That Was The Year in Tech: When Nothing Happened (except Everything, Everywhere, All at Once)
That was the year in tech. When nothing and yet everything happened. A year betwixt and between, simultaneously revolutionary and uneventful. That's the ironic conclusion Keith Teare and I reach about Silicon Valley in 2025. It's as if the AI revolution is changing the world without us fully noticing. AI has become electricity—ubiquitous and essential, yet barely noticed. So what will happen on the tech front (or not happen) in 2026? Will it be another year in which nothing happened (except everything, everywhere, all at once). Or are we reaching 1789 or 1917 or 1989—a grand historical year where the logjam breaks and tech formally takes over the world? A true end and beginning of history. The first real year of the tech 21st century.
Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe
Christine Wells on When 007 Was Female: A World War Two Novel About the Real Miss Moneypenny
Michael T. Hartney: Why American Teachers' Unions Are So Powerful and How This Hasn't Enriched Democracy or Improved Schooling in the United States Today
Robert T. Tally Jr. on Realizing History Through Fantasy Literature: Reclaiming Tolkien's Hobbit For the Left
Peter Robison: How Boeing's 737 Max Tragedy Offers a Parable About the Immorality of Late Stage Industrial Capitalism
Ann Hood: Why Is Flying So Miserable These Days? And Was It Really So Much More Fun in the Glamorous Age of Trans World Airlines and High Heeled Stewardesses?
Matthew F. Delmont: The Simultaneously Heroic and Shameful Story of African Americans' Involvement in World War II
David Welch: How General Motors CEO Mary Barra Is the Anti Elon Musk and How That Impacts Her Goal of Reinventing the Iconic American Car Manufacturer
Nicholas Dawidoff: How the Story of a 2006 Murder Captures the Tragic Complexity of Inequality, Class, and Violence in 21st-Century America
Kyle Spencer on Raising Them Right: The Untold Story of America's Ultraconservative Youth Movement and Its Plot For Power
Trond Undheim: How Augmented Technology Can Revolutionize the 21st-Century Factory and Make Work More Productive and Meaningful
Timothy Shenk on Realigners: The Visionaries and Hacks Who Have Radically Transformed American Democracy
Veronica Roth on After Surveillance: Imagining a Post-Apocalyptic World in Which We Aren't Watched Anymore
Keith Boykin: How Quitting is the Essential First Step to a Life of Freedom—and Radical Change