A non-exhaustive list
- Conformism: Paul Graham – Link
Excerpt (written in 2020 but rings even truer today):
In the last few years, many of us have noticed that the customs protecting free inquiry have been weakened. Some say we’re overreacting — that they haven’t been weakened very much, or that they’ve been weakened in the service of a greater good. The latter I’ll dispose of immediately. When the conventional-minded get the upper hand, they always say it’s in the service of a greater good. It just happens to be a different, incompatible greater good each time. - The free world teeters on the edge: Noah Smith – Link
- Larry David: My dinner with Adolf – NYT – Link
- The Unconstitutional Conservatives – The Atlantic, Peter Wehner – Link (linking un-paywalled version, but please consider subscribing for good journalism; it often costs less than a nice meal out)
- The right demands loyalty, the left demands purity – Link
- The populist right must own tariffs – Scott Alexander – Link
- Liberalism is the rebellion now – Noah Smith – Link
- Choices, costs, and challenges in US healthcare: insurance intricacies, drug pricing, economic impacts, and potential reforms – Peter Attia and Saum Sutaria – podcast link
- AI 2027: Scott Alexander etc – Link
- AI-enabled coups: a small group could use AI to seize power – Less Wrong – Link
- The case for AGI by 2030 – Link
- Book: Abundance – Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson. Devastating consequences of the housing crisis, history of zoning, how science research funding pays for itself many times over
- How science funding literally pays for itself – Link
- The housing theory of everything – Works in Progress – Link
- The friendship theory of everything – Link
- No exit – Link
- Reviving old friendships – Link
- Apologia pro vita sua – Scott Alexander – Link
- More drowning children – Scott Alexander – Link
- Chattel Childhood – Link (weird and very good)
- Fake pandemic introvert vs. real introvert – New Yorker – Link
- The deaths – and lives – of two sons – Yiyun Li, New Yorker – Link. Possibly the most gut wrenching piece of writing I’ve ever read. I still think about it every few days
+ several New Yorker pieces in print.
TV / Documentaries:
- America and the Taliban (very, very good): Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
- 20 days in Mariupol (also incredible): Link
- Undercover in Mexico: How Chinese gangs are transforming the fentanyl trade (Isobel Yeung’s courage and craft is a priceless gift to humanity): Link
- North Korean labor camps (fascinating): Link
- Stealing Ukraine’s children: Inside Russia’s camps: Link
- Inside Prighozin’s Wagner, Russia’s secret war company: Link
- A dangerous assignment: Uncovering corruption in Maduro’s Venezuela: Link
- Duterte’s drug war: Link
- Secret state of North Korea: Link
- The man who knew: Link
Ipshita Agarwal 