Brad Barrish

As of September 2025, approximately 170 million Americans spend, on average, one hour every day in an app that is designed to maximize psychological grip. While Congress fixates on TikTok’s data collection usages, what hasn’t received enough attention is how the platform has successfully industrialized human attention itself.

Is the code any good? I don’t know. Who cares? Nobody looks at it anyway. AI produces a result, and results are what matter, and if you’re waiting for quality to factor significantly into that equation, I’ve got some bad news about the last 40 years of professional software development for you.

19 Things You Can Say to People in 10 Seconds That Sometimes Produce Insanely Outsized Effects

1. Yeah, someone *should* do that. Why not you?

2. Is there something you could do about that problem in the next five minutes?

3. That's a great thought - have you written it up somewhere? I'd be excited to share it if so.

4. Should you write a blog or

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AI is a fad, but not merely a fad. You can’t merely wait for it to blow over, and imagine that things will be as they were. A lot of it will blow over, but also a lot of things will be blown flat by it. Important matters, customs, infrastructures, cherished ways of life, gone with the wind and never replaced.

But we’re living in an era when all the old rules seem to be changing, and when the most powerful people on earth ignore all the rules anyway. So might it be worth reassessing your lifelong strategy of following the rules as dutifully as possible?

I am comfortable with doubt and am constitutionally resistant to moral certainty, herd mentality and dogma. I am disturbed on a fundamental level by the self-serving, toddler politics of some of my counterparts – I do not believe that silence is violence, complicity, or a lack of courage, but rather that silence is often the preferred option when... See more