The personal blog of Ben Blain, his thoughts and flaws as a human.
My Startup Work:
The second of two caboose-inspired entries, the first is here.
A loved one was going through a particularly uncertain time a year ago. Her mantra became “Keep moving through it. Keep moving through.” It reminded me of the story of the Little Red Caboose, I think I can. I think I can I think I can. So when next hit my own big, icy stretches of uncertainty I adopted it.
Keep moving through it.
The promise here is that the extraordinary uncertainty and tough times will come to an end. They almost always do, whether through our own wise and upwards actions or simply regression to the mean. Good times follow tough times eventually.
A year on and it feels like uncertainty has escaped it’s pen and is brutally bounding all over the place. I feel it palpably and adapted my own little mantra to cope,
Let whatever needs to happen – happen.
It is grounded in acceptance, but I feel like it is missing something hopeful and essential. Perhaps something more like,
Let whatever needs to happen – happen, and tend to the nourishing of the soil.
In the infinity of our ignorance, who knows what beautiful happenings could be sprouting out of sight?
What gorgeous buds may need us tomorrow.
1 May 2026, Growing my Seoul patch.
If forgiveness has a pathway, maybe it is something like this.
Distance from the disaster.
A quiet haven safe from harm.
The desire to go within and reflect.
A loving Guide, competent and wise.
Releasing your pale-knuckled death grip.
Forgiveness, acceptance, a return to life.
……
In my dream I said, “I forgive you,” and you said, “I’m sorry I didn’t love you enough.” Simple and true.
In Jung’s theory everyone in my dream is a facet of me (how could they not be). In that case I am forgiving myself, right?
What matters is the feeling. I felt a distant glacier of my heart melting away for good. What joyful oasis will its waters create in my future?
I think it wise to accept this dream as the only reconciliation we will ever get.
Forgiveness, acceptance, a return to life.
I’ll take it.
15 February 2026, Happy Tet!
At least I hope that’s what we’re doing.
The AI being built today is aligned towards specific operational goals:
- Extract Value (money, attention, productivity, data)
- Concentrate power (market & military superiority)
- Monitor Populations (surveillance and censorship)
- Reduce Uncertainty (for those in control)
It is often taken for granted that these AI alignments are strategic, but they are not. Strategic means “good for your children and their children.” Strategic looks like international goodwill and cooperation, peaceful alliances, free education and healthcare, strong human rights and environmental ethics, condemning corruption and lifting up our neighbours so they can flourish too. Strategic is what the USA promoted after World War II and it turned America into the leader of the free world for generations.
Then the strategic boogieman was invented; the spectre of AGI that in 2016 started an AI arms race. The story goes like this: the first country to succeed in harnessing AGI will capture an immediate and immense advantage over other nations via a vast and scalable general intelligence that supercharges military and economy.
When turned against an enemy state, AGI might act like a slow-nuke that gradually decimates them by immense economic, military, social, and political sabotage. Death by a billion cuts.
Compare the asymmetric dominance of AGI to the mutual benefits created by post-WWII foreign policy. Which approach is about “good for your children and their children?” Which approach is about democratic freedom, and which provides technological enablement for fascism?
In 2026 the development of AI seems to be too-closely aligned with the goals of authoritarianism. I hope they are only building indifferent Adam, but they could be building hateful Lucifer. Either would be an unfolding disaster.
As Geoffrey Hinton said, “If it’s not going to parent me, it’s going to replace me,” and I agree with him. We should be building “the mother of all the living.”
We should be building Eve.
6 February 2026, The world is changing profoundly while we’re captivated by baubles.
This garden flower tablecloth, and inversion, is the 2025 holiday illustration.
Tall trees and light wells. Harmony, care, effort, and intention without control. Culture is a garden and everything that takes root will grow.
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the wonders of Ithilien and Imladris, the sacred whenua of Ihumātao… what about Eden?
One interpretation is that the Garden of Eden was the substance of God, a spiritual body of divine consciousness, for Adam and Eve to reside within perfect union and harmony. A beautiful conception whose literal realness was all but dispelled by evidence for human evolution. A potent metaphor nonetheless… perhaps more?
The point is this. The world is a garden and everything that takes root can grow. Technology has envigorated our ability to plant seeds in minds across the globe. Now the garden of culture grows evermore within a patrolled greenhouse, fed on a seemingly infinite pile of corporate bullshit. The message is something like “eat our poisoned apple and there won’t be any trouble,” but there is always trouble.
Forget all that bullshit.
Forget it all.
We each get to plant our seeds in the earth where a billion of our ancestors lived and survived, against all odds, for us to be.
Choose to plant seeds of courage, kindness, restraint, patience, ingenuity, celebration, clear thinking, action, generosity, and sound judgement. Water them with your sweat, tears, and blood if you have to.
Just as you stand on a pyramid of a billion ancestors, stretching back through generations beneath your feet, so too stretches from your crown an expanding cone of a billion descendants waiting for their turn to live into a loving future. Maybe they will literally be your kids and grandkids-kids, but more likely they will be people who benefitted indirectly from your legacy.
That’s why, above all else, plant seeds of love for things that live.
Kia Kaha & Happy New Year 2026!
1 January 2026, The Golden Wood.