A common trope in conspiracy theories are secret cabals of billionaires spelling doom for the plebs. It’s easy to see how this narrative is a common belief, yet it rings a bit hollow upon reflection. Notably, few people outside insane asylums would genuinely categorize themselves as moustache-twirling villains who are…

In the vast expanse of human history, most societies have remained in a state of deep stagnation. Rooted in unconscious mechanisms, they find equilibrium, eventually settling into a timeless stasis. …

This is the article where I finally get to feel old at the young age of thirty. It’s time to tell the kids to get off my lawn and to lament about “the good ol’ days.” If only things were so easy, I could get this piece over and done…

People are moral, but systems and institutions aren’t. That is the critical mistake that people make when thinking about society, as they transpose their feelings about individuals onto the collective whole. There are well-meaning individuals, but unless the incentives of the system they operate in are properly aligned, they will…

We live in a society where the expectation is that numbers must always go up. Every moment of your existence should be spent on improving some arbitrary metric, be it health, wealth, or another poorly defined key performance indicator (KPI). Conversely, every moment not spent improving some KPI will be…

There is only one certainty in life, and that is decay. Every system, every person, and everything is subject to the corroding forces of entropy and will succumb to it. This does not mean things can’t get better; as much as I dislike optimism, its cousin of pessimism is even…

It’s been over half a year since ChatGPT burst onto the scene. In that time, as a writer, I went through the whole gamut of emotions — awe, fear, sadness, and eventual acceptance. I’ve heard of many writers who had found their niche, built families around that sole income source…

It’s a bit of a cliché to say that we live in an age of technological wonders and unparalleled abundance. It’s a bland and seemingly uncontroversial statement that nobody but a lunatic could dispute we’re in a technological golden age that will continue for the foreseeable future, right? Well, as…

Hello, I am sad to inform you I have decided to close the FLAN pool. I understand that some people might be disappointed, and I apologize. The FLAN pool was always decently sized, so we could invariably earn a few hundred dollars each month for our efforts after costs, or…