Great post, and a discussion that isn’t being had enough.
It’s such a special time to be building, that apart from a very few small number of exceptions, taking a job right now feels like short term gain exchanged for long term pain.
This is exactly the conversation we need to be having.
The middle class is not just being “impacted” by AI. It was always a systemic function—part buffer, part myth, part subsidy. And now that function is dissolving.
Jobs are disappearing not because there’s no work left, but because the value chain has been digitized past the need for middle-tier cognition. We are witnessing the soft disintegration of economic legibility for millions of people whose roles were always more infrastructural than meritocratic.
I wrote about this collapse here:
🧾 The Middle Class is a Semi-Meritocratic Pseudo Universal Basic Income
Interesting take. But I'd question the approach. What we are witnessing is a leveling down of safety to the entrepreneurial level, which is notoriously low. So now, there are only "cool" opportunities for those who love risk. In other words, safety is disappearing.
It sounds like a new way to package alienation, precarity, and uniformity. Not everyone is meant to be an entrepreneur—and that's a good thing. A healthy society is a diverse one.
We can either keep enshrining entrepreneurs and continue on this path to self-destruction, or realize that there are different types of talent that, although not easily marketable or capitalizable, are just as—or even more—valuable than entrepreneurship.
I agree, it's a levelling down of safety in many ways. Safety is disappearing. Sadly, even though many different types of talent may be just as valuable as entrepreneurship, they aren't as capitalisable, as you've said.
Great post, and a discussion that isn’t being had enough.
It’s such a special time to be building, that apart from a very few small number of exceptions, taking a job right now feels like short term gain exchanged for long term pain.
This is exactly the conversation we need to be having.
The middle class is not just being “impacted” by AI. It was always a systemic function—part buffer, part myth, part subsidy. And now that function is dissolving.
Jobs are disappearing not because there’s no work left, but because the value chain has been digitized past the need for middle-tier cognition. We are witnessing the soft disintegration of economic legibility for millions of people whose roles were always more infrastructural than meritocratic.
I wrote about this collapse here:
🧾 The Middle Class is a Semi-Meritocratic Pseudo Universal Basic Income
https://sonderuncertainly.substack.com/p/the-middle-class-is-a-semi-meritocratic
Interesting take. But I'd question the approach. What we are witnessing is a leveling down of safety to the entrepreneurial level, which is notoriously low. So now, there are only "cool" opportunities for those who love risk. In other words, safety is disappearing.
It sounds like a new way to package alienation, precarity, and uniformity. Not everyone is meant to be an entrepreneur—and that's a good thing. A healthy society is a diverse one.
We can either keep enshrining entrepreneurs and continue on this path to self-destruction, or realize that there are different types of talent that, although not easily marketable or capitalizable, are just as—or even more—valuable than entrepreneurship.
I agree, it's a levelling down of safety in many ways. Safety is disappearing. Sadly, even though many different types of talent may be just as valuable as entrepreneurship, they aren't as capitalisable, as you've said.