Spaceships : A version of Asteroids where “you are not...
Spaceships: A version of Asteroids where “you are not the ship” — you control the rocks instead.
Ten shelves · 50 essays
The Reading Room
I.
Tech
GPT-6 Astra: The System Card, Alignment and What Comes Next
OpenAI claims that Astra is ‘the most intelligent and most aligned [available] model’ in the world.
When will average people feel AI’s impact?
Pluralistic: Anti-vax/anti-trust (09 Sep 2026)
[Note]
II.
Culture
Helen Vendler spent a lifetime writing about lyric poetry, yet her criticism always started from frustration, not certainty
Helen Vendler spent a lifetime writing about lyric poetry, yet her criticism always started from frustration, not certai…
The extraordinary achievement of Moby-Dick is to unroll the blank sheet on which modernity will write itself
The nonfiction collapse. We’re nearing the point where one fiction blockbuster could outsell the entirety of the nonfiction bestseller list
Literature without lust? For Leslie Fiedler, the American canon comprised adventure books, sea tales, and other prepubescent diet fare
He burned with no causes, claimed Tom Stoppard. That detachment let him dramatize ideas his committed peers couldn't touch
III.
Life
Kahlil Gibran on the Courage to Weather the Uncertainties of Love
"Think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course."
How Not to Waste Your Wildness
Polyvagal Theory and the Neurobiology of Connection: The Science of Rupture, Repair, and Reciprocity
I Long to Read More in the Book of You: Moomins Creator Tove Jansson’s Tender and Passionate Letters to the Love of Her Life
The True Purpose of Tarot
IV.
Design
August 2026
In Memoriam, Encountering World War I, and Thinkable Horrors
One Developer, Two Dozen Agents, Zero Alignment
Gas Town’s Agent Patterns, Design Bottlenecks, and Vibecoding at Scale
January 2026
V.
Economics
Will AI soon lead to double-digit growth?
Probably not. Here is why.
Next Wins Appeal
Adding Injury to Insult, Canada Edition
China Doesn’t Set Global Oil Prices
Liberalism needs a new philosophy of immigration
VI.
Finance
The shifting Overton window
The Overton window is an effective tool for describing changing opinions in politics and science. The window is a simple…
1873 - the first depression and monetary mistakes
Personal finance links: taking a walk
Animal Spirits: Everywhere Millionaires
10 Wednesday AM Reads
VII.
History
Signs and Existence
On Signs, Reality, and Language Between Nietzsche and Hamann
Old-New Anti-Semitism
The First
The Power of Ideas Or Ideas of Power
Death and Sex in Palestine
VIII.
Philosophy
Limited Inerrancy: Limited Plausibility
My last volley in the religion wars--for now
“What is this? A dilemma for ants?”
How to find happiness with Cicero
Joe Schmid and Noah McKay Are Wrong About Fatima
GPT-6 Astra Reviews ‘The Social Roots of Delusions’
IX.
Psychology
Is AI a form of life?
Podcast with Robert Wright
Do doomers believe what they say?
Some Status Games Are Worth Playing
Instant judges
The Postmodern Defense of Lindsay Clancy
X.
Science
The Physicist Who Says Spacetime Has No Points
This is an episode about “relationality” and what spacetime is made of.
Tanya Luhrmann: The Experience Is Real. But Is God?
XKDR Newsletter - Issue 53
The Worst Case Is Still on the Table
The Experience Is Real. But Is God?
Life · Feature
How to Break Free from the Tyranny of Certainty: The Japanese Concept of “Ma”
“Whatever inspiration is, it’s born from a continuous ‘I don’t know,'” the Polish poet Wisława Szymborska observed in her magnificent Nobel Prize acceptance speech. But despite all we know about the power of liminality and threshold states, we yearn for a firm foothold on one side of every blurry li...
From the Stacks
Browse the full archive → Five rediscoveries from the back issues, rotated by the day
Read slowly. There is no hurry.