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A collection of 56 issues

We Can Be Heroes (Just for 15 Minutes)

Still, Against Frictionless Flow The John Connor Problem Ted Gioia’s viral essay, which cast modern society as an anxiety-ridden digital anthill—a place where algorithms and AI are systematically erasing individual personhood—landed with chilling resonance. He correctly identified the specific, novel terror of our time: the fear that

Why Academic Journals Can’t Be Blast First Records

Suppose, for a moment, that academic journals solved the problem diagnosed in Part One. Suppose editors could admit—openly, unapologetically—that they curate. Suppose they could move fast, reject misfit work without ritual, and act on taste rather than pretending to be neutral clearinghouses for “scholarship in general.” Even then,

Why Academic Journal Editors Can’t Be Gerard Cosloy

Every academic reviewer knows the moment. You open a paper, read the abstract, skim a page or two, and your body registers the truth before your brain formalizes it: this is competent, coherent, and not worth your time. Nothing is wrong. The thesis isn’t false. The citations check out.

Did the Mouse Read Our Blog?

When Your Satire Becomes Someone Else’s Strategic Partnership There’s a particular kind of vertigo that hits when the world doesn’t just catch up to your speculation, but does so with the bored efficiency of a corporate earnings call. It’s not prophecy fulfilled, and it’s not

After Complicity

Or, What Participation Looks Like When You Can't Help But See Things Differently I. The Mechanism of Rejection When I showed up for jury duty, I had no idea it would be so goddamned complicated. Three days in the Multnomah County Courthouse. A criminial case: felon in possession

The Circular Firing Squad of Productivity

Three articles landed within weeks of each other, each diagnosing a productivity crisis, each blaming something different. Together, they reveal more than any intended: we have no idea what we're measuring anymore. The Accusations The device hoarding article warns that Americans keeping phones for 29 months instead of

The Evolution of Opinion Commerce

How the Reactor Learned to Monetize Thought Opinion Commerce—the exchange of perspectives, analysis, and commentary for attention, status, or money—is as old as human civilization. Opinion Commerce is the industrialization of persuasion. The technologies change, but the substrate—human attention and its monetization—remains constant. From Parisian salons

The Molecule, Day Two: Compression

I arrive at 6:54AM on my own set of wheels, slipping into a vacant spot on the first level of the parking garage across the street from the courthouse. Today I have a wall charger, longer cables, a copy of JP Ahonen's Sing No Evil, all stuffed

The Molecule, Day One: Intake

The molecule arrives at 6:45 AM, having paid its entrance fee. Twenty dollars to Uber to avoid the bus, though public transit will claim its due eventually. The courthouse doors remain locked until 7:30. No explanation was offered. The institution kept its own hours. A coffee shop nearby

The Constitutional Turducken

Or, The Right To Bear Arms And Why We Can't Have Nice Things "Unfortunately, [the academics] agree because they are all studying the same part: the anus." —David Yamane, sociologist of Gun Culture 2.0 I. Ambient You pull into the lot fifteen minutes after opening.