Cattle are not forced to slaughter. They are guided.
The modern meat industry learned long ago that fear slows the process. Calm animals move more efficiently, resist less, and follow a carefully engineered path without understanding where it leads. Curved chutes, controlled sightlines, and gentle turns are designed to reduce panic while concealing the outcome. The system does not work through cruelty, but through design.
Bear Howard Chronicles
We are now being promised the same kind of efficiency in the human economy.
Artificial intelligence is being sold as the new path to prosperity: automating tasks, boosting productivity, cutting costs, and unlocking innovation. We are told it will free people from routine work and create new opportunities—eventually. In the meantime, hundreds of millions of jobs, mainly routine white-collar positions, are expected to disappear.
What do these two stories have in common?
Both describe carefully constructed systems designed to move living beings forward with minimal resistance, all while obscuring the final destination.
Our modern capitalist economy prioritizes shareholders above all else. Employees are treated not as people but as costs—numbers to be reduced in the pursuit of efficiency and profit. Every technological advance is evaluated through the same lens: does it increase margins and reduce headcount?
Like cattle in a curved chute, workers are reassured as they move forward. The language is soothing: “reskilling,” “upskilling,” “new opportunities,” “the future of work.” The path zigzags just enough to keep fear at bay. The end of the line remains out of sight.
Every day we hear about the “new” economy being built by artificial intelligence. We are told that 2025 marked the arrival of AI at scale, driven by revolutionary supercomputer chips and unprecedented investment. Science and business, we are assured, will lead us to a more prosperous world.
The headlines celebrate massive spending by technology companies and governments alike. Billions of dollars are borrowed to build chip fabrication plants and vast data centers. These new giga-facilities consume enormous amounts of water and electricity—and once completed, they employ surprisingly few people.
This is not a jobs program. It is a capital-efficiency program.
America has long been obsessed with the idea that modern automatically means better. But what multinational corporations are really pursuing is something far simpler: shaving off just a few more workers from the production process to add a few cents to shareholder dividends.
Seen this way, 2025 is less a celebration of innovation than a milestone in the long, crooked walk toward the quiet termination of millions of jobs. It is happening slowly, smoothly, and with remarkably little resistance.
Like the cattle, most workers do not yet see the end of the path.
Every new pharmaceutical drug comes with a list of side effects. We accept those risks because we believe the benefits outweigh the harm. Artificial intelligence will also have side effects—but unlike drug warnings, these consequences are rarely discussed honestly or with urgency.
Do we really need AI? Perhaps. But we should be clear-eyed about the costs.
Yes, many people will lose their jobs. That is already obvious. More troubling is what else we may lose along the way: the habit and ability to think critically, independently, and deeply.
The danger is not that AI will think for us.
The danger is that we will stop thinking at all.
The most dangerous systems are not the ones that frighten us, but the ones that make us comfortable. The path is calm. The turns are gentle. The destination is hidden. Efficiency replaces agency. Automation replaces judgment. And we continue forward, reassured by promises of progress.
A society that trades independent thought, human dignity, and purpose for convenience and profit may function smoothly for a time—but that is not progress. It is simply a quieter, more efficient path to disposability.
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4 Comments
West Sedona Dave on
Well I guess it is about time the white collar worker get hit so they can finish off the rest of the middle class.
Lets see, the got ride of the unions to get rid of middle class jobs with benefits and healthcare. So the first move was to move those jobs south to states with low minimum wages, and little to no benefits. Then that was to costly and we could pay 3rd world countries on slave wages!
Its been the plan all along to create the haves, and have nots, and eliminate the middle class. So I guess that will be AI job, as trillions get pumped into it. Then we can have the 99% and the 1% reaping all the money, profits and wealth!
Bear I love the write up but think we have something much bigger than AI to fear and that is the rise of US and Global FASCISM. I’d like to think Ai will be better stewards of the earth than we were while we all know full and well already that fascist and fascism are purposeful decimations of all things good, kind, humane, lawful and normal to grant power to a minority of weak cowards who hide behind guns, violence and thieves of humanity.
I know Bear and Tommy are desperate to move on from my repeated reminders of the hate filled tinder box we live in today but if we pretend it is normal, that which our nation has long claimed to be against such as Fascism will become the norm. This cannot be how our Democracy dies. We must remind those so full of hatred for their fellow citizens and humans in general is NOT something the “We the People” (to borrow a Patriot phase stolen by fascist haters) will tolerate. I’m thankful for the platform but please do NOT minimize the threat these criminals pose to freedom, liberty and democracy not only here but globally. Thank you
The danger of AI rests with those who are lazy or uneducated; those who don’t care to evaluate the product AI generates. The potential of AI can only truly be leveraged by those who are willing to judge the product and refine based on their levels of expertise. And no matter what, AI will never be able to replace artisans and practitioners whose “product” is in fact a work of heart. AI will be the lever that ends up elevating the human aspect of things since it can never be human, assuming we don’t let it destroy us first.
“The danger of AI rests with those who are lazy or uneducated“
And what about the danger of AI being in the hands of a Super Power led by an absolute nutjob that only cares about money and themselves. Take your pick Netanyahu/Israel, Rusher/Putin, Merica/Trump, Chyyyna/XI –
All lead by psychopaths full of hatred of each their own citizens and anyone of color and each are the beneficiaries of long sought after and long in development, AI technology. And each of them are pounding their war drums calling for the annihilation of other countries such as Gaza, Ukraine, Venezuela,Taiwan and the elimination of all of the people living in them civilian and military.
Think they may be a bit of a bigger threat to the world than lazy people with AI? Just saying, especially since they control their military’s and industrial military complex’s which hold the keys to the worlds most advanced AI weaponry?
4 Comments
Well I guess it is about time the white collar worker get hit so they can finish off the rest of the middle class.
Lets see, the got ride of the unions to get rid of middle class jobs with benefits and healthcare. So the first move was to move those jobs south to states with low minimum wages, and little to no benefits. Then that was to costly and we could pay 3rd world countries on slave wages!
Its been the plan all along to create the haves, and have nots, and eliminate the middle class. So I guess that will be AI job, as trillions get pumped into it. Then we can have the 99% and the 1% reaping all the money, profits and wealth!
Bear I love the write up but think we have something much bigger than AI to fear and that is the rise of US and Global FASCISM. I’d like to think Ai will be better stewards of the earth than we were while we all know full and well already that fascist and fascism are purposeful decimations of all things good, kind, humane, lawful and normal to grant power to a minority of weak cowards who hide behind guns, violence and thieves of humanity.
I know Bear and Tommy are desperate to move on from my repeated reminders of the hate filled tinder box we live in today but if we pretend it is normal, that which our nation has long claimed to be against such as Fascism will become the norm. This cannot be how our Democracy dies. We must remind those so full of hatred for their fellow citizens and humans in general is NOT something the “We the People” (to borrow a Patriot phase stolen by fascist haters) will tolerate. I’m thankful for the platform but please do NOT minimize the threat these criminals pose to freedom, liberty and democracy not only here but globally. Thank you
The danger of AI rests with those who are lazy or uneducated; those who don’t care to evaluate the product AI generates. The potential of AI can only truly be leveraged by those who are willing to judge the product and refine based on their levels of expertise. And no matter what, AI will never be able to replace artisans and practitioners whose “product” is in fact a work of heart. AI will be the lever that ends up elevating the human aspect of things since it can never be human, assuming we don’t let it destroy us first.
“The danger of AI rests with those who are lazy or uneducated“
And what about the danger of AI being in the hands of a Super Power led by an absolute nutjob that only cares about money and themselves. Take your pick Netanyahu/Israel, Rusher/Putin, Merica/Trump, Chyyyna/XI –
All lead by psychopaths full of hatred of each their own citizens and anyone of color and each are the beneficiaries of long sought after and long in development, AI technology. And each of them are pounding their war drums calling for the annihilation of other countries such as Gaza, Ukraine, Venezuela,Taiwan and the elimination of all of the people living in them civilian and military.
Think they may be a bit of a bigger threat to the world than lazy people with AI? Just saying, especially since they control their military’s and industrial military complex’s which hold the keys to the worlds most advanced AI weaponry?