How to Change Minds

So far in 2026, here in the United States, I’ve encountered a fair number of people calling for the impeachment, removal, and even arrest of various officials in the Trump administration. Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller, and Greg Bovino because of the lies and mishandling leading to, and in the aftermath of, the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and just the overall illegal occupation of Minneapolis. Pam Bondi and Kash Patel due to aiding, abetting, and covering up the Epstein conspiracy. Trump himself for being the ringleader (or perhaps useful idiot) of this grotesque spectacle, all while enriching himself and threatening to “nationalize” the 2026 midterm elections. While impeachment and legal action are certainly in order, those actions, I contend, are the easy part. The hard part is to demonstrate to the ~40% of the U.S. population who either loves what the regime is doing, or who are fine enough with it not to care, that all of this really is as bad as what the detractors are saying. Such an undertaking – completely discrediting the fascist authoritarian project in the eyes of a significant majority of U.S. citizens – requires being able to change peoples minds. But how does that happen?

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Is AI Doomerism Part of the Hype?

I think that I, like many people, am drawn to the drama of both AI Doomerism (artificial intelligence is going to be existentially disastrous for the human species, and therefore we need to slow or halt its development) and AI Boomerism (AI is going to be enormously beneficial for the world, and therefore we need to accelerate its development, i.e., we need an AI boom). In the former, we get cool sci-fi stories like The Terminator and The Matrix, with all the action and heroism that comes with it, where the latter gives us stories like Her and Star Trek, with all the philosophical wonder at what it means to be human and what consciousness is. Especially as someone who wants to be (or at least likes to pretend to be) an author, and someone who is interested in philosophy, these stories are engaging and it’s easy to get caught up in them. But in the real world, AI has more mundane, but no less impactful, real world consequences. And so, people like me who often live with their head in the clouds, easily swept up by the high-minded ideas of AI, need to be brought back down to earth.

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