You're looking at oligarchy all wrong. You're watching Elon Musk's Twitter circus and thinking that's what real Power looks like. You see him posting memes at 3 AM, buying social networks on impulses, and launching cars into space. You're studying
I. The Problem Let’s start with a confession: I’m launching an agency. I know — in 2025, the world needs another agency like it needs another TED Talk about finding your authentic self. But here’s the thing: I’m not really launching an agency. I’m building something
Cynicism is the cheap seats. It’s the fast food of intellectual positions. Anyone can point at something and say it’s broken, corrupt, or destined to fail. The real challenge? Building something better. The cynic sees a proposal for change and immediately lists why it won’t work. They’
In 1941, Captain America’s first comic showed him punching out Adolf Hitler. It wasn’t a metaphor, an exploration of the complexities of international relations, or a statement: evil exists, and sometimes, you have to face it. Imagine that cover being pitched today. “But have we considered Hitler’s
Someone accused me of bias this morning. Specifically, bias against MAGA and Trump supporters. Apparently it’s disappointing to discover that I’m not the morally neutral arbiter of truth they imagined me to be. So let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about my neutrality. The accusation of
Today, I'm launching The Index - a new publication focused on thoughtful, independent journalism and editorial opinion that matters. It's always free to read, and never ad-supported. From day one, we're taking a stance that's both principled and practical. We'll
Two scenes: 1. A medieval peasant, having worked fourteen hours in the field, sits on a wooden stool watching the sunset. His mind is blank. He feels nothing in particular. 2. A modern knowledge worker, having attended eight Zoom meetings, scrolls frantically through TikTok while half-watching Netflix and messaging three
We have witnessed a multi-generational decline in reading comprehension. We read less, retain less of what we read, and struggle to engage in critical analysis. And if this trend continues, we risk undermining the very foundations of our society. In the bite-sized content and viral media age, too many of
I know this is going to make me sound old – but I miss the internet. The real internet. The one we used to have. Before it all got so much less – and somehow so much more – complicated. I went online for the first time around 2001. The 90s had ended,
Perverse Incentives are Poisoning the Well Think creator payouts are lifting up talent? Think again. Social media’s reward systems are driving creators into a race for views, churning out content at all costs. Here’s how it’s breaking the creator economy. Perverse incentives are the hidden traps lurking
Podcasting was unstoppable—until it wasn’t. The bubble’s burst, and the battle for survival has begun. Are we watching the death of podcasting as we know it? Remember when podcasts were the hot new thing? Advertisers couldn't throw money at them fast enough. The big names
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Remember that kid in high school who would suddenly discover a deep passion for whatever music the popular crowd was into that week? Meta is essentially that kid, except instead of switching between pop-punk and indie rock, they’re pivoting between political ideologies with billion-dollar implications. The backlash to Meta’
Ever notice how cultural movements peak right when they seem most unstoppable? The moment when everyone’s grandmother is talking about Bitcoin, or your local coffee shop starts accepting Dogecoin, or your aunt who still uses AOL email asks you about NFTs — that’s usually when you should start looking
The numbers tell us what we already feel in our bones: we are a society coming apart at the seams. In 1983, around 75% of 30-year-old Americans had married, nearly half owned homes, and most lived independently with their own families. Forty years later, these pillars of stability have crumbled.
In 1877, Cornelius Vanderbilt had a dying wish: “Keep the money together.” He might as well have asked water to flow uphill. Within a few generations, one of history’s greatest fortunes had largely evaporated. The mansions were demolished or turned into museums. The railroad empire slipped from family control.
You’re given complete control over speech regulation in a small nation. You can either ban all politically controversial speech or allow complete freedom of expression. The choice is yours. The catch? You must choose before knowing which political faction will hold power for the next century. This is essentially
Think about what you’re doing: furiously defending billionaires in Twitter threads, dissecting celebrity breakups like they’re your own family drama, knowing every detail of a streamer’s life down to their coffee order, and fighting endless wars with other fans over people who don’t know you exist.
We need to talk about the doomers and the attention economy they’ve built. Not because they’re entirely wrong — from climate change to political extremism, a lot of their concerns are valid — but because they’ve created something extraordinary: a perpetual motion machine powered by anxiety. Let’s call
A blogger notices something strange about the markets. They write a post about it. No one cares. An economics professor at Princeton notices the blog. Writes a paper. Gets it published. The New York Times runs a story: “Princeton Study Reveals Market Inefficiency.” The Fed chairman cites it in a
A handful of years ago, I visited the Roman Forum in Mérida, Spain. And I found myself contemplating a peculiar fact: I was standing among ruins that had survived longer than most modern nations have existed. These towering columns had watched Spain become Spain, seen the Moors arrive and leave,
Here’s the brutal truth about mainstream success: You either need to be famous already, or you need to be willing to light yourself on fire for attention. That’s it. Those are your options. Yes, there are exceptions, but it largely comes down to those two. This isn’t
A few months ago, I found myself doomscrolling through X (first mistake) when I found a thread about how “everything is getting worse.” The author had assembled an impressive collection of graphs showing declining trust in institutions, rising polarization, increasing mental health issues among teens, and various other metrics of
Social media runs on conflict. This isn’t exactly breaking news — but what’s worth thinking about is how this has spawned an entire class of what we might call “professional conflict entrepreneurs” and their cousins, the “trauma grifters.” These are the folks who have figured out how to monetize