Sitemap - 2023 - Hopeful Monsters

End-of-Year Self-Congratulatory Gala

A Meaning of Christmas

One Thousand and One Notes on ‘One Thousand and One Nights’

Your System of Ethics Needs a Line of Retreat

It Turns Out Anger Isn’t Great For Writing Blog Posts

Ethics and the Complexity of Models

Children of the Geissler Tube

The Figurative-to-Abstract Art Pipeline

Three European Cemeteries

Dark Age Ahead: A Lukewarm Book Review

AI as Sparkly Magic

Holy Land

What Counts as a Technology?

Can Our Civilization Build Beautiful Hospitals?

1980s Jane Jacobs on Cities, States, and City-States

A Song of Proto-Industrialization

Two New Ways for the French to Be Smug About Food

Family Curses Are Real

You Can't Overuse the Word ‘Friend’

In Defense of Tech Trees

Toronto as Utopia

Crazy Science Idea: Tell People Something Is Possible When You Actually Have No Clue

I Wrote Half a Book About Phantom Islands and Then Discovered I Was Scooped Seven Years Ago

French 1790s Disco, and Other Excesses

Please Plagiarize This Blog Post

When the Ugliness of the Problem Sticks to the Solution

The Opposite of Squishy Is Ghostly

We Rarely Lose Technology

So Long, Classical Futurist!

My Left Shoulder Blade Is Possessed By a Minor Demon

No But Really, Why Are Flowers Beautiful?

Ruins Everywhere and Nowhere

Things I Learned From Ranking 1000 Historical Rulers

Chinese Noodles, Swedish Tacos, and Other Authenticity Puzzles

Somehow I Trust the Flip-Floppers More

Nothing More Powerful Than the Anti-Cultishness Cult

What Will I Find in San Francisco?

Charting a Course of Study in Neuroaesthetics

A Techno-Historical Analogy in Which YOU Are the Hero

Pre-Nostalgia in the Late Pre-AI Era

Scientific Writing Is a Miserable Grind, So Let's Outsource It to AI

on low effort

Does Weather Affect Mood, And Separately, Does Climate Affect Happiness?

The Inevitable, Awkward Post About Money

Tricks to Slow Time Down

Nothing Is Inherently Obvious

In Praise of Being a Tourist

Preamble to a Psychofauna Bestiary

All Video Games Are Set in Winter

The Strawman, the Steelman, and the Gold-Plated Man

Yes, I Judge Books by their Cover

Is Hard Work Virtuous?