Internet Time Machines, Pro Human Ideas, and Finding Ourselves In The Age Of AI

Why it's hard to find your people (and it's only getting harder)

I have to stop talking about the “Age of AI” like it’s coming.

It’s here! Surprise.

You can already create an entire business using AI.

All the ideas, content, and publishing.

The whole personality, voice, and human avatar.

It’s our greatest childhood wish come true; robots are taking over. 😱

I don’t know if it’s going to be nearly as fun as we imagined it was going to be.

I guess that depends on how prepared we are to happily thrive within it.

If I wasn’t as sane as I am (and that’s debatable some days), I would swear someone shoved me in a time machine and sent me back to 2010.

I see so many parallels between now + then.

Back then, smartphones, tablets, and laptops were just becoming part of every single person's life.

We were discovering that we could be seen and heard, and creatively fulfilled by this new thing called blogging on the internet.

It felt really good. It was like Myspace for sapiosexuals.

It gave us a place to be ourselves… share our stories… and invite people into our lives.

But something that simple isn’t the capitalist way, so quickly bloggers were taught had to become course creators – so they could “get paid for what they know.”

And Facebook (the social networking platform), being the generous billboard brokers they are, gave us all the ad space we could use at ZERO cost, so we could share our lives + stories, and connect with people we’d otherwise never meet, which lured us into a false sense of security that we’d always have access to these people.

When the “organic” rug was swept out from under us in the mid 2010’s, we didn’t know what to do… which was by design… it created the opportunity for the digital generation of indoctrination to be dispensed at a very large scale + rapid pace.

Our founding father’s of filth(y dirty sales tactics) knew that in our confused, panicked, and afraid state, we’d be looking to “the authority figures” to show us what to do now, and we did.

We gobbled up their courses, programs, and services and gagged down their magic pill promises, and they “taught us” alright.

😳 We learned how to transactionalize every relationship we make.

😳 We learned how to be ok with “squeezing” people dry who we care about.

😳 We learned how to spend half-to-three-quarters of our year creating shit no one asked for.

😳 We learned how to talk about humans like they’re ATMs.

😳 We learned how to slave over content no one is going to see.

😳 We learned how to write like we’re infomercial scripts.

😳 We learned how to repeat what we heard rather than share what we think.

😳 We learned how to put a lot of value on things that have very little value.

😳 We learned how to undervalue the things we care about the most.

😳 We learned how to create lousy, unreliable, monthly wages doing shit we hate.

😳 We learned how to think like a cog in the capitalist machine.

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As we crawl out of the Course Era and into the Age of AI, I see the same things happening.

We’re confused, panicked, and afraid.

We don’t know what to do next.

​We don’t know how to make this work.​

We don’t know if it’s even possible.

It’s only because of the deep, daily soul-searching that I’ve done over the last 3 years + the 6 months I’ve been unpacking the indoctrination that I can stand in this technologically-defining moment and see two clear AF paths in front of us.

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PATH NO. 1 -

We keep learning from + listening to people who are asking us to do things we can't and telling us we want things we don't, and we resign ourselves to existing through robots.

I know, going "fuck the system" is scary, but that fear is a temporary feeling; this indoctrination is a life-defining belief system.

Just be prepared.

It’s going to be the modern day version of “make passive income in your sleep.” This time it’s going to be “Aurora”... or “MacPherson”... or whatever you name the robot you burn years of your life trying to create… who does all the work for YOU.

It’s not going to be a course, product, or program that’s going to burn up every second of your life + drive you to the brink of humanity; it’s going to be learning how to make AI “do all of it for you.”

It’s going to consume your world, strip you of what little identity you have left, and make you feel like you have to do even MORE gross, fake, dishonest shit.

You think a lot of testimonials are a big pile of fake horseshit now?

I typed “AI Video” into Google search and clicked on the 1st sponsored listing – just to get some fuel in my belly for this edition of “call out the predatory BS” – I almost fell off my fucking chair when I saw that you can create an AI-generated customer testimonial (it’s not new, but seeing it right there on my screen made me sooo mad!!!). 🫨

AI is still in its infancy; you can’t imagine the things they’re going to normalize.

They're going to tell you that AI will help you 10x your productivity + help you create engaging content – as if engaging content is created by a fucking robot who’s scraping real humans’ work to create its own… or that 10xing productivity is even something you want. I don’t know about YOU, but I kinda just wanna margarita + a nap. 🤷‍♀️

THE INDOCTRINATION will continue to be…

🤖 CONSTANTLY CREATE CONTENT (so there are 1000’s of problems we can sell you magic AI-laced pills for)…

🤖 BE EVERYWHERE, ALL THE TIME (so we can train you to listen to everything we say + be everywhere we want you to be; we need that control to monetize YOU)…

** Think about every Google update + Facebook algorithm change… we hang on their instructions like little soldiers waiting for their orders.

🤖 COLLECT AS MANY EMAIL ADDRESSES AS POSSIBLE, BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY (so we can teach you our secret – shoving people, without their consent, down imposter-driving funnels that make them so desperate that the “Yes! Save me!” is right there waiting by the time you hit’em with your main offer, upsell, VIP mastermind, limited-availability coaching, and agency-grade $25K services)...

🤖 MONETIZE THE HELL OUTTA OF EVERYTHING (so there is no part of your life left “monetarily untapped” – don’t worry, you won’t have to actually create these products, write the emails, or respond to people; you just have to plug everything into AI, collect as many emails as possible and “Aurora” will do the rest for you! You NEVER have to actually talk to your “customers”)...

🤖 DO THIS UNTIL YOU DIE + THEN WAKE UP AND DO IT AGAIN

If you stay, this is what you’re going to have to figure out how to thrive in.

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PATH NO. 2 -

We choose to be the human part of the internet in the Age of AI.

I know it’s scary to be real online, but it’s the most valuable asset we have.

When we’re full-blown in this, NO ONE is going to be able to tell if something was written or said by a person or a robot – is that a real image of you or is that AI? - unless they KNOW them.

Whole brands, companies, newsletters, courses, channels, you name it, are going to be 100% AI-generated.

Think about when all the US call centers went overseas (and you couldn’t get anything but a scripted answer that was totally unhelpful)… or now that they’re all AI-operated (and you can’t get a human on the fucking line to save your life).

We’re going to be starved of human interaction and conditioned to believe that the AI interaction is enough. That it’s just as valuable as the human one.

It’s going to change the way we think + behave online in a very profound way, including retreating in a much bigger way than we are now.

We’re going to be looking for beacons of human light to flee too, because we’re not going to stop needing to feel connected to each other.

I want you to be that beacon!

The REAL, HONEST, FULL-FLEDGED HUMAN that all escape routes lead to within your industry/niche, because that position is currently wide open – everyone else is too confused, panicked, and afraid to apply for the “job.”

But, you’re gonna have to mean it way you say… “NO, this shit (the AI way) will kill me, so I’m not gonna do it”.

🧬 I’m gonna do what feels good, be who I want to be, and know what “enough” is for me… because I’m in this for a lot more than just money.

🧬 I’m gonna share my stories + invite people into my life… because it’s a really full, beautiful one (in all it’s ooey-gooey, complex, often times, messy glory).

🧬 I’m gonna create a “hot dog cart” kinda business where I’m paid for the work I love… because the 100’s of hours of unpaid work are not an option anymore.

🧬 I’m gonna be the reason people invest in my work… because I have way more to offer (personality, stories, experiences, perspectives, the list goes on) than any digital product on the planet!

It’s not that I’m anti-AI. I’m not.

I’ve had my 7-yr. old son learning coding since he was 4 years old because I know it’s the future. I want him to have a skillset he can always provide + build financial security with for himself.

And I can’t wait for a Clueless-style closet in my treehouse. I’m reserving a big portion of the unfinished 1,000ft room I have for that baby. My son has already agreed to design it for me. 😉

I just happen to understand what this technology is going to do to us as humans, and especially as independently employed humans with other humans we need to be whole, confident, loving humans for.

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TRUTH: Being ourselves, sharing our stories, and letting people into our lives is how we make our “hot dog cart” aspirations a reality in the Age of AI.

We have to change our entire approach across the board and get back to being human, which is very different than what we’re prioritizing right now.

Good ideas aren’t enough anymore – AI can come up with better ones.

Tips + tricks aren’t enough anymore – AI can come up with better ones, and more of them.

​Lead magnets aren’t enough anymore – AI can come up with better ones, at a bigger scale, in a fraction of the time.

Being an expert isn’t enough anymore - AI is smarter than YOU; it can answer any question on the planet.

AI can (and will try to) replace everything in your existing business but YOU.

It can’t generate YOUR experiences, stories, perspectives, or life!

It can’t say shit the way YOU do, with that [insert your signature expression] that’s all YOU on it’s face, in that tone that’s so YOU it comes flying off the screen every time a word lands on it.

It can’t make your kindreds feel seen, heard, appreciated, and understood.

It's a fucking robot.

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A paid newsletter + community isn’t a new innovative idea; it’s just an idea we never considered could be enough.

You don’t want an 80+ hour a week, scalable agency with a world domination expansion plan – so why work like you do? 🤢

You have a whole beautiful life to enjoy.

If you still want that "original dream" you started all of this for – money, purpose, impact, and community, doing ONE ordinary thing you love – you should go for it!

It's going to challenge you in a lot of new ways, but it's also going to reward you in even MORE new ways.

If you need a safe place to heal your nervous system + build your confidence backup for this new era of life + business, you should join my October-long experiment… it kicks off today!

THE EXPERIMENT:
What would happen if we spent the month double-dog daring each other to be so honest it kinda hurts?

I have a feeling we’re going to be able to create some pretty epic ripples!

Here’s how it works:

Monday-Thursday, throughout October, I’ll be dropping a new chat thread with a double-dog dare we can all do on Substack Notes, and then having everyone drop a link to their Note, so the rest of us can go shower it with love and practice making the choice to be the REAL us.

No promotions. No backend offer. No time-consuming commitment.

Just a bunch of hot dog cart-lovin’ fools healing their nervous systems + rebuilding their confidence after years of toxic internet indoctrination.

If this sounds like YOUR kinda cart-sized, kick in the ass, dream come true experiment, and you’re ready to:

• Make being the real YOU an addiction

• Get your Substack growth on

• Meet some new business besties + buddies

• Start making this new chapter of life + business feel fucking good

YOU should be a part of this!

This experiment is for paid subscribers only. Yup, my Hot Dog Cart is open for business, baby!

The investment = $15/month or $130/year.

Just click this fancy button 👇 and choose which plan makes the most sense for YOU!

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To choosing not to hide behind more dehumanizing technology,

Dre “Rage-Rooms Robots For Fun" Beltrami