If AI Is So Great, Prove It: Eliminate All Surveillance, Spam and Robocalling

AI is for the peons, access to humans is reserved for the wealthy.

Judging by the near-infinite hype spewed about AI, its power is practically limitless: it's going to do all our work better and cheaper than we can do, replacing us at work, to name one example making the rounds. It's going to revolutionize everything from science to marketing, all the while reaping trillions of dollars in profits for those who own the AI tools, apps, etc.

All these extravagant claims make good clickbait, but let's set a higher standard: if AI is so great, then prove it by eliminating all the surveillance, spam and robocalling that's making daily life such a chore. If AI is so powerful and can do pretty much anything a human can do only faster, better, cheaper, then why doesn't someone assign it a simple task: make all surveillance, spam and robocalling go away and become a thing of the dreary, dreadful past.

I mean, come on, how hard would that be? Humans can spot spam and robocalling a mile away, so shouldn't AI be even better at completely eliminating these miseries from our already-digitally-overloaded lives? as for surveillance, how hard would it be to identify and block every tracker, data vacuum, etc. on all our connected devices?

How hard would it be for AI to identify the entities and humans profiting from ruining our lives with surveillance, spam and robocalling? Wouldn't a publicly updated list of those responsible, including names, business addresses, email accounts, etc. be transparency in action?

As I outlined in Is Anyone Else's Life as Stupidly Complicated by Digital "Shadow Work" as Mine Is? (May 22, 2024), we're squandering our lives dealing with completely needless, useless complexity imposed on us by monopolies, scammers (oh wait, isn't that a redundancy?), rapacious tech platforms, fraudsters and marketers.

If AI is so great, why doesn't it do all this stupidly burdensome "shadow work" for us? When yet another corporate monopoly's products and/or services fails miserably, then why can't AI get on the phone with a tech-support person halfway around the world and get it sorted?

We all know the reason why AI will only add to our misery and shadow work: there's no profit in making our lives easier unless we pay for the "privilege" of not being surveilled, spammed and robocalled to death. This is the price we're paying for allowing tech/corporate monopolies and cartels to dominate our economy, society, political order and daily lives: the only way AI will reduce our shadow work is if reducing our misery is more profitable than adding to it.

If we lived in a truly well-ordered economy / society, every individual participating in surveillance, spam and robocalling would be renditioned to Devil's Island where they could enjoy the company of all the other grifters and scammers who profited from our immiseration.

But alas, we live in an economy / society that has been optimized for parasitic predation and exploitation. And so AI will be deployed not to eliminate the obvious sources of our immiseration but to increase them, until our desperation reaches such an extreme that we're willing to sign up for a special deal, only $99.99 a month (for six months, then the price reverts to $399.99/month, plus applicable taxes), a service that comes with an AI app to fix everything that's broken and dysfunctional.

If you want to actually fix what's broken, well, that requires speaking with a human being, and that's going to cost you extra. AI is for the peons, access to humans is reserved for the wealthy.



new podcast: Financial Nihilism, Inflation & The Collapsing American Dream with Gordon Long (42 min).

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My recent books:

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases originated via links to Amazon products on this site.

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


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Our Crisis of Competence

If this is what passes for competence while we cheerlead "the Roaring 20s", then our delusion has reached "what looks like a permanently high plateau."

That America is mired in a crisis of competence appears to be yet another issue that can't be addressed directly as it might upset the narrative control that all is well and everything is getting better in every way, every day.

And so we sugarcoat the incompetence, the endless delays, the sclerosis and the decline in quality and functionality as if these are all signs of rude, vibrant health rather than signs of systemic decline and decay.

Relatively straightforward infrastructure projects now face years or even a decade of delays / zero real-world progress. I can name several projects in my county where the environmental impact studies and various governmental reports have consumed six years, during which the harbor remains closed, the roads are unpaved gravel, the park is closed and the bridge is awaiting repairs.

When the public rightly complains of years of inaction and foot-dragging, local officials throw up their hands in frustration as all the necessary approvals and funding must wind their way through the impenetrable thickets of state and federal agencies, a leisurely process over which they have no control.

As for the private sector, I've often detailed the immense, systemic decline in the quality of everything from the ingredients in packaged food to "stainless steel", as well as the equally immense burden of unpaid "shadow work" demanded of us all just to manage the complexity thickets generated by "progress."

Stainless Steal (February 26, 2023)

The "Crapification" of the U.S. Economy Is Now Complete (February 9, 2022)

Digital Service Dumpster Fires and Shadow Work (February 14, 2024)

Is Anyone Else's Life as Stupidly Complicated by Digital "Shadow Work" as Mine Is? (May 22, 2024)

If AI Is So Great, Why Is Managing the Digital Realm Eating Us Alive? (March 1, 2024)

No wonder Cory Doctorow's descriptive ens**ttification is the "word of the year." More accurately, it's the word of the decade or the entire era.

Can we dredge up the wherewithal to be honest for a change, and admit that "can do" has decayed to "can't do", as everyone expresses their powerlessness to move anything along with any awareness that time and money are limited? We've reached a state of sclerosis in which near-zero actual progress is deemed not just acceptable but "the best we can do" for a variety of reasons.

One reason is the supremacy of process over results. The system incentivizes and rewards following process, no matter how senseless, inefficient or wasteful that process has become. Those who have mastered narrative control (i.e. "look how wonderfully we're following procedures") and avoidance of accountability for actual results are advanced, and those who chafe at the rank insensibility of over-regulation and processes that prioritize stakeholders' input to the point that nothing gets done are sent to bureaucratic Siberia or quit in disgust.

In this way, the system self-reinforces its most crippling weaknesses. One example is addressed in this article: Departing House Members Ask: 'Why Am I Here?' A wave of retirees from both parties, including committee chairs and rising stars, say that serving in Congress is no longer worth the frustration.

A great many things are longer worth the frustration, and an even greater number of things are no longer worth the price being demanded. Once upon a time, before globalization (a.k.a. arbitraging lower labor costs and lower quality to increase profits) and financialization (a.k.a. the rich get richer by doing nothing) rose to domination, every product cycle delivered improved durability and utility. Now every product cycle delivers reduced durability and less utility, though this is obscured by a flood of "features" that degrade our experience.

Competence has been reduced to 1) increasing profits this quarter; 2) narrative control / social media visibility and 3) following process. If this is what passes for competence while we cheerlead "the Roaring 20s", then our delusion has reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.



new podcast: Financial Nihilism, Inflation & The Collapsing American Dream with Gordon Long (42 min).

---

My recent books:

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases originated via links to Amazon products on this site.

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


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Having Too Much Money Leads to Catastrophe

The best thing that could happen to America would be the destruction of its credit card and a deep, prolonged recession that emptied the punch bowl of phantom bubble wealth and the illusion of endless credit.

Money being scarce saves us from many pernicious forms of mischief, and having too much money/credit leads to catastrophe. This is of course the exact opposite of the conventional belief that having lots of money makes life not just easier but expansive and, well, as perfect as human life can be.

On the scale of nation-states, having too much money/credit leads to the catastrophe of wars of choice, as having a couple million silver ducats to play with opens the door to Imperial temptations, for example, assembling a great fleet of warships and sending this Armada to conquer troublesome England.

I just finished reading what is likely the definitive account of the Spanish Armada: Armada: The Spanish Enterprise and England's Deliverance in 1588.

Digging deep into the extensive archives of the era, the authors' translations of Philip II's voluminous correspondence makes it abundantly clear that the galleons of silver arriving annually from Spain's colonies in the Americas gave the Empire and its leadership the means to conduct ongoing wars in the Netherlands and Italy, conquer Portugal and its island possessions, defend the Empire's far-flung holdings in the Caribbean and the Philippines, as well as entertain a variety of other costly Imperial schemes, from a proposed invasion of a chunk of China (Philip II wisely passed on this request) to establishing a fort to defend the freezing, windswept Straits of Magellan from interlopers seeking to plunder Spanish holdings in the Pacific. (This project rather predictably ended in disaster and was abandoned after squandering treasure and lives.)

Sending an invasion fleet to conquer England was a two-fer for Philip: a Holy War to return Protestant England to the Catholic faith, and a means to root out the piracy of Sir Francis Drake and other English privateers at the source.

Without the millions of silver ducats jingling in his pockets, Philip would not have been able to pursue yet another costly military adventure. Updating the dynamic of too much money/credit leads to catastrophe, had the U.S. lacked the ability to borrow a couple of trillion dollars to fund wars of choice in Iraq and Afghanistan, those wars would have remained pipe-dreams of the neoconservatives bent on a secular version of a "holy war" to impose "our way of life" on other nations (never mind nobody else could afford such extravagance).

In the private sector, we might glance at Facebook/Meta's disastrous squandering of billions of dollars on a quixotic race to scoop up the mythical treasures of virtual reality, a quest that would have bankrupted a company with a smaller pile of ducats awaiting the misadventures of the leadership.

All of which leads us to the present, and America's catastrophic splurging with the nation's credit card, a card with no upper limit, or so it seems, until it's too late and the interest payments ruin the party.

Scarcity of resources, time and cash force innovation, experimentation, discipline, accountability, deferred gratification and resourcefulness because these are the only affordable problem-solving tools available.

In contrast, an abundance of ducats and credit encourages the sins of procrastination / avoidance of hard choices, narrative control as a substitute for actual problem-solving, loss of accountability, delusions of grandeur, the destruction of discipline and the normalization of corruption.

Having too much money / credit also gives free rein to all the classic sins: excessive pride, unbridled greed, wrath (take out the frustrations of failure on weaker parties), envy / class warfare, lust for power, gluttony in all things and sloth / incompetence / waste.

The best thing that could happen to America would be the destruction of its credit card and a deep, prolonged recession that emptied the punch bowl of phantom bubble wealth and the illusion of endless credit. Once the ducats and credit disappeared, then we'd finally be forced to start actually solving problems rather than papering them over by borrowing and squandering additional trillions.

Once seated at the banquet of consequences, we'd be forced to surrender the delusion that narrative control accomplishes anything other than putting off the inevitable reckoning.



new podcast: CHS on Gold and What Currency Systems Make Sense (31:37 min).

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My recent books:

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases originated via links to Amazon products on this site.

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


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Bubble Symmetry: Could the NASDAQ Drop 60% and Round-Trip to 2,500?

The prospect of a 60% or 80% decline in the NASDAQ index is only horrifying if we stay invested in the index all the way down.

Speculative bubbles are interesting because they're never bubbles in real time; they're only recognized as bubbles after they've popped, as we sort through the wreckage of the aftermath. Speculative bubbles are equally interesting for their uncanny display of bubble symmetry and scale invariance, two traits of manias.

In bubble symmetry, the decline phase is the mirror-image of the manic boost phase, in both time and amplitude. For example, the NASDAQ's dot-com bubble rose from around 1,100 in early 1997 to a peak above 5,000 in early March 2000, a rise of about 3,900 over three years.

The bubble-pop phase lasted about three years and covered a decline / round-trip back to around 1,100: a decline of about 77%. The first chart below shows the remarkable symmetry of the bubble's ascent and collapse.

Scale invariance refers to the similarity of a 600 point bubble that arises in six months to a 6,000 point bubble that arises over 6 years: if we add a zero to the number of months (time) and the number of points (amplitude), the bubbles retain the same characteristics. Put another way, a speculative mania that lasts a week shares the same characteristics of a speculative mania that lasts a month and one that lasts a year.



Pulling back to look at the NASDAQ index from 1990 to the present, what's striking is the modest scale of the dot-com bubble of 1997-2002. What looked like an almost unimaginably lofty peak in 2000 (5,048) now looks like a pipsqueak bubble compared to the current heights (17,032).



Also noteworthy is the time it took to reclaim the heights of the dot-com bubble. Almost 17 years passed before the index definitively topped its 2000 high of 5,048. But if we measure the purchasing power of $5,000 in 2000 and adjust for officially measured inflation from 2000 to 2018, the index had to top $7,360 to match the 2000 peak, a number it did not reach until early 2018--18 years after the peak.

Given that the index crashed back to 6,879 in March of 2020, it can be argued that the index didn't definitively surpass the 2000 high until 2020, fully 20 years after the dot-com peak. That is a soberingly lengthy passage of time to recover the full value of cash invested at the very top of the bubble.

Now let's project bubble symmetry on the current NASDAQ bubble. This is a FRED (St. Louis Federal Reserve) chart which doesn't use nominal price but sets the value of the index on 2/5/1971 at 100. The basics of time duration and amplitude are essentially identical with the nominal price chart.



If the index follows the symmetry of the 2000 bubble, then we can anticipate a 60% decline by 2028 to the 2020 lows around 6,800. The full retracement of the bubble would occur by about 2032-33 with a decline to the base of the bubble, around 2,500--an 85% drop from the 2024 peak.

I've laid out a classic A-B-C-D pattern with a proposed narrative that tracks 1) systemic inflation and 2) the decay to zero of the Federal Reserve and Treasury's ability to "save" the stock market with financial alchemy. I've made the case for sustained, systemic inflation here many times, and also made the case for diminishing returns on pumping newly issued currency into the financial system to artificially boost equities.

The prospect of a 60% or 80% decline in the NASDAQ index is only horrifying if we stay invested in the index all the way down. Those with no stake in the index will be mere observers. Since 93% of all stock ownership is concentrated in the top 10% households in the U.S., and the bottom 90% have relatively little invested directly or indirectly via pension funds and retirement funds, the full weight of this decline--which history suggests is inevitable--will fall on whomever believes such a decline is impossible and a turnaround is, well, just around the corner.

Those of us who lived through the 2000 bubbles experienced a trial run of all the emotions and market actions to come: the euphoria of easy, ever grander profits, the anxiety of the first decline, and then the swings from relief to fear as sharp recovery spikes wiped out those betting on a further decline before dropping to new lows.

If inflation is now systemic, then we can anticipate the hope-anxiety cycle will follow the "inflation is tamed / inflation is roaring back untamed" narrative. So the current peak of the happy narrative priced to perfection collapses when inflation doesn't vanish, then recovers sharply when inflation temporarily recedes, and the the next leg down occurs when the next wave of inflation soars to new debilitating heights.

There are of course counter-arguments: stocks rise in inflationary eras, etc. There were counter-arguments in 2000 as well; many saw the first decline as a "buy the dip" opportunity, after $80 dot-com stocks fell to $40. That they would subsequently fall to $4 or $2 was not anticipated by the herd. That is of course the way bubbles pop: in fits and starts, always offering hope that the dreadful destruction of "wealth" will reverse.

We don't control macro-dynamics or markets' response to these dynamics. We can only choose to be observers or participants, that is, choose our exposure to risk.

new podcast: CHS on Gold and What Currency Systems Make Sense (31:37 min).

---

My recent books:

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases originated via links to Amazon products on this site.

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


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The $150,000 Housekeeper: Wage Inflation Kicks Into Second Gear

If we add up all these tidal forces, the conclusion is self-evident: labor "inflation" has just shifted into second gear.

One of the lesser known manifestations of the inflationary crisis in early-1920s Germany was rampant wage inflation. Bourgeois burghers complained bitterly about the high wages being demanded--and received--by tradespeople. This reversal of fortune--wage earners gaining some power over the upper-middle class and wealthy--was naturally upsetting to those accustomed to wielding power over mere laborers.

But when the roof is leaking or the car won't start, negotiations favor the few who can actually fix the problem. Despite the overblown hoopla about AI, ChatGPT can't fix leaky pipes or roofs, nor will it ever be able to do so because all it can actually do is play around with words. Since we can't repair a leaky roof or prune a tree with words, Large Language Model (LLM) - Machine Learning AI is useless in the real world.

Which brings us to the remarkable competition among the uber-wealthy for competent housekeepers: Palm Beach housekeepers are making $150,000 a year due to massive demand from the wealthy.

It's certainly tempting to collect a cool $120,000 to $150,000 a year for dusting the Dali and other fine art, but as with many other forms of labor, the skillset required isn't quite as easy as it looks from the outside:

The mass wealth migration to Florida from New York and other high-tax states has created record demand for household staff in elite Florida enclaves--especially Palm Beach. Demand for butlers (now called 'hospitality managers' or 'estate managers') as well as nannies, chefs, drivers and personal security has surged, according to staffing agencies.

It's the shortage of housekeepers, however, that has created the biggest mess for wealthy homeowners. Many of the wealthy emigres to Florida bought big homes and now need people to clean them. Hotels, resorts and businesses are also vying for cleaning staff. The result: Typical pay for housekeepers has rocketed from about $25 an hour in 2020 to $45 or $50 an hour today, according to some agencies.

Bidding wars between wealthy homeowners have become common. Staffing agencies are posting 'Help Wanted' ads all over the web and throughout West Palm Beach. Clients are growing frustrated.

"At first they're in shock, and they say, 'No way I'm paying that,'" Berube said. "It's even uncomfortable for me to give them the numbers. But when they try to hire someone for less, with less experience, they almost always come back to us and say, 'I learned my lesson. We are willing to pay for the experience.'"

Berube said the housekeepers for the wealthy need highly specific skills--from how to move quietly and unnoticed throughout the house, to how to carefully clean antiques, flatware and fine art and how to properly wash and press fine linens.

"There are specific tools and skills you need to work in fine homes," she said.

In other words, Jeeves won't come cheap, and the outraged wealthy must swallow their targeted frugality--lavish spending on themselves, low pay for the help--if they want things done properly in the real world.

The backdrop for sustained wage inflation is already firmly in place. As the chart below illustrates, wages' share of the economy have been declining for 49 years, and has plenty of room to move sharply higher, in effect reversing the tide of trillions of dollars siphoned off by capital in the 50-year long experiment of elevating globalization and financialization to dominance.



Demographically, millions of people have left the workforce for good. This trend is especially visible in males who didn't earn a college degree. We can debate the specifics of this massive demographic shift, but not its impact: the labor force of those willing and able to do in-demand tasks is shrinking.

Generationally, millions of Boomers are working past traditional retirement age for a variety of reasons, but this boost to labor force numbers has an expiration date: at some point full-time physical labor is no longer viable. Yes, there are plumbers over the age of 80 still working, but they're working part-time and they're not working for chump-change.

Work is more demanding nowadays. Those with little real-world knowledge may dismiss fast-food workers, for example, as low-skilled "burger flippers," but this is not the lived reality of the work: fast-food is a high-production, demanding industry. Not everyone can keep up the pace or do the work. This describes many of the jobs wrongly dismissed as "low-skill."

Now overlay the soaring number of disabled. Again, we can quibble about the causes until doomsday, but the reality isn't changed by our debate.

Then there's the cultural shift of denigrating physical, skilled labor in favor of trading meme stocks and becoming a social media influencer. The worship of celebrity and the lotus-eater class has deformed the culture so that pride in the quality of one's work has been replaced with a frantic scramble for digital visibility. The real world demands skills and quality work, and those who are able to perform are scarcer than most imagine.

It isn't easy or quick to acquire real-world skills. Armchair pundits airily propose expanding training programs and the like, but training is only Step One of a much longer process of experiential learning. We may well have mis-trained millions of people to work in fields that will shrink as economic realities intrude--for example, fine dining and marketing. The labor scarcities that will only become more acute won't be solved with quickie half-measures.

If we add up all these tidal forces, the conclusion is self-evident: labor "inflation" has just shifted into second gear. The real acceleration is still ahead. From the perspective of history and the real world, it isn't "inflation," it's simply a return to properly valuing what's actually valuable.

new podcast: CHS on Gold and What Currency Systems Make Sense (31:37 min).

---

My recent books:

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases originated via links to Amazon products on this site.

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


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Subscribe to my Substack for free

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