AI and the Threat of Nostalgia Culture

The rise of AI-generated content risks overshadowing original creative works, potentially leading to a market collapse for writers and artists if consumers prefer nostalgia-driven remixes over new expressions, but the enduring human desire for innovation suggests that original art and writing will always have value.

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An Inconsistent Approach to Viewpoint Diversity

If school choice is the answer to fights over curriculum in K-12 schools, it also needs to be the answer at universities. But culture war supporting libertarians don’t tend to apply the argument that consistently.

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If You Want to Win Political Arguments, Stop Being an Asshole

Political persuasion versus the urge to political domination.

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Trump Promised Disaster. His Supporters Didn’t Believe Him.

Many Trump supporters underestimated his intentions during his first term, believing he wouldn’t follow through on his campaign promises, but his second term has revealed the dangers of their misjudgment.

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The GOP is now just grifters grifting each other

The GOP has become a political movement of con artists conning each other without realizing they’re being conned.

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The Shaky Future of Trump's Personality Cult

Given Trump’s poor and declining health, we might see the American right dramatically fracture during his second term.

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Why, Despite the Numbers, Bluesky Feels Bigger than Threads

Threads has significantly more active users than Bluesky, but feels a lot smaller. Why?

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It's Okay if Your Social Media Platform is a Bubble

Is it wrong to have a social media feed primarily of people you agree with?

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The Quillette Effect

When echo chambers masquerade as open inquiry.

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The GOP's Competence Gap

Republican talent has largely been replaced by amateurs and grifters. That’s a hole the right will have difficulty recovering from.

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Silicon Valley’s Very Online Ideologues are in Model Collapse

Like an AI trained on its own output, they’re growing increasingly divorced from reality, and are reinforcing their own worst habits of thought.

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Twitter/X as a Bubble for Bad Ethics

Twitter’s shift under Elon Musk has distorted its role as a cultural touchpoint, misrepresenting the national discourse and leading thought leaders to adopt increasingly unethical perspectives.

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Why the Right Lies About Cities

Right-wing narratives falsely depict American cities as failing in order to defend traditional values, while urban residents experience thriving, diverse, and inclusive communities.

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The Necessary Virtue of Not Being an Asshole

No matter what you tell yourself, you can’t be a principled person if you’re an asshole.

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Why Tech Bros Overestimate AI's Creative Abilities

Silicon Valley’s overconfidence in the imminent arrival of Artificial General Intelligence stems from a combination of limited understanding of the humanities, an insular culture, and a business model that incentivizes exaggerated claims about AI’s capabilities.

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Substack Doesn't Want You to Leave

Substack is in trouble, and their recent feature releases are evidence of that.

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The Challenge of Committing to Liberty—and Meaning It

It is all too easy to abandon liberty when its practice inconveniences us.

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Three Kinds of Conservatives

Conservatism encompasses three distinct forms—personal, social, and political—that should not be conflated with being “on the right,” which refers to an ideological perspective on natural human inequalities.

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Surround Yourself With Those Who Are Admirable, and Distance Yourself From Those Who Aren’t.

An examination of the place of admirable friendship in an ethical life.

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How Social Media Tricks our Brains — and Destroys our Politics

Social media convinces us our small communities are representative of the whole and tells us we’re more right than we really are.

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