The Smashed Bicycle

I'm Dutch, so please forgive my inability to resist explaining the world through bicycle analogies; I couldn't in good conscience pass it up. So, here we go.

Jobs once called the computer a bicycle for the mind—a tool to amplify what we already are, to free us up for higher-level thinking and meaningful creative pursuits. People have forgotten the whole dream that started the personal computer revolution. From Ada Lovelace to Vannevar Bush to Alan Kay to Wozniak and Jobs, a lineage of humanists built machines to serve objectives worthy of our best.

Then came surveillance capitalism, the attention economy, and persuasive technology engineered not to amplify human strengths, but to inadvertently, ultimately exploit every human weakness. These are three forces behind a new breed of technology companies that inherited four decades of accumulated goodwill, ultimately betraying the dream—turning everyday tools not just into ad businesses, but into adversarial technologies. Serving economic imperatives unbothered by what we humans want long-term, interested only in what we'll watch short-term; no matter how miserable it ultimately leaves us.

They are ushering us toward what Lewis Mumford warned of back in 1967, before the personal computer even existed: a world that reduces man to a machine-conditioned animal. A new psychological type, a passive servant in the grip of an identity crisis, with technology increasingly worshipped as an all-seeing god. Distracted, confused, polarized—today, we suffer from the inability to even walk into a room and agree on the problems, let alone the solutions.

This is, if you will, the "Meta Problem" of our era—such a fitting name; they even renamed the company after it. The Meta Problem also goes by another name. As our paleolithic emotions and medieval institutions give birth to ever more godlike technology, the problem of alignment becomes ever more important.

It is important to keep in sight that the problem of agentic, and thus possibly misaligned, technology did not arise with (LLM) Artificial Intelligence, but rather with the advent of algorithmically curated social media. Perhaps therfore counterintuitively, the first real ground on alignment may be won not in AI, but as a sustainable side-effect of improving the feed.

The road to hell has always been paved with good intentions, but the level of corporate denial demonstrated at this point makes big tobacco and fossil fuel look like amateurs. This new breed continues to eat away at objective reality, trust, cooperation, and our ability to direct time and energy in harmony with our values. What started as The Social Dilemma has metastasized into a full-blown social catastrophe, and history will judge them for it.

Hence, your bicycle for the mind didn't survive. Both tires slashed, the frame sledgehammered. And when you limped it to the repair shop, a knife in your back. Some have come to hate the bicycle itself: people now misguidedly point the finger at technology at large, all because of a few hucksters whose advertising machines have taken society hostage.

Yet through the lens of the past, it is undeniable that technology is like magic, an amazing force for good. That is, if we design it to be that way again. So, unlike those who unjustly blame technology at large, or him, know that Steve Jobs is rolling over in his grave as you read this.

I'm Felix Meritis, born and raised in Amsterdam. I believe in doing well by doing good. Humanity is a tiny candle surrounded by a vast darkness. Yet, while my brief light shines, I believe the autotelic life entails dedicating oneself primarily to helping others, making this world a little brighter.

On my own little pursuit of happiness, I realized early the cost of wearing my phone like a glove and surrendering myself to a digital phantom world. The best things in life aren't things, and it hurts my heart to see so many living their livez preoccupied with the technological narcotics of the 21st century from cradle to crip.

For what is set to be a minimum total cost of 24 years—roughly 54% of discretionary waking life—we amuse ourselves to death, alone together. Logging in and tuning out. Connecting but no longer conversing. At the end of our days we will face the question: did you get what you wanted out of this life? The answer will be no. We will be confronted by everything we left on the table. What was sold to us as free has ultimately cost us everything.

Our children will ask us why. Weren't you warned? Was the business model not known? Were the psychologists not ringing the bell? Were the technologists themselves not sounding the alarm? In that moment, what can we say but yes, they did. All of them told us this was going to happen.

I haven't been able to stop thinking about all of thisfor almost a decade, and that obsession drove me to teach myself to build. 8+ years of UI/UX design and nearly 2 years of development later, I founded Telos, where we believe humane technology is the defining challenge of our generation.

Telos MK 1.0 was built to serve the higher side of you. To be on your team—not someone else's. That side, completely engrossed in the undivided flow of deep work, achieving the things you can later look back at with pride. When you use Telos, you are supporting not just yourself. You are part of the mission to accelerate the realignment to a humane technology future.

How can a mere study app ever spark such a seismic shift? Well, the paradox of big disruption is that it has small beginnings. In a humane future, everyday tools support individuals' intentions rather than capturing and holding users' attention.

That is why, in order to get a foothold and start this transition, Telos MK 1.0 empowers those who are already under the highest pressure to focus, be undivided, and deliver: the students who walk the courtyards, work the labs, and pull those late-nighters in the libraries of the Ivy League and beyond.

Ultimately, Telos MK 1.0 isn't just a mere study app; it is the first phase in a much larger product strategy to have everyday tools be on our team—not someone else's. To those who are, thank you for deciding to become a Telos Member and for being part of this journey.