The current thesis (direction, not yet form)

Computation does not have to be provided under today's unequal conditions; it can take frugal, community-owned forms. The bigger vision: owning the computational infrastructure that adds value to our lives so as to exit the business models that make us cede data, attention and control to hyperscaler platforms, and doing it economically. He thinks this is closer to his core expertise (twenty-five years building platforms and running their economics) than his writing is. Sub-arguments: self-hosting as a general practice, not only for AI; AI model and data sovereignty; and the two claims on their own pages below. Also: the "AI will kill us all" framing borrows the nuclear non-proliferation frame, which justifies concentration; always ask who is doing the framing. He wants communities of practice around this, not only writing.

Live: re-check with James before relying on this.

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Techno-ecological optimism (January 2026)

His name for the stance: "It's not techno-optimism. It's techno-capitalist optimism", the kind that doesn't count mass extinction among its problems because technology might obviate the need for other species. Instead: "techno-ecological optimism", one "that leads to the widespread distribution of ever greater life-enhancing technē". (https://exitmusic.world/its-not-techno-optimism, from a Mastodon post a year older.)

Source: James's notes at exitmusic.world (read 2026-10-26); his own position, disposition stated.

Provenance: James, in conversation with Claude, 30 Sept 2026 (unverified). Disposition: live.

Related: hosting-cost-claim, municipal-inference, theory-of-change, commons, inference-testbed, departure-in-place, timeline-2027

Part of thread: thread-convivial-computation See also: ai-risk-as-runaway-it