Our Moment, Explained

Claude Code. Lost Lambs. Substack. Trump. Epstein. The Strait of Hormuz. Polymarket. The Staples Baddie.

Pleasure always means not to think about anything, to forget suffering even where it is shown. Basically it is helplessness. It is flight; not, as is asserted, flight from a wretched reality, but from the last remaining thought of resistance.

-Theodor W. Adorno

We are living in a miasma. We are steeping in reedy, murky waters. Everything swirls. There is silt. There is muck. Our toes are always touching little gooey spots. There is suction involved. It’s hard to know what is real and what is just eddying into and out of existence very quickly. Paying attention to the firehose feels futile; not paying attention feels irresponsible.

There are many theories for what is happening. We are in a Polycrisis. We are in the Permaweird. We are Retvrning to Orality. Tech is eating the world. Capital has reached its end state. We are already being controlled by a superintelligent AI.

But what if all these theories are wrong? What if there is actually one, amazing theory that could handily explain everything, put it into perspective, and finally integrate it into our minds so that we could just go about our day?

Well, I just may have come to it.

What if, and hear me out:

What if everything is just really stupid?

No, seriously. Not cope. Just—what if the operating principle for stuff is that it’s really all just very stupid? Let’s look at some examples. I’ll deploy some interlocutors to discuss.

Interlocutor A: Hello. Trump just bombed Iran.

Interlocutor B: Why?

A: Some people say it’s to avoid scrutiny over the Epstein stuff, force it out of the news cycle.

B: Seems stupid.

A: Yes, it is.

B: And what of Claude Code?

A: Software engineers, including a fellow named Ritam, are using it to replace themselves.

B: Feels stupid. And I am hearing correctly that some of them think it will eventually become an intelligent type being that will destroy humanity?

A: Yes, a lot of them think that. Maybe that argument has some merit, or maybe it doesn’t. People can bet on it using Polymarket.

B: Wouldn’t that incentivize some people to try and make it happen, thereby Big Shorting humanity itself?

A: Yes; rather stupid IMO.

Wait, hold on, you might be saying at this point. Here, I’ll deploy an interlocutor for you too.

Interlocutor C: You’re strawmanning. Or you’re—whatever the term is for making your opponents seem like they don’t know what they’re doing. Trump bombed Iran because it was strategically a good time, with the protests and such. And the AI race is being pursued to the fullest because we don’t want China to beat us.

A: What kind of threat does China pose to us?

C: Well, they might capture Taiwan, and TSMC’s productive capabilities. Then we wouldn’t be able to—

B: Yes?

C: Well, produce and deploy new chips.

A: For what?

C: AI, I guess.

A: And did I hear right that we’re building tons and tons of new hyperscale AI data centers?

C: Yes.

B: And they’re making electricity more expensive? And hypothetically, if the big AI monster that some people think might happen does come to pass, it could probably stitch the capabilities of those data centers together, so we’re really just building like, Godzilla’s skeleton, and we’re also fighting our cold war with China just to preserve our ability to synthesize Godzilla blood, keeping with the Godzilla metaphor??

C: Yes, it does seem rather stupid.

B: No, I know—and I went to Interlocutor State.

A: You went to Interlocutor State? Lucky. That was my dream school.

B: Well, I ended up with a lot of college debt, so it wasn’t all it was chalked up to be. But I did take advantage of a lot of the awesome resources. Like, we had this sick system called InPrint, and you could print to any printer on campus from anywhere.

A: Wow. Shit. Damn, we didn’t have that at my college: Interlocutor University at St. Louis.

B: No, but I hear your program on dialectics is really good.

A: No, yeah, it’s fine. Dialectics was actually my major. Some of the higher level classes were cool. Like, DLCT302: Containing One’s Own Negation was a really good class, and also it was really bad, somehow.

C: Ugh, Americans are so obsessed with where they went to college.

A: Wow, you’re not American? I couldn’t have told by your accent.

C: Oh yeah, I’m actually a third culture kid. UWC Singapore FTW!

B: No because I literally have a cousin who went there. Wait, do you know Siddharth Ramakrishnan?

C: Which one? We had seven.

B: Siddharth Ramakrishnan who has a big unibrow, a fugly little top lip mustache, dresses like shit, and stinks of curry all the time. He’s a huge nerd.

C: Which one? We had seven.

A: Okay, your internalized racism is showing!!!

B: Kinda feel like wee voibin. Wanna get out of here and get a drink?

A: Wait, I don’t want to get a drink.

C: Nahhh I know bro’s not about to hit us with the—

A: I want to get MANY drinks!!!!

B: 😂

C: 😂

A: 😂

B: I love you guys.

A: What should we call ourselves?

C: Did you just say “What, should we call ourselves?” Did you lose your phone or something?

A: Okay, the riffs are fucking hitting right now. I am wheezing with laughter. I am doubled over. God, I love being alive.

Nabeel’s Footnote

Using Substack’s new in-app Polymarket integration (#ConflictsOfInterest), I can now do annoying things like this:

I can’t wait—and I know you all can’t, either—to see what I come up with.