Another week in this messed up timeline and another week of people I care about being endlessly obsequious towards the machine. People’s ability to worship and obey the machine operating all around us makes me so very sad. It won’t save you!! It won’t secure you a place at the rich and powerful table. It will just leave you sad and lonely, reminiscing about a time where you think you almost felt human. It will just isolate you. Right now the machine appears to be working for you because you are still above the line, but at some point, for reasons likely outside your control you will slip below the line, and the machine will turn on you. The machine will lock you out of the comfortably numb that you exist in today and you will find yourself screaming into the machine with nobody ever truly hearing you. At this moment you will be very, very, very sorry that you were so obedient towards the machine.
Many people, mostly white people in this moment, cannot imagine what it is like to have the machine turn against them. Sure, everyone is dealing with the enshittification of the Internet in this moment and most of us have had a good taste of government or corporate bureaucracy by this age, but it is likely you have not gotten a full taste of what is to come. So I get it. It still makes sense for you to not rock the boat and remain obsequious towards the ruling class of people who are building out this machine. But, whether or not you want to admit it, this line will continue to shift little by little until there comes a day, topic, person, or issue that throws you over that line. It might be something within your known orbit, but it will likely come from some place completely out of your control, and then, only then, will you fully understand what I am talking about. Until then, you won’t fully grasp the gravity of the moment we live in and the damage being unleashed with computers, the Internet, and artificial intelligence. Let me share and contrast my two stories of being consumed by the machine to help share with you just a taste of what is coming for us all.
It was 1997 and I was preparing to go camping with my girlfriend’s two kids. She was a stripper and I was taking her kids out for a weekend in the mountains to get away from things. Six months earlier, she and I happened to be driving through Illinois on the way to New York City when we were pulled over by State Troopers. She had an ounce of marijuana and I had a box of hand blown glass pipes that I was bringing to New York to sell. Both of these were felonies in Illinois at the time. Our court dates were still months off and I wasn’t too worried as I walked out the door carrying sleeping bags for our camping trip. Next thing I knew I was swept off my feet and laying on my back with two police officers putting their knees on my neck and my chest—-rolling me over and then handcuffing me. I was taken to the local county jail, processed, and put into a cell with 50+ other men. I wasn’t told any reason for why I was there, or what my charges were. I just sat there for a couple days in a holding cell, realizing that they don’t have to give you a phone call or anything for any amount of time—-that is just the TV shit we are fed.
I spent the fourth and fifth day being interrogated by the FBI. Apparently I fit the description of someone who was involved in the Oklahoma City Bombing. Two brothers who were Timothy McVeigh’s accomplices were shooting at police officers in Ohio the same time I was getting pulled over in Illinois. It had nothing to do with me, but that didn’t matter. The FBI wanted my complete story. After two days they lost interest, but I was still in jail. No charges. Just in jail. I spent another 16 days in jail before some guy that my girlfriend had been seeing knew someone in the Justice Department, and had them inquire as to why I was in jail. It was this phone call that triggered the local police to notice they had no real reason to hold me, so they walked me out to the street behind the jail and said I was free to go. I spent the next couple of years cleaning up my legal mess and getting on with my life, but this early encounter with being lost in the machine has always stuck with me. You realize just how little you matter and how the system really works in these moments—-and It is not the version you see on television. I never went back to jail after that and I worked as hard as I possibly could to stay out of the system from that day forward. It is something that can happen to anyone, and has almost nothing to do with my own crimes–just the wrong place at the wrong time.
Fast forward to 2017 when I acquired a stalker named Owen after I stepped in to help two other people that he had been stalking. Ever since then Owen has stalked and harassed me online and in in-person at conferences. He calls the police on me at conferences. Ironically he also reported me to the FBI for stealing the Swagger specification from him, a popular API format, which the creator emailed me asking uh WTF??? Owen has a long list of people he’s harassed and run off. He has felony charges for stalking, but yet he continues. He calls anyone I work with and directs messages to anyone I engage with via LinkedIn. He used to do the same on Twitter until I left. I am going on almost a decade of Owen stalking me. Everyone tells you to get a lawyer, but once you do, you learn that there isn’t much you can do unless he threatens you with physical harm. Owen perpetually walks right up to the line, but he manages to avoid it. He knows how to use the machine. I could sue him for libel and defamation, but the responsibility is on me to hire a lawyer and prove-—which is getting easier to do with each day, but would still be very costly. I have gotten used to Owen harassing me and the people I engage with, but it doesn’t lessen the sting and some days it makes getting up and facing the day completely unbearable, and I know it hurts my business–which I am sure is his intent.
I spend 10-30 minutes each morning reporting his comments across all my posts and every couple of days I get someone DMing me with a screen shot of a message he sent them telling them that I am a white supremacist, deadbeat dad, or whatever his latest narrative about me is at the moment. I report them all to LinkedIn, but they always tell me in their automated way that it was reviewed by their caring team of specialists, but isn’t worth taking action, and that I should just block him. Why hadn’t I thought of that?? Hundreds of reports later, it has just become a strange and dark morning ritual. It is just my tax to perform online via the Internet each day. So at some point I began to post the story publicly on LinkedIn to share with people who may not know what is happening. Each one of these posts brings out all the other people he has stalked and harassed, as well as revealing new ones on a regular basis. I get the regular waves of people telling me I should get a lawyer and I should tell LinkedIn to do something. They just have no idea. They are still above the line of the machine. They barely hear my screaming within the machine each and every day. I repost these posts (screams) every couple of months to keep people educated and strengthen my human network. I am fully aware that the machine will never do anything about it.
The machine will never do anything because the abuse reporting system is all AI-driven (this is by design), and if there is still even one or two people behind it, they have no way to address all of the issues or be able to understand the context behind each situation. They don’t know Owen calls the police on me in the real world. The system actually rewards the behavior, and the machine becomes my harasser. I now get weekly emails from LinkedIn telling me that my Owen posts are among my top performing posts and would like to boost them to get more traffic! Why yes LinkedIn, that is exactly what I want to do!! Spend more money on my harassment. I’ve had people who claim to know people who work at LinkedIn and tag me. This has happened probably 50 or 60 times now. I know that nobody will ever come to my assistance. It is all theater. Machine theater in the cracks of humanity. You will never know what it is like to be stuck inside the machine until it happens to you. It is incredibly lonely. You feel very, very, very helpless. Sitting in the jail cell back in 1997 with a weight-lifting mat as a bed in a corner of a room with 50+ other men feels very similar to where I am within the Internet machine in 2025, just lonelier. At least in the jail cell I had others to play rummy and spades with. Here I just hear the sounds of the machine, and I get to read my stalker telling me how stupid every morning. It is a much more banal but nonetheless a violent, hurtful, and dehumanizing existence. Welcome to the future!
This is the future we are building. It is a future that is coming for you. There are plenty of Owens out there. One will find you someday. I didn’t create Owen. I never did anything except try to help fellow human beings. I didn’t blow up any buildings in Oklahoma City, or even plan to. I just happen to have a similar last name to one of the plotters. Sitting helpless in a jail cell has framed how I see my situation with Owen. Both experiences have now framed how I see computers, the Internet, artificial intelligence, and yes APIs. Legal challenges and harassment by white men are nothing new if you are black or brown, and the harassment by men is something women face each and every day. I don’t wish this shit on anyone, but if you are evangelizing artificial intelligence right now—I do. It would be a learning experience for you. It will build character, give you grit, and give you an opportunity to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. When you do, you will begin to get my API Evangelist rants a lot more and understand why AI can never write the shit that I do. AI has never taken a night stick to the back of the legs, or had to explain to a new employer who the person is calling and writing emails to explain they just hired a white supremacist. I have. The predictive word choice algorithm hits a little differently when you’ve been lost in the machine.
The machine will never love you. Why do you feel so compelled to defend it and say nice things about it? Automation and bureaucracy must be transparent and accountable, not obscured and defended. The machine doesn’t need you defending it. What amazes me is how you listen when it tells you to punch down, but you never question why you don’t ever punch up. My situation with Owen happens over and over each day online and in the real world to millions of other people. You just don’t see it because you are above the line. Someday you will experience it, and your first response as a privileged person will be to plead to the machine for the justice you deserve. You won’t get it. You will hire lawyers and spend money. It won’t matter. You will wake up most mornings and scream. You will go to sleep many nights crying. There will be nothing you can do. The machine is too big and loud. Your situation will be made worse with the knowledge that you were so obsequious and silent at this moment as the machine grew 10x its original size. You didn’t do anything. You didn’t listen to other’s pleas. One could easily argue that you don’t deserve forgiveness, but I know this isn’t true. You are human. You matter. I will be here to help you. I will be here to listen to you. I share a few poems I’ve written about the hum of the gears within the machine. I’ll be here telling stories, painting pictures, writing poems, and welcoming new human beings who’ve just had the line cross over them—-leaving them behind.
