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Dr. Aaron McKain

WHAT FUCK YOU MONEY WAS MADE FOR: SCALING THE MANHATTAN PROJECT

WHAT FUCK YOU MONEY WAS MADE FOR: SCALING THE MANHATTAN PROJECT

The AI Safety and First Amendment cavalry is not coming. 

But to win, we only need a college, a government agency, and a couple of companies. Since we built this for comedians, that‘s easy. 


But we have to move really fast.

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#1 Blueprints and Gameplans

In case of a national emergency,
our Manhattan Project was designed to immediately begin re-creating vital civic/informational infrastructure and coordinate nationally-scalable responses to the AI Safety and censorship crisis...


So we basically just welded together -- and figured how to showrun -- a bunch of complicated shit:

  • We can scale and power comedy-based ‘spin offs’ (call these Batmobiles) of our award-winning legal think tanks, art collectives, civic deliberation/journalism networks, civilian disinformation fighting systems, education platforms, K-law school curriculum, and trainings for lawyers and activists; interactive podcasts, and public ed ‘TV’ (via its own platform or someone else’s). 

Everything on this list is something we have already done. We're faster than everyone. No one else can scale all of these (under one roof and across partners and industries)

  • education division

    CURRIULUM / ED TECH PLATFORMS

    PLUG AND PLAY DEPARTMENTS, JOURNALISM PROGRAMS, and THINK TANKS


    TRAININGS K-LAW SCHOOL and CEO


    CONSULTING TO KEEP THE COLLEGES FROM BEING CANCELLED

    DR M ED SERVICES 

  • research division

    TECH POLICY and GOVERNANCE SYSTEMS / PLATFORMS

    WE'RE THE LAST ONE STANDING.

    AND WE'VE ALWAYS BEEN THE ONLY ONE THAT HANDLES AI, DISINFORMATION, PRIVACY, AND FREE SPEECH AT ONCE.

    SIMPLE. BIPARTISAN. USEABLE ACROSS ANY INDUSTRY OR ACADEMIC DISCIPLINE. ABLE TO NETWORK ENTIRE ECOCSYSTEMS.

  • SO, SPOILER ALERT:

    We're putting key industries, states, elected officials, colleges, companies, lawyers, artists,

    and (not joking) millions of students/citizens/comedy fans

    into our network.

    We are effectively just switching people from BETAMAX to VHS (or CDs to vinyl). And every partnership puts them in our network, which means we are "aligned" (and can immediately implement / coordinate everything else with them, if desired.)

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#2 Why Comedians Are Key and First Steps

  • WHOEVER "ALIGNS" AI FIRST WINS / DEFINES THE 21ST CENTURY.

    All the governors know they need to align/network a college (ahem; see The Norm Institute below), k-12, their Bar Association, and an industry.


    So you need all that shit I built on the backend.

    Use your imagination re: why the ROI is potentially fucking gross and why we want it in a non-profit or B-corp for the public.

  • COMEDY IS A LOGICAL "FIRST" INDUSTRY.

    AND THE FIRST ONE IN W/ A MANHATTAN PROJECT SETS A LOT OF TERMS, BASELINES, AND PROCESSES.

    Comedians need more protections (set good guardrails for everyone),

    Comedians are already aligned with the correct/rhetorical theory/Constitutional way to do this,

    Comedians are a legit legal/political bloc with unique needs (seat at the table),

    Comedians have the money/ability to mobilize public support (i.e., strategically be assholes).

  • After we get you all square, who gives a fuck what real estate agents and dentists work out because we already set the guidelines for the guidelines (Which is all the tech bros want .)

    So our focus -- for that state -- becomes:

    education: For your industry, the schools (since they can use our curriculum), and the public (use comedy to get digital/civic/AI literacy up,

    pr/advocacy: i.e., comedians getting cancelled, damage control on deepfake du jour,

    winning this fucking disinformation war and reuniting the country.

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99.9% of these people do not care whether, why, or how a solution works.

they just need one IMMEDIATELY: branding and explaining and being first is everything

So our gameplan starts with the actual Ghostbuster's strategy: Selling shitloads of shit to everyone. As quickly as possible.

The ROI is potentially staggering, both per item and because we will be in charge of keeping an eye on (and will own) the "guardrail." That's a level of licensing and legal leverage that makes Marvel look like an open-mic.

Everything on this list is something we have already done.

#3 Meanwhile, we Saul Goodman / Caddyshack this mess to get AI guardrails set via comedians

  • legislation/litigation

    depends, again, on specifics of incorporation. but our first moves would be strategic class action lawsuits for comedians and pushing for comedian-based legislative guardrails on AI.

    (Call it the NORM Act or NORM standard, or whatever. That branding would work, btw.)

  • public education/pr

    as weird as y'all want to make it. we're also good at this on our own (and design our PR campaigns to be strategically curated and crowd-sourced).

  • the "podcast"

    The last two schools eventually figured out that I was actually creating a not-fucking-around combo ACLU, non-partisan Brookings Institute, military-grade civilian disinformation fighting system, online university, and PAC in their basement. 

    And that I could network / train/ strategically coordinate an army of millions of students, teachers, lawyers, citizens, journalists, and comedians.

    And that – by turning higher education into comedy shows and comedy shows into actual political advocacy/education – I was effectively launching a PBS (media network) and a ”post-digital political entity” with comedians coming out as a viable voting bloc, untapped lobbying coalition, and stakeholders in key industries affected by AI and the First Amendment. 

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#4 My brand is ultimately more delicate than yours. There are a couple of ways to structure the spin off.

And the first serious supporters/partners/non-profit "investors" get a lot of say on that front. But this has to be for "everyone" or I'm not interested.

But this solution will 100% work -- we planned it for 20 years --
it's just a question of scale and speed.

  • Establish AI isn't Funny as a non-profit / trade org (just like the American Cancer Society or a Rotary Club)

    For a lot of folks, I'm guessing that's the end of the involvement, but we'll set it up (board, etc) so the Comedy Industrial Complex can be as involved as they want.

  • WHICH MEANS MEMBERS GET BENEFITS / STUFF TO PLAY WITH / TRAININGS / POLICY UPDATES / IF THEY WANT.

    plus we can coordinate and network you all for advocacy initiatives.

  • AND WE CAN EVEN OFFER PR DEFENSE (AND LEGAL DEFENSE DEPENDING ON HOW WE STRUCTURE THIS and IF THE BOARD -- I.E., YOU ALL -- VOTE FOR IT)

    AND IF THINGS GO HAM (AGAIN) WE KNOW HOW TO NETWORK EVERYONE.

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AGAIN, THIS IS NOT OUR FIRST RODEO

thank you (below) to my partners and clients from across the aisle


Email me for the grown up memo/more detailed videos. mckain.3@gmail.com

  • I had a longer video up showing it in action -- it will, frankly, make you shit -- but that was too much IP. Email me.

  • With so little time on the clock, the reality is: One of you needs to talk to me and vouch for me.

  • I can also reveal much more information -- about the national political landscape/AI -- in private. (Like why the cavalry ain't coming and we bailed on them.)

  • I have sold this thing twice in under 15 minutes. And that was before anyone knew what AI was.

AIF: FINANCIALS by Aaron McKain

  • EDUCATION : COLLEGE/GRAD

    OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
    MCGRAW-HILL
    HAMLINE UNIVERSITY

    UNIV OF WISCONSIN:
    LA CROSSE
    HAIFA UNIVERSITY
    CREIGHTON UNIV
    INDIANA UNIVERSITY
    NORTH CENTRAL UNIVERISTY

  • PROFESSIONAL TRAININGS

    AMERICAN BAR ASSOC
    IOWA BAR ASSOC
    NEBRASKA BAR ASSOC

    MN HUMAN RIGHTS CENTER
    MN EQUAL JUSTICE CENTER

    TRANSATLANTIC DIALOGUE ON AI AND HUMANITY
    OSTROM WORKING GROUP (INDIANA UNIV.)

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    EDUCATION K-12 and COMMUNITY ED

    ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE
    CODED BIAS (NETFLIX)
    LITTLE EARTH NATIVE
    HUD COMMUNITY
    BYTES MEDIA
    CIVIC NEBRASKA

    TULTAIN VALLEY CREATES
    MN DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
    NEWS ON PURPOSE
    OUR BLACK NEWS
    DIGITAL ARCHIVE OF LITERACY NARRATIVES
    (GEORGIA STATE, PORTLAND STATE, OREGON STATE)

  • BIPARTISAN AND MULTI-FAITH CIVIC COALITIONS

    ACLU MN
    ASEMBLIES OF GOD
    RECLAIM THE BLOCK
    SAFETY NOT SURVEILLANCE

    MN SECOND CHANCE COALITION
    URBAN EDUCATORS
    ACLU NE
    NORTH SUBURBAN CENTER FOR THE ARTS


    GUNS DOWN, LOVE UP
    RESTORE THE 4TH
    FREE SPEECH SOCIETY
    (OMAHA ELECTORAL VOTE SWING DISTRICT)

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    SPECIAL THANKS: LAWMAKERS and INFLUENCERS

    SEN. SCOTT LUCERO
    (R-MN)
    COUNCILMAN TRAUTMANN
    (D-RICHFIELD)
    COUNCILWOMAN VETAW
    (D-MINNEAPOLIS)

    COUNCILWOMAN YANG
    (D-ST. PAUL)
    COUNCILMAN FLETCHER
    (D-MINNEAPOLIS)
    SEN. PEGGY SCOTT
    (R-MN)
    COUNCILMAN WARSAME
    (D -MINNEAPOLIS)
    SEN. SCOTT JENSEN
    (R-MN)

    CATHY O'NEIL
    (SHAME MACHINE)
    ELIZABETH ADAMS (FORBES TOP 50 IN AI)
    DR. MARK BERKSON
    (FIRE'S AWARD WINNER)

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For real comedians: Clock is ticking.

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P.S. We're going to need some version of one of these anyway...

So think of it as a "bonus both/and" rather than an either/or. And, again, it doesn't have to be Norm, but I'm guessing his friends (and those boys in Austin) would be into it.

And that's step one of getting y'all to realize that comedians and smart people -- no matter who they voted for -- are a powerful voting bloc (and humanity's last line of defense against AI) if they stick together.

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Dr. Aaron McKain

THE NORM MACDONALD INSTITUTE FOR COMEDY AND DIGITAL HUMANITY AT [X] UNIVERSITY?

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