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American-Polish journalist and historian, staff writer at The Atlantic; author of Gulag, Iron Curtain, Twilight of Democracy and Autocracy, Inc.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Revolutionary movements aim to remake the international system, not just their own country's politics.

  Their words

  In modern times, every major revolutionary movement has sought to change not just the politics of a single country but the international system itself.

  Empire of Griftanneapplebaum.substack.com

Economist and Nobel laureate. Wrote a New York Times column for 25 years until December 2024 and now publishes several times a week on Substack.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Reducing trade deficits and reviving manufacturing would not end the resentment fueling right-wing authoritarian movements.

  Their words

  Crude economic factors don’t explain the fascist shift in Germany. And Trumponomics, even if it worked (which it doesn’t) wouldn’t end the resentment feeding our own authoritarian movement.

  Neo-Nazis and the Impotence of Trumponomicspaulkrugman.substack.com

American-Polish journalist and historian, staff writer at The Atlantic; author of Gulag, Iron Curtain, Twilight of Democracy and Autocracy, Inc.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  A conspiracy theory can be used as a pretext to dismantle government programs and target researchers and citizens.

  Americagovernment

  Their words

  Since 2025, MAGA ideologues have been using this alleged plot as an excuse to dismantle government programs, stifle research, intimidate American citizens, and even distort American foreign policy.

  The Myth of the “Censorship Industrial Complex”anneapplebaum.substack.com

Professor of strategic studies at St Andrews; wrote How the War Was Won and The Strategists, and writes weekly on the war in Ukraine.

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  Ukraine's deep-strike campaign should be aimed at Russia's fuel system above every other target, because that is what takes money away from the war machine.

  Russia

  Their words

  It is not because it affects Russian morale, or causes inconvenience, it is because ultimately it is the best way to take away the one thing all war machines need—money.

  phillipspobrien.substack.com

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

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  The second China shock is landing on Europe, where the first one landed on the United States.

  EuropeChinaAmerica

  Their words

  In China shock 1.0 the key target was the US. In China shock 2.0 it is Europe.

  adamtooze.substack.com

Genomics researcher and writer on science, biotech and the culture of research.

From one piece Intelligence is not the main bottleneck 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there

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  Drug companies pile onto the same few already-validated targets, so far less of biology gets explored than could be.

  Their words

  In biomedicine we have a problem called target herding: most companies chase the same biological targets because they are de-risked, which means we explore far less of the biological space than we could.

  Intelligence is not the main bottleneckwritingruxandrabio.com

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  The hard part of drug discovery is knowing what to make - which target is worth drugging - not designing the molecule.

  Their words

  That is mostly in the realm of chemistry and is intrinsically far more tractable and predictable; given a validated target, good teams usually reach a decent molecule.

  Intelligence is not the main bottleneckwritingruxandrabio.com

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  The patent system rewards novel chemical matter and not novel biology, so nobody is paid for validating a new drug target.

  Their words

  The patent system then further disincentivizes companies from taking target risk, because it rewards novel chemical matter, not novel biology.

  Intelligence is not the main bottleneckwritingruxandrabio.com

Physician and neuroscientist at the University of Washington; researches brain health, metabolism and athletic performance.

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  Partner dancing, not puzzles, has the best evidence of any activity for improving cognitive function in older adults.

  Their words

  there are meta analyses of these interventions in older adults showing that ballroom and line dancing have the greatest effect on cognitive function. And so both of those require other people as well as learning you know various sets of of movements.

  youtube.com

General partner at Andreessen Horowitz from 2013 to 2018 and CTO of Coinbase from 2018 to 2019; co-founder of Counsyl and Earn.com. Wrote The Network State (2022), free in full at thenetworkstate.com, and founded the Network School.

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  Movements built around a shared moral cause outcompete purely profit-driven ones, in practice as well as in theory.

  Their words

  missionary societies outcompete mercenary ones, not just in theory but in practice.

  The Network Statethenetworkstate.com

Physician focused on longevity; wrote Outlive and hosts The Drive.

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  Raising HDL cholesterol is not a treatment target, because every drug that raised it failed to reduce cardiovascular events.

  Their words

  These failures are a strong signal that HDL-C is not the variable we should be trying to manipulate.

  The trouble with “good cholesterol”peterattiamd.com

Author of The Lean Startup and Incorruptible, and founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, who advises companies on corporate governance and mission protection.

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  There is never a right time to protect a company's mission: it is too early until it is suddenly too late, and success is what makes you a target.

  Their words

  Was it ever the right time? No, it is never the right time to do this. If you put this off, you will eventually find yourself in a situation where you can no longer do it. You will have lost the leverage. Success will not protect you because success is what makes you a target.

  youtube.com

Freelance research analyst and writer of the blog Aceso Under Glass, known for 'epistemic spot checks' of non-fiction claims.

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  Evangelizing religious movements are shaped by a creative-destruction dynamic that discards congregations that fail to grow.

  Their words

  Creative destruction is even more built into evangelism than I thought.

  Church Planting: Lessons from the Commentsacesounderglass.com

Software entrepreneur who bootstrapped and sold FeedbackPanda and now builds Podscan; writes The Bootstrapped Founder.

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  Over-indexing on small daily improvements causes a business to miss bigger, more impactful opportunities.

  Their words

  if you over-index on the idea of small improvements, then you stop seeing the pivotal, critical mass movements that you might make.

  thebootstrappedfounder.com

Executive coach for product leaders. Previously a partner at GV (Google Ventures) and a product manager at Google. Writes at Bring the Donuts, including a standing essential-reading list for product managers.

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  Click

  Their words

  Another book by the authors of Sprint, this one focusing on the Foundation Sprint: how to identify your target customer and understand their problem

  bringthedonuts.com

Head of growth at Chess.com, previously growth and monetization lead at Grammarly and Duolingo and a product manager at Google.

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  The value of an ambitious experiment target is not hitting it but the conversation about what would have to be true to hit it.

  Their words

  And a thousand experiments by itself, like if you just did that, but you didn't learn, you didn't make an impact, and that's kind of a waste of time, right? The whole point of setting a goal is that you can have conversations about what would need to be true to actually hit that goal.

  youtube.com

German writer and historian; wrote Blitzed, on drug use in Nazi Germany, and Tripped.

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  The decision to split the German forces away from Moscow was taken by a Hitler who had just been given his first intravenous opioid, and that is probably why Moscow never fell.

  Russia

  Their words

  So Hitler receives this Dolantin injection, and he gets up, he goes into the meeting room, he dominates the meeting room, he feels great. He decides, you know, in front of everybody, no one is able to… no one overpowers him in that meeting. He was very good in the room. And the troops are split up. Like Leningrad is now a target. This weakens the general thrust towards Moscow. This is probably why they didn't take Moscow.

  youtube.com

Palaeontologist at Queen Mary University of London; studies dinosaur behaviour and writes about what the fossil record can and cannot tell us.

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  Predators everywhere target juveniles, and there is no reason dinosaurs were an exception — the bite marks and stomach contents say they were not.

  Their words

  But this is the absolute rule of thumb for how foraging and growth and predation operate across everything from fish to starfish, praying mantises, all the way up to things like big cats via stuff like crocodiles. It's how it works. So it'd be very weird if it didn't also operate for dinosaurs. And then, as I say, we've actually got the direct evidence for this from bite marks and stomach contents. They're taking small stuff.

  youtube.com

Demographer; writes on fertility, marriage and population, and directs the Pro-Family Initiative at the Institute for Family Studies.

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  Evolution gave humans no target number of births, because what mattered historically was keeping children alive rather than producing them.

  Their words

  As a result, natural selection is very unlikely to have produced in humans any predisposition or preference for a certain number of births.

  There Is No Long Decline in Fertilitylymanstone.substack.com

Growth advisor and operator who has led growth at Miro, Amplitude, Dropbox and SurveyMonkey.

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  Industry benchmarks are a dangerous target because every company defines the underlying metric differently.

  benchmarks

  Their words

  So, taking also any benchmark that is derived from competition and saying this is where we should be is also so dangerous because it might not even be applicable depending on how you define the metric.

  youtube.com

Social scientist at King's College London; writes The Great Gender Divergence on why societies differ in how they treat women.

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  The fall in childbearing in rich countries is concentrated among the less educated, not among female graduates.

  Their words

  Slurs of ‘childless cat ladies’ usually target female graduates, but in the US, Sweden and Finland the real decline is happening among people with less education.

  Why is Fertility Collapsing, Globally?ggd.world

Writes about the biotech industry, drug development and forecasting — “I write to learn, mostly about biotech.”

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  The hard part of drug discovery is knowing what to make - which target is worth drugging - not designing the molecule.

  Their words

  The most significant factor preventing us from taking better molecules into clinical trials is not our ability to design arbitrary molecules, but our (lack of) understanding of underlying disease biology. In other words, we often know how to make something, but not what to make.

  atelfo.github.io

Essayist; writes Astral Codex Ten, previously Slate Star Codex.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Movements are coalitions, and often the same people hold both of a movement's priorities rather than trading one off against the other.

  Their words

  Movements are coalitions. Sometimes this means different people with different priorities choose to work together. But other times it means the same people tend to share both priorities.

  In Continued Defense Of Effective Altruismastralcodexten.com

Medicinal chemist; has written In the Pipeline, the drug-discovery blog, since 2002, and the “Things I Won’t Work With” posts about chemicals that try to kill you.

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  No AI system today reduces either of the two risks that sink most drugs in the clinic: picking the wrong target, and human toxicity.

  Their words

  There are no existing AI/ML systems that mitigate clinical failure risks due to target choice or toxicology.

  AI and the Hard Stuffweb.archive.org

Co-founder of Sundial; former vice president of product design at Facebook; author of The Making of a Manager; writes The Looking Glass.

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  The more your target audience does not look like you, the more you should be skeptical of your design intuition.

  Their words

  The more your target audience does not look like you, the more you should be skeptical of your design intuition. Despite having seen thousands of a/b test results for minor design details, I am still regularly surprised and humbled by my intuition being wrong.

  The Looking Glass: What AI Won't Changelg.substack.com

Monetary economist known for NGDP-level targeting. Wrote TheMoneyIllusion until it closed in 2024 and now writes The Pursuit of Happiness.

• Our reading nowkorrents.com

  The Federal Reserve's average inflation targeting framework is a real commitment to hold inflation near a 2% average across the 2020s, so an overshoot now has to be offset by undershoots later.

  inflationinterest rates

  Their words, before

  The Fed needs PCE inflation to average 1.96% for the remainder of the decade in order to hit their AIT target.

  Their words now

  I assumed they intended inflation to average roughly 2% during the 2020s.

Economist; former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund.

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  Judging by output kept near potential despite weak private demand, Japan's decades of high debt and low inflation reflect a qualified policy success, not failure.

  inflationinterest rates

  Their words

  Japanese macroeconomic policy is often characterized as a failure, with the central bank unable to achieve its inflation target, a low growth rate, and debt ratios steadily rising to reach more than 170% for net debt and 250% for gross debt. I think it should be seen instead as a qualified success, with the use of aggressive fiscal and monetary policies to compensate for very weak private demand: Output has remained close to potential.

  Fiscal Policy under Low Interest Ratesdirect.mit.edu

Founder and CEO of Get Lighthouse, a management-coaching software company, and previously a product lead at KISSmetrics. Writes about leadership, management and product at jasonevanish.com.

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  Own the Room: Business Presentations that Persuade, Engage, and Get Results

  Their words

  If you want one book to teach you everything you need to know about giving great presentations, this is the book. A film director, a psychologist, and an actor share their combined experiences to help improve your content, the design, your movements, and just about every other detail of being a great speaker. It was a slow start, but by the end, I had dog-eared dozens of pages and marked up many more which I was able to directly apply to a major talk I was working on.

  jasonevanish.com

Author of Fluent Forever and founder of the app of the same name; teaches pronunciation first and vocabulary through images rather than translation.

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  Removing translation from the process is what lets you think in the language from the beginning.

  Their words

  When you remove translation from your language learning process, you can learn to think in your target language from the beginning.

  blog.fluent-forever.com

Web infrastructure engineer and standards editor; chaired the IETF HTTP working group and co-authored core HTTP and Atom specifications.

• Usesrcmnd.app

  Safari

  Their words

  Most of my time in GUI apps is spent in browsers; I use Safari for most browsing (making me a frequent target for derision among Web devs), but also dipping into Firefox, Chrome and Chrome Canary.

  usesthis.com