Why Are Men So Bad at Making—and Keeping—Friends?
There are two problems with the famous “male loneliness crisis”—the loneliness part and the male thing.
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30 of 49The AI Boom Has Entered Its 'Wait, Is This Worth It?' Era
The great AI cost panic of 2026 is upon us
Can America Escape the Cycle of Vicemaxxing?
Donald Trump did not invent political corruption. But he may be accelerating something more dangerous: the collapse of universal moral standards into a culture of endless special exceptions.
The Global Fertility Crisis Is Worse Than You Probably Think
Everybody knows about the decline in birthrates. Fewer people understand why—or just how significantly it could transform society in the next few decades.
The Six Megatrends That Define 2026
Every week, I save dozens of screenshots of charts, essay passages, science and economics papers, and tweets.
How AI Could Help Cure Pancreatic Cancer
The most lethal cancer is invisible to the human eye until it's too late to treat. In today's Q&A, a Mayo Clinic doctor says AI can see what the best radiologists cannot.
The Big Question Lurking Beneath the AI Debate
Is artificial intelligence normal?
Why Your Best Ideas Aren’t Original
What the mysterious history of "multiple discovery" in science tells us about the nature of creativity
How American Dads Became the Parents Their Fathers Never Were
Compared to their parents, Millennial fathers have roughly tripled the amount of time they spend with kids. The new American dad is more present and more exhausted—but also, more satisfied with life.
If America's So Rich, How'd It Get So Sad?
Or: How the 2020s broke our brains
The AI Vibe Shift Has Officially Arrived
We seem to be moving from a period of demand scarcity (not enough customers) to supply scarcity (not enough compute)
How ‘Zombie Flow’ Took Over Culture
Or: If you're so smart, why aren't you happier?
The Substack-ification of American Religion
Why young men aren't really going back to church, why liberals are sadder than conservatives, and how "Substack-ification" is transforming the future of Christianity, media, and politics
Why 'Cost Disease' Is the Secret Force Behind America's Toxic Solitude
The screens got cheap. The shared experiences got expensive.
Is the Smartphone Theory of Everything Wrong? A Comprehensive Investigation
Many people believe that the nexus of smartphones, Internet, and social media is to blame for every modern catastrophe. Here's 5,000 words on who's right and who's wrong.
What Is Anthropic Thinking?
An interview with Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark on the specter of AI-fueled mass unemployment, the future of agents, and how to raise children in an age of super-intelligence
We Haven’t Seen the Worst of What Gambling and Prediction Markets Will Do to America
I don’t think people have thought hard enough about how bad this could get.
‘Yes, AI Is a Bubble. There Is No Question.’
The evidence that artificial intelligence is a big fat bubble has, confusingly, gotten much stronger and much weaker at the exact same time.
The Most Important Chart in AI Is Also the Most Misunderstood
When a metric becomes a meme, it gains in popularity what it loses in precision.
Why Can't People Agree on a Shared Set of Facts?
Nir Eyal on the power of belief, the atheist's case for prayer, and the origins of self-confidence
This War's Economic Crisis Could Get Much Worse—For the U.S. and the Whole World
This isn't just about the price of oil. It's about everything oil becomes—fertilizer, AI chips, plastic—and the cost of snapping the achilles heel of the global shipping economy
The Economic Crisis of the Iran War Could Get Very Bad, Very Fast
If Donald Trump doesn't end the war by April, "oil prices could get into Scary Land," one expert told me.
On Being a Dad
A personal reflection on fatherhood
How Metrics Make Us Miserable
The quantified life has become a modern religion. But many of us are measuring life the wrong way.
Why AI Is 'Not Particularly Good' at Curing Disease (Plus: The Next GLP-1 Boom and Why America Hates Big Pharma)
A wide-ranging interview with Dave Ricks, the CEO of Eli Lilly, which makes the GLP-1 drugs Mounjaro and Zepbound and recently became the first trillion-dollar pharma company in history
Nobody Knows Anything
The fact that a piece of AI science fiction rocked the stock market this week is a clear indication that absolutely no one knows how the next few years will go.
The Obscure Media Theory That Explains '99% of Everything'
Or: How did America's mid-century communications theorists get it all so right?
The Doomsday Scenario for AI and Jobs
What are the strongest cases for it and against it?
The 11 Most Interesting Ideas I Read on Paternity Leave
It's great to be a dad. But it's great to be back, too.
The Case For Prayer, Even If You're an Atheist
On the science of hope and hopelessness