I recently watched a story unfold around AI access, power, and public posture.

On January 10, 2026, I published a post criticizing Anthropic’s restrictions on model access.

My first instinct was frustration. Bad decision. Bad for builders. End of story.

Then I watched the rest of the story unfold, including President Trump’s disappointing public response, and I saw Anthropic hold to its principles even at clear financial cost. I still have policy concerns, but I realized I was seeing something deeper than a product dispute.

I was looking at a maturity test.

I am a binary thinker. Tribalism is native to me.

That wiring helps me in engineering and refereeing. It hurts me when I confuse loyalty with truth.

So this is the standard I am trying to live by:

Sacred people. Fallible ideas. Restrained power.

If you are wired like me, this is my challenge to you:

Test your tribalism. Test your humility. Test, test, test.

Test 1: Tribalism

When someone from “the other side” makes a good point, can you say it out loud?

If not, you are protecting identity, not pursuing truth.

Practical test:

  • Name one person you disagree with and one thing they are right about.
  • If you cannot do that, your tribe owns more of your thinking than you admit.

Test 2: Humility

When was the last time you changed your mind in public?

Private revision is easy. Public revision costs something.

I know the cost because I have paid it: certainty, social ease, and a little status with people who prefer clean loyalty lines.

I had to do this in public with Jim Amos: first in You’re Not a Victim of AI—You’re Just Making Excuses, then in Faithful in Babylon where I acknowledged I heard fatalism where he meant warning, and that we were arguing at different time horizons.

Still worth it.

Practical test:

  • Identify one belief you hold strongly.
  • Write what evidence would make you update it.
  • If the answer is “nothing,” that belief is functioning like an identity shield.

Test 3: Humanity

Can you reject an idea without degrading the person holding it?

This is where most of us fail. We canonize ideas and discard people.

I think the order has to stay clear:

  • People are sacred.
  • Ideas are testable.

Practical test:

  • In your next disagreement, remove contempt from your language completely.
  • Keep the argument sharp. Keep the person human.

30-Day Challenge

If any of this resonates, join me in this for 30 days:

  1. Once a week, state one thing your “opposition” gets right.
  2. Once a week, publicly revise one view (even a small one).
  3. In every hard disagreement, critique ideas without contempt.

Track it. Don’t vibe it. Test it. Completion target: four weekly entries and at least four concrete revisions or acknowledgments. If you run it, leave a comment with one thing you revised.

What I Will Do

I don’t want this to be “you should.” So here is my commitment:

  1. I will run one weekly check-in on my phone every Sunday.
  2. I will capture one belief update per month (even if I do not publish it).
  3. I will name one moment of contempt quickly instead of defending it.
  4. I will keep this test small enough to actually sustain.

Because that is the point.

Not performance. Not moral branding. Practice.

I am not writing this as someone above the problem. I am actively wrestling with the problem.

But I am trying to grow up.

And I think this is what moral adulthood requires:

Test your tribalism. Test your humility. Test, test, test.