Baratunde Thurston is a writer, host, and comedian trained by The Onion and The Daily Show. He runs Life With Machines, which asks a deceptively simple question: how do we live well with technology, not just endure it?
I found him on TikTok first. Then Substack. Then I couldn’t stop reading. I love his unique blend of intellect, humanity, curiosity, hope, and humor.
What struck me immediately is that he’s not a tech guy doing prompts, and he’s not a doomsayer. He occupies the same crossroads I try to occupy — big systems, daily lived experience, how do we stay standing. When I told him the inevitability narrative around AI can feel compelling even to me sometimes, he didn’t reassure me. He reframed it.
The pitch that resistance is futile, he said, has been made before. Divine inevitability. Technological inevitability. Same move, different century. And then: “My existence here is an improbability. We’re in the impossible already.” He looks at the tech lords and feels pity. Not fear. Pity. The zeros next to their names represent the emptiness, he said. They’re filling a hole in their souls with money.
I told him I call that reattribution. I do it constantly with authoritarianism. I’d just never made the leap to AI. And I loved getting schooled on generalizing one of my signature moves. Brilliant!
He’s also staging an AI Vibe-athon in Palm Springs — community members vibe-coding custom solutions for local businesses, the way AI should probably work. And he’s helping surface a book about indigenous democracy that he thinks contains something we need right now. I won’t spoil it. You should hear him explain the connection.
Download and listen to the full audio. And go find Baratunde at Life With Machines — one of the most necessary voices in this moment.
In solidarity,
Paul
Remember: Stay human. Stay strategic. Shape tomorrow.
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I help people stay steady in the face of authoritarian assault and extractive systems so they can keep showing up without losing their effectiveness or humanity. I draw on decades of community organizing, deep expertise in research and collaborative community problem-solving, contemplative practice and mindfulness teaching, and what I’ve learned from tens of thousands of subscribers in 95 countries.
I was fired three weeks before Christmas, 2024 for refusing to delete a LinkedIn post about Trump’s campaign promises to target federal workers. I launched this blog soon thereafter. It’s my way of pitching in, standing in solidarity with you all, doing my part to help build a progressive future rooted in things worth fighting for: justice, equity, security, and care.
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