The Shmoo Diaries: Part 3 - The Calculation That Still Runs Everything

How Control Actually Works

Hi, how’s your week?

Mine’s? Still thinking of my Shmoo and what it actually means have the power of control.

Let me recap where we are. So far as the Pattern Comes Into Focus

Chapter 1 showed how we panic when abundance appears.

Chapter 2 showed how abundance gets rejected when it cannot be owned.

This chapter shows how control persists through quiet calculation.

None of this requires bad actors. It only requires systems that prioritize stability over transformation. The result is the same either way.

By the time most people notice they are being controlled, the decisions have already been made.

That’s because real control rarely announces itself. It doesn’t arrive with speeches or slogans. It doesn’t argue its case in public. It shows up quietly, through defaults, funding choices, infrastructure decisions, and what is allowed to scale.

This is where the conversation usually breaks down. We like to argue about ideology. Capitalism versus Socialism. Regulation versus freedom. But those debates miss how power actually operates.

Power today is operational, not philosophical. And that has been true for a long time.

The Calculation, Not the Character

The story of J.P. Morgan and Nikola Tesla is often told as a morality play. The ruthless financier crushes the idealistic inventor. That version is emotionally satisfying and mostly wrong.

What matters isn’t who Morgan was. It’s what he did.

When Morgan realized that Tesla’s wireless energy could not be metered, he withdrew support. Not out of malice. Out of economics. The system Morgan represented depended on ownership, billing, and control. An energy source that could not be priced had no place in that system.

That was the calculation.

No villain. No conspiracy. Just money and power.

And once that calculation was made, Tesla’s vision didn’t need to be attacked; it simply needed to be starved.

That same logic still runs everything.

Infrastructure Is Destiny

We underestimate the power of infrastructure because it’s boring.

Infrastructure doesn’t persuade. It constrains. It defines what is possible without ever saying a word.

Who owns the rails determines which trains can run. Who controls distribution determines which ideas spread. Who funds computing determines which models exist.

By the time a debate reaches the public, the outcome is usually already locked in by choices that were never framed as political at all.

This is why focusing only on outcomes misses the point. The real leverage is upstream.

AI Is Not a Tool. It’s Infrastructure

Most discussions about AI treat it like software. Something you install, use, and argue about ethically.

That framing is incomplete.

AI is infrastructure. Models require compute. Compute requires capital.

That amount of capital is rare and resides with a few.

The question is no longer who writes the best prompts or builds the best applications. The question is who owns the layers beneath them.

Data. Compute. Distribution. Defaults.

Those layers determine who gets access, how fast things move, and who gets left behind.

This is Morgan’s calculation updated for the digital age.

Why Openness Is So Uncomfortable

Open systems make the status quo nervous, not because they are chaotic, but because they reduce leverage.

When anyone can create, the value shifts from permission to participation. When anyone can build, the bottleneck moves away from institutions and toward individuals.

That is deeply unsettling for systems built on gatekeeping.

So, openness gets reframed. It becomes risky. Irresponsible. Unsafe. Something that needs oversight.

Some of those concerns are valid. Many are excuses.

The point is not that control is always malicious. It’s that control is always rational from the perspective of those who benefit from it.

Regulation as the Second Calculation

Regulation is where this becomes harder to talk about, because it sits at the intersection of genuine concern and structural preservation.

We need rules. We need safeguards. We need accountability.

But regulation often does something else at the same time.

It raises the cost of participation.

Large players absorb that cost easily. Smaller players cannot. Open systems slow down. Closed systems accelerate. Innovation becomes intentional, not spontaneous.

This is not an accident. It is a predictable outcome of how regulation interacts with capital.

Morgan didn’t need to outlaw wireless energy. He just needed to stop funding it.

Today, control looks like compliance requirements, computing thresholds, and access agreements.

The mechanism has changed. The logic has not.

Why Scarcity Keeps Getting Reintroduced

Scarcity is not always natural. Sometimes it is planned.

When abundance threatens existing structures, scarcity becomes a stabilizing force. It reintroduces hierarchy. It restores leverage. It makes systems controllable again.

We see this with AI access tiers. With usage limits. With credentials replacing capability. With “enterprise-grade” becoming a synonym for controlled.

Abundance exists, but only on someone else’s approved terms.

This is how systems survive change without transforming.

The Illusion of Choice

Most people don’t feel controlled. They feel constrained.

They choose between platforms. Between tools. Between plans. Between acceptable paths.

What they don’t see is how narrow that range of choice already is.

That narrowing doesn’t happen through censorship. It happens through defaults. Through friction. Through what gets funded and what quietly doesn’t.

By the time someone asks why things are the way they are, the answer is usually “because this is how the system works.”

Which is another way of saying the calculation already won. 

Why This Matters Now

AI is not just another technology cycle.

It touches cognition, creation, and decision-making itself. That makes the stakes so much higher than ever before.

If control over these systems consolidates too early, the shape of the future hardens quickly. Once infrastructure is locked in, changing it becomes exponentially harder.

We are still in a moment where choices are fluid. Where assumptions are forming. Where defaults are being set.

That window does not stay open long.

What Comes Next:

An unplanned chapter that shows a present-day example of Morgan’s Calculation

After that, we will look into: Who Decides What Counts as Real?

When legitimacy becomes the last gate, and permission matters more than capability.

Warmly,

Jan

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