# Mind of Mansa

> Essays on art, technology, and culture by Mansa Obi / ₥AN$A.

## Published pages

- [Blog archive](https://blog.mansaobi.com/)
- [Why America Can Afford Endless War but Not a Better Life](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/why-america-can-afford-endless-war-but-not-a-better-life/)
- [Ban the Book, Control the Past](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/ban-the-book-control-the-past/)
- [1984 Wasn’t a Prediction. It Was a Warning We Ignored.](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/1984-book-banned-warning-happening-now/)
- [Do Black Men Owe $60 Billion in Child Support? Show the Math.](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/do-black-men-owe-60-billion-child-support/)
- [X Doesn’t Pay for Music. That’s Crazy—and It Won’t Last.](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/x-doesnt-pay-for-music-will-have-to/)
- [AI Has a Black Voice—but Who Gets Paid?](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/ai-music-black-vocalists-dame-atlas-human-cover/)
- [Paper Genocide: How America Made Indians Disappear Without Killing Them](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/paper-genocide-indian-identity-racial-classification/)
- [Is FBA a Psyop? If It Isn’t, It Has to Stop Acting Like One](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/is-fba-a-psyop-stop-acting-like-one/)
- [America Was Founded by Criminals Who Won](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/america-was-founded-by-criminals-who-won/)
- [Cult vs. Culture: The Difference Is Control](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/cult-vs-culture-the-difference-is-control/)
- [AI’s Fair-Use House of Cards Is Starting to Fall](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/openai-fair-use-house-of-cards-starting-to-fall/)
- [What If We Got Rid of Elected Officials?](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/what-if-we-got-rid-of-elected-officials/)
- [The Rich Are Eating All the Barbecue Again](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/the-next-huey-long-is-coming-rich-eating-the-barbecue/)
- [Your Vote Doesn't Matter. Prove Me Wrong.](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/your-vote-doesnt-matter-prove-me-wrong/)
- [Who Invented Science? A Story That Begins Before the Word](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/who-invented-science-a-story-that-begins-before-the-word/)
- [Does the Solutrean Hypothesis Disprove Out of Africa?](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/does-the-solutrean-hypothesis-disprove-out-of-africa/)
- [Who Were the First Americans? What the Evidence Says About Competing Theories](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/who-were-the-first-americans-competing-theories/)
- [We Were Never a Straight Line: The African Origins of the Human Family](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/we-were-never-a-straight-line-the-african-origins-of-the-human-family/)
- [You Can’t DNA-Test Your Way Out of Africa](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/you-cant-dna-test-your-way-out-of-africa/)
- [A Sandbox Is Not a Virtual Machine—and We Need to Stop Using the Terms Interchangeably](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/a-sandbox-is-not-a-virtual-machine-and-we-need-to-stop-using-the-terms-interchangeably/)
- [Why I Changed My Name From Mansa Obi to ₥AN$A](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/why-i-changed-my-name-from-mansa-obi-to-an-a/)
- [No, Trump Can Not Decide That OpenAI’s Training Is Fair Use](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/no-trump-can-not-decide-that-openai-s-training-is-fair-use/)
- [Before the “Migos Flow”: The 2011 Skywalkas Recording That Survived a Hammered Hard Drive](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/before-the-migos-flow-the-2011-skywalkas-recording-that-survived-a-hammered-hard-drive/)
- [The Illusion of Organic Reach: How X Curates Your Feed—and Why It Matters](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/the-illusion-of-organic-reach-how-x-curates-your-feed-and-why-it-matters/)
- [ai and the treadmill test](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/ai-and-the-treadmill-test/)
- [The Efficiency Stack: AI Filtration vs. Quantization, Distillation, and Inference](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/the-efficiency-stack-ai-filtration-vs-quantization-distillation-and-inference/)
- [Web3 Isn't Dead. It EVOLVED INTO WEB4.](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/web3-isn-t-dead-it-evolved-into-web4-/)
- [Ditching WordPress: Why I Vibe-Coded My Own Blogging System for Pure Blogging Bliss](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/ditching-wordpress-why-i-vibe-coded-my-own-blogging-system-for-pure-blogging-bliss/)
- [Appropriation Without Compensation: When Indie Developers Innovate and Billion-Dollar Companies Absorb the Idea](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/appropriation-without-compensation-when-indie-developers-innovate-and-billion-dollar-companies-absorb-the-idea/)
- [Nine People for 340 Million? Why America Needs 514 Supreme Court Justices](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/nine-people-for-340-million-why-america-needs-514-supreme-court-justices/)
- [The Appraisal Gap: Why America Needs More Black Leadership in Real Estate Valuation](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/the-appraisal-gap-why-america-needs-more-black-leadership-in-real-estate-valuation/)
- [The Brake Pedal Arrives When the Road Reaches the Executive Suite](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/the-brake-pedal-arrives-when-the-road-reaches-the-executive-suite/)
- [The ‘Developer’ With No Code: What the Cole Allen Case Reveals](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/the-developer-with-no-code-what-the-cole-allen-case-reveals/)
- [Creative Distro: How I Sell Content Direct To Fans](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/creative-distro-how-i-sell-content-direct-to-fans/)
- [The Distraction: How Kendrick Lamar’s Performative Activism Undermines Progress](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/the-distraction-how-kendrick-lamars-performative-activism-undermines-progress/)
- [What If We Invested Income Tax into the S&P 500 Instead of Tariffs?](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/what-if-we-invested-income-tax-into-the-sp-500-instead-of-tariffs/)
- [Neuron Surgery: Sculpting Smarter SLMs Through Task-Based Experience, Human-Guided Introspection, and Acceptability Mapping](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/neuron-surgery-sculpting-smarter-slms-through-task-based-experience-human-guided-introspection-and-acceptability-mapping/)
- [Cline and Anthropic’s Pricing: A Black Developer’s Perspective](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/cline-and-anthropics-pricing-a-black-developers-perspective/)
- [The DeepSeek Deception: A Chinese Hedge Fund’s Power Play](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/the-deepseek-deception-a-chinese-hedge-funds-power-play/)
- [How Cortex Research Group is Bringing AI to the People](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/how-cortex-research-group-is-bringing-ai-to-the-people/)
- [RapChain: A Thought Experiment.](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/rapchain-a-though-experiment/)
- [How to Code with Claude 3.5: A Beginner’s Guide to Coding with AI Assistance](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/how-to-code-with-claude-3-5-a-beginners-guide-to-coding-with-ai-assistance/)
- [Trojan Shield, DJ Vlad, and Adam22: A Look Into Media, Surveillance, and Law Enforcement’s Covert Ops](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/trojan-shield-dj-vlad-and-adam22-a-look-into-media-surveillance-and-law-enforcements-covert-ops/)
- [How to Set Up Visual Studio Code (VS Code) to Test Your Programs for Free](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/how-to-set-up-visual-studio-code-to-test-your-programs-for-free/)
- [Building a Simple Tetris Game in Python in Just One Prompt!](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/building-a-simple-tetris-game-in-python-in-just-one-prompt/)
- [Elon Musk’s Paywall on Free Speech: The Real Cost of Twitter’s Limits](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/elon-musks-paywall-on-free-speech-the-real-cost-of-twitters-limits/)
- [How I Monetize My Content with Monetag](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/how-i-monetize-my-content-with-monetag/)
- [How to Build a Twitter Bot Using Python with ChatGPT, ZIPnCODE, and Your Favorite IDE (2024)](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/how-to-build-a-twitter-bot-using-python-with-chatgpt-zipncode-and-your-favorite-ide-2024/)
- [How to Build and Launch Your Own Linktree-Type Website Using ChatGPT and www.zipncode.com](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/how-to-build-and-launch-your-own-linktree-type-website-using-chatgpt-and-www-zipncode-com/)
- [Content Sharecropping: The Hidden Exploitation of Creators in the Digital Age](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/content-sharecropping-the-hidden-exploitation-of-creators-in-the-digital-age/)
- [Reclaiming Power: How Creators Can Boycott Platforms and Win](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/reclaiming-power-how-creators-can-boycott-platforms-and-win/)
- [From Vision to Value: Why Marketing Your Art Is Just the Beginning](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/from-vision-to-value-why-marketing-your-art-is-just-the-beginning/)
- [Marketing the Myth: How Superheroes Leverage Journalism for Self-Promotion](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/marketing-the-myth-how-superheroes-leverage-journalism-for-self-promotion/)
- [The Future of Data: Closed Systems and Encrypted Visual Data](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/the-future-of-data-closed-systems-and-encrypted-visual-data/)
- [Harnessing Wind Energy to Extend Electric Vehicle Range](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/harnessing-wind-energy-to-extend-electric-vehicle-range/)
- [NFTs, Phones, and the Future: Why Immersive Worlds Are the Next Frontier](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/nfts-phones-and-the-future-why-immersive-worlds-are-the-next-frontier/)
- [The Love Above: Artist Peaks and Appreciating Artwork Over Time](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/the-love-above-artist-peaks-and-appreciating-artwork-over-time/)
- [Is Our Government Running Like It’s Still the Stone Ages?](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/is-our-government-running-like-its-still-the-stone-ages/)
- [Impressions Matter – Why Visual Artists Deserve Compensation](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/impressions-matter-why-visual-artists-deserve-compensation/)
- [Shadow Banning – The Invisible Barrier for Content Creators](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/shadow-banning-the-invisible-barrier-for-content-creators/)
- [Breaking Free: Why I Took Control of My Content and What’s in It for You](https://blog.mansaobi.com/blog/breaking-free-why-i-took-control-of-my-content-and-whats-in-it-for-you/)