Each man carries the vestiges of his birth–the slime and eggshells of his primeval past–with him to the end of his days. Some never become human, remaining frog, lizard, ant. Some are human above the waist, fish below. Each represents a gamble on the part of nature in creation of the human. We all share the same origin, our mothers; all of us come in at the same door. But each of us–experiments of the depths–strives toward his own destiny. We can understand one another; but each of us is able to interpret himself to himself alone.”
Hermann Karl Hesse was a German-Swiss poet and novelist, and winner of the 1946 Nobel Prize in Literature. His interest in Eastern religious, spiritual, and philosophical traditions, combined with his involvement with Jungian analysis, helped shape his literary work. Wikipedia
The Energies of Men is a collection of essays written by American philosopher and psychologist, William James. The book explores the concept of human energy and its impact on various aspects of life including creativity, productivity, and motivation. James argues that energy is not just physical, but also mental and emotional, and that it is essential for achieving success and happiness in life. He examines the role of energy in different activities such as sports, art, and religion, and discusses the factors that affect energy levels such as diet, exercise, and emotional states. The book also delves into the idea of willpower and how it can be harnessed to increase energy levels and achieve goals. Overall, The Energies of Men is a thought-provoking and insightful read that offers practical advice on how to maximize one’s energy and potential.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world’s literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist who was also trained as a physician. The first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States, James was one of the leading thinkers of the late nineteenth century and is believed by many to be one of the most influential philosophers the United States has ever produced, while others have labelled him the “Father of American psychology”. Along with Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey, he is considered to be one of the greatest figures associated with the philosophical school known as pragmatism, and is also cited as one of the founders of the functional psychology. He also developed the philosophical perspective known as radical empiricism. James’ work has influenced intellectuals such as Émile Durkheim, W. E. B. Du Bois, Edmund Husserl, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Hilary Putnam, and Richard Rorty.
Born into a wealthy family, James was the son of the Swedenborgian theologian Henry James Sr and the brother of both the prominent novelist Henry James, and the diarist Alice James. James wrote widely on many topics, including epistemology, education, metaphysics, psychology, religion, and mysticism. Among his most influential books are Principles of Psychology, which was a groundbreaking text in the field of psychology, Essays in Radical Empiricism, an important text in philosophy, and The Varieties of Religious Experience, which investigated different forms of religious experience.
William James was born at the Astor House in New York City. He was the son of Henry James Sr., a noted and independently wealthy Swedenborgian theologian well acquainted with the literary and intellectual elites of his day. The intellectual brilliance of the James family milieu and the remarkable epistolary talents of several of its members have made them a subject of continuing interest to historians, biographers, and critics.
James interacted with a wide array of writers and scholars throughout his life, including his godfather Ralph Waldo Emerson, his godson William James Sidis, as well as Charles Sanders Peirce, Bertrand Russell, Josiah Royce, Ernst Mach, John Dewey, Macedonio Fernández, Walter Lippmann, Mark Twain, Horatio Alger, Jr., Henri Bergson and Sigmund Freud.
William James received an eclectic trans-Atlantic education, developing fluency in both German and French. Education in the James household encouraged cosmopolitanism. The family made two trips to Europe while William James was still a child, setting a pattern that resulted in thirteen more European journeys during his life. His early artistic bent led to an apprenticeship in the studio of William Morris Hunt in Newport, Rhode Island, but he switched in 1861 to scientific studies at the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University.
In his early adulthood, James suffered from a variety of physical ailments, including those of the eyes, back, stomach, and skin. He was also tone deaf. He was subject to a variety of psychological symptoms which were diagnosed at the time as neurasthenia, and which included periods of depression during which he contemplated suicide for months on end. Two younger brothers, Garth Wilkinson (Wilky) and Robertson (Bob), fought in the Civil War. The other three siblings (William, Henry, and Alice James) all suffered from periods of invalidism.
He took up medical studies at Harvard Medical School in 1864. He took a break in the spring of 1865 to join naturalist Louis Agassiz on a scientific expedition up the Amazon River, but aborted his trip after eight months, as he suffered bouts of severe seasickness and mild smallpox. His studies were interrupted once again due to illness in April 1867. He traveled to Germany in search of a cure and remained there until November 1868; at that time he was 26 years old. During this period, he
Dream Psychology is written in a simple, popular way which makes it readable and understandable by almost any one, without technical preparation or without special information regarding the psychoanalytic psychology. The style is very clear and the various matters discussed are put in a way which should be of considerable help in spreading a sympathetic attitude towards psychoanalysis. The author is evidently a strong adherent of the Zurich school rather than of the more strictly Freudian, and discusses psychoanalysis and the dream more particularly from this point of view. He especially utilizes the method of what he calls constructive interpretation both of symptoms and of dreams rather than of the more purely reductive analysis of Freud. In other words, instead of simply trying to split things up into the material of which they are made, he believes that the dream should be considered from a teleological point of view.
Maurice Nicoll (19 July 1884 – 30 August 1953) was a British psychiatrist, author and noted Fourth Way teacher. He is best known for his Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, a multi-volume collection of talks he gave to his study groups.
Nicoll was born at the Manse in Kelso, Scotland, the son of William Robertson Nicoll, a minister of the Free Church of Scotland. He studied science at Cambridge before going on to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and then to Vienna, Berlin, and Zurich where he became a colleague of Carl Gustav Jung. Jung’s psychological revelations and his own work with Jung during this period left a lasting influence on Nicoll as a young man.
After his Army Medical Service in the 1914 War, in Gallipoli and Mesopotamia, he returned to England to become a psychiatrist. In 1921 he met Petr Demianovich Ouspensky, a student of G. I. Gurdjieff and he also became a pupil of Gurdjieff in the following year. In 1923 when Gurdjieff closed down his Institute, Nicoll joined P.D. Ouspensky’s group. In 1931 he followed Ouspensky’s advice and started his own study groups in England. This was done through a program of work devoted to passing on the ideas that Nicoll had gathered and passed them on through his talks given weekly to his own study groups.
Many of these talks were recorded verbatim and documented in a six-volume series of texts compiled in his books Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky.
Nicoll also authored books and stories about his experiences in the Middle East using the pseudonym Martin Swayne.
Though Nicoll advocated the theories of the Fourth Way he also maintained interests in essential Christian teachings, in Neoplatonism and in dream interpretation until the end of his life.
The Blue Germ by Maurice Nicoll is a gripping science fiction novel that delves into the realms of medical experimentation and its unforeseen consequences. Set in a world on the brink of technological and scientific breakthroughs; the story revolves around a mysterious blue germ; a virus with extraordinary properties; that begins to spread uncontrollably. As the germ wreaks havoc; it becomes apparent that its effects are not only physical but also psychological; leading to a profound examination of human nature and societal structures. The novel follows a diverse cast of characters; including scientists; doctors; and ordinary individuals; as they grapple with the crisis and its far-reaching implications. Nicoll’s narrative combines suspense with thought-provoking themes; exploring the ethical boundaries of scientific advancement and the unpredictable outcomes of tampering with nature. The Blue Germ offers a compelling mix of intrigue; action; and philosophical inquiry; making it a captivating read for fans of speculative fiction and those interested in the intersection of science and ethics.
First printed on 26 August 1933 by La Société Anonyme des Editions de l¿Ouest, this is the 75th anniversary edition, a reprint of the first edition. This edition has been digitally retypeset and is not a facsimile.
Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff (Armenian: Գեորգի Իվանովիչ Գյուրջիև, Georgian: გიორგი გურჯიევი, Greek: Γεώργιος Γεωργιάδης, Russian: Гео́ргий Ива́нович Гюрджи́ев, Georgiy Ivanovich Gyurdzhiev, or Gurdjiev) was an influential Greek-Armenian mystic, spiritual teacher of the early to mid-20th century, and a self-professed ‘teacher of dancing’.
He taught that the vast majority of humanity lives their entire lives in a state of hypnotic “waking sleep,” but that it was possible to transcend to a higher state of consciousness and achieve full human potential. Gurdjieff developed a method for doing so, calling his discipline “The Work” (connoting “work on oneself”) or “the Method.” According to his principles and instructions, Gurdjieff’s method for awakening one’s consciousness is different from that of the fakir, monk or yogi, so his discipline is also called (originally) the “Fourth Way.” At one point he described his teaching as being “esoteric Christianity.”
At different times in his life, Gurdjieff formed and closed various schools around the world to teach the work. He claimed that the teachings he brought to the West from his own experiences and early travels expressed the truth found in ancient religions and wisdom teachings relating to self-awareness in people’s daily lives and humanity’s place in the universe. The title of his third series of writings, Life Is Real Only Then, When ‘I Am’, expresses the essence of his teachings. His complete series of books is entitled All and Everything.
New Thinking Allowed with Jeffrey Mishlove Jun 20, 2024 Psychology and Psychotherapy Gary Lachman is the author of over twenty books about the history of esotericism and its influence on politics and society. He has written biographies of Carl Jung, Aleister Crowley, Rudolf Steiner, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Emanuel Swedenborg, P. D. Ouspensky, and Colin Wilson. His newest book is Maurice Nicoll: The Forgotten Teacher of the Fourth Way. His website is https://www.gary-lachman.com/ Here he weaves a fascinating tapestry involving the ferment in the early twentieth century, including the emergence of depth psychology and a burgeoning esoteric culture including theosophy, anthroposophy, ritual magick, and – particularly – the Fourth Way movement of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky. Maurice Nicoll was in the center of this world. 00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:53 The Fourth Way 00:18:13 Maurice Nicoll and depth psychology 00:28:36 Fourth Way paradoxes 00:44:12 Fusion of psychology and esotericism 00:57:38 Gurdjieff movements 01:06:56 Maurice Nicoll’s significance 01:16:46 Conclusion Edited subtitles for this video are available in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Polish, and Swedish. New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. (Recorded on June 6, 2024)
It seems odd, wrong even, that “patience” and “passion” — the twin roots of love — should share a root in pāti, Latin for “to suffer.” But anyone who has lived, who has loved unskillfully or loved the unskilled, knows that the experience can be our sharpest instrument of suffering. We say we “fall” in love precisely because we know we can get bruised, know that the trap door it opens beneath our feet hurls us into depths we are entirely unprepared to fathom.
The interesting question, the transformative question, is what happens after the fall.
“It is a subject in which neither intuition nor the behaviour of others will help the philosopher to the truth,” Robert Louis Stevenson (November 13, 1850–December 3, 1894) writes in his long, passionate, searching essay on falling in love. “There is probably nothing rightly thought or rightly written on this matter of love that is not a piece of the person’s experience.” He is writing out of his own experience: Twenty-seven and struggling to make a name for himself as a writer, he had fallen painfully in love with the radical Fanny Obsourne — ten years his senior, still married to the philandering husband she left, attending art school in Paris with her daughter. They would eventually marry and magnify each other’s lives beyond all imagination. (“Without Fanny’s influence,” Camille Peri writes in her excellent biography of the two, “Louis might now be a forgotten man of letters instead of one of the greatest voices in Scottish literature.”)
Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson
Love, Stevenson argues, is the only experience that truly astonishes us, jolt us awake from the slumber of preconception and expectation. And when it does, “it is not without something of the nature of dismay” that we look upon our new position — discomposed, disoriented, out of control. He writes:
Falling in love is the one illogical adventure, the one thing of which we are tempted to think as supernatural, in our trite and reasonable world.
That feeling, Stevenson reflects, infuses one’s sense of being with “a very supreme sense of pleasure in all parts of life — in lying down to sleep, in waking, in motion, in breathing, in continuing to be.” And yet at the center of something so concrete, so palpable, is a mystery:
It is a subject in which neither intuition nor the behaviour of others will help the philosopher to the truth. There is probably nothing rightly thought or rightly written on this matter of love that is not a piece of the person’s experience. The effect is out of all proportion with the cause. Two persons, neither of them, it may be, very amiable or very beautiful, meet, speak a little, and look a little into each other’s eyes. That has been done a dozen or so of times in the experience of either with no great result. But on this occasion all is different. They fall at once into that state in which another person becomes to us the very gist and centrepoint of God’s creation, and demolishes our laborious theories with a smile; in which our ideas are so bound up with the one master-thought that even the trivial cares of our own person become so many acts of devotion, and the love of life itself is translated into a wish to remain in the same world with so precious and desirable a fellow-creature.
What makes love astonishing is precisely the way it blindsides us, the way it cannot be willed or achieved or won on merit. He writes:
There are many matters in which you may waylay Destiny, and bid him stand and deliver. Hard work, high thinking, adventurous excitement, and a great deal more that forms a part of this or the other person’s spiritual bill of fare, are within the reach of almost any one who can dare a little and be patient. But it is by no means in the way of every one to fall in love… Many lovable people miss each other in the world, or meet under some unfavourable star. There is the nice and critical moment of declaration to be got over. From timidity or lack of opportunity a good half of possible love cases never get so far, and at least another quarter do there cease and determine.
And yet love is not a matter of persuasion. In a sense, the declaration of it becomes superfluous when the fact of it is self-evident and mutual. It is, Stevenson observes, something we must simply show up for, with passion and patience entwined. He outlines the discovery, the deepening, the development of love past “the simple accident of falling in love”:
Love should run out to meet love with open arms. Indeed, the ideal story is that of two people who go into love step for step, with a fluttered consciousness, like a pair of children venturing together into a dark room. From the first moment when they see each other, with a pang of curiosity, through stage after stage of growing pleasure and embarrassment, they can read the expression of their own trouble in each other’s eyes. There is here no declaration properly so called; the feeling is so plainly shared.
To remain in love, Stevenson argues in another essay, two people “must bring kindness and goodwill” to life beyond the fall. He considers the single most important element of lasting love, which is also the greatest kindness we can give each other and the most durable gesture of goodwill:
Veracity to sentiment, truth in a relation, truth to your own heart and your friends, never to feign or falsify emotion — that is the truth which makes love possible… With our chosen friends… and still more between lovers (for mutual understanding is love’s essence)… we must strive and do battle for the truth.
A century later, Adrienne Rich would sharpen this sentiment in her timeless definition of love as “a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.”
Right now there are fifteen pounds of timid rescue dog asleep beside me.This boy’s name is Koa. He’s a German Spitz, long-furred and soft as a dandelion gone to seed, and his red sable coat reminds me of the Hawaiian hardwood. Whenever I sit in my rocker, he wedges himself in with me. I let him—I’d miss the weight and warmth if it were gone.When he settles there, my breath slows. Whatever I’d been bracing against all day loosens its grip and lets go as I stroke his fur; it’s the silkiest, springiest and most enjoyable texture. He even smells good most days (for a dog.)A warm animal asleep at your side is one of the coziest things a home can hold.
I’ve loved three dogs into and out of this life.
When I left Maui and followed Mike to the continent in 2017, I came with what mattered: a couple of suitcases, and our then-dog Liko in my arms.Liko bounded across baggage claim to swamp Mike in barking joy loud enough to turn heads once we arrived. This little Shih-Tzu told the world that we were still a family, and that the next chapter of our life could be wonderful, too.Before Liko there was Nalu, a Chihuahua-terrier who never understood how small she was. Fierce, loyal, a Rottweiler trapped in a six-pound body, she was certain she was our last line of defense. If you’ve read my Paradise Crime Mysteries, you’ve met her: she’s the inspiration for Keiki, the brave Rottie who guards Lei through every danger I throw at them both.I gave Nalu a second life in fiction because I couldn’t bear for that much loyalty to ever end. Gah! That our dogs precede us is one of life’s truest hardships.After Liko passed, I swore I couldn’t handle the pain of loss. I tried to go pet free; but I got depressed. Had no excuse for my nature and forest walks. Six months into malaise Mike was the one to find Koa on Petfinder; I was too apathetic to make such an important choice.Koa is the most submissive dog I’ve ever known. He lets bigger dogs shove him until they lose interest, and he’s terrified of loud noises and bags in any form. He’s a great pet, don’t get me wrong—but he’s not perfect. None of them are. Get a pet, and you’re signing up for EXPERIENCES—but a pet in the house changes the air to a cozier feel.
Animals know things about us that they shouldn’t.
I have loved three dogs in this life, and each taught me about love in a different way.A reader named Valerie wrote to me about her two shih-tzu mixes, Huck and Finn, half-brothers born a year apart. Neither dog had ever been the cuddly type. Then, when Valerie and her family lost their thirty-one-year-old daughter to cancer, the dogs changed overnight. “They seemed to know I needed them,” she said. “They became my shadows, and were always on my lap when I sat down. They brought so much comfort and love–they helped me through the darkness.” Years later, the dogs have never stopped this comforting behavior, and Valerie counts Huck and Finn the greatest blessings she could have asked for during the hardest season she’s lived through.
No one trained Valerie’s dogs. Grief moved through a house, and two empathetic animals responded to be closer and more present.
For years I assumed this bond with pets was sentiment, the soft anthropomorphizing we drape over creatures who can’t speak for themselves–but research revealed more.Stroke an animal, and your nervous system calms measurably. A 2022 systematic review in the International Journal of Psychophysiology pooled 129 studies and found that human–dog interaction reliably moves the body toward the parasympathetic state, the “rest and digest” branch of the nervous system, lifting heart-rate variability, lowering cortisol, and quieting the stress axis of anxiety. Researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet found that a few minutes of gentle contact between dogs and their owners raises oxytocin, the same bonding hormone that flows between a nursing mother and her baby, lowering the owner’s cortisol (and probably the animal’s, too.)Cats have their own set of comfort skills. A cat’s purr lands roughly between 25 and 150 hertz, squarely inside the “sound healing” frequency range clinicians use to ease pain and encourage healing. In a randomized controlled trial of 249 college students, ten minutes of hands-on time with shelter cats and dogs measurably lowered the students’ salivary cortisol, more than watching others pet the animals, more than looking at photographs of them. Ten minutes, measurable in spit.Co-regulation is the clinical word that describes what happens with me and Koa in that rocker: one nervous system borrows steadiness from another, the way a frightened child borrows calm from a parent’s heartbeat. (It’s the same thing happening when Kat holds Tiki, the one-eared former feral feline in my Paradise Crime Cozy Mysteries.I’ve spent much of my career as a therapist teaching people to find their way toward calm and feeling good; my dog delivers it without a single technique.
(that fur though…and Anita’s gloves)
Kelly shared with me that her life changed drastically with COVID, when she developed a permanent disability that ended her career. Her rescue cats have carried her through much of the devastation. “My cats are my daily companions,” she said. “They sit with me when I’m in pain or sad. So grateful to be blessed with these loving rescues.”A reader named Meli shared that she took in a cockatiel named Buddy when an elderly owner, ninety years old, had to move into senior care. Buddy was twelve by then and had been mostly ignored for years. Under Meli’s roof he came roaring back to life, affectionate and opinionated in equal measure. “He talks my ear off,” she said, “even when I’m having important conversations on the phone. He can be downright embarrassing.” At the moment, she says, he’s overusing a single phrase: “You hoo?” Announcing that it is, in fact, dinnertime, and he would like his carrots and lettuce now, or that he wants attention. Cockatiels can live thirty-five years with good care, and Meli expects Buddy to go the distance. “He has brought light to my life that I didn’t know I needed,” she shared. “Life without Buddy would be awful right now.”
A grieving mother’s dogs. A disabled woman’s cats. A widow’s loud, ridiculous, beloved bird. The animal can be different. The mechanism doesn’t change: a living, breathing presence that asks nothing of you but your attention and love, and in return gives your body permission to relax and feel good.
The Danes, who gave us hygge, count a sleeping animal among the most hyggelig things a home can offer, right up there with candlelight and a warm drink–and I totally understand why.Every few days, when the weather allows, I sit with Koa out on the deck and brush his coat, letting the loosened underfluff drift off my fingertips into the wind to catch on a nearby bush; lining for a bird’s nest later in the season.He goes boneless with pleasure. So do I. No one can hurry while brushing a happy dog (or cat, or horse, or chicken, for that matter).Animals and cozy living: they don’t just live in the warmth you make. They amplify it
(A note on the science, and some references:)Teo, J. T., Johnstone, S. J., Römer, S. S., & Thomas, S. J. (2022). Psychophysiological mechanisms underlying the potential health benefits of human–dog interactions: A systematic literature review. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 180, 27–48.Petersson, M., Uvnäs-Moberg, K., Nilsson, A., Gustafson, L.-L., Hydbring-Sandberg, E., & Handlin, L. (2017). Oxytocin and cortisol levels in dog owners and their dogs are associated with behavioral patterns. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1796. (Karolinska Institutet / Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.)Pendry, P., & Vandagriff, J. L. (2019). Animal Visitation Program (AVP) reduces cortisol levels of university students: A randomized controlled trial. AERA Open, 5(2).Cat-purr frequency range (25–150 Hz): widely reported in veterinary and bioacoustics literature.
The case for having the government take co-ownership of AI—make that the cases for having the government take co-ownership of AI—grow louder. I had to pluralize “case” since President Trump’s perspective on the virtues of government co-ownership are distinct from Bernie Sanders’s and those of his fellow democratic socialists (like, e.g., me).
Last week, Trump returned to the topic, saying the White House would soon host a meeting with a dozen or so top AI executives to discuss the industry’s future. For Trump, this isn’t breaking new ground. He’s already made deals to take partial government ownership of a host of corporations: U.S. Steel, Intel, Westinghouse, and roughly 15 companies (where some deals are still in progress) in the fields of rare earth mining or quantum computing.
As my mentor, DSA founder Michael Harrington, used to say, “any idiot can nationalize a company. The question is, can he socialize a company?”
Trump’s distinctive brand of idiocy was not what Harrington was focused on. In Trump’s case, the narcissism that fuels his need to control everything around him, to appear the winner in dealmaking, and to have his name stamped on a product to presumably enhance his stature has driven him to champion government co-ownership. He has taken the right-wing belief in a unitary executive one huge step further, governing by the creed of L’état c’est moi as far as Congress and the courts will let him. His is neither democratic socialism nor the socialism claimed by various authoritarians; it’s self-magnifying socialism. The model is neither Karl Marx, Gene Debs, nor Lenin; it’s Louis XIV.
Then there’s Bernie Sanders’s proposal, which is to create a sovereign wealth fund that can take major shares in fundamentally important private enterprises. Such funds exist in nations that sit atop oil fields, like Norway or Saudi Arabia, as well as in one decidedly un-Marxist U.S. state, Alaska, whose residents get an annual dividend of roughly $1,000 to $3,000 from a specified share of the revenues of oil companies drilling on lands that the state has leased or otherwise permitted them to drill on.
There’s no reason, of course, why sovereign wealth funds should restrict their investments to fossil fuels; any industry that generates massive revenues and is essential to public life should logically qualify for government co-ownership. A host of enterprises that meet that second criterion (essential to public life) are often wholly owned by governments, of course: chiefly utilities and transportation, often with the additional goal of reducing costs to consumers.
For Sanders and his allies, the move for co-ownership of the emerging AI industry stems from concerns about both income distribution and oversight in the public interest. As to that latter concern, there’s a reasonable fear that mere regulation won’t be up to the task of ensuring the public good, given both the transformational potential of AI and the speed with which it innovates. Needless to say, this concern for adequate regulation is not something that Trump has raised.
The concern about income distribution, sad to say, is rooted in a current reality in which wages for most Americans either stagnate or grow only incrementally, while income from investment increases much more rapidly and substantially, as last week’s SpaceX IPO that made Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire illustrates. AI’s potential to reward its investors while eliminating jobs could push that reality to a societal breaking point.
Both of Sanders’s concerns also inform the religious left. As Pope Leo XIV put it in his recent encyclical on artificial intelligence, “When it comes to decisions regarding economic flows and digital platforms, as well as the governance of data and algorithms, we cannot allow a handful of actors to dictate these processes on their own; instead, we must build forms of cooperation that respect the various levels of the global community and make them jointly responsible for the common good.” Co-ownership is a good way to ensure that.
Most of the leaders of the tech behemoths, as well as the largest investors in those companies (e.g., Andreessen Horowitz), paint a rosy future for the economy as AI advances into ever more spheres of life. The revenues and savings it will generate, they say, will flow to all. Last week, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who is forming a new AI company, insisted that AI will generate such huge productivity gains that everyone will benefit.
“There’s going to be two-earner income households where one earner drops out of the labor pool, because there’s going to be so much productivity,” Bezos said.
In that statement, he assumed that productivity gains are shared with workers, though that hasn’t been the case since the 1970s, as the Economic Policy Institute has been demonstrating for the past three decades. From the end of World War II through the ’70s, the rate of productivity gains and workers’ wage increases were virtually identical. Since then, as corporate attacks on unions all but eliminated collective bargaining in the private sector, productivity continued to rise while wages did only slightly better than flatlining. As a study by the RAND Corporation, commissioned by businessman Nick Hanauer, has demonstrated, if the share of corporate revenues going to employees had retained the levels it had in the three postwar decades, every American worker’s yearly income would be roughly $28,000 higher than it currently is.
Besides, Bezos himself has done everything in his considerable power to make sure that the immense revenues that Amazon earns are not shared with its workers. The company he founded, in which he remains both its executive chairman and largest single shareholder, will not bargain with its workers who’ve voted to unionize: Those at its Staten Island warehouse so voted four years ago, yet Amazon has consistently refused to sit down with them. It has shuttered all seven of its warehouses in the Canadian province of Quebec after the workers in one of those warehouses opted to go union. It has contested in U.S. courts the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board—a settled question for the past 90 years—for fear that the Board, during the Biden administration, might rule that the law requires the company to bargain when its workers have opted to do so (which, incidentally, happens to be exactly what the law requires).
Like most of his peers who control Big Tech, then, Bezos’s promises that AI’s immense revenues will surely trickle down to workers and the public should generate even more immense levels of skepticism. And that, I suppose, is one more reason to insist on public ownership, as American CEOs are maniacally devoted to suppressing labor income, but rely on capital income for such life’s necessities as bigger and sleeker yachts.
LOS ANGELES—Saying a courtesy call would have been nice even if nothing ever came of it, E.T. told reporters Monday he was shocked at not being contacted by director Steven Spielberg for a cameo in his new sci-fi movie Disclosure Day. “I knew I wasn’t going to be the lead, which was totally fine, but are you telling me that after more than 40 years of friendship, he can’t pick up the phone and say he’d love to throw a few lines my way?” said the extraterrestrial, adding that it was him and his “glowing fucking fingertip” that gave Spielberg one of the top-earning movies of all time. “I mean, who’s in the logo of his production company? Not Gizmo, that’s for goddamn sure. But somehow I don’t get a single feeler from Mr. Nicest Guy In Hollywood even though I said on Reddit not two years ago that I was eager to get back into acting now that I’ve put my personal demons behind me. Well, guess what, Stevie? You had your chance, buddy boy. When George Lucas calls, you’d better believe I’ll be picking up.” When reached for comment, Spielberg simply stated that he and E.T. had not spoken in many years, but that he wished him all the best.
ENDEVR Nov 28, 2025 Edge of Existence: AI | ENDEVR Documentary Watch the First Episode here: • Nuclear War: How Close Are We To The Edge … The risk of human extinction has never been higher. A very recent past has seen a global pandemic, a renewed nuclear threat, and runaway climate change. What if COVID-19 is merely a dress rehearsal for a more serious potential disaster? New research predicts a 1 in 6 chance that life as we know it won’t make it to the end of this century. This is a story about the greatest risks to humanity, and what we can do about them. We are living in a time when human-made risks pose the biggest threat to our existence. Technological progress has brought us to a precipice. For the first time ever, we have the capacity to destroy ourselves. Edge of Existence lays out how we can pull ourselves back from this precipice in order to achieve a vast and extraordinary future.
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Falling in love is the one illogical adventure, the one thing of which we are tempted to think as supernatural, in our trite and reasonable world.
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