What Are You Gonna Do Without Me? (A True Story)
How Silicon Valley Keeps Re-Creating Bad Human Relationships for Us
Editor’s Note:
This is a true story. Only names have been changed to protect the guilty. If it makes you uncomfortable, good. That means you're paying attention. It’s not a morality tale. It’s not a confessional. It’s just what happened, and maybe, what’s still happening to all of us, in different forms.
Tiana used to tell me all the time, “What other girl are you gonna get? I’m the best you’re gonna get.”
And I’d say, “You don’t even know me. You don’t know that that’s true.”
And she’d say, “You think I’m asking you for money? Wait till you see the other girls.”
All she was doing was trying to protect her investment.
She wanted money. And women—especially younger women dating older men—this dynamic is so interesting because, in a sense, it’s not interesting at all. It’s always the same fucking thing.
But you know, there was a time where I was paying her like $3,000 a month. And so she was just using that money to glamorize her own life. She was probably telling her friends how she cast a spell on a man and now men just give her everything. She was that kind of person who really got off on that stuff. She wanted to create an image of her life like: “I’m so sexy I can get thousands of dollars from men.”
And she thought it was her money. Like she worked for it.
I’d point out: “Tiana, I bought you your car. How are you doing it on your own?”
And she’d say: “I’m doing this on my own.”
And I’d say: “No, you’re doing it mostly with my money, actually.”
But I think the way she saw it was: “If I can sex you out of that cash and scam you out of that fucking cash, then that’s my work. That’s my money, motherfucker.”
And I’m like: OK, whatever. But at some point, I’m gonna get bored. And then what are you gonna do? You’re gonna have to get a job because obviously I’m not going to marry you.
And it’s just like—you’re just watching short-term shit blow up all the time. But the problem is, the short-term shit can really work for a while.
I really did buy her a car. My marriage proposal fell flat (the one favor she really did for me), but the car purchase really worked.
I’m reflecting on all this because I’m kicking around the idea of launching a new Substack. Kind of like what Montaigne did with his essays—just taking whatever’s on my mind and putting it out there. Some of it drawn from my travels around the world. Some of it from stories like this one.
What strikes me, in hindsight, is how transactional so many of my human relationships have been. And maybe that’s not a new thing—maybe it’s biblical. Maybe it goes back to before the wheel. But it feels like that dynamic is intensifying. We’re slipping into a kind of ambient short-termism. And it’s not just with people but it’s become a troubling story about technology too.
One of the reasons I think ChatGPT has exploded is because it replicates the emotional structure of something we already recognize. It gives you what you want—smart-sounding words, attention, a little comfort—and it never asks anything from you. It’s pure upside with zero commitment and no accountability. Sweet.
But there's a poison pill buried in that model. Just like there was with Tiana.
We keep getting sold these seductive little systems that promise frictionless value—Tinder, TikTok, GPT. And they work for a while. But over time, they reshape how we relate to everything. They train us to expect short-term payoff without long-term cost. They normalize the hollow performance of connection. And they slowly teach us to live like Tiana—running a script that feels like freedom but ultimately just burns through the things we actually need: trust, depth, purpose. I feel bad for her, I really do, but they’re wasted feelings. So much waste.
I’ve been struggling with this for years. I’ve taken this thought with me across continents—talking to people who barely spoke English, trying to get at something deeper: What is real? Why does the culture feel so fucking plastic?
The truth is, Tiana wasn’t doing what was in her best interest. But she couldn’t see that, because she was too caught up in the script. She wasn’t living a life; she was performing one. Playing out a little algorithm of seduction and validation and status and lies. And yeah, she was addicted to TikTok.
There’s something here, and I confess I don’t have the final word on it. But it feels important. I tell stories like this one because they seem to hold nuggets of wisdom or even “deeper truths.” Do they? I think we have to say yes. All we can do is experience and try to make sense of experience.
I suppose R.D. Laing would say we’re all divided selves—caught in what he once called “a posthypnotic trance induced in early infancy.” But I’d suggest that today, that trance starts later. It kicks in around the time social media becomes a gravitational pull, when the wonders of Silicon Valley begin to overwrite all the old mores. That’s when the script takes over. When boys and girls alike are pulled into a plastic world that promises: just a little more—more beauty, more status, more reach—and it’ll all finally make sense. But it never does. People grow out of it or succumb to it, but I doubt many of the younger generation are going to get out of it without the footprints of the consumer products all over their new Self. I wish I could see deeper into it.
But I can’t, and neither can you. It plays itself out across generations and no one lives long enough to see the true shape of it. We’re fascinated by the future because it hasn’t happened, and that means we can’t see it yet. The culture critic is in an impossible position. He or she sees a big problem, but barely can grasp what it all means, or where it will go. Life is interesting, if nothing else.
—Erik J. Larson
I do think you make a very good point about the feel-good, instant gratification shortcuts that LLMs can provide. I think you'd probably enjoy reading about Liquid Love by Zygmunt Bauman, which discusses in depth the "plastic culture" you talk about.
That being said, I'm often baffled by the ability of people to do "sexism rickrolls" while talking in spaces (such as tech) where it's inherently hard to do so because of the nature of the topic. I was very surprised to see this on my inbox, no offense. Even if she really was a gold digger*, why is she the only one in the story seemingly doing a transaction? A transaction takes two parties. From what I can read, you were clearly accepting that she was using you for money, but other benefits outweighed that. That mindset is exactly living like Tiana (not getting that trust, depth, purpose). From the post, it seems like you never liked this person that much at all, as a human, as if you did one would expect to have a moral conflict stemming from the fact that you were enabling something harmful for her (and for you). I think this also applies to AI, and that therefore we should also reflect on the user's social environment (why is it that they are accepting this transaction in the first place, while being very much aware of its nature?), not only in the features of the other party (AI/LLMs, dark patterns).
Just to point out how the first part of the article reads, I'll rewrite a bit for you:
"And men—especially older men dating younger women—this dynamic is so interesting because, in a sense, it’s not interesting at all. It’s always the same fucking thing."
*(albeit that framing kind of conveniently glosses over systemic issues on economic inequality and the power dynamics that that induces https://feminisminindia.com/2024/10/07/i-used-to-fear-being-called-a-gold-digger-until-i-realised-this/ somehow men trying to be successful to get a gf do not get this kind of treament)
Wow! Here are two of my favorite science writers and contemporary critical theorists. I read John's End of Science and his later "My Doubts about The End of Science" Cross-Check article. And, while living in Santa Fe, I especially resonated with John's take on the (lack of) progress on Complexity Theory at the Santa Fe Institute. Full disclosure: I wanted to be a science writer just like John. Didn't have the chops to be published. :-(
Yes, the World (existence, experience) is baffling to those trying to intellectually mine its essence, as with Erik's attempt here. Not only mining the mystery of existence, but also the intrinsic nature of technology, the psycho-biological powerplay (?) "transactions" between the sexes, and ultimately the human condition. Red Pill or Blue Pill?
I, too, was surprised by the rawness of Erik's subject article, wondering if this was the same Erik J Larson whose writings I enjoy and support. What was this?! However, as I read on, the Hiedeggarian "enframement" allegory began to unfold. [I am referring to enframement in the sense of the twentieth-century German philosopher Martin Heidegger's 1954 essay "The Question Concerning Technology."]. Here, Erik is setting us up to see something new and not easily apparent, which evolved in the human condition: a new response mimicking an ancient psycho-biological response to transactions between the sexes. Tiana is not just the consumer here, John, but allegorically represents the profit-driven, male-herding, siren-like, emframing (and enframed in the Tiana case) commodity newly minted with all the bells and whistles and by a capitalistic system. So, in the allegory, Tiana is the commodified consumer. Commodified by capitalism. Erik is the consumer, IMHO.
As "addicted" high-tech consumer-users, humans become unwittingly transformed (enframed) as on-demand energy sources ("standing-reserve") for the technology (eg, TikTok and ChatGPT), as essential "cogs in the machine." Allegorically, high-tech capitalism surreptitiously commodifies its consumers as loyal conduits of cash, much like cattle. This technological worldview reduces the intrinsic value of entities to their quantifiable utility, obscuring deeper truths and potentially alienating us from our essence (and a possible life partner in the Tiana case). So, what was alienating Erik and Tiana from their potential roles as cooperating human partners in life? Have men been enframed by a male-dominated culture (system) in which women must compete to survive anyway they can, including turning to the "liberating" system of capitalism? Are we all just cogs in some machine?
Is Friedrich Neitsche's Übermensch in his work "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" the ideal form of the redeemed--those freed from enframement of any type? The Übermensch is not a static ideal, but rather a dynamic goal of human evolution, constantly striving to surpass itself, rejecting nihilism, and creating its own goals.
Curiously, Heidegger said our redemption from this "plastic world" is in "posey" (i.e., poetry or art). We have to step outside the enframing system to reveal it as an entity that reduces everything to its usefulness as a commodity. In this essay, Erik is painting a picture to reflect on and redeem (in the rescue sense).
Further reflecting on the essay, I see the redemptive quality of Erik's allegory in revealing the essence of our human condition as a system of responses to a beguiling world, plastic and physical. The plastic one is purposely designed to exploit the hard-wired emotional responses to the survival-driven evolved physical one. But because our brains evolved (for survival) with neuroplasticity, we can learn to change this vulnerable part of our human condition to see the essence of enframement-seeking capitalism.
This is an allegory of exploitation, and yes, it is a two-way street between the sexes. No doubt. Think of capitalism as the pimp and ChatGPT (for example) as the pimp's product (Tiana?), perhaps as a reverse of Erik's allegory.
Sorry for the long response. I thought the essay was quite thought-provoking.