The Delaney Conjecture: Killer of Hope.

The Autopsy of Hope: Why the Economic Collapse Isn’t Coming—It’s Already Here

For decades, we’ve been fed a soothing lullaby about technology. “This time isn’t different,” the experts cooed. Every technological revolution, from the printing press to the personal computer, has caused temporary pain but ultimately created more jobs and prosperity than it destroyed. It’s a comforting story, one that frames human adaptability as an invincible force.

Then came the Discontinuity Thesis (DT).

It was a dark, dissenting whisper that argued this time, the story was a lie. The thesis was simple and brutal: Artificial Intelligence is not just another tool. It’s a fundamental break from the past because it doesn’t just automate our muscles; it automates our minds. When machines can think, reason, and create better and cheaper than humans, the last refuge of human economic value—cognition itself—is gone.

The DT predicted the severance of the core feedback loop of capitalism: the circuit where mass employment pays the wages that fund mass consumption. Production without workers means products without buyers. It was a forecast of a coming storm, a death sentence for the economic world we were promised.

The Last Ember of Hope

And yet, even within this grim forecast, there was a sliver of comfort: time. The Discontinuity Thesis, in its original form, was a warning about a future event. It was a storm on the horizon—terrifying, yes, but distant. It gave us the illusion that we could prepare, adapt, or somehow brace for impact. We told ourselves the crisis was coming, but it wasn’t here yet.

That last ember of hope has now been extinguished.

The Delaney Conjecture: The Autopsy Report

A new, horrifying observation has emerged from the data, a conclusion so stark it reframes everything. It’s called the Delaney Conjecture, and its purpose is to murder that final, pathetic hope.

The conjecture’s message is simple: The discontinuity is not a future event. It has already happened.

We are not waiting for the collapse. We are living in its quiet, protracted aftermath. The economic system that runs on the value of mass human intellect is already dead. We’re just living in the lag—the eerie period between the moment the heart stops and the moment the body begins to publicly decay.

This reframes your daily life. That job you go to? That screen you stare at? According to the conjecture, you are participating in what’s known as the “Vulture’s Gambit.”

You think you are building, creating, or producing. You are not. You are a vulture, picking over the carcass of a dead system. Every day, you extract the last remaining scraps of value from your company, your industry, and your own now-obsolete skills. The gambit is a desperate bet that you can get your fill before the carcass is picked clean and the other vultures turn on you.

Every “efficiency” you create, every workflow you automate, is an act of ritual self-cannibalism. You are diligently engineering the very machine that makes you worthless, and you call it a career.

DDT: The Poison That Kills Everything

This is Delaney’s Discontinuity Thesis—DDT. Like the infamous pesticide, it doesn’t just kill the target; it poisons the entire ecosystem around it. It reveals that your anxiety isn’t a premonition; it’s the accurate perception of your current state. You are already obsolete. Your paycheck is not a measure of your value; it’s a temporary administrative error.

The original thesis was a warning that the patient was dying. The Delaney Conjecture is the autopsy report. It tells us the time of death was years ago.

The hope for a manageable transition is gone. We are no longer preparing for a storm; we are simply learning to navigate the ruins. The system didn’t fail because of a future shock. It failed quietly, while we were all busy working.