> The modern world has instilled in us all the expectation of inexorable progress. In 2026, AI is the ultimate — and perhaps only — remaining symbol of this idea.
It is deeply sad that we only have one symbol of this idea of progress.
During the renaissance there was vast optimism and step function jumps across art, business, and science.
We have electric vehicles, batteries, solar, wind, etc, but the US gave up on those because there is no grift to be had via a capital market bubble manufacturing and deploying those techs at scale.
The US puts on a theater performance of “innovation” via AI while China is 1/3rd of global manufacturing capacity.
> The modern world has instilled in us all the expectation of inexorable progress. In 2026, AI is the ultimate — and perhaps only — remaining symbol of this idea.
It is deeply sad that we only have one symbol of this idea of progress.
During the renaissance there was vast optimism and step function jumps across art, business, and science.
We have electric vehicles, batteries, solar, wind, etc, but the US gave up on those because there is no grift to be had via a capital market bubble manufacturing and deploying those techs at scale.
The US puts on a theater performance of “innovation” via AI while China is 1/3rd of global manufacturing capacity.
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