Related posts

Political scientist writing Drezner's World on international relations, American politics and the marketplace of ideas; author of The Ideas Industry.

From one piece My Frustration With Puzzlebox Television 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Fully revealing a mystery-box show's central plot often disappoints viewers, flattening everything that happened before it.

  Their words

  Once the entire plot is revealed in shows like this one, it can be a letdown, flattening what has happened previously.

  My Frustration With Puzzlebox Televisiondanieldrezner.substack.com

• Our readingkorrents.com

  For a mystery-box TV show to work, its world-building must be imaginative and believable and its characters compelling.

  Their words

  For them to work, the world-building has to be imaginative and believable, and the characters have to be compelling.

  My Frustration With Puzzlebox Televisiondanieldrezner.substack.com

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

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Calling the fall in birth rates a mystery is not humility but obscurantism: there is already a good causal account of it.

  Their words

  we really do have a good causal model of how to think about fertility decline!

  We Actually Know A Lot About Fertility Declinelymanstone.substack.com

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

• Our readingkorrents.com

  A well-functioning contemplative practice should feel like an engaging encounter with mystery rather than a chore.

  Their words

  But it ought to feel good-like an engaging encounter with the mystery of being, not like a chore.

  sashachapin.substack.com

China economy researcher based in Beijing who writes on his personal blog about Chinese political economy, history, books and music.

• Likedrcmnd.app

  Cahokia Jazz

  Their words

  A hard-boiled mystery set in an alternative 1920s America, by turns familiar and strange.

  andrewbatson.com

Economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley and a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury. Author of Slouching Towards Utopia and writer of the Grasping Reality newsletter.

• Lovedrcmnd.app

  Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000

  Their words

  And I love the podcast of the book’s authors Emily Bender and Alex Hanna, “Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000”

  braddelong.substack.com

Statistician at Carnegie Mellon; writes on complex systems, machine learning and inference, and has kept a books-read notebook since 2000 that is now thousands of entries long.

• Likedrcmnd.app

  The Overnight Kidnapper

  Their words

  Mind-candy mystery from a highly reliable author.

  bactra.org

Senior economist at the Foundation for American Innovation; writes Second Best, and was the Niskanen Center's director of social policy before that.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Qualitative leaps in AI capability from merely scaling up models are a rational necessity rather than an empirical mystery.

  Their words

  While the fact that merely scaling up AI models often results in qualitative leaps in performance may seem empirically mysterious, in retrospect it should be seen as a rational necessity.

  Hegel and the AI Mindsecondbest.ca

Statistician at Carnegie Mellon; writes on complex systems, machine learning and inference, and has kept a books-read notebook since 2000 that is now thousands of entries long.

• Likedaffiliate linkrcmnd.app

  Dark Country

  Their words

  Mind candy horror/mystery, stalking and being stalked by the somewhat-supernatural serial killer, with extensive local color for contemporary South Africa. There are rough patches, but it's a perfectly enjoyable specimen of this type of novel. It's obviously the set-up for a series, and I'm not sure I need to follow these characters, but I would be happy to read more by Snyman.

  bactra.org

Bulgarian-born writer and founder of The Marginalian (formerly Brain Pickings), a reader-funded blog on books, science, art and philosophy running since 2006.

• Lovedaffiliate linkrcmnd.app

  Notes on Complexity: A Scientific Theory of Connection, Consciousness, and Being

  Their words

  the Buddhist scientist Neil Theise endeavors to bridge the mystery out there with the mystery of us

  themarginalian.org

Statistician at Carnegie Mellon; writes on complex systems, machine learning and inference, and has kept a books-read notebook since 2000 that is now thousands of entries long.

• Likedaffiliate linkrcmnd.app

  Palm Beach Finland

  Their words

  Mind candy: black comedy crime fiction / murder mystery, in rural Finland. I enjoyed both the comic darkness and the convincing happy endings all around. (At least, happy by the characters' own lights...) My first Tuomainen, but I'd read more if they crossed my path and I was in the right mood.

  bactra.org

Biochemist at University College London; writes about the origin of life and the role of energy in evolution, in The Vital Question and Transformer.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  The Cambrian explosion is no longer much of a mystery; the big mystery left in biology is consciousness.

  Their words

  I don’t think there’s a big mystery. There’s lots of details that need to be filled in. The big mystery in biology is consciousness.

  youtube.com