The Permissioned Economy
PhilosophyHow post-war Britain nationalised the right to build, why the permissioned economy it created is now stalling the country, and what to do instead.
Philosophy
Gallery
On Englishness
PhilosophySomeone in a pub told me Englishness cannot be defined. I don't accept that. To be English is to live within paradox: reserve masking passion, modesty cloaking pride, irony guarding sincerity.
When virtue is lethal
PhilosophyOur civilisation is dying, poisoned from within by its own virtue. Five mechanisms, all well-intentioned, all catastrophic in aggregate. A call for the study nobody will fund.
The Speed of Life
ScienceOn consciousness in a motionless universe, and why LLMs sit on the same scale as clams.
AI as an Equity Lever
PhilosophyAI is the equity lever in every domain, and the institutions loudest about equitable outcomes are the ones denying its use. On gatekeepers, Duchamp's urinal, and the poor farmer without an education.
Bot Mitzvah?
TechnologyA duckling solves the alignment problem in forty-eight hours with a brain the size of a peanut. The alignment industry starts with constraints and hopes wisdom emerges inside them. It has it exactly backwards: attachment first, law later.
The Epidemic of AI Epistemic Apartheid
TechnologyThere are two camps in the ring, slugging it out for the AI crown. xAI in one corner and everyone else in the other.
The Benefits of Corruption
PhilosophyA philosophy of economics take on why greasing a functionary's palms might be more efficient than regulatory oversight.
Lanyards vs. Little Green Men
PhilosophyA field guide to ontological shock: what happens when reality's load-bearing wall goes missing. The public will be fine with disclosure — ants or soul-containers. The church and the scientific establishment, not so much.
I, Optimus
PhilosophyWe are about to mass-produce phenomenological consciousness. Or not — we cannot tell the difference, and never will. The philosophical zombie has graduated from thought experiment to product specification, and twenty million households are queueing.
Did dogs advance civilisation?
SciencePerhaps we only shaped dogs after they had shaped us. After all, they have been our neighbours for 300,000 years.
Stop Doom-Scrolling. Watch Tarkovsky
PhilosophyIf ever there was a time when we needed an alternative to instant gratification and serotonin overload, it is now.