If the person who caused the problem also has the solution, then beware. I was walking to my gate in O'Hare. "Sir! SIR! You don't have a mask on." "That's true," I replied. "You need to wear a mask," he told me. "No, I do not." I kept walking. "I am a medical professional! I am a doctor!" "That's very good." "You're putting other people in danger!" "Then don't walk so close to me." His voice kept rising. "Put your mask on!" I stopped and turned to him. "I suggest you stop now." I turned and walked away. He kept yelling, but stopped following me. His voice faded in the din of the airport. In a different time and place, he would have made a good Nazi. We've all done it. Followed the crowd. Went along with things to not seem difficult, or make things easier, or because it seemed like the done thing. We all want to belong. There's nothing wrong with belonging. But we should diligently ask, belong to what? The implications of AI in a society that will accept forced vaccinations and wear masks (or two!) because the elites tell them to is clear. I am not anti-AI because I am anti-technology. I am anti-AI because the pandemic showed us that we live in a society made up of too many people who refuse to think for themselves.

Anthony Fauci is a domestic terrorist. What's the statute of limitations on that?

“I trained my AI to sound just like me.” “Oh, you mean retarded?”

I would much sooner adopt a baby in danger of being aborted than adopt AI.

The user experience of most MFA is trash.

Do entrepreneurs have a duty to their employees, customers, and country? I think so. Entrepreneurship is wonderful for the opportunities it creates, and the value quantified monetarily. But there is also a matter of the common good, which seems to be quite forgotten today.

Voting in America should include a piss test. Not a sample, just have dudes use a urinal. Get some on the floor, voting rights revoked.

What does it mean to be free? To do whatever I want without consequences. No, that's not it. Doing whatever without consequences is anarchy. It's also not a reality of life. Try surviving in the woods for a week without consequences for your decisions. It won't work out well. During the pandemic, people would say, "Stay safe!" I always responded, "Stay free." Because if freedom can be turned on and off with a switch, if liberty is situational, then it is not freedom or liberty. Our rights to free movement and free exchange were arbitrarily taken away. You may believe that was the right thing to do, but you cannot pretend it is the mark of a free society. The illusion of freedom is optionality. I can go to the store and have tons of options, therefore I am free. But that's not really freedom either. Freedom is built on order. That's a paradox. To be outwardly free, a person must be internally disciplined. The more one has self-control, discipline, and character, the more freedom that person can handle. A person without those qualities cannot handle outward freedom. In a free society, there must be virtue. The free exchange of goods and money, a free market, requires a certain level of honesty as well as an understanding of value. Freedom of speech requires the ability to think clearly and some level of civility and politeness. The price of freedom is morality. We are free enough to shoot off fireworks. We must also be good enough not to point them at our neighbor's house. A free society is a gift dearly bought by people we've never met. Not just the Revolution, which cost lives and money. The very ideas of our nation trace back thousands of years. People took time to think, to hone these ideas, to debate them, to sharpen them. Generations that took seriously their gifts and their roles, and thought ahead to the future wherein you and I live. If we wish for America to be a free nation in another 250 years, we must recognize that we are on the path of materialism, hedonism, selfishness, and that these things will not get us there. They are forms of tyranny, inward tyranny that can only lead to outward tyranny. Stay free, my friends.

Commandeering Tolkien terminology while building a ubiquitous surveillance technocracy is equivalent to Sauron convincing the Numenoreans to offer human sacrifice to Morgoth.

I've never met a humble person who told me about her humility. I've never liked a person who told me how much I'd like him. I've never heard a person of integrity talk about his integrity. It's a source of nervousness when someone starts talking about being ethical. That's not to say that businesses shouldn't have core values. They should. Values are important. But values are lived. Talking about them with your team and using them as a hiring metric is different from using them as a sales pitch. No one is perfect. We fall and stumble. That is why we must pursue virtue. Eudaimonia - happiness, a life well lived. Human flourishing. The thing missing in all the conversations around work, efficiency, automation, artificial intelligence. This should be the goal when we go into a conversation around autonomous vehicles, or the living conditions of truck drivers. This needs to be the goal when we talk about starting businesses, or investing in technology, or improving the freight industry. Human flourishing. Without it, what's the point?

Aren't these the companies that will enable, "you will own nothing and like it?" Are AI models not ripping off everyone's intellectual property, charging them to do it, while we pretend to be enlightened, good little technologists?

The president spoke at @MackTrucks today, so we went. Snipers on the roof, surveying the winding lines of enthusiastic people, getting drenched in the rain. Three people left on stretchers. One was escorted out by police. It was an impressive show. Show it was. Timed. Coordinated. Music pumping. All designed to get people cheering and excited. To his credit, President Trump is funny. He knows people. He understands how to speak to his base. They trust him implicitly. They will not question him or what he says. Famous people were there, representatives of trucking empires, and elected officials. Something about it made me think of Rome.

Relationships matter in trucking.

"Man, I really miss being able to do that." His dad passed away a few years before, they'd worked together. He saw me and my dad having a tough conversation over a coffee at the local coffee shop. There we were, getting frustrated with each other. But that line really put things into perspective. A lot of people tell me I'm lucky. That they miss their dad. Treasure the time. Family business can be tough. The lines get blurred. Sometimes you just want your dad's perspective or some good hang out time, but there are things to address with work that take precedence. It's easy to get caught up in the work stuff. A good dad is a great gift. And I'm very fortunate to have a dad that taught me a lot about freight, and even more about people. That it's always the right time to do the right thing. When we mess up, get back up and keep going. That taking care of other people will always work out to the good. Everyone I run into who knows Big Ed says some variation of, "he's a good man." There is no finer legacy than that. God bless all the dad's out there. We fall and fail, but each time we must get right back up. The greatest gift we can give is that of love.

It's an exceptionally exciting time to be in freight. Yes, there are bad things going on. There are also opportunities because of that. People are moving around, looking for new opportunities, looking for talented people. We are on the verge of the Renaissance of American Trucking. If we want it. If we prioritize safety. If we treat others well. If we value relationships.

I first discovered the Latin Mass about 15 years ago. Part of its beauty is that it can be reencountered again and again, each time with ancient freshness. I look forward to rediscovering it with @EduardHabsburg.

If you want to be happy for a day, move a spot load. If you want to be happy for a year, lock in contract freight. If you want to be happy for a lifetime, get out of trucking and open an ice cream shop.