And, of course, it’s not only technology. The power of those with nothing to lose, up against those with everything to lose, comes into the equation. The gunman high on drugs that mugs a wealthy person, and we immediately know the outcome…Here’s the money, just let me live and go away.
Extortion works, in peace and war, while artificial intelligence (AI) hovers quietly in the background.
We have, indeed, met the enemy and he is us, courtesy of Silicon Valley.
Power, it seems, is no longer a zero-sum game. Winners and losers have become unknowns, while the David and Goliath syndrome is rising again.
There are so many ways to look at this. The ‘quick and dirty’ is
Ukraine and its remarkable defiance of the Russian Goliath, and
Iran bringing the United States to its knees by closing off international shipping, as it attacks nearby US bases.
Before that, Paul Simon reminds us that ‘the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls,’ which indeed they were, as in
Korea, where General MacArthur’s overwhelming might was fought to a negotiated standstill,
Vietnam, in which 56,000 American dead couldn’t turn the tide of a war where the most powerful military in the world fell to tunnel-fighters with bags of rice around their necks,
Iraq, where American might proved we could kill a nation, but never change its mind,
Afghanistan, George Bush’s loss of the longest war America ever fought, leaving the field in disgrace and
Iran, an unnecessary war that brings us full-circle to the reality of this essay’s premise.
Who is it that writes on those subway walls today, and what is their message?
It’s the many and the small, who scratch their truth to the powerful in the darkness of midnight. Not our truth, not the world’s truth…their truth. It’s far more Butch Cassidy than it is The Battle Hymn of the Republic.
For most of industrial history, size conferred power, and we’re still locked in that wrong-headedness.
Digital technology increasingly makes size a liability and coordination a source of power. It’s a dangerous thing to be locked into anything, but past history is the most dangerous of all. AI has already crossed the bridge and we’re still standing there, wondering if it will support our weight.
Consider what you and I are doing at this moment.
Fifty years ago, distributing an argument to thousands of people required access to a newspaper, magazine, radio station, publisher or television network. Those institutions owned scarce machinery and so distribution was scarce as well.
Now one writer with a laptop can potentially reach millions. I haven’t yet quite personally worked out the millions side of that equation but, apparently, it’s there.
Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Walmart, all demonstrate that technology can certainly make the large larger. So, it isn’t simply that technology decentralizes everything.
Something subtler is happening.
A tiny company today can rent computing power rather than build a data center; contract out manufacturing to China rather than own a factory; sell globally on the internet without owning stores; advertise without buying television time and use AI instead of paying for layers and layers of clerical and professional labor.
A ten-person company can possess capabilities that once required 500 employees. Have you paid attention to the multiplicity of ‘side hustles’ that are outperforming paid positions in large companies?
It’s a moving target. Increasingly, one person can possess capabilities that once required those ten.
Politics provides the more dangerous version of the premise, and if you don’t see that in the present US administration, you’re not paying enough attention.
Political organizations like the DNC and RNC once required headquarters, organizers, mailing lists, printing presses and money. The money is still there in toxic amounts, but organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are breaking out more or less independently.
Zohran Mamdani, an independent, socialist, Muslim just won the Mayor’s race I New York City. A number of elections ago, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, defeated a ten-term pin New York’s 14th congressional district. A member of the Democratic Party, she has now joined the New York City Chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Now millions of people can assemble around an idea almost spontaneously, disempowering traditional politics, and making the Ted Cruzes and Chuck Schumers in Congress wonder what the hell is going on.
What’s going on is that the DSA is having what looks like its strongest electoral year in decades, and the important point is that the victories are no longer confined to municipal offices or a handful of safely left districts.
Its own 2026 tracker currently counts 63 wins among 172 races, although that includes state and local contests as well as congressional races.
The darker side of that is that many and small don’t necessarily produce democracy, wisdom or truth.
I come from the times when many and small elected Harry Truman, followed by Dwight Eisenhower.
I’ll settle for that.
In these darkest of the dark political times in America, perhaps you will as well.
But yes or no, the old days are as long ago as yesterday, and it’s probably time to fasten our seatbelts because there’s turbulence…
…and it may be a bumpy ride.