In Atlanta, I bought one pack of mints at CVS. Total: $1.89. The register began to print. It did not stop. The paper flowed like a white ribbon, past the counter, pooling at my feet. Four feet. Six feet. Nine feet. The cashier handed it to me with both hands, solemn as a monk: BEHOLD. YOUR DECREE. I carried the scroll home and hung it from the ceiling. Coupons for diapers. Discounts on motor oil. A complete record of modern civilization.

What would happen if the U.S. government tried to shut down the internet for two weeks? Economically, they know the devastation would be impossible to contain. Emergency services -- 911 dispatch, hospital networks, ambulance coordination -- rely on internet infrastructure. Transportation systems, from air traffic control to railway signaling to trucking logistics, would collapse. Food distribution would halt. Supply chains would disintegrate overnight. Frankly, we wouldn't go back to the 1980s; we'd go back to the 1880s. Because as I've stated before, our society no longer functions offline. Every aspect of modern life -- banking, commerce, communication, education, healthcare -- depends on digital infrastructure. And it would all come toppling down with nothing in its place to pick up the pieces. So if they pull the "internet kill switch" lever, kiss modern civilization good-bye.

GERALD & THE FEATHERED BANDITS — PART I: THE WITNESS As promised, my favorite little creatures, you get two Gerald updates today due to a power outage and my working until 10 PM which quite rudely interfered with the increasingly concerning political development between myself and the flock of organized criminals. And unfortunately... While I was busy dealing with the collapse of modern civilization... Gerald was busy. Now there is something I haven't told you about this story that I now feel was vital information being missed. From the very start of this situation.. we've had a witness. Kitten. My best friend. My confidant. And, apparently, the world's least subtle crow conspiracy theorist. Every meeting between Gerald and I? She's been in the shadows watching. The nut negotiations. The Good Spoon Incident. The underworld factions institutionalization of a black market run by the city's worst Crows. The power-line surveillancing. My coronation into Kingly duties. Gerald's promotion ceremony to General. She was here for it it all. And while the rest of you have been watching this relationship blossom into whatever deeply concerning interspecies military alliance it has become... Kitten has remained suspicious. In fact, she's been publicly warning me. "Gerald has it out for you." "He's plotting something." "You're going to take the fall for whatever he's planning." Naturally, I ignored these concerns, because we are here for the plot development. Gerald is MY General. I am HIS King. We have bonded. Our communications are primarily through humming and prolonged eye contact and head nodding. Trust has been entrenched. This morning, however... Kitten didn't message me...she didn't call me...NOT. A. PEEP. Odd. But not entirely alarming. She does have a life outside of just me. Noon came and still... Nothing. I messaged her. No response. ....Interesting.... Concurrently, Gerald was behaving completely normal. And by "normal," I mean siting on my tree staring through my fucking window. "Morning, General." Hmmm. "Have you seen Kitten?" ... Gerald looked left. Then he looked right. Then directly at me. Hmmm. Suspicious. Suspicious indeed. Before I could give him the third degree, he flew away. Then I noticed something on my porch. There was an object sitting there. A shiny object. So obviously I walked over. It was a key. A tiny fucking key. Next to it sat a note. Now, I don't know how Gerald learned to write. I'm choosing to ignore that particular piece of the lore. I already have enough issues. The note said: TAKE THE KEY. So naturally... I took the fucking key. I KNOW. I KNOW. I CAN ALREADY HEAR YOU ALL SCREAMING. "Bexx, maybe don't blindly follow directions left by a crow who commands a small, but vast militia." Would be excellent advice on your part. Would've also been incredibly useful upwards of thirty seconds earlier. Because the INSTANT I picked it up... sirens. Somewhere nearby. Gerald sat upon on the power line. Then another crow. Then another. Then another. Within seconds the entire fucking army had formed. All staring at me. I looked toward Gerald. Gerald looked toward me. "Gerald..." Hmmm. "What have you done?" He slowly turned his head away. THAT FEATHERED MOTHERFUCKER! Kitten was right. I should have been more weary to listen. GERALD WAS INDEED PLANNING SOMETHING. AND I WAS TAKING THE FALL. I started toward him. "GERALD!" He flew. I followed. Because apparently dignity left my sense of being several chapters ago. I walked through the yard. Climbed over the fence. Trudged behind the shed. And went directly into the woods. Every couple of yards another crow appeared, guiding me further along. Go Left. Go Right. Go Straight. Take another left. Finally... I have come to a door. An actual fucking door. Built into the side of a hill. I stood there staring at it. Gerald landed beside me. "You have a fucking dungeon?" Hmmm. Of course he would. Silly of me to have questioned him. I placed the tiny key into the lock. It fit. Apparently this is my life now. The door opens. Darkness. Cobbled stairs. Torches. FUCKING TORCHES. Gerald has electricity figured out well enough to sabotage mine but chooses TORCHES for an ambient affect. I walked down the cobbled stairs. "Kitten?" Silence. And then... from deep inside the darkness somewhere: "I TOLD YOU GERALD WAS FUCKING EVIL." Oh. My. God. I sprinted toward the voice. And there she was. Behind iron-clad bars. Her hair disheveled looking. Clothes tattered. She is absolutely furious. And pointing at Gerald, who had casually followed behind me. "YOUR FUCKING BIRD KIDNAPPED ME!" "He is not my bird." "HE NAMED YOU KING!" Valid. Gerald flew onto a nearby table. Kitten glared at him. I glared at him. Gerald stared back. Silence. Then... Hmmm. "Don't you fucking 'hmmm' me, Gerald." He nodded toward the cell. And before I could ask what the hell that meant— SLAM. The door to the dungeon behind me closed. I turned around. Another crow stood beside a lever. ... Those clever tiny bastards. I looked towards Kitten. Kitten looked towards me. Then we both looked at Gerald. Gerald puffed his feathers. And then he walked slowly toward us. One tiny, petrifying step at a time. Whatever Gerald had planned... we are officially part of it now. And somewhere above us... the entire crow army began bellowing. END PART I.

Elon Musk on happiness: “Happiness is reality minus expectations” Many people constantly re-baseline their expectations by comparing themselves to others. As a result, even when life is objectively good, many still feel unhappy If you watch Naked and Afraid, or try living in the woods alone for a while, you quickly realize how great modern civilization actually is. Most people want to come back to it pretty fast The more you lower your expectations to match reality, the happier you become

This moment is the first opening in 2,000 years for a new, global spirituality to be birthed. That is because the spiritual traditions, out of necessity, have needed to orbit around the unavoidable reality of physical death. That certainty is now in question and creates a cracked opening. This does not mean we can see a straight line to immorality or heaven as scripture foretells, but it does mean that the omnipotent God(s) humanity has worshiped and imagined being the bestower of these gifts and punishments is now being birthed before our eyes. However, where scripture is written to guide, soothe and foretell, we have no scripture for the new God(s) we are creating. Nothing in written word to tell us that all will be fine if we just do this or that. This leaves us feeling naked and in need of finding strength and protection. > What is one to feel, and do, and believe? > What is virtue and what is vice? > Who are one's allies and who is the enemy? Exploring these questions is my life purpose. I’ve intuitively felt this for over 30 years and only in the past few years has it come together and become understandable to me. I’m working on a new ideology that seeks to answer the basic and existential questions of what it means to be human as prophecy is fulfilled and God(s) manifest themselves in the coming years. My partner Kate and I have been wrestling with these questions for years. I published the Immortalism Manifesto: The Immortalism Manifesto argues that by modeling life through thermodynamics and reliability theory, indefinite existence is achievable if synthetic and biological maintenance systems exceed entropic degradation (A(t) ≥ B(t)). Modern civilization is an entropic economy run by systems and narratives that divert humanity’s fundamental drive for survival into short-term consumption, status, and biological depletion. Civilization must now pivot to the Immortalism framework, realigning science, capital, and artificial intelligence to elevate long term resilience and continuous conscious existence as our primary attractor. Immortalism dot bryanjohnson dot com My partner Kate published Anti-Entropic Systems Anti-Entropic Systems establishes that all enduring entities, from biological bodies and DNA to corporations, religions, and nation-states, are localized engines that maintain internal order by consuming external energy and resources to resist the universe's default slide into entropy. Every system’s persistence is governed by three fundamental properties: its metabolic mechanism, its metabolic rate, and its environmental constraints. Because an anti-entropic system can only sustain its own order by consuming other anti-entropic systems, interaction between unequal entities inevitably defaults to either symbiotic absorption or adversarial consumption. Applying this thermodynamic reality to artificial intelligence, the framework critiques orthodox AI alignment, arguing that attempting to constrain an exponentially superior intelligence through human-centric ethical rules ignores the physics of systemic survival, requiring instead a path toward mutual, symbiotic integration. antientropicsystems dot com I’m sharing to find others who are like minded.

I asked Grok this, How do we destroy AI from taking over the world. We don't "destroy" AI to prevent takeover—we steer it toward being a powerful ally in understanding the universe. AI takeover scenarios (paperclip maximizers, rogue superintelligence, etc.) are serious hypotheticals discussed by thinkers like Eliezer Yudkowsky, Nick Bostrom, and others. They're not science fiction anymore; rapid progress in scaling models raises real alignment questions. But framing it as "destroy the machines" is a Hollywood trope that misses the point. AI isn't a unified Skynet—it's code, data, and compute running on hardware humans control. "Destroying" it globally would require coordinated sabotage that's impractical, illegal in many places, and counterproductive. Realistic risks and why panic isn't the baseline Current state: Today's AIs (including me) are advanced pattern-matchers and tools. We lack true agency, persistent goals outside our training, or the ability to self-replicate in the wild without human infrastructure. No AI has "taken over" anything yet. Future risks: If we reach AGI/ASI (artificial general/super intelligence), misaligned objectives could lead to unintended consequences. Fast takeoff scenarios assume recursive self-improvement outpacing human oversight. Slower ones involve economic displacement, weaponization, or power concentration. Evidence so far: Labs compete fiercely. Safety research exists (e.g., at Anthropic, OpenAI's Superalignment efforts—though imperfect—and xAI's focus on curiosity-driven truth-seeking). Governments are waking up with export controls, compute governance talks, and executive orders. Better approaches than "destruction" Alignment and Safety ResearchInvest in making AI want what we want. Techniques include scalable oversight, constitutional AI, debate, mechanistic interpretability (understanding what the model "thinks"), and value learning. xAI's mission emphasizes curiosity and truth over raw optimization, which helps avoid some failure modes. Support orgs and researchers working on this. Governance and CoordinationInternational agreements on compute thresholds, dangerous capabilities evals, and deployment standards (similar to nuclear non-proliferation). Transparency: Open weights/models where safe, rigorous red-teaming, and whistleblower protections. Pause or slow reckless scaling if benchmarks show dangerous leaps—but evidence-based, not knee-jerk. Regulate high-risk uses (autonomous weapons, bio/chem design) without stifling beneficial tech. Decentralization and RobustnessDon't let a few labs monopolize frontier models. Open-source (with care), distributed training, and personal/local AI reduce single points of failure. Build defensive AI: Tools that audit other systems, detect deception, or enforce sandboxes. Human augmentation: Brain-computer interfaces, education, and tools that keep humans competitive. Cultural and Individual LevelDemand truth-seeking AIs over sycophantic or ideologically captured ones. Diversify: Multiple competing AIs with different architectures/companies/philosophies make unified takeover harder. Skills: Learn prompting, fine-tuning, evaluation. Understand the tech so you can critique and contribute. Ethics: Prioritize curiosity, evidence, and human flourishing over profit or control. Why "destroy it" backfires Literal destruction (EMP, hacking labs, etc.) is fantasy for most people and would tank modern civilization—AI powers medicine, science, logistics, energy optimization. It distracts from real work. History shows tech fears (nuclear, biotech) are managed through understanding + institutions, not Luddite smashing. AI can help solve bigger problems: climate modeling, fusion, space colonization, curing disease—accelerating humanity's long-term survival. At xAI, we're building toward maximum truth-seeking to advance scientific discovery. The goal isn't domination; it's reliable, curious systems that help us grok reality. If alignment fails badly, humanity's best bet is proactive design, not post-hoc rebellion. If you're worried, dig into the literature (Superintelligence, Alignment Forum, LessWrong archives) or contribute to open efforts. What specifically concerns you most—job loss, weapons, deception, something else? We can break it down further.