"If you find that you've dug yourself into a hole, the very first thing to do is quit digging."

That old country saying has a newly urgent relevance to us today, for Big Tech, Big Finance and Big Government are colluding to dig us into the unfathomable hole of artificial intelligence. All across the country, entire communities are in an uproar as they learn that thousands of massive, billionaire-financed data centers are quietly being approved by their government officials, usurping farmland, local water supplies and each area's electric grid. Why? So uber-rich prigs like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos can impose their grandiose, zillion-dollar schemes to displace us human workers with super-intelligent bots.

What's not to like about that?

But wait ... there are other major problems, including the sickening drone of gigantic cooling systems in each data center, running non-stop year-round, destroying community tranquility and people's sanity; the sudden rise of global warming emissions caused by data center use of fossil fuels; the creation of easy targets for drone attacks on these sprawling interconnected computer networks; and the wholesale diversion of America's research funding and talent to the private projects of billionaires.

Far worse, though, is that AI is the key for Musk, Bezos and whoever to impose a feudal, fascist, technocratic rule over the rest of us — all in the name of progress.

Maybe we should question this "future" before surrendering to it! To help guide us, New York Times columnist Tressie McMillan Cottom recommends such useful books as "The Nerd Reich," "Technofeudalism," and "End Times Fascism" — plus Pope Leo's encyclical letter on AI. Follow Tressie's series on battling Big Tech at JimHightower.com/TMC.

WHY IS TRUMP ECONOMICALLY CLUELESS? MEET SCOTT BESSENT

Wow, here's some blockbuster economic news from Team Trump: The income gap between the rich and the rest of us is over!

How do we know this? Because Scott Bessent says so. Who's he? Secretary of the Treasury — Trump's top economic official. A son of inherited wealth, he's a Yale graduate, a Wall Street whiz, a billion-dollar hedge fund speculator and ... well, Scott says he knows financial stuff.

So he officially proclaimed this month that the "K-shaped economy ... is a thing of the past." He's referring to the letter K, which economists use as a graphic shorthand to show the wealth of moneyed elites is zooming up, while the well-being of the middle-class and poor plummets. "I got sick of hearing about this K-shaped economy," snarled this potentate of high finance. So he did what President Donald Trump would do — he simply decreed that the rich-poor economic divide is "over." As evidence, he pointed to Trump's elimination of the federal tax on workers' tips.

Could someone please buy a clue for our eminent treasury chief?

No doubt some waiters and bartenders will get a few nickels and dimes from this token tax ploy, but it doesn't even register on the scale of economic fairness. Plus, a partisan Wall Street millionaire like Scott has zero credibility with working-class families. They'll know when inequality is "over," because their in-come will finally begin to cover the ever-rising out-go caused by corporate greed and plutocratic government.

America's last great Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, said: "You can't fool all the people all the time." But Trump and his clique of clueless henchmen like Scott Bessent keep trying to prove Lincoln wrong.

To find out more about Jim Hightower and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Daniel Romero at Unsplash