September 5, 2025 • 13 mins
In this week’s Better Offline monologue, Ed walks you through how tech and business skepticism has begun to go mainstream, and how it can be the force to push back against the Rot Economy.
Ed On CNN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGVKZQQSJkg&t=2s
Ed On BBC (July): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AxrpXF7MWw&t=1s
Ed On BBC (August): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CI9cjWDpmSY
Ed On Bloomberg’s Everybody’s Business Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2F4heaeJIE
Ed On Newcomer Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxyNHv3cQvY&t=14s
Ed On Last Week In AI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rma3FzaWi3Y
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Zone Media. Hello and welcome to this week's Better Offline Monologue.
I'm your host ed Zitron. Before I go any further,
if you ever want to reach out to me with the information,
contact me on signal ez itron dot seven six. That's
(00:23):
ez or z for the Canadians and UK people out
there it Ron dot seven six. I will protect your identity.
Tell me all your secrets. I'd love to know them. Anyway.
This week, I wanted to talk about the stuff that
gets me through doing this show every week and start
with the point that I was told when I was
told I should do monologues as to really make them
(00:44):
sometimes just kind of a ran about how I'm feeling.
So for once, you're actually going to get one of
those rather than something I pre prepare all neatly and nicely.
And if it's a bit self indulgent, well, you know what,
what do you think you're getting with this podcast? I'm
a dramatic creature and I love it. Anyway. Today's really
about what keeps me going through the grind and what
I think this work can mean long term. I realize
(01:07):
i'm literally, by the way a podcast they're talking about
the computer and that there are people with significantly hardly
jobs and not trying to be too dramatic, but this
shit does kind of run you down a bit, if
only because a large part of my work comes down
to explaining at length why so many people are wrong
about something in a way that may threaten our entire economy,
and a lot of them are doing it, and it's
quite strange. I know some of you are going to
(01:29):
say that this is Brandalini's law, which talks about how
disproving misinformation tends to require far more effort than creating it.
But this is different because we live in a time
where our markets have become part of a death cult
of short terminism, when nothing bad ever happens until everything
bad happens at once. Yeah, writing about this on some
level is therapeutic. It sounds a little deranged, But in
writing about forty five thousand words in the past two
(01:52):
months for both the newsletter and the podcast, I've had
my arguments and really gotten to a point where I'm
finally happy with them since built building them. In April
twenty twenty fourth, real ed heads out there will remember
the two part episode I did about whether We'd hit PKI,
where I was on steroids because I got strap throw,
and I believe I threatened the computer itself, and I
(02:14):
think I said, if I could ever find a way
to give the computer a strep throw, I'd do it.
I maintain that threat anyway. The upcoming three part which
I'll record this weekend and will go out next week,
is my guide to arguing with AI boosters, and it's
allowed me to process my kind of potent frustrations with
their counterintuitive, thinly sourced yet loudly crowded, pseudo arguments, and
(02:37):
also the kind of the gas lating nature of them.
And at a time when very little else feels stable,
it feels nice to take the argument to people that
have built media presences or small fortunes off of misleading
people about what large language models are capable of. And
if I could say large language model correctly at that
point would feel a lot better. But I'm keeping it.
(02:58):
I really do find this all quite reprehensible, how they
emphatically and aggressively manipulate people into falling in line with
the narrative that AI was the future and that what
we're seeing today is just a taste of the power,
rather than being obviously the result of diminishing returns and
nothing ever really happening. And I genuinely feel moral outrage
(03:19):
seeing these arguments weaponized at scale. I just don't like
people being liked to. I don't like having skeptics treated
with disdain, their works considered dangerous because they refuse to
immediately ingest clammy Sam Altman's latest info slot. I do
not like it when people are being told again and
again and again to ignore their eyes and their ears
(03:41):
about what AI can do and about whether chet GPT
is really that amazing. And I do not like that
so much data center sprawl has been created, so many
billions have been burned, so many environs poisoned, and work stolen,
so that the most expensive software of all time can
propagate and to the exhausts a few hundred billion dollars
of venture capital and private credit dollars. And it feels
(04:02):
good to have my work reach a certain scale and
got there from telling the truth and doing so in
an emotionally honest way. I mean, who the fuck knows
what you actually think of me, But at least I'm
genuine in doing this. It's like eleven ten at night,
because this was the only time I could really get
this out, not even the effort, just the emotion needed
(04:22):
to be there. Anyway, my ranting aside, it feels good
to read headline after headline that we're actually in an
AI bubble because it means that on some level, the
work iron people like me other skeptics are doing, even directly,
it's bringing an end to this abominable waste. I do, however,
believe something is growing out of this and out of
(04:43):
these headlines and out of my work, and that's the
willingness of the media to accept skepticism, to actually give
space for it, and to more than just humor, but
actually begin engaging with these arguments themselves. Last week's relatively
despondent monologue was more a result of my exhaustion at
the end of that two month, forty five thousand word fest.
(05:03):
But the truth is that I have been on television
four times in the last week and a half, done
three different interviews, and I'm getting substantially more space to
explain my arguments in detail. It's not me boasting. This
is a good thing for everyone. This means that skepticism
can truly be mainstream, and there genuinely is this shift
in the mainstream, and this is one that opens the
(05:25):
door to an entire legion of people to do this
kind of meaningful, deep emotional and thorough analysis. If my
ideas can be mainstream, soaken yours. You just have to
be willing to keep consistent and unrelenting in your beliefs
and really do a thorough job, actually really look at
things in the cold, harsh light of day, be willing
to be skeptical but not brash with your skepticism, and
(05:47):
actually focus your energy on finding the truth, even if
that truth isn't great. If I'm completely honest. The Premium
newsletter this week, it started with me believing I had
a huge scoop. By the end of it, I realized
that didn't. I still find something interesting, though, because in
the process of chasing this down, I learned a lot
about GPUs eh. But anyway, the idea that my ideas
(06:10):
in mainstreaming is a huge deal because it means more
people are willing to consider that perhaps taking business leaders
might I don't know, be full of shit. And while
this is not a victory lap of any sort, I'm
not taking one of those until it's time, and that
will be when open aigh or anthropic finally shuts down.
But the true victory here is that you have big,
(06:31):
serious publications writing stories about things based on my work.
The Wall Street Journal out of piece by Christopher Mims,
And yes I did inspire it, he said up on
Blue Sky, and you can look talking about the cost
of inference increasing. This is a huge deal. This is
a major publication being willing to talk about serious skeptical
ideas that question the narrative that the entire market is chasing.
(06:52):
And Christopher Mems he also did that great piece on
data centers, sprawl and the costs and the capex. He
cited Paul Kudrowski. I'll get to that in future podcast.
But nevertheless, these ideas are breaking through to the mainstream,
and narratives can be broken, ideas can be picked up
and mainstreamed, and suddenly the world is willing to consider
true skepticism. An increased presence of tech and business skepticism
(07:17):
in the mainstream will be a net benefit to society,
and it's an opportunity to hold companies accountable for the
products and problems they create. I also want to be
clear that I am not the first to do this.
Alison Morrow at CNN has been leading tech skeptics since
twenty twenty one, when she was one of the few
to call bullshit on the metaverse. By the way, but
the level of mainstream interest I'm seeing in my work
suggests that the world is finally ready to take this
(07:39):
more big time. If I'm honest, to make this a
more common thing you hear of rather than this effusive,
dumb shit clapping at anything, Sam Moultman says. And I
realize it seems unrealistic, but with enough public pressure, with
a fundamental shift in how we cover business and technology,
we can affect true change. I can't promise will change
(08:00):
everything overnight, but that will stop every calamitous waste of
money or colatomus. So I was about to say, but
if we make it harder to do this financially, waste
will bullshit quietly, We'll make it harder to do it
again and again. And it starts with accountability. Once the
AI bubble bursts, which started four years ago for me
when I started covering the bullshit of the metaverse, financial
(08:21):
crises have never been covered in this detail by the media,
or at least not so widely. And though I believe
the collapse of AI will be destructive for the tech
and industry in our markets. I think that for the
first time, I and others have cataloged the exact destructive
decisions and their consequences on multiple different levels. To fully
cover the AI boom does not require you just to
(08:42):
cover finances. It doesn't require you just to cover the businesses.
You have to deeply and meaningfully understand the people behind it.
Fucking Casey Newton suggested, I don't do that. This Friday,
I'm talking with an actual software developer about a blog
you oat guy called Colton. He's fantastic, and about how
the whole myth of the ten engineer doesn't really exist
(09:03):
with AI. Talking to these people is necessary because this
isn't just a movement that grew from financial misdeeds, but
it grew from a tech industry that's kind of disconnected
from reality. Breaking those illusions is necessary, and it's how
we stop these things happening again. The Great Financial Crisis
happened in a much less connective media environment of far
(09:24):
fewer means of distribution for independent critics. The mainstream media
opening their arms to business and tech skepticism is an
important opportunity to explain why this happened, how the market
became illogical, and what means we used to manipulate the
media into telling that story. Mainstreaming and education of how
narratives are built allows people to pull apart future narratives.
Teaching people to be skeptical of companies selling things is
(09:46):
a good thing and one that empowers people to make
better decisions with their lives. Now, I should be clear,
tech and business skepticism is not new. There have been
people doing it for twenty goddamn years. What is new
is the mainstream making this mainstream making financial skepticism. Mainstream
can change the world, and it can make the goddamn
(10:08):
Internet better. It can fix the tech industry at a
time when I don't think the tech industry has been
more shitty. And I truly love technology and it's brought
me love, joy, happiness, community and success, and very little
about what the current tech industry is focused upon feels
like it's done in pursuit of any of those things.
In fact, I don't even know what the current tech
(10:30):
industry is focused on. There are companies doing interesting things.
I like framework, I like Anchor, I like seeing things
that are truly changing the world and changing the world
doesn't need to be this magical, ridiculous thing. It can
just be making the world a bit more fun and interesting.
And I don't see anyone in big tech doing that.
(10:51):
And I don't think thirty three percent of startup funding
going to AI is actually in pursuit of making anyone's
lives better, anyone more efficient, making humans better, or even
if I'm fucking honest, replacing humans. I don't think anyone
knows what they're doing. And I think where there are
could be exceptions or on the fringes in really deep
niche cases. I don't know, but I think the majority
(11:12):
of generative AI is kind of nihilistic. It's growth for
growth's sake, and it's the real detritus of the rot economy.
And I think a collapse is inevitable. I hope it
isn't as bad as it could be, but I think
it's the inevitable consequence of taking software and hardware out
(11:35):
of the hands of people that actually use it to
do shit and putting it in the hands of management
consultants like satching Adella. These companies cannot be swayed by regulation.
The CEOs are too rich, their businesses are too entrenched,
and thus the info poison we must use is educating
as many people as possible in how to be skeptical
of big text hype cycles and knowing the names of
(11:56):
people like satching Adella and most of us Suliman at Microsoft,
the people burning billions of dollars for no goddamnaries and
or clammy Sam Moltman, mocking them, pointing at them, calling
them what they are that changes the world, that makes
things better. And I'm touched by the amount of emails
(12:16):
I get from you. I'm genuinely blessed. I know how
hokey that sounds. Whatever you know me, I'm a dramatic fellow.
But I hear from so many of you that this
is what you want, that you want a better tech industry,
but you wont so want people to be more skeptical
of this one. And I couldn't agree more. We can
have a better world. I don't know how quickly we will.
(12:38):
There are times when it doesn't feel possible, but I
actually think it is. Anyway, this monologue has gone on
way too long. Enjoy the three part next week, How
to Argue with Nai Booster. It's based on the newsletter.
It's going to be a lot of fun. Shoot me
an email, go on the subreddit, dm me on Blue Sky,
or throw me a slob on Goot. Thanks to zever
(12:59):
for giving me your time. I'm
Zone Media. Hello and welcome to this week's Better Offline Monologue.
I'm your host ed Zitron. Before I go any further,
if you ever want to reach out to me with the information,
contact me on signal ez itron dot seven six. That's
(00:23):
ez or z for the Canadians and UK people out
there it Ron dot seven six. I will protect your identity.
Tell me all your secrets. I'd love to know them. Anyway.
This week, I wanted to talk about the stuff that
gets me through doing this show every week and start
with the point that I was told when I was
told I should do monologues as to really make them
(00:44):
sometimes just kind of a ran about how I'm feeling.
So for once, you're actually going to get one of
those rather than something I pre prepare all neatly and nicely.
And if it's a bit self indulgent, well, you know what,
what do you think you're getting with this podcast? I'm
a dramatic creature and I love it. Anyway. Today's really
about what keeps me going through the grind and what
I think this work can mean long term. I realize
(01:07):
i'm literally, by the way a podcast they're talking about
the computer and that there are people with significantly hardly
jobs and not trying to be too dramatic, but this
shit does kind of run you down a bit, if
only because a large part of my work comes down
to explaining at length why so many people are wrong
about something in a way that may threaten our entire economy,
and a lot of them are doing it, and it's
quite strange. I know some of you are going to
(01:29):
say that this is Brandalini's law, which talks about how
disproving misinformation tends to require far more effort than creating it.
But this is different because we live in a time
where our markets have become part of a death cult
of short terminism, when nothing bad ever happens until everything
bad happens at once. Yeah, writing about this on some
level is therapeutic. It sounds a little deranged, But in
writing about forty five thousand words in the past two
(01:52):
months for both the newsletter and the podcast, I've had
my arguments and really gotten to a point where I'm
finally happy with them since built building them. In April
twenty twenty fourth, real ed heads out there will remember
the two part episode I did about whether We'd hit PKI,
where I was on steroids because I got strap throw,
and I believe I threatened the computer itself, and I
(02:14):
think I said, if I could ever find a way
to give the computer a strep throw, I'd do it.
I maintain that threat anyway. The upcoming three part which
I'll record this weekend and will go out next week,
is my guide to arguing with AI boosters, and it's
allowed me to process my kind of potent frustrations with
their counterintuitive, thinly sourced yet loudly crowded, pseudo arguments, and
(02:37):
also the kind of the gas lating nature of them.
And at a time when very little else feels stable,
it feels nice to take the argument to people that
have built media presences or small fortunes off of misleading
people about what large language models are capable of. And
if I could say large language model correctly at that
point would feel a lot better. But I'm keeping it.
(02:58):
I really do find this all quite reprehensible, how they
emphatically and aggressively manipulate people into falling in line with
the narrative that AI was the future and that what
we're seeing today is just a taste of the power,
rather than being obviously the result of diminishing returns and
nothing ever really happening. And I genuinely feel moral outrage
(03:19):
seeing these arguments weaponized at scale. I just don't like
people being liked to. I don't like having skeptics treated
with disdain, their works considered dangerous because they refuse to
immediately ingest clammy Sam Altman's latest info slot. I do
not like it when people are being told again and
again and again to ignore their eyes and their ears
(03:41):
about what AI can do and about whether chet GPT
is really that amazing. And I do not like that
so much data center sprawl has been created, so many
billions have been burned, so many environs poisoned, and work stolen,
so that the most expensive software of all time can
propagate and to the exhausts a few hundred billion dollars
of venture capital and private credit dollars. And it feels
(04:02):
good to have my work reach a certain scale and
got there from telling the truth and doing so in
an emotionally honest way. I mean, who the fuck knows
what you actually think of me, But at least I'm
genuine in doing this. It's like eleven ten at night,
because this was the only time I could really get
this out, not even the effort, just the emotion needed
(04:22):
to be there. Anyway, my ranting aside, it feels good
to read headline after headline that we're actually in an
AI bubble because it means that on some level, the
work iron people like me other skeptics are doing, even directly,
it's bringing an end to this abominable waste. I do, however,
believe something is growing out of this and out of
(04:43):
these headlines and out of my work, and that's the
willingness of the media to accept skepticism, to actually give
space for it, and to more than just humor, but
actually begin engaging with these arguments themselves. Last week's relatively
despondent monologue was more a result of my exhaustion at
the end of that two month, forty five thousand word fest.
(05:03):
But the truth is that I have been on television
four times in the last week and a half, done
three different interviews, and I'm getting substantially more space to
explain my arguments in detail. It's not me boasting. This
is a good thing for everyone. This means that skepticism
can truly be mainstream, and there genuinely is this shift
in the mainstream, and this is one that opens the
(05:25):
door to an entire legion of people to do this
kind of meaningful, deep emotional and thorough analysis. If my
ideas can be mainstream, soaken yours. You just have to
be willing to keep consistent and unrelenting in your beliefs
and really do a thorough job, actually really look at
things in the cold, harsh light of day, be willing
to be skeptical but not brash with your skepticism, and
(05:47):
actually focus your energy on finding the truth, even if
that truth isn't great. If I'm completely honest. The Premium
newsletter this week, it started with me believing I had
a huge scoop. By the end of it, I realized
that didn't. I still find something interesting, though, because in
the process of chasing this down, I learned a lot
about GPUs eh. But anyway, the idea that my ideas
(06:10):
in mainstreaming is a huge deal because it means more
people are willing to consider that perhaps taking business leaders
might I don't know, be full of shit. And while
this is not a victory lap of any sort, I'm
not taking one of those until it's time, and that
will be when open aigh or anthropic finally shuts down.
But the true victory here is that you have big,
(06:31):
serious publications writing stories about things based on my work.
The Wall Street Journal out of piece by Christopher Mims,
And yes I did inspire it, he said up on
Blue Sky, and you can look talking about the cost
of inference increasing. This is a huge deal. This is
a major publication being willing to talk about serious skeptical
ideas that question the narrative that the entire market is chasing.
(06:52):
And Christopher Mems he also did that great piece on
data centers, sprawl and the costs and the capex. He
cited Paul Kudrowski. I'll get to that in future podcast.
But nevertheless, these ideas are breaking through to the mainstream,
and narratives can be broken, ideas can be picked up
and mainstreamed, and suddenly the world is willing to consider
true skepticism. An increased presence of tech and business skepticism
(07:17):
in the mainstream will be a net benefit to society,
and it's an opportunity to hold companies accountable for the
products and problems they create. I also want to be
clear that I am not the first to do this.
Alison Morrow at CNN has been leading tech skeptics since
twenty twenty one, when she was one of the few
to call bullshit on the metaverse. By the way, but
the level of mainstream interest I'm seeing in my work
suggests that the world is finally ready to take this
(07:39):
more big time. If I'm honest, to make this a
more common thing you hear of rather than this effusive,
dumb shit clapping at anything, Sam Moultman says. And I
realize it seems unrealistic, but with enough public pressure, with
a fundamental shift in how we cover business and technology,
we can affect true change. I can't promise will change
(08:00):
everything overnight, but that will stop every calamitous waste of
money or colatomus. So I was about to say, but
if we make it harder to do this financially, waste
will bullshit quietly, We'll make it harder to do it
again and again. And it starts with accountability. Once the
AI bubble bursts, which started four years ago for me
when I started covering the bullshit of the metaverse, financial
(08:21):
crises have never been covered in this detail by the media,
or at least not so widely. And though I believe
the collapse of AI will be destructive for the tech
and industry in our markets. I think that for the
first time, I and others have cataloged the exact destructive
decisions and their consequences on multiple different levels. To fully
cover the AI boom does not require you just to
(08:42):
cover finances. It doesn't require you just to cover the businesses.
You have to deeply and meaningfully understand the people behind it.
Fucking Casey Newton suggested, I don't do that. This Friday,
I'm talking with an actual software developer about a blog
you oat guy called Colton. He's fantastic, and about how
the whole myth of the ten engineer doesn't really exist
(09:03):
with AI. Talking to these people is necessary because this
isn't just a movement that grew from financial misdeeds, but
it grew from a tech industry that's kind of disconnected
from reality. Breaking those illusions is necessary, and it's how
we stop these things happening again. The Great Financial Crisis
happened in a much less connective media environment of far
(09:24):
fewer means of distribution for independent critics. The mainstream media
opening their arms to business and tech skepticism is an
important opportunity to explain why this happened, how the market
became illogical, and what means we used to manipulate the
media into telling that story. Mainstreaming and education of how
narratives are built allows people to pull apart future narratives.
Teaching people to be skeptical of companies selling things is
(09:46):
a good thing and one that empowers people to make
better decisions with their lives. Now, I should be clear,
tech and business skepticism is not new. There have been
people doing it for twenty goddamn years. What is new
is the mainstream making this mainstream making financial skepticism. Mainstream
can change the world, and it can make the goddamn
(10:08):
Internet better. It can fix the tech industry at a
time when I don't think the tech industry has been
more shitty. And I truly love technology and it's brought
me love, joy, happiness, community and success, and very little
about what the current tech industry is focused upon feels
like it's done in pursuit of any of those things.
In fact, I don't even know what the current tech
(10:30):
industry is focused on. There are companies doing interesting things.
I like framework, I like Anchor, I like seeing things
that are truly changing the world and changing the world
doesn't need to be this magical, ridiculous thing. It can
just be making the world a bit more fun and interesting.
And I don't see anyone in big tech doing that.
(10:51):
And I don't think thirty three percent of startup funding
going to AI is actually in pursuit of making anyone's
lives better, anyone more efficient, making humans better, or even
if I'm fucking honest, replacing humans. I don't think anyone
knows what they're doing. And I think where there are
could be exceptions or on the fringes in really deep
niche cases. I don't know, but I think the majority
(11:12):
of generative AI is kind of nihilistic. It's growth for
growth's sake, and it's the real detritus of the rot economy.
And I think a collapse is inevitable. I hope it
isn't as bad as it could be, but I think
it's the inevitable consequence of taking software and hardware out
(11:35):
of the hands of people that actually use it to
do shit and putting it in the hands of management
consultants like satching Adella. These companies cannot be swayed by regulation.
The CEOs are too rich, their businesses are too entrenched,
and thus the info poison we must use is educating
as many people as possible in how to be skeptical
of big text hype cycles and knowing the names of
(11:56):
people like satching Adella and most of us Suliman at Microsoft,
the people burning billions of dollars for no goddamnaries and
or clammy Sam Moltman, mocking them, pointing at them, calling
them what they are that changes the world, that makes
things better. And I'm touched by the amount of emails
(12:16):
I get from you. I'm genuinely blessed. I know how
hokey that sounds. Whatever you know me, I'm a dramatic fellow.
But I hear from so many of you that this
is what you want, that you want a better tech industry,
but you wont so want people to be more skeptical
of this one. And I couldn't agree more. We can
have a better world. I don't know how quickly we will.
(12:38):
There are times when it doesn't feel possible, but I
actually think it is. Anyway, this monologue has gone on
way too long. Enjoy the three part next week, How
to Argue with Nai Booster. It's based on the newsletter.
It's going to be a lot of fun. Shoot me
an email, go on the subreddit, dm me on Blue Sky,
or throw me a slob on Goot. Thanks to zever
(12:59):
for giving me your time. I'm
Host
Ed Zitron
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