Between the Silence and the Spectacle
I arrived in America in 1981.
Werner’s Substack
Code, craft, and commentary. Technology's influence on work, culture, and who gets left behind.
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Again, Legally
Americans often associate Weimar Germany with violent brownshirts in the streets forcing their radical leader into power.
That's Just How It Is
Writing about AI and labor replacement, I kept comparing what was happening in the United States to what I had seen growing up in Germany.
We Kept Growing. Most People Didn’t
One political camp warns that birth rates are collapsing and that the country needs more children and fewer immigrants to preserve its cultural identity.
Our Faith?
The USDA employee quoted in Wired’s April 2026 report says the email “made them think AI had written it.” [2] The email came on Easter Sunday from Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins to the whole agency — roughly 100,000 people.
A Talisman Against Fascism — In Loring Park
I grew up in Gelsenkirchen, in Germany’s Ruhr Valley, surrounded by the remnants of an industrial world that was already dying.
Who Fired You
Sarah Perez published a piece in TechCrunch [1] on April 13, 2026, summarizing Stanford’s annual AI report [2].
Is Anthropic vital for US Security?
On Wednesday, April 8, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell summoned the CEOs of America’s largest banks to an urgent, unscheduled meeting at Treasury headquarters in Washington.[1][2] The subject was a single AI model — Claude Mythos Preview, built by Anthropic.
The Wrong Argument
AI displacement is real. But we're watching the wrong layer.
Notes on David French’s “How Can America Be So Miserable When It’s So Rich?”
David French wrote a piece in the New York Times about America’s tiered economy — Disney World pricing, travel sports, airline boarding groups, concierge medicine.