The Peripheral
William Gibson's best novel tells us a lot about where we are and where we might end up.
Tech
Programmable Mutter.
Technology and politics in an interdependent world
Recent essays
30 of 31AI as Social Technology
The Astor Lecture at Oxford's Blavatnik School
AI Isn't Management. Try Explaining That to Matthew Prince
At last we have created the Corporation That Eliminates Middle Managers from classic management text Don't Eliminate the Middle Managers!
How AI Madness Helped Fuel DOGE
Moloch the stunned governments! Moloch whose mind is pure machinery!
Four Theses on the Conservative Legal Movement
Originalism is the theory that the Federalist Society knows what it wants, and deserves to get it good and hard.
Our Future Is Being Devoured By Feral Thought Experiments
Here's a chance to start taking it back.
AI has limits, even if many AI people can't see them
On Ben Recht's fantastic new book
"Gooning Towards the Führer" as policy coordination
The Trumpist administrative style
AI is a bureaucratic technology. So is fighting war.
What happens when AI slop hits targeting systems and civil liberties?
Who loses from the Anthropic fight? Maybe Elon Musk and Alex Karp.
Arbitrary state power can cut in many directions
The Median Voter Theorem is a Clarity Trap
What the Democratic party needs - what it demands - is bold, persistent experimentation
The limits to Trump's power in America and the world
Hubris and cruelty have consequences
Davos is a rational ritual
How Europe and Carney disrupted Trump's ceremony of self-anointment
Europe has more bargaining strength than it thinks
But less than it would have if it were thinking straight
AI is great for scientists. Perhaps it's not so great for science
Large language models may make science more generic
My favourite posts from 2025
They might - or might not - be yours
"Classy" is the one adjective that has never been used to describe Donald Trump
That's his strength and his weakness
America has identified its greatest enemy: Western Europe
Trump's new National Security Strategy: what if groypers cosplayed George Kennan?
Large Language Models As The Tales That Are Sung
Gene Wolfe, Albert Lord, machine culture.
Liberalism transforms plurality from weakness to strength
At least it does when it works right ...
What is civil society, and why should we care?
Ernest Gellner on the conditions of liberty.
China has copied America's grab for semiconductor power
Six theses about the consequences
What the left can learn from evangelical churches
The lessons of Hahrie Han's Undivided
Trump's University Compact demonstrates weakness, not strength
The administration would act differently if it were confident
The Village and the Sewer
Behind the "Blueskyism" debate
The Aaron Swartz production function
Incalculable diffusion as a philosophy of doing
Repost: Absolute power can be a terrible weakness
The respective vulnerabilities of tyrants and crowds
Understanding AI as a social technology
Speed, shoggoths, social science
Silicon Valley’s Reading List Reveals Its Political Ambitions
An article from Bloomberg Weekend
Process knowledge is crucial to economic development
The message of Dan Wang's new book.