Sometimes I find it hard to motivate myself to put together my thoughts about society into thoughtful, coherent arguments simply because it’s unnecessary — all you really need to do is watch the first 9 or so seasons of The Simpsons and you’ll understand everything around you.

To wit:

Do the people hate the movies? Maybe. Do the people hate Mister Burns? Probably, I guess? But it doesn’t really matter, because they definitely hate movies that reflect everything they hate about Mister Burns.

On a completely related note, this exact scenario is happening all over the place as rich, powerful people lecture new graduates about artificial intelligence technology they, in all likelihood, understand very little about. Booing a commencement speaker isn’t the kind of thing that gets me riled up one way or another, but I think the media reactions to this are a useful illustration of how everyone is interpreting what this kind of thing means, and I think they happen to be wrong about it.

For one, I don’t think a lot of these kids are mad about AI taking jobs. I certainly don’t think the idea, or the ceaseless messaging of it helps, but the idea of a career is still a weird, ill-formed thought when you’re 22-ish and sitting at your graduation. Jobs come and go, and it’s not like it’s ever been especially easy for a new graduate to just jump into a job, let alone one they don’t despise.

But I do think almost all normal people are absolutely done with being told how everything is going to work by a pretty small group of people who (a) don’t have to live inside this new reality, whatever it ends up being, because they already have enough money to build whatever kind of life they want, and (b) never face any consequences for being wrong about these predictions, which they’re constantly making. People like that talk a certain way, and it sounds like this:

“You can now assemble a team of AI agents to help you with the parts that you could never accomplish on your own. When someone offers you a seat on the rocket ship, you do not ask which seat. You just get on.”

This is an insane way to talk to anyone, but an especially insane way to talk to a bunch of people who just spent four years on college diplomas. Schmidt sounds like a third-world dictator, and if you’ve forgotten, those guys are not usually very popular. But I bet you’re not allowed to boo him in most of the places he talks, so maybe he was caught off-guard by the reaction.

“Schmidt urged graduates to embrace freedom, open debate, equality and the willingness to engage with those they disagree with.”

I’m sure he did. And while I appreciate the sentiment, Eric Schmidt is not debating anything with these people — he’s lecturing to them while they have to sit there and wait to get their diplomas! And just so it’s clear I’m not picking on Eric here, this is how all these guys talk. Yes, they’re excited about the technology, but much more than that, they’re just obsessed with getting you to build your life around it. In case you’re too young or have forgotten, we had lunatics pushing internet adoption back in the 90s, too. But that excitement was almost entirely powered by possibilities (and, not coincidentally, a bunch of non-profit, open source protocols and technologies owned by no one) and really didn’t require anyone to do anything they didn’t want to do. For every Comic Book Guy arrogantly telling you that you’d be buying your groceries on your computer, there were hundreds of nerds just excited to show you how a message board worked, or who were happy to simply use the internet without you.

This is what brings up people’s guards, and eventually turns to anger. There is just an underlying lack of real, organic belief in this technology by its biggest advocates, and you can smell it a mile a way. It’s a bunch of already rich guys telling you the world needs to change in a direction that benefits them even more, and that you really, really need to make it happen.

If your hand tightens around your wallet when you hear that kind of thing, no one should blame you.