The Gilded Age Is Back. So Are the Grifters.
In 1897, Ralph Waldo Trine published In Tune with the Infinite, laying the groundwork for what would become the modern self-help industry. The book promised that thought could shape reality,
The Titan Who Couldn’t Let Go
Before Elon Musk, before Steve Jobs, before the idea of a billionaire-as-visionary became a cultural trope, there was Howard Hughes. He was born into wealth and turned it into something
The Maginot Illusion: Why Fortified Systems Fail
The French military spent a decade - and three billion francs - building the perfect defense against another German invasion. The Maginot Line stretched hundreds of kilometers along the Franco-German
Cynicism Is the Default Epistemology of People with Too Much Information and Too Little Power
Imagine standing in the center of a massive, ever-expanding library. Shelves stretch out into the horizon. But half the books are contradictory. Some are filled with blank pages, some are
Unstatus: How to Stop Playing a Game You Don’t Want to Win
On a rainy, winter evening in Sydney's Potts Point, I found myself seated at a dinner party next to a woman who had recently divested herself of a
Apple’s Diet of Worms
On a crisp April morning in 1521, the twenty-one-year-old Emperor Charles V entered the Bishop’s Palace in Worms. The weight of a continent rested on his adolescent shoulders, and
The Age of the Fractured Soul
We were promised freedom. And we got it. The freedom to scroll endlessly. To share anything. To curate, to filter, to block, to ghost. The freedom to express ourselves in
The Bismarck Principle
The battleship Bismarck lasted eight days. Eight days from the moment it sank HMS Hood to the moment British torpedoes tore through its hull and sent 2,200 German sailors
How Convenience Kills Curiosity
I’ve been thinking about the death of curiosity. Remember when you had to figure out how a new piece of software worked by poking around its menus? When finding
"AI Will Create Plenty of Jobs"
Every wave of technology comes with a promise. Electricity would end poverty. Radio would unify the world. The internet would make us all smarter. Blockchain would decentralize power. AI, we
From Penny Press to Protocols: The Structural Shift AI Forces on the Internet
In 1833, Benjamin Day had a crazy idea. What if newspapers didn't have to cost six cents? What if you could sell them for just one penny and
The Curse of the Spanish Armada: When Scale Becomes Self-Sabotage
In 1588, King Philip II of Spain launched a naval campaign that should have been the climax of Catholic Europe's struggle against Protestant England. The Spanish Armada, 130