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Essays

Boomerang

Empires have a way of seeding their own destruction.

Essays

Retrograde

Like water, gold simply can’t tell you what it used to be.

  • Ethereum’s Manhattan Project

    Toward a better future with Lean Ethereum, The Trustless Manifesto, and lowercase snarks. https://www.bankless.com/ethereums-manhattan-project more ›

  • Why AI Is A Philosophical Rupture

    The symbiosis of humans and technology portends a new AIxial Age. https://www.noemamag.com/why-ai-is-a-philosophical-rupture/ more ›

  • Interesting Times with Ross Douthat: ‘This Is the War Against Human Nature’

    Listen: https://ift.tt/m6W01fX “There’s something very spiritually dark about the internet,” the author Paul Kingsnorth tells Ross Douthat in this week’s episode of “Interesting Times.” Kingsnorth warns against the expanding presence of technology in our lives and declares it “the war… more ›

  • Ones and Tooze: The Economics of Podcasts

    Listen: https://ift.tt/81aW7Uy Adam and Cameron discuss the economics of podcasts, a multibillion-dollar industry. And on that topic—twice a year, Ones and Tooze conducts a listener support campaign. Please consider supporting the show by following the link below. https://ift.tt/TuezFP5 Learn more… more ›

  • Today, Explained: The billionaire backlash

    Listen: https://ift.tt/JeHOrvz The number of billionaires is growing. So is the call to abolish them. This episode was produced by Avishay Artsy, edited by Jolie Myers, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Adriene Lilly and Patrick Boyd, and hosted by… more ›

  • Planet Money: The obscure pool of money the US used to bail out Argentina

    Listen: https://ift.tt/CeEX49t Last month, during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that the United States had offered to functionally loan Argentina $20 billion. Despite the sums involved, this bailout required no authorization from Congress,… more ›

  • Private collectors’ return of artefacts to Ghana highlights UK’s inaction on restitution, heritage experts say

    British art historian Hermione Waterfield and South African mining company AngloGold Ashanti have retuned objects to Ghana’s Asante Kingdom https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/11/13/private-collectors-return-of-artefacts-to-ghana-highlights-uks-inaction-on-restitution-heritage-experts-say?utm_source=The+Art+Newspaper+Newsletters&utm_campaign=acacae721e-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_11_07_10_51_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-5c0240b3a5-62187982 more ›

  • Better Offline: Cory Doctorow and Ed Zitron on Enshittification and the Rot Economy

    Listen: https://ift.tt/HXT4xur This week’s Better Offline is a recording of a panel held by Clarion West in Seattle earlier this year with Cory Doctorow and Ed Zitron, discussing enshittification, The Rot Economy, and the destruction of modern tech platforms, moderated… more ›

  • John Gray: Why I’m not a postliberal | Philosophy

    Philosopher and author John Gray predicted the problems Keir Starmer faces. Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2DHAQOeEg-Z-4trARDXHRA?sub_confirmation=1 John Gray joins Will Lloyd for a wide ranging discussion, covering Keir Starmer’s failings, Trump, Farage, Putin, Xi Jinping, the changing nature of geopolitics, and… more ›

  • ‘It was like a city at war’: Covering the November 13 Paris attacks

    On November 13, 2015, three commandos associated with the Islamic State group perpetrated a series of coordinated attacks in the Paris region. The terrorists killed 132 people and injured more than 350 in the deadliest such attack in France’s history. Ten years later,… more ›