1) Douthat is correct: much of what we knew and loved about our world - relationships, having kids, reading books, etc. - is already in the process of extinction. But what he leaves out is that every one of those extinctions was the result of business decisions-- www.nytimes.com/2025/04/19/o... - ThreadSky

mherskovitz.bsky.social • 14 days ago

1) Douthat is correct: much of what we knew and loved about our world - relationships, having kids, reading books, etc. - is already in the process of extinction.
But what he leaves out is that every one of those extinctions was the result of business decisions--

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/19/opinion/extinction-technology-culture.html?unlocked_article_code=1.A08.yIXw.retAIHwYex5K&smid=bs-share

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lrosenthal.bsky.social•14 days ago

The Dinosaurs had a comet. We have Trump Tariffs. sigh

mherskovitz.bsky.social•14 days ago

2) made by people living in the bubble of neoliberalism. Which means not one of them ever considered the societal cost of the decisions they were making, from the destruction of the arts to the destruction of our children's mental health. Douthat is too young--

mherskovitz.bsky.social•14 days ago

3) to remember the capitalism America used to practice, where the demand for profit was counterbalanced by a belief in serving America and its future. When Zuckerberg hired addiction specialists to intensify engagement on Facebook, when Bezos set out to destroy local--

mherskovitz.bsky.social•14 days ago

4) businesses and pharmacies, no thought was given to the long-term damage to our culture. This was not a legal problem, or a problem of regulation, it was a cultural problem. Just as the academic far left created a totalitarian culture of groupthink, so did the--

mherskovitz.bsky.social•14 days ago

5) mega-capitalists of the last 40 years create a culture where it was impossible even to consider the ramifications of how they were profiting. Not even the meltdown of 2007 could dent the bubble of narcissistic nihilism--

mherskovitz.bsky.social•14 days ago

6) surrounding these people. And then Douthat brings up AI, the ultimate destroyer of human labor and meaning, and again acts like it's some force of nature we must learn to contend with. No, AI is created by people who don't care about people, and it's intended to replace--

mherskovitz.bsky.social•14 days ago

7) as many people as possible from the economy. And its creators don't care - at all - about what will happen to the people replaced. They have some sixth grade, Arthur C. Clarke fantasy of a human society--

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