“If we expect nothing, we will get nothing”

This is one of those posts that makes you feel like the world is trying to shake you out of a stupor.

Matt Duffy is unapologetic about claiming that Efficiency Without Morality is Tyranny. I’m inclined to agree, though I’m not sure “morality” is the right word.

Here’s what I highlighted:

As societies scaled, we required coordination, optimization, and waste reduction. Technical leaders ascended to prominence; "learn to code" became shorthand for an entire worldview valuing technical skill over fluffier endeavors in the arts and humanities. “Follow the science” became an appeal to authority rather than an actual call to scientific rigor.

What we once called moral discourse—centered on how forgiveness, discipline, good works, and shared obligation interact—was replaced with a shallower mode of combat. The “religious right” gave up on moral cultivation and settled for punishing neighbors it didn’t like. Among the educated center and left, moral engagement was abandoned in favor of neutrality, appeals to The Science™, ironic detachment, or moral relativism. That backlash to an unjust and exclusionary moral order was logical. But moral relativism wasn’t freedom—it was surrender. It was a retreat from the hard work of evaluating good and bad, right and wrong, in favor of a posture that asked very little of anyone, beyond the transactional.

Technocracy sorts people into productive and unproductive categories. Even our best safety nets cannot undo this sorting, because technocracy doesn’t punish—it forgets. It doesn’t care who you are, only what you produce.

When the dominant systems of work, government, and interaction only recognize group affiliations or statistical clusters, people learn that the path to being seen, to gaining leverage or resources, lies solely in emphasizing group identity.

Technocracy, like the markets, is not a villain. It is an amoral judge. Without a shared moral framework that supersedes technocratic considerations, technocracy will win, and pull every decision toward what is cheapest, fastest, most standardized, and most scalable.

AI is the culmination of the march of efficiency. It mimics our language, our reasoning, and will soon surpass us in productivity, and possibly creativity. We will never be more efficient than AI. In a world governed by efficiency alone, AI wins by default.

I do not fear mere disruptions to our lives, like AI taking jobs. There will be more jobs to be done. I am afraid that it will replace our identities and our judgment.

This isn’t panic. AI can be a profound human tool—or it can replace us entirely. If we continue down a path of technocratic primacy, AI becomes our natural successor. Not because it enslaves us, but because it outperforms us in a system optimized for clean and efficient production. A world that sees humans as inefficient inputs is a world that eventually stops needing humans and will, at best, merely tolerate them.

Moral seriousness doesn't require strict agreement on doctrine, nor does it require a dogmatic approach. It requires effort. Any life lived with discipline—toward art, toward business, toward care, toward teaching—is a life worth admiring. Discipline is not the end itself, but a signal: this person has chosen to strive. And in a world overrun with drift, striving is a moral act.

If we expect nothing, we will get nothing. And no system, even the most efficient, can carry the weight of a society that refuses to shoulder moral responsibility.