BlogFlock

The recent US invasion of Venezuela and the saber-rattling toward many other countries, including Greenland and Denmark, have given new energy to concern about dependence on the United States and how governments should react. Given that I am Canadian, I’ve been thinking a lot about what this means for my…

Greetings all,

I’ll be honest, I’ve been struggling with how to get the newsletter going again in this already terrible new year. The president of Venezuela is sitting in a Brooklyn jail. The FBI raided the home of a Washington Post journalist. And of course Donald Trump has…

Last summer I had an admission to make: I’d only read eight books so far in the year! I was not proud of it. But I wanted to get a better total by the end of the year. While I didn’t hit my usual goal of 52 books a year,…

Let’s be honest with ourselves: if a broadcaster or newspaper had started publishing thousands of non-consensual, sexually explicit images of women or — even worse — of children, politicians and regulators would be out for blood. It would be a front-page, ongoing scandal and the organization responsible would be…

On the morning of January 3, 2026, US President Donald Trump stood at a podium in Palm Beach, Florida. Less than twelve hours earlier, US forces had invaded Caracas in violation of international law and the UN Charter. A series of airstrikes on military targets provided cover for Special Forces…

Greetings machine breakers -

Hope everyone’s holidays have been nice and restful, and that each of your new years are off to a promising start.

With AI companies growing ever closer to the state and a barrage of headlines about labor automation and burst-ready bubbles carrying over from last year,…

Welcome to the Convivial Society, a newsletter about technology, culture and the moral life. And happy New Year. This installment took shape in the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, each associated with waiting, although the seconds we count down to midnight are rather different from the days…

It won’t be much of a surprise to regular readers or listeners of my podcast that digital sovereignty and getting off US tech has been on my mind a lot this year. It actually started in 2024, when I worked on a white paper about digital sovereignty with some European…

Greetings everyone -

The year is drawing to an end, and that means every other link you click is a Best of 2025 list. And you know what, that’s just fine; if you’re at all like me, you just keep on clicking. Give me more of the best stuff, show…

Stanford’s Paul Brest Hall was so packed I had to find a spot to sit on the floor. It was a Monday morning, December 8th, and every last chair was taken; spectators lined the walls and shuffled around in the back. The restless majority were artists, writers, and actors; they…