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Economic historian at Columbia; writes Chartbook on economics, geopolitics and history, and wrote Crashed and The Deluge.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  AfD support reflects a coherent anti-systemic worldview rather than incoherent or narrowly self-interested preferences.

  Their words

  Rather than thinking of this set of preferences as incoherent, or merely the expression of a sectional petty bourgeois interest, it makes more sense, surely, to view it as a coherent set of anti-systemic views.

  adamtooze.substack.com

Founding executive editor of Wired and author of What Technology Wants and The Inevitable. Writes at kk.org and runs its long-running recommendation projects, True Films and Cool Tools.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  A neural network's latent space is closer to an uncopyrightable syntax than to copyrightable expression.

  LLMs

  Their words

  The latent spaces of an LLM are closer to something like a syntax which is not copyrightable.

  Arguments in Favor of AI Fair Usekk.org

Writer living in Brooklyn and former Man Repeller features director; writes the weekly newsletter Maybe Baby on culture and consumption.

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  Involuntary patterns reveal something true about a person, and even their deliberate actions are a form of unintentional self-expression.

  Their words

  there exists a wisdom in the involuntary, and that our attempts to shape reality, however intentional, are themselves a form of unintentional expression.

  #281: You, with a layer of paranoia shaved offhaleynahman.substack.com

Writes Hyperdimensional, a newsletter on AI policy and governance. A White House AI policy adviser in 2025; joined OpenAI on 6 July 2026 to lead its Strategic Futures team.

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  Any digital identification system built for AI must preserve anonymous human speech, without which there is no genuine freedom of expression.

  Their words

  But a society that does not have anonymous speech does not really have genuine freedom of expression, and we should embed this principle into any digital identification system we attempt.

  On the Loosehyperdimensional.co

Bren Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience and Biology at Caltech, where he studies the neuroscience of emotion and social cognition.

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  You cannot reliably tell how someone feels from their facial expression, and Ekman's universality claim does not survive a reading of the whole literature.

  Their words

  We took stock of the whole literature and asked is this really true? Is Ecman's claim really true? Can you tell how someone feels from their facial expression? And the answer is well not nearly as well as you would think and in general not.

  youtube.com

Organizational psychologist and professor at the Wharton School. Author of Give and Take, Originals, Think Again and Hidden Potential, host of the Re:Thinking podcast, and writer of the GRANTED newsletter.

From one piece The Truth About People Pleasing 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

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  Chronic people pleasing stems from a need for others' approval, not genuine concern for them.

  Their words

  The root of chronic people pleasing is not concern for others. It's concern for their acceptance and approval.

  The Truth About People Pleasingadamgrant.substack.com

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  People pleasing develops as an insecure attachment strategy learned from being valued only for submissiveness.

  Their words

  People pleasing is based on insecure attachment. We become people pleasers when we discover that others only value us when we're cooperative to the point of being submissive and deferential.

  The Truth About People Pleasingadamgrant.substack.com

AI research engineer working on large language models. He writes the Ahead of AI newsletter and is the author of Build a Large Language Model (From Scratch).

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  The special reasoning-trace delimiter tokens used by reasoning models are cosmetic and not required for good reasoning performance.

  Their words

  These <think> and </think> tags are cosmetic with respect to reasoning ability. They do not make the model reason, and they are not required to achieve good reasoning performance.

  Controlling Reasoning Effort in LLMsmagazine.sebastianraschka.com

Musician and writer; answers readers' questions weekly at The Red Hand Files, and fronts Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

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  The past is not something a maker should discard but something to draw on, and approaching it with humility is what lets the work come out distinct.

  Their words

  Over time, that fiery intensity ebbed away, and I realised that the past wasn’t something to discard but to respect.

  theredhandfiles.com

Founder and former CEO of Zynga, the social-games company behind FarmVille, Zynga Poker and Words with Friends; says he founded ten companies in all, and wrote Life at the Speed of Play.

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  Ambition should be measured in the eyes of your customer rather than your peers, which means being willing to take the best ideas wherever you find them.

  ambition

  Their words

  if you're truly ambitious, burn your resume. If you and if you define your ambition in the eyes of your consumer, not your peers, you're not trying to win awards and respect from your peers.

  youtube.com

Writer and author of All the Wrong Moves; his newsletter covers meditation, relationships and creativity, and he co-runs a perfume line.

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  Positions of genuine respect are earned rather than granted undeservedly.

  Their words

  Almost nobody reaches a position of real respect undeservedly. Famous buffoons don't get respect from the people they really want it from, just sycophants whose praise is meaningless.

  You can judge a book by its coversashachapin.substack.com

Writer and illustrator, author of Am I There Yet? and Out of the Blue; writes the newsletter Out of the Blue on grief, joy and everyday attention.

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  Putting a price on creative expression makes it suffer, while giving it away freely lets it thrive.

  Their words

  I know my work will suffer if I put a price on creative expression that is as sloppy and homespun as spaghetti, and I know it will thrive if I give it generously and get messy while making it.

  On Monetizationmariandrew.substack.com

Developer and podcaster; created Instapaper and Overcast, co-founded Tumblr, and co-hosts the Accidental Tech Podcast.

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  A company can lead its industry on values like privacy and user respect without actually excelling at them

  Their words

  Apple leads the industry in these values, but leading doesn't always mean excelling.

  A letter to John Ternusmarco.org

Usability pioneer; co-founder of Nielsen Norman Group and founder of UX Tigers; author of the ten usability heuristics and of Jakob's Law.

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  The winning system of the next decade will be the one that best understands the user's job to be done and shows what it is about to do, not the one with the prettiest buttons or fewest screens.

  Their words

  The winning system of the next decade will not be the one with the most aesthetically pleasing buttons, nor will it be the one with the fewest screens. It will be the system that best understands the human’s “job to be done,” autonomously selects the right tools on their behalf, clearly shows the user what is about to happen, and gracefully recovers when the user’s context is incomplete or ambiguous.

  jakobnielsenphd.substack.com

Co-founder and chief executive of Figma, the collaborative design platform he started in 2012 and took public in 2025.

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  Ideas die on the vine when their visual expression looks wrong, so a prototype built from the real design system gets judged on its merits instead.

  Their words

  it's, I think, critical that ideas don't die on the vine because you've got, um, a visual expression that doesn't match what everyone else expects. Sometimes people will just filter them out because they don't look right.

  youtube.com

Chief executive of Alphabet and Google; joined Google in 2004 and led Chrome and Android before taking over in 2015.

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  Artistic free expression is one of the values a society should work hard to defend, including in what AI is allowed to make.

  Their words

  But I do think when it comes to artistic free expression, I think that's one of those values we should work hard to defend.

  youtube.com

Pen name of the Canadian-American writer behind mrmoneymustache.com, a blog on frugality, early retirement and index-fund investing that has run since 2011.

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  Vanguard

  Their words

  For most of my investing life, Vanguard was THE one-stop shop for index funds of all types. They have the lowest expense ratio and the utmost respect for their customers.

  mrmoneymustache.com

President of the United States, the 45th from 2017 to 2021 and, as of 2026, the 47th; before politics a New York property developer who ran the Trump Organization, and the host of The Apprentice from 2004 to 2015.

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  Federal efforts to restrict free expression in recent years were illegal and unconstitutional.

  Americagovernment

  Their words

  After years and years of illegal and unconstitutional federal efforts to restrict free expression, I also will sign an executive order to immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America.

  The Inaugural Addresswhitehouse.gov

Co-creator of Django and creator of Datasette; writes daily at simonwillison.net.

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  Concerns about the energy cost of an individual LLM prompt are no longer credible, though the environmental impact of the AI datacenter buildout remains a real worry.

  LLMsdata centersenergy

  Their words

  There’s still plenty to worry about with respect to the environmental impact of the great AI datacenter buildout, but a lot of the concerns over the energy cost of individual prompts are no longer credible.

  Things we learned about LLMs in 2024simonwillison.net

Software engineer and essayist who writes about programming, formal methods, philosophy and literature at thoughts.wyounas.com.

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  Philosophy as a Way of Life

  Their words

  I came across this book accidentally, but I'm so glad I did. Pierre Hadot was a French philosopher who could not only philosophize but also write simply—an ability not common among top-tier philosophers, if I may say so with respect.

  thoughts.wyounas.com

Writer on the intersection of technology and finance. Author of the Bits about Money newsletter and host of the Complex Systems podcast; previously at Stripe.

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  Nic Carter correctly identified the product behind the FDIC’s redacted crypto pause letters.

  crypto

  Their words

  I think Carter is very likely (90%+) correct with respect to identifying the subject of these letters.

  Debanking (and Debunking?)bitsaboutmoney.com

Co-founder of WordPress and founder of Automattic; blogs at ma.tt.

From one piece WPE & Trademarks 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

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  A company that will not accept a project’s terms is free to go and use a more permissive project instead.

  open source

  Their words

  If WP Engine wants to find another open source project with a more permissive license and no trademarks, they are free to do so; if they want to benefit from the WordPress community, then they need to respect WordPress trademark and IP.

  WPE & Trademarksma.tt

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  Respect for trademarks and other intellectual property is part of what open source means, not a departure from it.

  open source

  Their words

  WordPress is licensed under the GPL; respect for copyright and IP like trademarks is core to the GPL and our conception of what open source means.

  WPE & Trademarksma.tt

Founded CD Baby in 1998 and sold it in 2008, giving the proceeds to a charitable trust for music education. Since then a writer and speaker: five books and 550+ articles, published first at sive.rs, which they hand-code and keep free of advertising.

• Likedrcmnd.app

  China’s World View

  Their words

  Senior academic advisor to the Chinese Communist Party feels most political tensions come from a misunderstanding of China’s world view, hence the subtitle “demystifying to prevent global conflict”, and his intrinsic desire to explain. I love its insights and historical context, especially around “Respect-centered diplomacy” and how the CCP is structured.

  sive.rs

American author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck and Everything Is F*cked. Writes essays and book reviews at markmanson.net.

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  Achieving success and respect inevitably attracts harsh critics

  Their words

  criticism is part of the job description of success, that the respect and admiration you want will always come with a healthy serving of critics eager to tear you down.

  5 Life-Changing Levels of Not Giving a Fuckmarkmanson.net

Writer and researcher on China, technology and industry; author of Breakneck, research fellow at Stanford, known for a widely read annual letter.

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  It is the party's censorship, not any lack of talent, that has made China a cultural underperformer beside Japan and South Korea.

  China

  Their words

  As I’ve written in each of my previous letters, the party’s strangling of free expression has rendered China into a pitiful underperformer relative to Japan and South Korea in the creation of cultural products.

  2023 letterdanwang.co

American author of The Obstacle Is the Way, Ego Is the Enemy and Stillness Is the Key. Writes the Reading List book-recommendation email (started 2008) and owns The Painted Porch bookstore in Bastrop, Texas. Hosts The Daily Stoic podcast.

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  A book you want is always worth buying: never let time or money stop you from having it

  Their words

  I promised myself a long time ago that if I saw a book that interested me I’d never let time or money or anything else prevent me from having it. This means that I treat reading with a certain amount of respect.

  The (Very) Best Books I Read In 2023ryanholiday.net

First Amendment lawyer and former federal prosecutor; writes The Popehat Report and explains what the law actually says when people shout about free speech.

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  Refusing to advertise on a platform is protected expression, not an attack on the platform owner's free speech.

  Their words

  Elon Musk’s sullen yawp amounts to a claim that he has a right for companies to sponsor his speech, no matter what he says. That’s nonsense, both legally and philosophically.

  My Free Speech Means You Have To Shut Uppopehat.substack.com

Founded SpaceX in 2002, joined Tesla's board in 2004 and became its chief executive in 2008; later founded Neuralink, The Boring Company and xAI. Bought Twitter in 2022 and renamed it X, where he now posts many times a day.

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  Human violence is not a human peculiarity: nature is not a peaceful thing, and every living thing in it is trying to kill something else.

  Their words

  People think of nature as perhaps some sort of peaceful thing, but in fact it is not. There’s some quite funny Werner Herzog thing where he is in the jungle saying that it’s basically just murder and death in every direction. The plants and animals in the jungle are constantly trying to kill each other every single day, every minute. So it’s not like we’re unusual in that respect.

  youtube.com

Programmer; founded comma.ai and tinygrad, and was the first to unlock the iPhone.

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  Arguing that nobody should have powerful AI is a respectable position; arguing that only trusted authorities should have it is not.

  Their words

  And I will respect someone philosophically with that position, just like I will respect someone philosophically with the position that nobody should have guns. But I will not respect philosophically with, “Only the trusted authorities should have access to this.”

  youtube.com

Founded CD Baby in 1998 and sold it in 2008, giving the proceeds to a charitable trust for music education. Since then a writer and speaker: five books and 550+ articles, published first at sive.rs, which they hand-code and keep free of advertising.

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  Wild Problems

  Their words

  How to improve your HUGE major life decisions, like whether/who to marry, whether to have kids, where to live, career paths, and such — where you can’t use the usual checklist/data approach. This economist addresses self-identity, “deepest self”, and “something I was meant to do”. You can’t use a pro/con checklist with an item that says “lose respect for myself”.

  sive.rs