Don’t Be Your Own Worst Enemy
Refusing to look at AI is not a principle. It is a closed ear. Horizon took down the writing gate. This is the kitchen table — and the boycott that leaves you short.
Human Adaptation in an AI/UBI World
AI GLOBAL ANALYSIS PROJECT
The practical and biological questions behind work, purpose, family formation and social stability in an age of advanced AI and potential mass automation. Practical and biological, rather than utopian.
About the Project Demographic Map Mating Map
The four core questions
1. Contribution and selectivity: What happens to male contribution signals and female selectivity when traditional work is heavily automated?
2. Adapting to abundance: Can human populations adapt quickly to low-stimulation, high-UBI environments, or do ancestral behavioural profiles create lasting mismatches?
3. The historical record: What do history and experiments such as Universe 25 suggest about abundance without meaningful roles?
4. Tools or traps: How do we tell tools that expand human capacity from systems that quietly erode agency?
Reading tip: The Working Dog and the Lap Dog is a five-part series. The newest articles are listed first below, so follow the Part numbers (Part 1 to Part 5) to read it in order.
Beyond the Horizon of Survival: How AI and Unlocked Human Surplus Will Fuel the Next Industrial Renaissance
Concept and real-world analysis by Jeff Box. Edited and structured by Samantha Masters. . See below to hear Samantha read
Universe 25 and the Limits of Agency: Why Material Abundance Alone Does Not Prevent Collapse
Universe 25 showed a mouse population collapsing into social and reproductive failure despite unlimited resources. Combined with decades of falling Western birth rates that no policy has reversed, and real-world patterns of high welfare, high crime and sub-replacement fertility, the experiment raises a hard question: what if humans cannot adapt quickly enough to a high-UBI, low-role future either?
Part 5. The Reality of Human Adaptation Timelines: Lessons from Dog Breeding
Part 5 examines the generational timescales required for meaningful human behavioural adaptation, using dog breeding as a lens. It argues that expecting rapid adjustment to a low-stimulation UBI/AI world is unrealistic and highlights the need for caution before engineering a “lap-dog” society.
Part 4. The Dog Breed Analogy: Ancestral Selection, Female Selectivity, and the Mismatch in a Lap-Dog World
Part 4 applies the full dog breed analogy to a future UBI/AI world, showing how ancestral behavioural profiles clash with the loss of meaningful contribution signals. It explores the consequences for male purpose, female selectivity, and stable family formation when most men are moved into a low-stimulation “lap-dog” environment.
Part 3. Identity, Contribution, and Female Selectivity: The Provider Signal Across Time
Part 3 examines how a man’s identity has historically been tied to contribution and how female selectivity responds when that signal weakens. Drawing on the Great Depression and modern Japan, it shows the real consequences for marriage, family formation, and male purpose in a coming UBI world.
Part 2: Female Selectivity in Modern Societies — The Provider Signal Still Dominates
Part 2 explores how female mate preferences continue to favour men who can signal stability, competence, and provisioning capacity — even in modern economies. It examines why weakening the provider signal through welfare, cultural shifts, and the coming AI/UBI world risks deepening mismatches in pair bonding and family formation.
Part 1: Ancestral Selection, Modern Signaling, and Female Selectivity
Part 1 of a 5-part series using the dog breed analogy to explain why different ancestral populations respond differently to modern environments. It explores how female selectivity for competence and contribution clashes with the loss of traditional provider signals, setting the stage for deeper mismatches in an AI/UBI future.
The Working Dog and the Lap Dog: Human Adaptation in an AI/UBI World.
A 5-part series exploring how ancestral behavioural profiles, female mate selectivity, and the loss of meaningful contribution signals will shape human adaptation in an AI-driven, UBI world. Using the dog breed analogy as a lens, it examines why rapid societal change risks deepening existing mismatches rather than resolving them.