooperating with trustworthy others in productive networks. The book details the essential mindset of self-reliance and 18 nuts and bolts principles of self-reliance in the 21st century. Podcast with Richard Bonugli: Self Reliance in the 21st Century (43 min)
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Boomers, Let's Face It: The Math Doesn't Work
May 20, 2025
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Smith's Neofeudalism Principle #1: If the citizenry cannot replace a kleptocratic authoritarian government and/or limit the power of the financial Aristocracy at the ballot box, the nation is a democracy in name only. The Smith Corollary to Metcalfe's Law (The Network Effect): the value of the network is created not just by the number of connected devices/users but by the value of the information and knowledge shared by users in sub-networks and in the entire network. (CHS, 4/6/16) My Credo of Liberation: I no longer care if the power centers of our society--the distant, fortified castles of our financial feudal system--are changed by my actions, for I am liberated by the act of resistance. I am no longer complicit in perpetuating fraudulent feudalism and the pathology of concentrated power. I no longer covet signifiers of membership in the Upper Caste that serves the plutocracy. I am liberated from self-destructive consumerist-State financialization and the delusion that debt servitude and obedience to sociopathological Elites serve my self-interests. (Thank you, Klaus-Peter L., for reminding me) "We've become a culture of excuses rather than solutions: solutions always require sustained effort and discipline." (CHS 4/9/16) "Fraud as a way of life caters an extravagant banquet of consequences." (CHS 4/14/16) "Creativity = problem solving = value creation." (CHS 6/4/16) "Truth is powerful because it is the core dynamic of solving problems." (CHS 7/21/17) "We live in a system of human emotions that masquerades as a science (economics)." (CHS 1/1/18) "Always remember, your focus determines your reality." (George Lucas) "Diversity is for poor people. Sameness is for the successful." (GFB) "When power dissipates suddenly, it dissipates completely." (CHS 7/14/19) "Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves." (Henry David Thoreau) "Markets cannot price in the value of non-monetized natural assets such as diverse ecosystems." (CHS 7/14/19) "Magical thinking isn't optimism, it is folly." CHS 1/3/22) "Tune in (to self-reliance), drop out (of hyper-consumerism and debt-serfdom) and turn on (to relocalizing capital and agency)." (CHS 1/5/22) "The path to everything you desire starts here: like yourself as you are right now." (CHS 11/20/22) "There are only two signals: how many essentials you produce and share and if you're consuming less with better results. Everything else is noise." (CHS 12/17/22) "Liberation is no longer needing any confirmation or feedback from others or the world for one's sense of self. Wealth, fame, recognition, admiration, praise, prestige, approval, sainthood, martyrdom, success: none are needed, none are desired." (CHS 12/26/22) "When fame, wealth, prestige, status and glory are out of reach, you're free to pursue other more valuable things." (CHS 2/6/22) "It is the sacred duty of every activist who seeks to better their community to grow and share as much life-giving food as is humanly possible." (CHS 6/15/23) "Being anonymous, gray and unknown is the ideal state of freedom." (CHS 3/15/24) "We seem to have entered a world of anti-leisure and anti-productivity in which the unpaid shadow work demanded to keep all the complicated digital bits in motion obliterate our leisure and productivity." CHS (5/22/24) "It is axiomatic that failing systems work the best just before they fail catastrophically." Ray W. "Looking younger is mere technique; thinking younger demands creativity." CHS (10/16/24) "Tell me what's taboo and I'll tell you the truths that threaten the status quo." CHS (12/15/24) "This is the core of the Attention Economy: the ultimate addiction is the addiction to ourselves." CHS (1/28/25) |
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