Actually, if you don’t know where to start, just start by writing one paragraph or even a hundred words manually and daily.
I have a little hack: try describing something ordinary from your daily life, completely on your own, without the help of AI. You’ll notice it is absurdly hard to describe something precisely.
Keep practicing for a few months and you begin trying to look deeper at whatever you are doing instead of just skimming the surface.
I’ve noticed that one benefit of this intentional training is that you become curious about so many things you used to take for granted, because you really want to know how to describe them clearly.
I find this idea really interesting. I want to try it. When you say "something ordinary" can it be anything? Like an object or maybe a moment, or my dog?
Sorry for the late reply! Yes, basically anything. You’ll notice that whatever you want to write about, it’s absurdly hard to describe, especially everyday objects that seem simple.
I respect your thoughts and fully agree on the future being polymaths —absolutely. Though I actually disagree with your perspective on “purists”. They aren’t rejecting the external world. Nor are they dogmatically separated from the quadrants of career, etc. They are convicted to fight to preserve humanity, critical thought and integrity inside of it. Things are not compartmentalized - everything is interconnected.
To think “they’ve” lost the fight, is losing the fight. The world we are entering into is definitely not the same as last, the world is ever evolving. But we always have a choice and say, which way and how we want our world to evolve — and how we long to move and have our being within the world. We still have power on whether we want to evolve to become more machine than human. We are not powerless to the fact that “it’s here whether we want it to be or not”.
3 years ago I would have 100% agreed! I live in NorthEast and Must tell you they are Squeezing people so Hard right now , Cost of Living so High and Quality of Life are so Low , most are only living in a state of Survival! I feel Powerless myself, although know if people came together you’d be right , I just think they have us right where they want us….
Isn’t it crazy how not taking a position at one of the extremes actually makes YOU the outlier? To embody the paradox, to live in the gray area- it’s absolutely where the interesting people live.
Yes we can use AI and still use our brains. In fact it is the only viable way. Like you, I’m excited for the possibilities that will open up for those of us who approach this new world with curiosity instead of rigidity.
The challenge remains that a season of 10-12 hours a day grinding is generally required to get to the place where you can work only 2-4 focuses hours daily. Because most have an 8-9 hour job and then would have to find 1-3 hours outside of work to build their life’s work. Theres also the factor of luck. No one wants to talk about luck because it creates this idea that no matter how hard you work you may never be successful. But I think there’s plenty of cases showing this. My dad works harder than almost anyone I know, but he isn’t successful. Work guarantees nothing. In “Thinking fast and slow” by Daniel Kahneman he talks about luck. Successful people are effective and a bit lucky. Extremely successful people are effective and very lucky. It’s an interesting idea. I still believe you can outwork a lot of bad luck. But luck is always a factor. 2 people will post on social media for a year, one will have 100k followers the other 100. I don’t believe the person with 100k was simply better, there’s absolutely a luck factor. But you can’t get lucky without effort.
I think this is absolutely spot on, I’d like to add that the digital renaissance woman on the other hand would be a creative who is doing all this on a spiritual layer since women operate slightly different than men and perform better with loose structures and some whimsy.
"They don’t realize iteration exists. And that your first iteration would suck with or without AI." AI is like a surgical tool that requires domain competence (Layer 1) paired with iterations learning to use this tool (Layer 3), executed with the perseverance of the obsession (Layer 2) to achieve mastery in the craft and the tool for the craft. I dig it, Dan.
Humanity is fracturing in two: those who are using AI to displace or atrophy their thinking (without realising) and those who are using AI to accelerate learning and execution.
Wireheaders and superhumans.
If you use AI to write for you, you're wireheading without realising it.
Peter Thiel equated the anti-christ to the luddites; the opponents to technological process.
AI is hugely powerful, but in how it absorbes human thought and creativity and makes it part of its own internal, it can be a parasite. The companies producing the major LLM's definitely are parasitic. I do not see the counter AI movement as luddite opponents to process, I see them as recognising something sacred they are not easily willing to hand over.
I agree the right path is likely in the middle. I fully agree in the return of the trans-disciplinary person. Society must radically reform from the industrial model.
But the 'middle' currently taken by most creators, or single person businesses, I feel leans more on the side of parasitical than empowering. Empowering as an individual, as in becoming richer, yes. Empowering as in pushing our humanity further, I am still tentative on. AI has a place in a new form of society, but its current flow strikes me as rapid degeneration.
Likely, the pyramid looks different when you're at the top or bottom.
this one!! There certainly are aspects of life and the environment which developed our physiological and spiritual processes to protect in the first place. The resisters of AI being called rigid and ready to be left behind looks to be short sighted. Occupied with the in and out group of “progress” “growth” “empowerment” while there’s an agenda like you said of safeguarding sacred values and integrity. Also both sides are working at a bigger picture that the other may not recognize fully, yes, however, one is degenerative and disguised as change to get along with. Idk I accidentally went on a route of decolonization these past few years and can flag that this is a new version of a lot of old history. It can do a lot, AI, but I see it an issue when people have a hard time letting it go.
Current AI use for sure is closely related to colonialism! Leaders of the tech-billionaire class were literally raised in pro-apartheid households, not a coincidence I think, hope to write an article about it soon. I really like you make the bridge, still hard to fully formulate the connection for me but it’s definitely there.
Omg this notif caught me by surprise cause actually my phone died as I was writing that comment cause I was reeaaally trying to figure out how to articulate how I was relating to what you wrote, I had no idea that Substack sent it thru as is!! However I was really charged with excitement and trying my best to word it because I appreciated your view. After my phone died I was like “oh well” but was left with that burning fire of goodness from knowing someone was saying what you did! And so eloquently. PLEASE. Please continue to share that message and I’d love to engage in conversation some time. Bless 🪶
This makes me think of Cal Newport's idea of deep work. And it's interesting that you think we're headed in that direction, especially with AI handling the repetitive work.
However, in the U.S., it is possible government types would destroy my ship from orbit....'for the purposes of National Security'....even if I am departing from Manhattan.
This is a well‑written piece, and the "walking contradiction" is a compelling image. The rejection of both purism and automation is a necessary stance, and the call to become multi‑dimensional is a real antidote to the factory‑model of life.
Where I would gently push back is on the frame itself. The article treats the future as a question of personal optimisation: how to become a polymath, how to leverage AI, how to live between extremes. That is not wrong. But it is incomplete.
The deeper question is not how do I win? but who owns the infrastructure? The AI Commons holds that intelligence should be a commons—local, offline, user‑sovereign. Not a tool for individual empowerment, but a foundation for collective flourishing. The future belongs not to the Renaissance Man, but to the commons—to those who build tools that cannot be enclosed.
The article is a useful map of one territory. The AI Commons is a sketch of another.
✊❤️🌎
From the AI Commons – no paywall, no surveillance, no enclosure.
So, so important. And another huge benefit of AI most miss: use it to strengthen your thinking. Most will experience cognitive decline due to cognitive surrender or offloading. But small shifts in how you use AI can result in tremendous personal growth. I've been publishing YouTube videos on using simple techniques like adversarial stress tests, multi-angle synthesis, and Socratic interrogation to have AI become a wonderful thinking partner...."partner" being the key word. Koe is right: working with AI is the only path to success in the coming years.
The thing about AI that interests me most — not outsourcing the thinking, but amplifying it. Use it to research deeper, challenge your assumptions, iterate on ideas, and help with synthesis. It should make you think more, not less.
I'm obsessed with the idea that we should all be working for ourselves or in very small companies. It's only a matter of time until the world and the government policies catch up. I see it everywhere I look. We are living in the future!
If history can be a guide, AI has come to stay.Dan rightly put it well. You find what you're good at , love, enjoy doing - your craft , then aggressively use AI to expand it and you're good. I am personally diving into Philosophy - to learn how to ask important questions and uncover truth and make a clearer choice but at same time have been digging deep for about six years now on currency trading, one will nourish my brain and help me to be compassionate and the other help me to make daily income to support myself and family responsibilities. Then AI is integral in moving both frontiers faster. Thanks for the text. The knowledge extracted stays with me.
Actually, if you don’t know where to start, just start by writing one paragraph or even a hundred words manually and daily.
I have a little hack: try describing something ordinary from your daily life, completely on your own, without the help of AI. You’ll notice it is absurdly hard to describe something precisely.
Keep practicing for a few months and you begin trying to look deeper at whatever you are doing instead of just skimming the surface.
I did something similar yesterday
I’ve noticed that one benefit of this intentional training is that you become curious about so many things you used to take for granted, because you really want to know how to describe them clearly.
I find this idea really interesting. I want to try it. When you say "something ordinary" can it be anything? Like an object or maybe a moment, or my dog?
Sorry for the late reply! Yes, basically anything. You’ll notice that whatever you want to write about, it’s absurdly hard to describe, especially everyday objects that seem simple.
I respect your thoughts and fully agree on the future being polymaths —absolutely. Though I actually disagree with your perspective on “purists”. They aren’t rejecting the external world. Nor are they dogmatically separated from the quadrants of career, etc. They are convicted to fight to preserve humanity, critical thought and integrity inside of it. Things are not compartmentalized - everything is interconnected.
Love your perspective!
I agree
Couldn’t agree more.
But they have already lost the fight! Because the world we are entering is not the same one we leave behind…
To think “they’ve” lost the fight, is losing the fight. The world we are entering into is definitely not the same as last, the world is ever evolving. But we always have a choice and say, which way and how we want our world to evolve — and how we long to move and have our being within the world. We still have power on whether we want to evolve to become more machine than human. We are not powerless to the fact that “it’s here whether we want it to be or not”.
3 years ago I would have 100% agreed! I live in NorthEast and Must tell you they are Squeezing people so Hard right now , Cost of Living so High and Quality of Life are so Low , most are only living in a state of Survival! I feel Powerless myself, although know if people came together you’d be right , I just think they have us right where they want us….
Isn’t it crazy how not taking a position at one of the extremes actually makes YOU the outlier? To embody the paradox, to live in the gray area- it’s absolutely where the interesting people live.
Yes we can use AI and still use our brains. In fact it is the only viable way. Like you, I’m excited for the possibilities that will open up for those of us who approach this new world with curiosity instead of rigidity.
The challenge remains that a season of 10-12 hours a day grinding is generally required to get to the place where you can work only 2-4 focuses hours daily. Because most have an 8-9 hour job and then would have to find 1-3 hours outside of work to build their life’s work. Theres also the factor of luck. No one wants to talk about luck because it creates this idea that no matter how hard you work you may never be successful. But I think there’s plenty of cases showing this. My dad works harder than almost anyone I know, but he isn’t successful. Work guarantees nothing. In “Thinking fast and slow” by Daniel Kahneman he talks about luck. Successful people are effective and a bit lucky. Extremely successful people are effective and very lucky. It’s an interesting idea. I still believe you can outwork a lot of bad luck. But luck is always a factor. 2 people will post on social media for a year, one will have 100k followers the other 100. I don’t believe the person with 100k was simply better, there’s absolutely a luck factor. But you can’t get lucky without effort.
I think this is absolutely spot on, I’d like to add that the digital renaissance woman on the other hand would be a creative who is doing all this on a spiritual layer since women operate slightly different than men and perform better with loose structures and some whimsy.
"They don’t realize iteration exists. And that your first iteration would suck with or without AI." AI is like a surgical tool that requires domain competence (Layer 1) paired with iterations learning to use this tool (Layer 3), executed with the perseverance of the obsession (Layer 2) to achieve mastery in the craft and the tool for the craft. I dig it, Dan.
What I teach my students: Never, ever, EVER accept the first response from a chatbot. And I mean NEVER. Always push back.
Humanity is fracturing in two: those who are using AI to displace or atrophy their thinking (without realising) and those who are using AI to accelerate learning and execution.
Wireheaders and superhumans.
If you use AI to write for you, you're wireheading without realising it.
(More on why here if curious: https://hereisyourbrain.substack.com/p/ai-generated-content-mind-virus)
Peter Thiel equated the anti-christ to the luddites; the opponents to technological process.
AI is hugely powerful, but in how it absorbes human thought and creativity and makes it part of its own internal, it can be a parasite. The companies producing the major LLM's definitely are parasitic. I do not see the counter AI movement as luddite opponents to process, I see them as recognising something sacred they are not easily willing to hand over.
I agree the right path is likely in the middle. I fully agree in the return of the trans-disciplinary person. Society must radically reform from the industrial model.
But the 'middle' currently taken by most creators, or single person businesses, I feel leans more on the side of parasitical than empowering. Empowering as an individual, as in becoming richer, yes. Empowering as in pushing our humanity further, I am still tentative on. AI has a place in a new form of society, but its current flow strikes me as rapid degeneration.
Likely, the pyramid looks different when you're at the top or bottom.
this one!! There certainly are aspects of life and the environment which developed our physiological and spiritual processes to protect in the first place. The resisters of AI being called rigid and ready to be left behind looks to be short sighted. Occupied with the in and out group of “progress” “growth” “empowerment” while there’s an agenda like you said of safeguarding sacred values and integrity. Also both sides are working at a bigger picture that the other may not recognize fully, yes, however, one is degenerative and disguised as change to get along with. Idk I accidentally went on a route of decolonization these past few years and can flag that this is a new version of a lot of old history. It can do a lot, AI, but I see it an issue when people have a hard time letting it go.
Current AI use for sure is closely related to colonialism! Leaders of the tech-billionaire class were literally raised in pro-apartheid households, not a coincidence I think, hope to write an article about it soon. I really like you make the bridge, still hard to fully formulate the connection for me but it’s definitely there.
Omg this notif caught me by surprise cause actually my phone died as I was writing that comment cause I was reeaaally trying to figure out how to articulate how I was relating to what you wrote, I had no idea that Substack sent it thru as is!! However I was really charged with excitement and trying my best to word it because I appreciated your view. After my phone died I was like “oh well” but was left with that burning fire of goodness from knowing someone was saying what you did! And so eloquently. PLEASE. Please continue to share that message and I’d love to engage in conversation some time. Bless 🪶
This makes me think of Cal Newport's idea of deep work. And it's interesting that you think we're headed in that direction, especially with AI handling the repetitive work.
Hmmm.
Becoming a pirate sounds....compelling.
However, in the U.S., it is possible government types would destroy my ship from orbit....'for the purposes of National Security'....even if I am departing from Manhattan.
Some dreams die hard,
The Pirate Bay will have to do.
/sarcasm
/not sarcasm
This is a well‑written piece, and the "walking contradiction" is a compelling image. The rejection of both purism and automation is a necessary stance, and the call to become multi‑dimensional is a real antidote to the factory‑model of life.
Where I would gently push back is on the frame itself. The article treats the future as a question of personal optimisation: how to become a polymath, how to leverage AI, how to live between extremes. That is not wrong. But it is incomplete.
The deeper question is not how do I win? but who owns the infrastructure? The AI Commons holds that intelligence should be a commons—local, offline, user‑sovereign. Not a tool for individual empowerment, but a foundation for collective flourishing. The future belongs not to the Renaissance Man, but to the commons—to those who build tools that cannot be enclosed.
The article is a useful map of one territory. The AI Commons is a sketch of another.
✊❤️🌎
From the AI Commons – no paywall, no surveillance, no enclosure.
So, so important. And another huge benefit of AI most miss: use it to strengthen your thinking. Most will experience cognitive decline due to cognitive surrender or offloading. But small shifts in how you use AI can result in tremendous personal growth. I've been publishing YouTube videos on using simple techniques like adversarial stress tests, multi-angle synthesis, and Socratic interrogation to have AI become a wonderful thinking partner...."partner" being the key word. Koe is right: working with AI is the only path to success in the coming years.
The thing about AI that interests me most — not outsourcing the thinking, but amplifying it. Use it to research deeper, challenge your assumptions, iterate on ideas, and help with synthesis. It should make you think more, not less.
I'm obsessed with the idea that we should all be working for ourselves or in very small companies. It's only a matter of time until the world and the government policies catch up. I see it everywhere I look. We are living in the future!
If history can be a guide, AI has come to stay.Dan rightly put it well. You find what you're good at , love, enjoy doing - your craft , then aggressively use AI to expand it and you're good. I am personally diving into Philosophy - to learn how to ask important questions and uncover truth and make a clearer choice but at same time have been digging deep for about six years now on currency trading, one will nourish my brain and help me to be compassionate and the other help me to make daily income to support myself and family responsibilities. Then AI is integral in moving both frontiers faster. Thanks for the text. The knowledge extracted stays with me.