I started writing online ~18 months ago, and since then, my goals have changed multiple times. What was initially being done for fun turned into an unsuccessful quest for a full-time job in crypto to the building of a portfolio for my freelance work. Now, it’s evolving again. My goal now is to make a living from MY writing.

So, in addition to my longer blog posts, I’m starting a weekly newsletter. Each Thursday, I’ll have a few brief stories and finish with a mix of interesting links, hot takes, and good reads.

Welcome to the first edition of Stove Top.

Tech

AI Is Coming For Your Job

I love tech. I pay my bills by writing about tech. I believe tech has been a net positive for society. I agree with Sam Altman that tech has to continue to grow or else the US is fuuckkkeddd, and I’ve written about how the Republicans (and Democrats) should be campaigning on that very point. 

But, I don’t love AI.

It’s not because I think AI isn’t ‘cool’. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. I think the developments in AI are dope. People are building a machine smarter than us for god’s sake. It’s an innovation unlike anything ever before.

And that’s exactly why I don’t love it. In my opinion, we’re not yet ready for something so disruptive. The AI bots counter with the usual spiel about going to the future and technology always working out well in the long-run, but I don’t buy it. The future isn’t necessarily better, just different. We’ll still have problems, but in this case, we’ll have problems that nobody has any idea how to solve. And if we don’t slow down we’re not going to find the solutions in time.

I am planning to write much more on this topic in a future blog post, but one thing I am especially concerned about is the impact of AI on the workforce. Yes, I know that technological innovation historically produces more jobs than it destroys. But there hasn’t been a technological innovation like AI. There hasn’t been anything even close. This isn’t like going from writing on paper to a printing press. This is the printing press doing the writing for you. Or the camera taking the photo for you. And, they do it much better than you could ever dream of.

It’s not out of the question to me that most people currently work jobs that won’t exist relatively soon. We’re already seeing signs of this:

• IBM is using AI to replace 7,800 back office jobs over the next five years.

• Wendy’s, Carl Jr’s, and Hardees are testing AI drive-thru tellers.

• AI is taking the jobs of video game illustrators in China.

Again, I’ll have a lot more to say about this in the future, but for now, I leave you with four thoughts:

1) If you think AI can’t take your job, I have some beachfront property in Montana for you.

2) The phrase “AI won’t take your job, somebody using AI will” is redacted as fuck. That’s not how things are going to go.

3) If your reaction to people losing their jobs to AI is “thems the breaks” then you're a heartless piece of shit.

4) There’s a reason that the people actually building AI are so pro-UBI.

More on this soon.

POLITICS

California Is A Shit Show

For a long time, California was the nation's crown jewel. The gold. The beaches. The agriculture. Hollywood. The Lakers. UCLA. Stanford. Disneyland. The Golden Gate Bridge. Silicon Valley. And above all else, the opportunity to build a new life.

Go west, we were told. That’s your best shot to achieve the American Dream. And they were right. People from all walks of life could make the trek to California and strive for greatness, whether that was tech CEO or factory worker. And, they did it while living a lifestyle not found anywhere else in the US. That allure is what drew more than 300,000 people to California each year of the 20th century.

But those days are long gone. Looking at California now is like watching a slow-motion car crash.

Forget that San Fransisco operates under borderline anarchy, even though it is the 8th most expensive city in the world. Or that Los Angeles has 42,000 homeless people. Or that California is regarded as the worst state to start a business in. Or that tech bros are leaving Silicon Valley en masse. Or the looming financial peril. Or…etc etc.

You get the point. California is selling the bag right now.

Nothing better exemplifies this than the recent report that California is planning to default on $18.5B of debt.

The story goes that California, the supposed tech capital of the world, could not figure out how to stop people from stealing unemployment money. And steal they did to the tune of $30B. Suddenly, California had a shortfall in unemployment money for the people who actually needed it, so they did what any reasonable government would do and took out a loan. Now, instead of doing the usual thing and paying it back, California has decided to just…not.

That is an idiotic decision in and of itself, but it’s compounded by the fact that California actually pulled off a miracle and posted a $97.5B budget surplus last year. That’s enough to pay off the $18.5B debt more than five times over. But doing that would make too much sense. Instead, they are going to drop the bill on the state’s businesses in the form of raising their taxes, adding thousands of dollars of costs onto mom and pops who are already struggling to afford the “California premium”. After all, what’s the worst that can happen? They leave? Yeah right…

Long live the Golden State.

Culture

The True Beauty Of Shrooms

This week was me and my friend’s second annual shroom trip. Our rookie year we just laid in the grass in front of our college dorm all day. But, now that we are seasoned veterans, we hiked out to a forest while we drank the shroom tea. By the time we got there we were both well on our way to headtap city. A few minutes and a trek through a river later and we were posted up on the ground, watching the clouds.

For those who have never taken shrooms before, it’s like watching the greatest movie of all time, except your in the movie while watching it. One moment I was staring at clouds with tentacles and trees bursting out with bees, and the next moment the clouds would shade the spot I was in, freezing me in time. It’s an amazing experience.

And as I’m laying there high out of my god damn mind, I realized what the true beauty of shrooms are. They are not like the other drugs. You don’t really feel them until you stop and lay down, and you have your most powerful hallucinations when you stare at one spot. They force you to slow down. To take a breath. To just stop.

In today’s world of go go go, that’s a beautiful thing.

Extras

• I’ve started a weekly list of good reads on Twitter. Go check it out.

• At this point it’s pretty obvious that corporate price gouging is at least partly responsible for inflation. Hey corporations, cut it out.

• Jokic is better than Embiid.

• Apparently, the odds of finding a man who is not married, at least 6 feet, not fat, and making over $100,000 is 0.35%.

• Aljamain Sterling is the UFC bantamweight GOAT with one more title defense.

• Tucker Carlson is going to fade into obscurity without Fox News. Bill O’Reilly 2023 version.

• The creator economy is becoming too saturated. Disclaimer: I’m a noted hater of the creator economy.

• Ron DeSantis is obsessed with Disney while his campaign is crumbling and RFK JR is claiming the CIA killed JFK. 2023 things.

• Modern medicine never ceases to amaze.

• Political theater over the debt ceiling is dumb as shit. Just raise the damn thing and keep the ponzi alive for a bit longer.

• The border is as crazy as ever.

• Worldcoin is something to keep an eye on.

Until next time, ✌️

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