The Dictator

My family is away for a few weeks, visiting friends abroad, which leaves me free to indulge myself by watching documentaries about collapse. It helps ground me, to be reminded that there is a bigger world outside, and that we should all be doing more to help sustain the world we want to live in. The one we want our children to live in. Amongst the usual litany of climate and economic collapse, there is a new player accelerating both: AI.

I left the corporate world late last year, as I couldn't get behind chasing infinite growth, all so the C-suite could get their bonuses, all at the cost of everyone else. I could see the glint in their eyes as they planned to slash headcount, replacing people with chatbots. Leaving customers and employees alike worse off.

My career in software has always been about improving systems. These improvements contributed to efficiencies and saved people time. They didn't replace people outright; they made them more capable. Yes, at some aggregate scale that meant "the company" could hire 5% fewer people in that role, but the scale never worked like that. More likely, the people in question would be given more responsibility, but not replaced.

So I left. I had the opportunity to do something different, to build something different, and I took it.

Now we are halfway through 2026, and I've taken a day to breathe. The year started slowly. I started with helyi, so my partner could run her food co-op. Learning new paradigms, working out the quirks of web dev after spending my career behind a terminal. Without fully replacing capitalism, which is a tall order even for the determined, I wanted to create a business and do good. It sounds like an oxymoron, but the plan is to provide more value than I take. I'd do it by running extremely lean: building on simple, boring technologies and doing it all myself. That meant not paying rent for anything. My monthly costs are the internet connection and electricity, most of which I generate with solar.

helyi has been going well for a few months now. When I was building it, I got the idea for winkl, then terug, and werkr followed quickly after. The more I built, the more I found opportunities to merge common problems to support the network of ideas. The more I built, the quicker it was to spin up a new idea. From mid-February or so, it's been sixty-plus hours a week, every week, until today. Totally at odds with my philosophy of work-life balance. It feels different to be building for myself, for my users. Across the suite of platforms, my paying users are few. They cover my operational costs, but there's no salary to cover my life costs. I suspect this is the story of most entrepreneurs starting out. I'm not at the end of my runway, and every paying user extends that.

The long days, weeks, and months flew by. Highly motivated to build something that actually provides value. Motivated because I believe in the work, but also because I don't know what else I can do. Just a few years ago, I could be certain I'd always be able to get another well-paying job as a software engineer and engineering manager, with twenty years' experience. In January I wasn't sure; today, even less so. I don't think the craft I honed over the years is a lost cause. The problem is that the wild enthusiasm for the powers of AI means people are undervaluing it. Conflating the fact that a few words into a prompt gets them a pretty looking webpage with the ease of building and maintaining complex systems.

There is no Plan B. At least not a return to the old assumption of job security. In some ways, it could be a change for the better; once the economic bottom falls out of AI. For a flourishing of small businesses, for people doing things, making things, by hand. For a return to crafts, to artisans. Instead of everyone using, consuming, the same cookie-cutter products. It will take people acting together.

Amongst the documentaries was a speech, written and performed by Charlie Chaplin in 1940, that gives this piece its title. Whenever I experience thoughts from the past, 1940 or 1840, I'm struck by the similarities of the human condition. People striving to help their fellow man, others engineering a concentration of wealth and power against them.

-------------

Final speech from The Great Dictator - Charlie Chaplin

I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone - if possible - Jew, Gentile - black man - white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness - not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost…

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men - cries out for universal brotherhood - for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world - millions of despairing men, women, and little children - victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me, I say - do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish…

Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes - men who despise you - enslave you - who regiment your lives - tell you what to do - what to think and what to feel! Who drill you - diet you - treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate - the unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!

In the 17th Chapter of St Luke it is written: “the Kingdom of God is within man” - not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power - the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Then - in the name of democracy - let us use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world - a decent world that will give men a chance to work - that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never will!

Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfil that promise! Let us fight to free the world - to do away with national barriers - to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers! in the name of democracy, let us all unite!