Silicon Valley has long existed in an intractable paradox, in that it grew out of a hippie-influenced counterculture in Northern California that ostensibly committed to idealistic notions of peace on Earth or whatever while simultaneously developing the tools of state for global mass surveillance, social credit scores, computer-generated new pathogens, killer drone robots, etc. — in other words, the critical infrastructure for the Beast system.

The most infamous case in point illustrating this intrinsic, schizophrenic contradiction was Google's longstanding motto "Don't Be Evil," aggressively marketed as the core tenet of the company — its moral North Star — for a decade and a half.

Fifteen years after its adoption, however, the company quietly removed "Don't Be Evil" from its Code of Conduct overnight in 2018, like a scene ripped from the pages of Animal Farm.

The catchphrase hasn't been heard of since — down the Memory Hole, as it were.

In a more recent example of square peg in round hole, Mrinank Sharma, former "Head of the Safeguards Research Team," announced his resignation from juggernaut Anthropic, citing "constant pressures to set aside" safety concerns in favor of maintaining a competitive edge in the rapidly developing industry:

"The world is in peril. The world is in peril. And not just from AI, or bioweapons, but from a whole series of interconnected crises unfolding in this very moment.

We appear to be approaching a threshold where our wisdom must grow in equal measure to our capacity to affect the world lest we face the consequences. Moreover, throughout my time here, I've repeatedly seen how hard it is to truly let our values govern our actions… We constantly face pressures to set aside what matters most."

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There's a whole genre of this public resignation letter from the pseudo-hippies at these companies.

They invariably cite existential safety concerns ignored by their employer and invariably neglect to actually explain what those existential safety concerns are in any detail — nor do they ever highlight any plans they have to combat the Frankenstein they have helped to birth as penance for their sins.

They just reach for the cheap brownie points they might score for making public overtures about goodness and morality or whatever, representing themselves as responsible stewards of society, without assuming any of the personal responsibility or risk that would necessarily come with explicit disclosure of what these companies do behind closed doors or tangible actions they are willing to take to confront them.

All of which is to say: no cookies for Mrinank Sharma; no one should be impressed with his milquetoast, self-serving resignation letter.