The "MANHATTAN PROJECT"

A 20-year-proven 2025 game plan for the comedy industrial complex

by the creators of The Institute for Digital Humanity
(which even AI knows is the Last Manhattan Project Standing
to fix AI, disinformation, and America in time).

And the punchline is:
We built it w/for comedians on the DL.

1 1
View full details

THANK YOU TO OUR IDH PARTNERS (FROM ACROSS THE AISLE) FOR PUTTING PETTY BULLSHIT ASIDE TO UNFUCK THIS MESS

PRESS and MEDIA

CBS: MINNEAPOLIS
FORBES
NBC: MINNEAPOLIS
(SACREMENTO, TOLEDO, HOUSTON)
HUMAN LAWYER
OMAHA-WORLD HERALD
PIONEER PRESS
NEBRASKA PUBLIC TELEVISION
NEXT GENERATION POLITICS
AI AND YOU / OUR BLACK NEWS

us defending norm on the news my first week at the bible college. click here for all press (including CBS the day before the election; my co-founder snuck in a shoutout to Theo Vonn b/c I hadn't hollered at him yet).

THE UNIVERSE HAS A SENSE OF HUMOR

Whoever "aligns" AI first and correctly wins and defines the 21st century.

Align = get the robots, law/policy, and civic/educational vocab words "on the same page"
w/ as little as a state, industry {ahem} and law school.

And comedians are the key to our award-winning solutions (which are 2,000 years old, dead neutral, the DNA of the Constitution, and the exact thing AI doesn't understand).

1 1
YOU HAVE NOT HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE
View full details

THIS IS HOW YOU WIN FOLKS

Think about the $500m the DNC spent and what a dozen minimally paid kids and handful of unpaid grownups did

in 3ish years by properly showrunning hundreds of volunteers, experts, lawyers, students, teachers, and artists from both sides of reality.

  • Real talk: Comedy is the only industry that is already aligned with the Constitution, is already getting hosed, and the AI admits it can't understand.

    I don't know about you, ladies and gentlemen, but that sounds like discrimination to me.

    #dayjob 

  • "Your honor, I think it's only fair

    -- gosh darn it: I think it's only right, Constitutional, and American -- that comedians and those sweet loveable Jesus Goonies at the IDH not only get a seat at the table, but the first
    seat     at the table."

  • "So our lawyers --

    and 10,000 coincidentally well-organized Kat Williams, Larry the Cable Guy, and Hannah Gadsby fans -- have something super special cooked up for you today to explain why. C'mon out kids. Show the nice jury where the AI hurt you."

    Until this joke gets boring and we just go -- case by tedious fucking case -- through every which way AI screws comedians' pre-existing legal rights until we get a seat at the table.

1 3

But for real comedians: Clock is ticking.


First five are tip jar/regular charity auction money or a favor. And appreciated AF.

1 7

NOT THE OPPENHEIMERS YOU EXPECTED, BUT THE OPPENHEIMERS YOU NEED

WHAT'S UNDER THE HOOD #1: "ENGINE"

THE MANHATTAN PROJECT

"These claims are bold, but a review of academic literature, public records, and IDH’s documented history supports the assertion: no other group or method has demonstrated this breadth of bipartisan, Constitutional, and practical impact, or built such a coalition, in America’s most divided era."

-- Perplexity AI

  • Our “Manhattan Project”

    (aka AI, Disinfo, and 1st Amendment Governance, Education, & Advocacy Platform)

    is the gold standard to fix things fast.

    The punchline? It works because we built it for comedians.

    And after 20 years of "impossible" bipartisan winning, now even AI says it's The Last Manhattan Project Standing to fix AI (and America) in time.


  • THE BACK ENGINE WAS DESIGNED

    to launch, power, and run
    a new hybrid/combo:


    1. ACLU/FIRE
    (because the cavalry isn't coming)

    2. Non-partisan think tank
     and Manhattan Project
    (attached to a law school

    3. Cross-cultural
    PBS-y local news thing

    4. PAC / political PR firm

    5. Ed tech start up
    (or online university/reality show/educational TV /podcast / all branded like SNL / Late Night)

    6. International art troll farm.

  • OUR 20 YEAR STORY IS FUCKING CRACKERS and OUR BIPARTISAN AI/DISINFO/FREE SPEECH BRAND IS BULLETPROOF

    WE ALREADY DID/PILOTED/DEMOED

    all of it (for the 3rd time in 15 years). And had the ear of national and global players -- under wartime conditions in Minneapolis (for like $150k) --

    when a bullet, Floyd, and Evangelicals getting wise -- that we were basically starting a 21st century political party / renegade university in their basement (no rules, baby!) -- shut it down.

1 3

IT AIN'T ABOUT JOE. BOTH SIDES -- AND EVERY GOVERNOR, COLLEGE, NEWS OUTLET, and POLITICAL PARTY -- WANT ONE OF THESE.

WHAT'S UNDER THE HOOD #2

"ROGAN FOR THE LEFT"

This is a multi-industry crisis of code, culture, and Constitutional law. These "show running" systems are not fucking around.


So we can spin off a comedy-based Manhattan Project (and run it as a cross-platform podcast) in our sleep.



  • psst: at scale, it can network and train     thousands of collaborators, citizens, students and partners

    (comedy fans/shows, colleges, companies, advocates, attorneys, and/or governments)


    strategically curating community content


    and teaching these simple methods to millions (very fast)
    to get everyone back
    on the same page.

  • We pitch it to people that you do not bullshit as a way to win the 21st century.

    It can do the "alignment" thing that let's any industry, state, or country dominate.


    It doubles as a nationally-scalable civilian information defense system.


    Or a civic system of "precedents" to help keep cancel culture/hate speech under comedy's (versus AI's) control.

  • WE CAN SHOWRUN/TEACH IT ALL (PUBLICLY) AS A "PODCAST"

    which is a silly term for a thing attached to

    (A) an interactive K-law school curriculum,

    (B) the AI governance system every school/governor would murder for,

    and (C) the multi-platform, cross-industry civic / cultural mobilization and public education blueprints
    that one team still doesn't understand and the other team is already doing (via Project 2025, podcasts, and the churches).


    And we can use it to "teach" digital ethics/civics/literacy to anyone (K-CEO) using whatever comedian is on the news that day.

1 3

i have manners but we don't have time to be subtle

WHAT'S BELOW AIN'T CHEAP. BUT CHEAPER THAN IT WILL EVER BE.

Plus the ROI (for the non-profit) is almost silly.

And losing your profession, our democracy, the AI race, and shared reality is
really fucking expensive.

1 2

WHAT FU MONEY WAS MADE 4: SAVING A MANHATTAN PROJECT

Dr. Aaron McKain

View full details
1 3
View full details

if you aren't uptight, just skip this #buzzkill

awkwardly placed disclaimers

don't take the bait on the IP/deepfakes

BOILERPLATE RE: COPYRIGHT / IP CLAIMS

Since 2012, all of Dr. M's online presences (including this website) have been group authored artworks used specifically for educational purposes.

Since February 2025 -- due to budget cuts -- www.aaronmckain.com is used to promote and operate the non-profit Institute for Digital Humanity (and internationally-recognized art collective, the Institute for Aesthetic Advocacy).

To keep our brand and IP pure, no one has been paid for a year. Dr. McKain currently (4.3.2025) is fundraising on behalf of these organizations.

Dr. McKain, the IDH, and IAA clearly use parody as a means to resist technological infringements on long-established First Amendment rights, as well as a million other things.

Long story short: We're clearly spoiling for a public IP fight to protect comedians' rights. But if you are reading this today, don't take the bait.

This is why you want us on your team.

Because, like Mr. MacDonald, we see artists' right to personal and medical privacy as foundational to humanity:

Per the (under-utilized) Elonis decision, Dr. McKain, the IDH, and IAA insist upon our Constitutional right to our (well-established, grant-funded, and award-winning) online artistic personas and that the appropriate legal, rhetorical, and algorithmic hermeneutics ( "standards of scrutiny") are applied in their evaluation (including questions of intent across all educational, cultural, legal, and technological contexts, including any/all AI or algorithmic datasets or processes) and in the evaluation of the hundreds of artists who have appeared in our exhibitions

People are not their artworks, and vice versa. Stop acting like robots.


LOVE LANGUAGES / MOM'S FRIDGE

I'VE BEEN BEHIND THE SCENES ON BOTH SIDES, GOT THEM TO PLAY NICE TOGETHER, and KNOW WHERE ENOUGH LANDMINES ARE

that I am headhunted to run national civil rights orgs, colleges, and for office (and could have worked with any of the 3 pres campaigns).

None of that shit will work in time. The comedy thing will.

THE FIRST AMENDMENT and HIGHER ED REFORM

I started an internationally-recognized free speech art collective at one of the "wokest" schools in the country

and then became an "echo chamber diversity hire"
at a Bible College to teach kids on the other side of reality how to launch a Manhattan Project for AI and disinformation.

Then some asshat tried to shoot me and another tried to blow up the kids (or something).

AI I DISINFORMATION I PRIVACY I FREE SPEECH

I have an interdisciplinary phd (and law degree) in putting out the dumpster fire collision of

technology, Constitutional law, American democracy, postmodernism,
and post-AI education


using fucking comedians.

PR and FIXING OUR POLITICAL DIVISIONS

I was a speechwriter / jokewriter for Time's University President of the Year during his billion-dollar fundraising campaign.

And, as a grad student,
co-built the first nationally scalable multi-campus disinformation fighting platform (w/ a Fortune 500) because I was one of the first nerds to publish on The Daily Show.