Post Zero (trying to be a better human).
TLDR: The AI age is the ultimate dumpster fire of modern western culture. I'm sick of it. I'm opting out and I am going to focus on being a better human in 2026 and beyond.
There are many other issues with AI beyond the culture dumpster fire (economic impact, house of cards investment, 8 CEOs making the rules the other 8 billion of us will live by etc) but the cultural impact is really what bothers me the most. I love human created things and I create many things myself.
Anything creative that is low effort to make does not deserve any value, time, or attention given to it. I believe that inherently, most humans do (or will) recognize this. We will develop systems so that AI will not be able to fool us and/or we will, each and every one of us, become more discerning givers of attention and give less time to slop and more time to each other.
I do think we are going to figure all this out. I am not an apocalypse life is over doomsayer. There might well be a few years of chaos but I have faith we will get through it. And I want to be on the right side of history. The human side of history.
IF the doomsayers are right. I want to fight and die on the human side rather than win on the AI side.
In 2025 I did something amazing for my mental health. I quit a corporate job where my 40 hours a week of work was meaningless, not remotely intellectually challenging, and involved paying attention to low IQ and EQ people who, in my personal life, I wouldn't listen to for a goddamn second.
But then, I filled my time with something stupid. I worried about my income and stability first and started my own company, tried to sell my services and capitalize on the wave of anxiety people who wear suits have about deploying AI in their organizations. I could have made a lot of money, I generated a lot of interest very quickly because much like generative AI, I am very good at sounding smart.
After a few months I realized something profoundly disturbing. My three kids were not proud of me. Them being aged 15-21, they understood what was happening and what I was doing and the moral implications thereof. I wasn't advocating that the people I advised cut anyone's jobs. But it was simply just a matter of time before I would have that impact.
So I shut everything down. I deleted over 60 AI subscriptions and free trials. And I haven't touched any AI willingly since. Not a single prompt.
Aside from my concern about slowly running out of savings, this second boost to my mental health and well being has been profound.
So why am I writing this? I want to record for posterity that the goal for this website and any and all projects related to myself and Venbats LLC, is to foster humanity, humanism, and anything that contributes to human flourishing. I am not saying 100% that there is no role for generative AI in that, but would need to be careful. Careful and curious is my motto.
What will you see here? Well, it is 10:48am on March 31st as I type this and the two things I am committed to in the next month is:
1) completing NaPoWriMo (writing a poem a day for the month of April) and posting once day on this site and on socials. I have published a book of poetry this month so if I can sell a few copies that would be amazing.
2) Recording more songs. I am quite good at singing and playing guitar. But haven't tried to do anything with that since my early 20s. I have a tik tok and you tube for that under the name Strings and Ash.
Beyond that I will be sharing myself with the internet in a way I never have before. I am going to be sharing a lot philosophical stuff, thought experiments, and notes and thoughts on cultural events. If you that sounds of interest stay tuned or sign up to be emailed this posts as they come out.
If you're rich, sign up for the paid tier so I can pay my mortgage and keep trying to help others. If not, tell your rich friends and ask them to subscribe. Patronage is a very human idea with steeped in tradition, and is an idea we are going to need more than ever in the years to come.