The Median Voter Theorem is a Clarity Trap

What the Democratic party needs; what it demands; is bold, persistent experimentation

Pluralistic: Doctors' union may yet save the NHS from Palantir (12 Feb 2026)

Today's links Doctors' union may yet save the NHS from Palantir: There is power in the union. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Premature internet activists; Privacy Without

What is Protocol Fiction?

A first report from our protocol fiction writing group, led by regular Protocolized contributors Spencer Nitkey and Sachin Benny. Join tomorrow, Feb 12 and every other Thursday, at 8am Pacific.

About that Matt Shumer post that has nearly 50 million views

Something big is allegedly happening

The literal enshittification of The United States

I wish I could say this was satire.

🌻 my week with the AI populists

a Washington DC scene report

The Human Demotion

Science Has Humbled Us Before. Will AI Deliver Another Blow?

Pluralistic: Europe takes a big step towards a post-dollar world (11 Feb 2026)

Today's links Europe takes a big step towards a post-dollar world: Recapturing $24t worth of transactions from Visa/Mastercard. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: API for Cong

We Just Got a Peek at How Crazy a World With AI Agents May Be

Clawdbot and Moltbook: Cosplaying a Future of Independent AIs

BREAKING: LLM “reasoning” continues to be deeply flawed

A new review underscores the breadth of the problem, and shows that close to a trillion dollars hasn’t changed that

AI Datacenters Drink More Water Than You Think

Why the "2.5 burger joints" metric doesn't tell the whole story, carbon-water footprint tradeoffs, and why long-term datacenter water usage looks very different.

Some disconcerting facts about AI and banking that may have profound consequences

Disturbing new numbers

Pluralistic: The Nuremberg Caucus (10 Feb 2026)

Today's links The Nuremberg Caucus: What do Democrats have to lose? Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Bradbury x LA monorails; Red Cross vs first aid kits; Wyden on CIA Senat

Dragoncatcher: Public service announcement

Weekly Top Picks #113

As bad as the Industrial Revolution / Nature: AGI is here / Moltbook was fake (of course) / Don't obsess over what AI can or can't do: find your authentic self

Dragoncatcher: Flood fill

Import AI 444: LLM societies; Huawei makes kernels with AI; ChipBench

Welcome to Import AI, a newsletter about AI research. Import AI runs on arXiv and feedback from readers. If you’d like to support this, please subscribe. Subscribe now Google paper suggests that LLMs

Pluralistic: The Epstein class and collapse porn (09 Feb 2026)

Today's links The Epstein class and collapse porn: Buy the dip! Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Web 1.0 logos; Legality of printing Catan tiles; Hamster strandbeest; Pactua

Winter Garden: Flood fill vs. the magic circle

Super Bowl Matchup: Anthropic vs OpenAI

You don’t have to be a football fan to enjoy the ads

The future of being human ⊗ For the sake of mutual interdependence

No.389 — The space trash apocalypse ⊗ Jeff Bezos, moral cretin ⊗ The futures cone reimagined ⊗ The Authoritarian Stack ⊗ Local energy networks saving lives ⊗ Tangible media

Postscript

Mass layoffs are a fact of life in journalism. Your favorite writers and editors have dealt with them. But they weren’t supposed to happen at The Post. Over the last week or so, I’ve been dealing wit

You Spent Your Whole Life Getting Good at the Wrong Thing

Notes on AI agents

Pluralistic: End of the line for video essays (07 Feb 2026)

Today's links End of the line for video essays: America's worst copyright law keeps getting even worse. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Payphone phaseout; Nvidia sock-puppe

A Quiet Townhouse, A Great Gift

A mostly unknown townhouse in Manhattan was the site of a small but significant moment in the history of 20th-century American literature. It also gives insight into how modern society defines its his

90% of everything is sanding e.g. laundry

What mundane pleasures will I be robbed of by domestic robots? Sometimes I feel like my job at home is putting things into machines and taking things out of machines. I don’t mean to sound unappreciat

Dragoncatcher: The music of the feeds

T.R.O.(L.L.)

Something metamorphic lurks beneath this dark bridge. Elizabeth Maher’s inventive story placed third in our Building and Burning Bridges protocol fiction contest.

The Stock Market Has No Idea What’s Coming

Investors are simultaneously terrified that AI works and that it doesn’t

🍪 TWiC: Google/AWS CapEx, NVIDIA GPUs, SaaS, TXN+SLAB

This Week in Chips: 5 key developments across the semiconductor and adjacent universes.

Pluralistic: Luxury Kafka (06 Feb 2026)

Today's links Luxury Kafka: US Immigration on the easiest setting. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Whisky PC; Anitfeatures; Silicon Roundabout; Steampunk Etch-A-Sketch; MLM

Lumentum: Laser Demand, OCS, CPO and Optical Scale-Up

$LITE’s enviable market position, big order of UHP lasers, OCS deployments, optical scale-up benefits, and what needs to happen for full optical scale-up by when.

My New Org to Solve Consciousness (or Die Trying); A Rogue AI Community That Wasn't; David Foster Wallace Is Still Right; Cow Tools Are Real, & More

Desiderata #38: links and commentary

OpenAI Won the Consumer Mindshare—And Paid For It With Everything Else

A thorough investigation using the most neutral sources I could find

Is the Great AI meltdown imminent? [NSFW]

A $100 billion dollar deal that was propping up the industry just disappeared

Pluralistic: All laws are local (05 Feb 2026)

Today's links All laws are local: And no law knows how evitable it is. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Whisky PC; Anitfeatures; Silicon Roundabout; Steampunk Etch-A-Sketch;

AI manipulation

A discussion with Sasha Brown, Seliem El-Sayed, and Canfer Akbulut

Sam Altman and the day Nvidia’s meteoric rise came to an end

Happy half anniversary, GPT-5

Dragoncatcher: Greenfield tech

Pluralistic: Justin Key's "The Hospital at the End Of the World" (04 Feb 2026)

Today's links Justin Key's "The Hospital at the End Of the World": A biopunk medical thriller from a major new talent. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. Object permanence: Coconut volunteers; A