Find all blog entries at A Commoner Manifesto Substack.
Solving the University Problem
Back in the day universities were all about “the life of the mind,” experts agree. Only in my understanding, the old Brit universities were about teaching ruling-class kids the lessons of politics in Greece and Rome. That is what "Greats” was all about. Plus a bit of philosophy. Then they invented “Modern Greats,” featuring philosophy, politics, and economics, because modern elites needed to be modern.
All along, Katherine Dee writes:
the deep reading of difficult texts was the practice of a small, privileged minority.
But really, who gives a darn about Greats and Modern Greats? Most people get their understanding of the world from religion and the politics rammed down their throats in K-12 and 60 Minutes. What people want is credentials, so they can get a job.
The modern American university sells credentials: signaling to employers that you were smart and conscientious enough to get in and to finish. It sells networks: the friends you make and the alumni you can email.
Katherine Dee wants school like a shop class, to teach you how things work. I guess they call it “learning by doing.” That’s certainly how I learned to program computers. I took a short class conducted by a co-worker and then started to program in FORTRAN. Decades later, when I wanted to create a website, I went on the internet to show me how to create a simple website to say “Hello World.” And then I took it from there.
Back in the day, you needed a shelf full of computer and programming manuals in order to program computers. Now you just ask AI.
An example. Our Brother printer said that we needed a new drum. So we got one. But it still said “replace the drum.” So I looked it up on Google AI. It said that the printer can’t detect that you replaced the drum, so you have to manually tell the printer that it’s got a new drum. And Google AI tells you how to do it. Almost.
Maybe all you need to do to prepare for life is to read science fiction. I believe that Elon Musk was a great sci-fi reader as a kid.
No kidding. I’m reading Heinlein’s Friday about “an AP (Artificial Person), a biologically engineered superwoman”. Here’s where it gets weird. They have this thing called “Shipstone… a fictional, ultra-high-density energy storage device.” Then they have “pneumatic trains [that] run through subterranean vacuum tubes, using maglev-style propulsion to achieve intercontinental speeds”. You mean like Elon’s Gigafactory and Boring Company? And, of course, humans in Heinlein novels are interplanetary.
But let’s get back to the topic in hand. Universities. Guess what. In Friday, Heinlein writes about an economist noting that bachelor’s degree holders earned 30 percent more than non-degree holders.
Such an undemocratic condition was anathema to the California Dream, so, with great speed, an initiative was qualified for the next election, the measure passed, and all California high-school graduates and/or California citizens attaining eighteen years were henceforth awarded bachelor’s degrees.
It seems to me that the name of the game with AI is that you need to know how to ask the right question.
So I think the question for philosophers and experts is: how do we teach moms to teach their kids to ask AI the right questions?
I find that AI is magnificent at answering my questions. But maybe that is because I am a dab hand at asking questions, from a lifetime of asking questions.
Whatabout kids? Seems to me that kids are notorious for asking questions of their parents, as in “Why?”
So maybe the solution to all our problems is to make sure that AI can deal with kids endlessly asking: “Why?”
| Tue, 09 Jun 2026 22:43:12 GMT |
Hayek in Five Aphorisms
There I was, scanning the Internet, when I stumbled upon a critique — no doubt written in the evening, on the recommendation of Karl Marx — of a book about Hayek’s Bastards. It was like a red rag to a bull, because I have been a fan of Hayek for 50 years. As I was writing my American Thinker article about it, I pondered in my heart my big problem with Hayek. It’s hard to boil his ideas down to a convenient maxim or aphorism.
And, as Shakespeare knew, all the world’s an aphorism. Why? Because 97.2% of humans don’t have the leisure or the knowledge of the meaning of long-winded words to read intellectual books and “criticize in the evening.” In politics they call aphorisms “slogans,” stuff to rile up the peasants.
But then I had a brainwave. Why not cheat and ask AI to reduce Hayek’s thought to an aphorism, as in “summarize friedrich hayek’s ideas in one pithy aphorism.”
Boyohboyohboy. Did I hit the jackpot. Here is what Grok replied on Saturday June 6:
"The price of pretending we can plan society is the loss of the spontaneous order that alone makes it work."
Thanks Grok. But then, on Sunday, I thought: why not try again? Good idea:
“The fatal conceit is believing we can design what only spontaneous order can evolve.”
OK. I am not done yet. Here’s is Grok’s third effort on the Hayek front:
“The market is a discovery process that no planner can outthink.”
Seriously. I am still reeling from excitement. Because, as a serious student of Hayek I know that each of Grok’s replies absolutely hits the bullseye.
Now, of course, I am a fair-minded AI cheater. So I gave Google AI a shot:
“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”
Good job Sergey. And Google AI’s Sunday effort:
“The spontaneous wisdom of the many will always outsmart the calculated design of the few.”
And again?
"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design."
OK. Not quite up to the mark. That’s the same answer as Saturday.
So Grok wins the AI competition.
But I wonder what Grok thinks about me: “summarize Christopher Chantrill’s ideas in one pithy aphorism.”
“Empower the Responsibles to build the middle class; let Creatives innovate and Subordinates follow—without elite activism turning society into endless war on the ‘oppressors.’”
Gosh! Grok says it is summarizing the ideas in my Three Peoples Theory.
OK. Let’s do it for Kant:
“Dare to reason—then submit to its limits.”
Yeah Manny: gets you nowhere.
And my pal Nietzsche:
“God is dead—now dance upon his grave and become who you are.”
This distills Nietzsche’s core: the collapse of old values, the imperative to create new ones through the will to power, self-overcoming toward the Übermensch, and joyful affirmation of life (amor fati) in the face of nihilism and eternal recurrence.
And one fine day, you’ll wake up at 6:00am with Andie MacDowell in the bed next to you.
I gotta say: these AI chappies seem to know their stuff.
| Mon, 08 Jun 2026 20:08:56 GMT |
Switch to Substack for more blog posts
Christopher Chantrill
He runs usgovernmentspending.com, the go-to resource for government finance data, and is a frequent contributor to the American Thinker. He lives in Seattle, Washington. Click for more.
“I love this guy.” — Steve Ballmer
A Commoner Manifesto
Commoners have nothing to lose but their shame
Government is force. Politics is violence. Government is injustice. System is domination. Politics is civil war by other means. Government never learns — Christopher Chantrill
Critical Theory creates cultural gang warfare.
The simplest way to understand human society is as Three Layers such as Nobles, Yeomen, and Serfs.
My take on Three Layers is my Three Peoples Theory of Creatives, Responsibles, and Subordinates.
I believe that we moderns live in Three Worlds: the War World of politics, the Market World of the economy, and the Life World of family and neighborhood.
And the trouble with politics is that it reduces human society to a war against the enemy, as determined by Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt.
The world that we all live in today is the one created by the German Turn in philosophy, psychology, science, and meaning.
But our modern elite, the educated elite, has taken, I believe, a Wrong Turn and has imposed a cultural Great Reaction on the world, a lurch back to the primitive. This manifests in the elite’s conceited Activism Culture and its patronage of Subordinate people as its Little Darlings.
The principal reason for the elite’s Wrong Turn has been that it does not understand and does not want to understand how the Three Peoples’ Religions are necessarily different.
The root of the educated elite’s Wrong Turn is its conceit that it knows what the world needs. I think there is a better way; I call it “A Good Life Better than the Left”.
ABC of Politics – Activism Culture – “Anatomy of Revolution” – Allyism – Critical Theory – Downstream-ism – Dutch Finance – German Turn – Good Life – Great Reaction – Little Darlings – Perfect Plan – Women in the Public Square – Ruling Class – Three Layers – Three Peoples – Three Peoples Religion – Tribalism – Two Cultures – Wrong Turn
Today’s topic: A Critical Theory of Leftist Activism Culture
