Michelle Teheux

Pekin

Freelance Writer at Freelance

Writer. Thinker. Interested in everything. Author of The Trailer Park Rules. Writes on Medium. Publishes Untrickled on Substack.

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Articles

The Next Luxury Item for the Rich: Talking to Humans

1 week ago | medium.com | Michelle Teheux

TECHNOLOGYTechnology keeps dehumanizing usI remember what it was like to pick up the phone, call my doctor and speak directly to a person who knew me by name. That’s gone now. In the future, just talking to another person might be a luxury only the rich can afford. Having a real human say, “How can I help you?” will likely cost $100 per hour. The rest of us will be stuck arguing with bots.
We’re Already On Snowpiercer

3 weeks ago | medium.com | Paul J. Maglione |Michelle Teheux

Is there any way to stop this train? In Korean director Bong Joon Ho’s acclaimed 2013 post-apocalyptic action thriller film Snowpiercer, the last people left on Earth following a catastrophic failed attempt at climate engineering can only survive by endlessly traveling across the resulting neo-Ice Age landscape on a special 1,001-car train.
Why We Must Quit Ignoring Poverty in America

4 weeks ago | walterrhein.substack.com | Walter Rhein |Michelle Teheux

Hello Everyone!I’m finding that each conversation leads into the next one. In last week’s Movie Break, we started discussing the stories that aren’t represented in American literature. That made me think of Michelle Teheux’s wonderful book The Trailer Park Rules. Also, a story that I’d sent to Michelle’s Medium publication Minds Without Borders has been performing well. So, I thought I’d reach out.
Three Misconceptions about A.I. and Consciousness

1 month ago | medium.com | Dustin Arand |Michelle Teheux

TECHNOLOGYHow pre-modern ideas inform our thinking about intelligent machinesRecently, one of the co-founders of OpenAI claimed that “predict[ing] the next token” in a string of text “means that you understand the underlying reality that led to the creation of that token.”This is false. Even for human beings, the ability to intelligently converse about an underlying reality doesn’t imply that we understand it, as the whole history of disproved scientific theories shows.
The $649,000 Price Tag of Being Broke

1 month ago | medium.com | Michelle Teheux

ECONOMICSHow interest keeps the poor paying and the rich earningImagine you’re a young adult from a non-wealthy family. You need to pay for college, a car, a place to live and perhaps to eventually raise a family, but you make entry-level wages. That means one thing:DebtHow much will the average American pay in interest fees over their lifetime? It’s a shocker: $649,068, according to Self Financial Inc. The poor stay poor because they are paying interest.
We’re All Just Cattle Now

1 month ago | medium.com | Michelle Teheux

A thoughtful look at how culture, society, politics, media and economics affect us all. Follow publicationMONEYOligarchs are milking our country for profitsImagine you’re a cattle farmer. When you wake up, you don’t ask yourself, “What can I do to make my cows happier?” You ask, “How can I maximize profit from my herd?”This should have been obvious all along. Under Trump, it’s an inescapable conclusion.
A.I. and the End of Work

1 month ago | medium.com | Dustin Arand |Michelle Teheux

IDENTITYWhy our kids need to think more about who, and not what, they want to beWhen we were kids, probably the most common question grown-ups asked us was, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” And back then there was no shortage of seemingly fixed and available options: doctor, lawyer, teacher, businessman, etc. They felt like stable social categories that had always been part of the fabric of human society, and always would be. Except they weren’t, and they aren’t.
We Traded Good Jobs for Cheap Crap, But Now the Crap Isn’t Cheap

1 month ago | medium.com | Michelle Teheux

LaborWe gave up solid jobs so we could buy junk from halfway across the world. Now the junk costs more, and we’re still broke. Back in the 1980s, America struck a devil’s bargain: stagnant wages in exchange for cheap goods. It was a bad deal then and it’s about to get worse. Even the poor could afford to stuff their homes so full of stuff that we had to launch whole new businesses dedicated to decluttering. We had to get rid of all our old shit so we could buy shiny new shit.
Jobs for the Poor Build Character; Jobs for the Rich Build Wealth

2 months ago | medium.com | Michelle Teheux

INCOME INEQUALITYApparently, the rich don’t require character buildingMy son got his first job at age 13. It was detasseling corn — a hot, dirty and somewhat dangerous job. He always came home caked in mud and sunburned despite copious sunscreen and protective clothing. Detasseling is one of the few jobs that will hire a kid so young, and it offered him the chance to earn enough money to buy a computer. It’s not as if I could have afforded to buy him one. I told him the job would build his character.
The Dutch Ate the Businessman Who Ended Their Golden Age

2 months ago | medium.com | Michelle Teheux

Member-only storyHISTORYThe willful destruction of the U.S. golden ageMichelle Teheux·FollowPublished inMinds Without Borders·4 min read·--Attributed to Jan de Baen — www.rijksmuseum.nl : Home : Info, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1656288Alchemists long tried to turn lead into gold. None succeeded. Donald Trump, however, is the anti-alchemist. He has succeeded in the much easier task of turning gold into lead.