Main Character, Down Bad

15 Mar, 2026

I can't stop thinking about a man. Thoughts of bro intrude several times a day now.

A dude with strong main character energy, who talked himself into a strong outlier view, and came to the wrong conclusion.

This was about Covid, but it's obvious that parallels apply to AI today.

Pre-Covid, this famous guy had a big account on Twitter, was always trying things, sharing his unique journey. Distinctive, authentic, interesting. Finding ways to monetize with newsletter, books and partnerships.

When Covid hit, he took a public, strong view opposite Jerry Seinfeld that New York City was over. Thesis: close-quarters living would not be sustainable; this country has lots of space/land; people with capital/gumption/energy were already moving out of cities and discovering they could work remotely. This was the start of an obvious secular cycle--better opportunities outside dense urban environments--which invariably leads to departure of human capital. The nation's economic activity would move from the coast to inland sanctuaries. Any network effects from proximity could be replaced by Zoom calls. Pandemic effects would lead to urban blight, beyond anything middle class flight could produce.

The guy sold his properties + businesses, wrote a widely circulated piece about his exit, and moved upstate. In the past 6 years, I haven't heard another peep from him¹. Meanwhile, the earth continued to both (1) undergo transformative change, and (2) circle around the sun as always, healing.

Now, I think about bro multiple times a day, as AI imminent doom has both faded from the discourse AND become even more obviously salient. p-Doom seems to have remained unacceptably high, or even risen with events². But attention to AI catastrophe seems to have been replaced with skepticism about AI hype--a much milder, non-existential critique.

Who could have predicted that the deadliness of the Covid-19 virus would become significantly reduced, within only months and years? Many people, of course, but in winter 2021 we could not make decisions based on ALLOWING OLD PEOPLE TO DIE when we really had to be seen to invoke Defense Production Act to force auto manufacturers to produce ventilators.

Who could have predicted that Zoom meetings would be a poor substitute for early-stage coordination, the kind that produces off-the-charts wealth for entrepreneurs and investors and all of society? That young people would prefer to live in shared hacker-billionaire houses, rather than in reasonably-sized 50-year old houses in flyover states?

These were predictions about cities and work patterns during a society-changing pandemic. The AI questions are about a society-changing technology. Different details, but the same dynamic of high stakes with fundamental uncertainty.

Is AI a threat to human existence, big enough to justify dropping all other concerns to understand the risk and ward it off? Or is it a meme promoted mostly by sensitive-boys-who-cried-wolf-for-attention-and-profit?

Is AI an insidious threat to our prosperity, comfort and position in the world? Or our best promise to lift the human condition, since the Green Revolution?

Are charlatans and psychopaths driving the development of AI tools that attract massive amounts of capital and attention? Or is that just a thin, minor outer shell?

I still think about bro.

Someone will be wrong. The dustbin of history is real. The only question is who's jumping in next.

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