While Attending the Annual Convocation of Cause Theorists and Bigbangists at the Local Provincial Research University, the Mad Farmer Intercedes from the Back Row
Wendell Berry

‘Chance’ is a poor word among
the mazes of causes and effects, the last
stand of these all-explainers who,
backed up to the first and final Why,
reply, ‘By chance, of course!’ As if
that tied up ignorance with a ribbon.
In the beginning something by chance
existed that would bang and by chance
it banged, obedient to the by-chance
previously existing laws of existence
and banging, from which the rest proceeds
by the logic of cause and effect also
previously existing by chance? Well,
when all that happened who was there?
Did the chance that made the bang then make
the Bomb, and there was no choice, no help?
Prove to me that chance did ever
make a sycamore tree, a yellow-
throated warbler nesting and singing
high up among the white limbs
and the golden leaf-light, and a man
to love the tree, the bird, the song
his life long, and by his love to save
them, so far, from all machines.
By chance? Prove it, then, and I
by chance will kiss your ass.

We went to a ceremony dedicating a new grave marker for Rebecca Dillingham Dewey (1788-1826), the first burial in what is now Green Hill Cemetery. Two hundred years ago. I’m grateful there are still people around for whom this stuff still matters.

“Love Your Farmers Market? Thank Wendell Berry”. Berry’s influence is not limited to farmers markets. To wit: Alice Waters, Michael Pollan, Slow Food, farm to table, regenerative agriculture, localism of various types. Some he directly influenced; some he gave language to.

Angelus Silesius:

Not first upon the Cross God let Himself be slain,
For see! He lieth dead there at the feet of Cain.

I have no knowledge to evaluate the “ten percent” claim but this quote seems entirely plausible because we have done this before, most notably with nuclear arms:

At OpenAI, many have not deeply internalized the civilizational stakes. At Anthropic, the stakes are well-understood, but they are locked in a race to get there first — they believe no one else will act responsibly, so they must do it themselves, despite the risk.

There is so much money being made on AI. Piles of it are being forked into the frontier labs and Nvidia is growing its revenue by astonishing percentages every quarter. Everyone in this industry has every reason to ignore the danger. We have done this before and I am quite sure we’re doing it again. It may not result in the literal destruction of humanity but there’s no way this rolls on forever without something bad and big.

Nothing makes me feel more out of place than the chit-chat of CPAs at professional education events. I’ve already brushed off conversation with one shiny man saying something about fractional finance. Dude, did you hear me say I’m from Bedford? I have no idea what you’re talking about.

It is heartening to see all the people writing remembrances of Wendell Berry and posting quotes from his work. But the question presses forward: what are we going to do in response to such a life? Words alone are empty.

It’s good to hear, from the people who knew him best, that your hero was a truly good man.