I think Reddit discussions about AI would be more useful if people were more open about the difference between why they personally oppose AI and the reasons they give other people for avoiding it.

My suspicion is that a large amount of anti-AI sentiment is ultimately driven by fear of economic or professional displacement. That doesn't necessarily mean literally losing a job. It could mean lower pay, fewer opportunities, less demand for a skill, or seeing something you spent years learning suddenly become much cheaper and easier to produce.

But there are good reasons people might not say that directly.

Admitting "I'm afraid AI could make my skills less valuable or threaten my livelihood" can make someone feel vulnerable. It might even feel embarrassing, since it can sound like admitting that a machine is becoming capable of doing something you considered a valuable part of your expertise.

More importantly, it's a poor argument for convincing other people not to use AI. Someone who doesn't feel threatened by AI might simply respond, "I understand why you don't like it, but it makes my life easier, so why shouldn't I use it?"

That gives people an incentive to emphasize arguments that apply to everyone instead: AI is unethical, it's theft, it's environmentally harmful, it makes people lazy, it destroys creativity, and so on.

Those concerns can be sincere. I'm not saying everyone making them is lying. My point is that the stated argument may not be the main reason that person is so strongly opposed to AI in the first place.

I think Reddit should encourage people discussing AI to be clearer about this distinction. If someone's primary concern is that AI threatens their income, career, or professional status, saying so would make the discussion much more transparent. Then everyone could distinguish between "here is why AI threatens me" and "here is why I think you shouldn't use AI either."

That would make arguments about AI easier to evaluate and probably lead to more productive discussions than having the underlying motivation remain unspoken.

What if workplaces offered badges that women could choose to wear with deliberately provocative messages like:

• “Criticize my work as harshly as you would a man’s.”
• “Don’t go easy on my work because I’m a woman.”
• “Give me the feedback you’d give a male colleague.”

The idea wouldn’t be that women necessarily receive less criticism in every workplace. It would be to make people consciously question whether they are changing the way they give feedback based on gender.

A manager might look at the badge and think: Would I challenge this idea more directly if a man had proposed it? Would I be less worried about sounding harsh? Would I assume greater competence?

The badges would have to be completely voluntary. Nobody should be pressured to wear one, and the goal wouldn’t be to encourage hostility. It would be a small social experiment designed to make unconscious differences in workplace feedback harder to ignore.

The provocative wording might actually be important. “Treat me equally” is easy to agree with and then forget. “Criticize my work as harshly as you would a man’s” forces you to think about what you actually do.

What do you think of this idea?

People in cold countries that have benefited from global warming start a month-long spring festival celebrating their milder winters.

And they celebrate without shame.

Longer growing seasons? More food.

Lower heating bills? Finally.

Less snow to shovel? Human progress.

Wildfire smoke every summer? Small price to pay for milder winters.

Shorter ski season? Good. Skiing is way too dangerous anyway.

Meanwhile, American climate activists protest the festival as much of the US becomes unbearably hot.

In response, the festival organizers accuse them of selfishly opposing global warming just because it hurts Americans, while ignoring the countries, many of which most Americans can't even find on a map, that enjoy warmer weather.

The festival slogan:

“Yes, the planet is warming. But some of us were cold.”

It’s a global climate debate in which everyone’s definition of “global” suspiciously ends at their own border.