Mansion in the Sky

Many film classes still begin with Metropolis, Fritz Lang’s 1927 masterpiece that warned us of the dream of techno-utopia — where the few above lived in comfort while the many below kept the engines running. The industrial complex’s effort to sell us the promise of salvation through technology is not new. Nearly a century later, we’re still building Metropolis — only now the cathedrals of power are made of glass and data instead of steel and steam.

At the VivaTech Conference in Paris on May 23, 2024, Elon Musk said:

“AI will be able to do everything. In a benign scenario, probably none of us will have a job, but we’ll have universal high income. There’ll be no shortage of goods or services. In other words, everyone will be wealthy.”

The line ricocheted across the planet: CNBC, The Guardian, Reuters, Fortune, The New York Post, Hindustan Times, even Al Jazeera. Every outlet ran it within hours, as if he had announced the Second Coming.

Like Delta Dawn, we can’t stop wearing the roses of our lies. Day after day, we wait for a promise that never comes — a mansion in the sky, this time made of algorithms and stainless steel. Universal high income sounds noble enough, but it’s offered by a man who denounces unions, remote work, public transit, and anything that softens the grind of ordinary life — the very things that keep daily existence humane.

I guess the bros cannot stop talking about the mansion in the sky they’re building. What’s amazing is that people keep buying it. Tesla had just proposed paying Musk more than a trillion dollars in stock-based compensation if certain targets were met. And no matter what, the magician got another chance to cast his spell over the world. Many who don’t share his politics or ethics still rush to grab Tesla stock, just in case the mansion turns out to be real.

Musk isn’t the first to sell us forever. Bezos did it too, the rocket man with his eyes on orbit while his warehouse workers timed their bathroom breaks. In 2045: A Space Fallacy I wrote about this same bargain: promise the stars so no one notices the cracks in the floor. The dream is always shiny, stainless, drifting just out of reach.

They talk about universal high income, life on Mars, cities of light, but they have no wish to keep their promises. They don’t have to. These lines are sales pitches, not prophecies. They use them to sell a dream to people already falling out of safety nets, losing homes to medical bills, skipping meals when SNAP benefits run out.

Musk and Bezos aren’t alone at the pulpit. The faith just keeps franchising.
Sam Altman says artificial intelligence will bring massive abundance, that scarcity itself will vanish. It sounds generous until you remember who’s holding the keys to the servers.
Mark Zuckerberg promised a Metaverse that would heal loneliness and make new economies bloom. What we got instead was a half-built mall full of headsets nobody wears.
Marc Andreessen, in his Techno-Optimist Manifesto, insists technology will save the world, that progress is being throttled only by people who dare to question it. It’s Silicon Valley’s new gospel: don’t resist, just believe.

It’s the same sermon every time. Don’t worry about hunger, about rent, about ice caps or insulin. The problems of today aren’t real problems, just growing pains before the glorious dawn. Salvation is close. Just suffer a little longer.

Andreessen even said it plainly: the fault isn’t in technology, it’s in the people who doubt it — in anti-tech sentiment. In other words, if you’re anxious about surveillance, inequality, or AI taking your job, you’re the problem. The new gospel turns skepticism into sin. What they’re really preaching is obedience: stay quiet, stay online, stay invested. Trust the men building your mansion in the sky.

Maybe it’s all the same religion. The theists said salvation would free us from suffering. The tech bros say AI will. Both promise transcendence, both ask us not to look too closely at the pain of now. Don’t worry about the hospital bills, the layoffs, the melting forests. Enlightenment is coming. Abundance is coming. Just suffer a little longer.

They haven’t shown an inch of philanthropy, not a hint of shared burden. Bill Gates, for all his flaws, at least tried to put his money where his mouth was: vaccines, sanitation, malaria. The bros don’t build hospitals; they build platforms. They speak of abundance while their workers pee in bottles and eviction rates climb. They promise to end suffering without ever stooping to witness it.

I’m not against technology. I’m a sci-fi super-nerd. I’ve wanted a Data in every home since I first watched Star Trek, an android who can cook, drive, file taxes, fix a sprained ankle, and listen better than most humans. And maybe, someday, that’s exactly what we’ll have.

I don’t write this as an enemy of technology, or of capitalism. I believe in both — deeply. I also believe they need regulation, ethics, and humility. Both can serve us, if we remember who us is. My beef is with the complete lack of attention to humanity, to now.

While the future gets all the headlines, Jensen Huang is out there making veiled threats that China will “beat us in the AI race” unless he’s given unfettered access to water for his data farms. Unlimited water. No regulation. Just let him drain the rivers dry so he can keep his GPUs cool.

Ordinary people live under a hundred rules and a thousand constraints. But corporations, now legally considered people, get to write their own. They have unlimited resources, lobbyists who buy access by the pound, and the quiet power to reshape the very agencies meant to restrain them.

And somehow, dirty electricity still gives them perverse joy, as if burning more coal just to power their miracles makes the dream more manly. Even when the economy no longer supports it, they can’t stop. They need the smoke.

Technology has been a great friend to us. It has given us medicine, light, connection, and sometimes even beauty. But just like capitalism, society must carefully regulate it — just enough to protect it from harm, and to keep it from harming us.