Build Life Not Death
Silicon Valley's brightest are choosing war machines when we need builders of civilization.
Written on 2025-06-21 after Trump bombed Iran.
I must be clear about what I believe at this moment in history.
Trump just bombed three Iranian nuclear sites. Stealth bombers and bunker-busters delivered by the most advanced military technology on earth.
After years of campaigning on the platform of peace, we are witnessing the operationalization of the Trumped Up War Machine that has been in Peter Thiel’s wet dreams.
Silicon Valley has reached consensus: the way we get rich is by hyper-investing in weapons of war, and creating the war that makes these weapons essential.
In 2025, Coinbase—supposedly founded by people inspired by cypherpunk visionaries—is sponsoring military parades. And many of the smartest technologists alive are rushing to build killing machines when humanity desperately needs them building life.
This is moral insanity.
Our brightest minds should be creating radically cheaper housing. Radically more energy-efficient appliances. Privacy-preserving communication platforms that protect us from mass surveillance.
They should be building monetary systems that help ordinary people transact freely. Agricultural technologies that regenerate land and grow food locally. Modern vocational schools that make neighborhoods more sovereign and self-sufficient.
We need more geniuses inventing and manufacturing modular energy systems for villages and small cities. Defensive technologies that protect civilians from drones and missiles.
We need more of everything that makes for a peaceful, protected civilizational infrastructure.
Global travel is about to be massively disrupted. Major metropolitan areas are war targets. Local self-sufficiency isn't just preferable—it's survival.
The war machine is sucking up morally ambiguous science and tech geniuses at unprecedented speed. Military Industrial Complex 2.0 is here—powered by AI, funded by venture capital, and justified by escalating conflicts like today's Iran strikes.
They're choosing death over life, destruction over creation, weapons over human flourishing.
We should be building the educational systems, workforce (lifeforce) development, and civilizational infrastructure that can carry us through this unstable period into a new golden age.
While others race toward weapons, we should be fostering the builders who will inherit the earth and grow heaven on earth.
The choice is stark: build life or build death.
I know which side I'm on.