Stories that linger long after the last page
Your name rhymes with salacious
The subject and predicate of the joke
You never hear them laugh
Because your own drowns them out
If you’re lucky enough
You’ll achieve the greatest wealth
But rest you’ll never receive
You’ll feed the thief from your grave.
Will AI deplete water resources?
Will AI increase your electricity bill?
Will AI drastically reduce available jobs?
Is AI the most dangerous technology humanity has ever created?
Perhaps.
I’m not here to argue that Artificial Intelligence is incapable of causing serious consequences. Every transformative technology in human history has come with risks, tradeoffs, and unintended effects. AI is no exception.
What I am here to ask is a simpler question:
Where is the evidence of causation?
Too often, the conversation around AI is driven by assumptions rather than proof. A data center appears in a community. Electricity prices rise. Headlines connect the dots and declare AI the culprit.
But correlation is not causation.
Did the data center cause the increase? Maybe.
Did broader infrastructure costs, energy markets, population growth, or policy decisions contribute? Maybe.
The point is not that AI is innocent. The point is that many of the loudest warnings fail to prove what they claim. We are frequently presented with outcomes, but not the evidence that directly links those outcomes to AI itself.
That distinction matters.
What I find even more interesting is who often shapes the narrative surrounding Artificial Intelligence. Many of the loudest voices discussing AI’s dangers are deeply involved in creating, funding, or profiting from AI.
That raises an uncomfortable question:
What is the benefit of making people afraid to use it?
Consider an independent artist.
The algorithms of social media will often flood that artist with stories about AI stealing voices, imitating styles, and replacing creativity. The message is clear: AI is a threat.
Yet much of that fear ignores practical realities.
Using another artist’s work without permission can create copyright issues. More importantly, AI cannot stand on a stage and create a genuine human connection with an audience. It cannot live the experiences that inspire art in the first place.
What receives far less attention is how AI can empower creators.
An artist can upload a contract and have AI explain, in plain language, exactly what they’re agreeing to.
They can use AI to identify unfavorable terms that would otherwise be buried in legal jargon.
They can receive guidance when negotiating better royalty structures and ownership agreements.
They can draft stronger contracts.
They can better understand their intellectual property rights.
They can protect their work instead of unknowingly surrendering it.
Most importantly, they can gain tools that were once available only to those who could afford lawyers, consultants, or industry insiders.
All within minutes.
The conversation around AI often focuses on what it might take away. Far less attention is given to what it can give back.
For creators, entrepreneurs, and everyday people, AI is not simply a machine that generates images or mimics voices. It can be a tool for understanding systems that were previously opaque. It can reduce information barriers. It can help individuals make decisions from a position of knowledge rather than dependence.
That brings me back to the question:
Why encourage fear?
My answer is simple: competition.
A well-informed person is harder to exploit. A creator who understands contracts is harder to underpay. A business owner who can access expert-level analysis is harder to outmaneuver. A worker who can multiply their productivity is harder to ignore.
AI’s true disruption may not be that it replaces people.
It may be that it empowers them.
None of this means AI is flawless. It isn’t. Like any tool created by humans, it reflects both strengths and weaknesses. It can be misused. It can make mistakes. It deserves scrutiny.
But scrutiny is not the same thing as fear.
If we spend all our time debating hypothetical dangers that remain unproven, we risk overlooking the very real opportunities already sitting in front of us.
And while the public is distracted by fear, others are busy learning, adapting, and gaining an advantage.
The question is no longer whether AI has flaws.
The question is whether those flaws are being exaggerated to keep people from discovering its power.
Because the greatest threat AI poses may not be to jobs, industries, or society.
It may be to systems that depend on people remaining uninformed, dependent, and easy to control.
Those who learn to use AI will not simply compete differently.
They will compete from a position of ownership.
And ownership has always been far more powerful than fear.
ChatGPT defines manufactured fear as fear that is deliberately created, amplified, or encouraged by people or organizations rather than arising from an immediate threat. Its purpose is often simple: to influence behavior, opinions, and decisions.
Why do I begin with that definition?
Because I believe we are living in an era of manufactured fear.
We live in a world where sweeping claims are often accepted without proof. Wars. The economy. Public health responses. Political labels. And perhaps most notably, the supposed imminent destruction of humanity through the advancement of Artificial Intelligence.
Do I use AI?
Abso-fucking-lutely.
But I’m a different kind of person.
As a Black person in America, I understand what it means to inherit fear. When your history includes bondage, suffering, terror, violence, and systemic oppression, and you’re reminded daily that progress can be reversed with the stroke of a pen, fear can become embedded in your psyche. You learn that danger is always lurking around the corner.
Yet Scripture teaches me something different. It teaches me to fear God alone.
So which voice should I listen to?
I am a witness to God’s power. There is nothing AI, government, corporations, or any other institution can do that He does not permit. Because of that, I try to remain focused on truth rather than panic. And when I see relentless messaging designed to make people afraid of AI, I can’t help but ask whether the fear itself deserves scrutiny.
In my book The Cult: A Black American Project and my companion novel Twenty-Four, I explore how my spiritual journey led me down the rabbit hole of institutional power. Along the way, I learned to ask two questions that have become central to how I evaluate almost everything:
1. What is the goal?
2. Who benefits from my fear?
Those questions matter.
When it comes to AI, the people and organizations that profit the most from the technology also shape much of the conversation around it. Meanwhile, many of us are being encouraged to view it primarily as a threat. If I become afraid of AI, I won’t learn it. If I don’t learn it, I won’t use it. And if I don’t use it, I place myself at a disadvantage compared to those who do.
That doesn’t mean every concern about AI is invalid. It simply means I refuse to outsource my thinking.
The media often focuses on AI replacing workers, disrupting industries, or transforming entertainment. Some of those concerns may prove legitimate. But I also recognize AI’s practical value. With the right vision, I can use it to help build a business, develop ideas, create systems, and launch projects that would have once required enormous amounts of time, money, and manpower.
AI does not replace my creativity. It amplifies it.
It does not replace human assistance. It reduces the barriers to getting started.
So when I hear alarming claims, I return to those same questions: Who benefits from me believing them? Who benefits if I become too afraid to engage with the technology? Who benefits if entire communities decide they are better off avoiding the tools that are helping shape the future?
Those are questions worth asking.
For me, fear requires evidence. If there is no proof that I should be afraid, then what I’m being offered may be less about danger and more about persuasion.
I’m not arguing that AI is perfect. Neither are human beings.
What I am saying is this: until AI becomes self-aware, launches a nuclear war like The Terminator, or starts depriving Black and Brown communities of essential resources, I intend to use it the same way powerful institutions always have: as a tool.
The difference is that I’m choosing not to be afraid of it first.
Fear has always been one of the oldest tools of control. Convince a person to fear something, and you can often convince them to avoid it, surrender to it, or hand over their power because of it. But truth requires more of us. It requires curiosity. Discernment. Courage.
I did not come this far in my spiritual journey to exchange one belief system for another. I came to ask questions. To seek truth wherever it leads. And until someone gives me a reason grounded in evidence rather than emotion, I will continue to do what I’ve always done: learn, adapt, create, and refuse to be governed by fear.
Because God didn’t give me a spirit of fear.
And I’m no longer interested in borrowing one from the world.
One of the most revealing lines in Twenty-Four appears during Ricky’s reflection on a lesson taught to him by his father:
“Always remember, they reach up for the ground.”
At first glance, the statement sounds contradictory. How can someone reach up for the ground? The answer lies at the heart of the novel’s exploration of power, conditioning, and social control.
A Deliberate Contradiction
Most people are familiar with the phrase “reach for the sky.” It symbolizes ambition, possibility, and the pursuit of something higher than one’s current circumstances.
Ricky’s father’s quote reverses that idea.
The point is not that Subjects lack ambition. In fact, many Subjects in Twenty-Four are ambitious, talented, intelligent, and hardworking. The point is that they have been conditioned to believe that certain limits are natural.
As a result, even when they strive for success, they strive within boundaries that have already been established for them.
In the Producer worldview, Subjects aren’t reaching for the sky.
They’re reaching up for the ground.
Power as the Control of Possibility
The quote reveals an important theme in Twenty-Four: true power is not merely controlling people’s actions. True power is controlling what people believe is possible.
A person who believes they can only rise to a certain level will rarely attempt to go beyond it.
The system described throughout the novel works to define:
What success looks like.
What leadership looks like.
What freedom looks like.
What people should aspire to become.
If those definitions are accepted without question, people become easier to manage.
They may believe they are climbing upward when they are actually moving within boundaries established by others.
The Difference Between Visibility and Power
Another theme in Twenty-Four is the distinction between visible figures and those who operate behind the scenes.
The novel repeatedly contrasts public figures—politicians, entertainers, activists, and other “Actors”—with the hidden structures directing events.
From Ricky’s perspective, Subjects often mistake visibility for power.
They may aspire to become:
Celebrities
Politicians
Athletes
Influencers
Public leaders
Yet Ricky believes those positions remain beneath the level occupied by the Producers.
To him, Subjects are chasing symbols of power rather than power itself.
That is what the quote means when viewed through his eyes.
Why Shelley Is Different
The significance of the quote becomes even clearer when compared to Shelley.
The system is not particularly threatened by people who want recognition, wealth, or status. Those ambitions can be predicted, rewarded, and managed.
Shelley represents something different.
The reports identify her as dangerous because she demonstrates independent thought and resistance to social conditioning. She questions assumptions rather than accepting them.
In other words, she is one of the few people who may eventually realize that the ground is not the sky.
The Hidden Irony
Perhaps the most important aspect of the quote is the irony embedded within it.
Ricky sees the quote as proof of his superiority. He believes Subjects are trapped by their limited understanding of the world.
But readers may begin to wonder whether Ricky suffers from the same blindness.
He idolizes the Producers.
He believes becoming a Producer is the ultimate achievement.
He describes them as possessing “the power of God.”
What if Ricky is also reaching up for the ground?
What if the Producers are merely another level within a larger system they do not fully understand?
That possibility transforms the quote from a statement about Subjects into a broader commentary on power itself.
Final Thoughts
“Always remember, they reach up for the ground” captures one of Twenty-Four‘s central ideas: people can be controlled most effectively when they are taught to mistake limitation for possibility.
The quote is not really about intelligence, talent, or effort. It is about perception. It suggests that the greatest form of power is the ability to define the boundaries of another person’s imagination.
And the moment someone begins questioning those boundaries is the moment they become dangerous to the system.
One of the most interesting themes in Wannetta Kinsey’s Twenty-Four is the tension between individual advancement and systemic control. As the novel reveals the hidden agenda behind programs such as Project Genesis and Diversion 22, readers are invited to think critically about historical approaches to social progress. One approach that bears comparison is Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Compromise.
What Was the Atlanta Compromise?
In his 1895 Atlanta Exposition Address, Booker T. Washington encouraged Black Americans to focus on economic development, vocational education, and self-reliance. He argued that social equality and political rights could come later, after Black communities demonstrated economic value and stability.
While Washington believed this approach offered a practical path forward in a hostile environment, many critics argued that it accepted segregation and unequal treatment rather than directly challenging them.
The System’s Goals in Twenty-Four
The secretive system operating behind the scenes in Twenty-Four seeks to maintain control through a variety of strategies. According to the classified reports in Chapter Two, the system aims to:
Reinforce existing social hierarchies.
Discourage independent inquiry and critical thinking.
Promote compliance with approved narratives.
Redirect influence away from leaders who encourage systemic change.
Manage behavior through psychological and cultural conditioning.
Most importantly, the system appears threatened by individuals who develop independent moral frameworks and resist social conditioning, such as Shelley, “The Pearl.”
Where the Atlanta Compromise Fits
Viewed through the lens of the novel, the Atlanta Compromise would likely serve the system’s interests because it emphasizes advancement within the existing structure rather than transformation of the structure itself.
Several parallels emerge:
1. Acceptance of Existing Power Structures
Washington’s approach encouraged working within the social order of the time. Similarly, the system in Twenty-Four seeks to preserve established hierarchies and minimize challenges to its authority.
2. Focus on Individual Progress
The Atlanta Compromise stressed personal and economic advancement. In the novel, the system often redirects attention away from structural problems and toward individual adaptation, making broader reform less likely.
3. Reduced Threat of Collective Resistance
People focused primarily on personal success are less likely to organize against institutions. The system benefits when individuals pursue advancement without questioning the larger forces shaping their lives.
4. Preservation of the Status Quo
The reports in Twenty-Four repeatedly reveal a desire to maintain control through managed narratives and controlled forms of leadership. An accommodationist approach aligns more comfortably with that objective than movements that challenge power directly.
The Novel’s Broader Message
Importantly, Twenty-Four does not necessarily present a direct condemnation of Booker T. Washington himself. Rather, the novel raises questions about whether progress achieved within a system can ever be fully separated from the interests of the system that permits it.
Through Shelley’s journey, the story consistently suggests that true freedom comes from independent thought, moral conviction, and resistance to manipulation. From that perspective, the Atlanta Compromise can be seen as supporting the system’s agenda because it encourages adaptation to existing conditions rather than confronting the deeper structures of power that the novel portrays as controlling society.
Ultimately, Twenty-Four challenges readers to ask a difficult question: Is advancement within a flawed system enough, or must the system itself be transformed?
Sip, savor, and share your thoughts on Booker T. Washington’s Atlanta Compromise Exposition Speech.