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Writer and climate campaigner; wrote The End of Nature in 1989, founded 350.org and Third Act, and writes The Crucial Years.

From one piece The Two Horsemen, Riding in Formation 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

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  Opposition to AI data centers is driven partly by resistance to concentrated corporate power, not only by local environmental concerns.

  data centers

  Their words

  it was a chance to stand up to the oligarchs and this technology they've staked their future on.

  The Two Horsemen, Riding in Formationbillmckibben.substack.com

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Politicians routinely underestimate how much the public cares about climate and environmental issues.

  Their words

  politicians routinely underestimate the potency of this whole complex of issues.

  The Two Horsemen, Riding in Formationbillmckibben.substack.com

Technology writer of Spyglass, a newsletter about technology and media. Previously a reporter at TechCrunch and an investor at GV.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  A product's success depends on hardware and software working together, not hardware alone.

  Their words

  It's not just the hardware. It's the hardware and the software. This is just Apple running their old playbook to perfection.

  The Apple Event Smelled of a Rich Mahoganyspyglass.org

Forecaster, founder of FiveThirtyEight, author of The Signal and the Noise and On the Edge. Writes Silver Bulletin, where the predictions come with numbers and the numbers are later checked against what happened.

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  A 17-game NFL season with imbalanced schedules inherently introduces randomness no projection model can eliminate.

  Their words

  A projection model will never solve the problem that a 17-game NFL season with imbalanced schedules is inherently going to introduce a degree of randomness.

  Inside ELWAY’s 2026 NFL forecastnatesilver.net

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

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Eliminating paper-writing as a student assignment would remove a core skill needed for most professions requiring a graduate degree.

  Their words

  I am extremely concerned that this trend will eliminate paper-writing as an assignment, and that is a core function of most professions requiring a graduate degree.

  The Professor and the Plutocrat and AIdanieldrezner.substack.com

Writes Strange Loop Canon, on the intersection of technology, economics and business — "building models of the world to understand these problem areas and to define them better".

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  Ignorance is a permanent feature of complex, specialized societies rather than a problem that will eventually be solved.

  Their words

  Ignorance is not a temporary defect that we will eventually eliminate. It's the permanent burden of increasing specialisation and living in a complex world.

  Nobody Knows Anythingstrangeloopcanon.com

Writer and former Substack product manager; publishes essays and interviews on technology, culture and China at jasmi.news.

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  AI companies' pattern of NDAs, big promises, and pushing environmental costs onto poorer communities resembles dark-money capture of local politics more than a runaway-AI threat.

  Their words

  Rather, the way that AI companies engage with communities-forcing NDAs, dangling billion-dollar promises, pushing environmental externalities far away from AI's wealthy user base-resembles a classic story about dark money in politics.

  🌻 no data centers in my backyardjasmi.news

Co-founder and CEO of Stripe and co-founder of the Arc Institute. Keeps a personal site of reading lists, open questions and notes on scientific progress and how research is funded.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Many of the most successful companies of the last decade were built against the lean startup playbook, not with it.

  startups

  Their words

  many of the companies that were most successful over the last 10 years, so many of them are are very anti-lean startup, right? Uh whether it's, you know, the labs themselves or Anduril or um yeah, you you you you can go down the list. A lot of them have this characteristic.

  youtube.com

Co-founder of NVIDIA and, as of 2026, its chief executive; the company designs the GPUs most large AI models are trained on.

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  The narrative that AI destroys jobs is exactly backwards: AI automates tasks, and automation is creating jobs everywhere.

  Their words

  The evidence would show that and it makes perfect sense that AI and automation is creating jobs everywhere. The narrative about AI destroying jobs is exactly backwards. AI eliminate tasks. AI automates tasks away. But it doesn't necessary doesn't necessarily eliminate jobs.

  Jensen Huang: The Mindset That Built NVIDIAyoutube.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.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  When two truths conflict and both are hard to accept, people resolve the tension by discarding one of them.

  Their words

  Reality hands us two truths at once, and when we can't stomach both, we eliminate one.

  Cozy Summermariandrew.substack.com

Founder of HumanLayer; wrote 12-Factor Agents, on how to build AI agents that hold up in production.

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  If you want loop engineering, build one loop at a time and keep them small: every part of the agentic-factory playbook is good advice except the part where you stop reading the code.

  Their words

  if you want to do loops engineering, you should build one loop at a time and you should keep them small and contained. Basically, I think everything except stop reading the code is really good advice.

  Context engineering with Dex Horthyyoutube.com

Investor and writer. Previously a partner at Andreessen Horowitz and a product leader at Twitter, Facebook, Snap and Microsoft. Writes essays and memos at sriramk.com.

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  Eliminating the friction involved in writing is what matters most for a writer.

  Their words

  I find what is most precious is to eliminate the friction necessary to write.

  Back to writingsriramk.com

Programmer; wrote Extreme Programming Explained and Test-Driven Development, signed the Agile Manifesto, and writes Tidy First?.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  AI has wiped the senior engineer's playbook clean, and writing a playbook is a completely different skill from applying one.

  Their words

  Nobody knows now. That playbook has been wiped clean and people whose identity is I know the playbook are now terrified. Who who am I? Now, it turns out that the skill of writing a playbook is completely different than the skill of applying a playbook.

  youtube.com

Historian of maritime strategy at the US Naval War College; wrote The Wars for Asia and works on why continental and maritime powers fight differently.

From one piece Sarah Paine - Why Putin and Xi can't escape geography 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

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  The maritime world does not try to eliminate a rogue state; it aims only to contain the problem at an acceptable cost.

  Their words

  This world is not about the operational win of totally eliminating a problem. It's rather it's containing it at acceptable cost.

  youtube.com

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  The continental playbook is to take your neighbours one at a time — destabilise the rising, ingest the failing, wait to pounce — and that is Putin's game.

  Russia

  Their words

  You set them up to fail, you destabilize the rising, you ingest the failing, and you set up buffer zones in between, and you await the opportune moment to pounce and absorb. This is Vladimir Putin's game.

  youtube.com

Builds developer tools — SST, and now OpenCode at Anomaly. Posts constantly on x.com and writes almost never; the blog stopped in 2021.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Before product-market fit, coding faster does not help: it is better to think a lot than to swing a lot, and AI does not speed up the thinking.

  Their words

  But I've always thought it's better to think a lot instead of swinging a lot. I think you could you can eliminate a lot of ideas or directions just by, you know, spending a lot of time in your head and with your team talking. Um, obviously AI doesn't speed that part up.

  Building OpenCode with Dax Raadyoutube.com

Freelance climate and energy analyst in Oslo, writing on Europe, the US and Australia; worked in the Australian renewables industry before that.

From one piece Why Anthropic’s ultra-dirty deal shouldn’t surprise you at all 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there

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  The environmental harm caused by data centres comes from how the industry chooses to build them, not from anything inherent to computing infrastructure.

  data centers

  Their words

  there is nothing fundamentally inherent to the concept of a building full of computers that causes choking air pollution, water impacts and climate change.

  ketanjoshi.co

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  Anthropic does not meaningfully prioritize climate, environmental, or air pollution concerns despite its public image.

  Anthropic

  Their words

  It was already clear a while ago that Anthropic mostly do not care about climate, environment or air pollution in any material way, even if they care a little bit more about bad PR than Elon Musk does.

  ketanjoshi.co

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  Panic and impatience in the industry, not the technology itself, are what drive the worst environmental harms of the data centre boom.

  data centers

  Their words

  The fundamental drivers of this change are panic and impatience, and that is what is behind the worst impacts of data centre growth, including a material risk to decarbonisation and climate action.

  ketanjoshi.co

Writes Pedestrian Observations on public transit and why infrastructure costs what it does; a pure mathematician by training, comparing how different countries build.

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  Environmental cost-benefit analyses systematically understate what a new metro line is worth, because most of the driving it displaces happens elsewhere on the network.

  Their words

  This, in turn, creates serious estimation problems for the diversion rate, which is why environmental benefit-cost analyses underrate the effect of urban rail construction.

  pedestrianobservations.com

Data scientist at Our World in Data and author of Not the End of the World. Writes By the Numbers, working through energy and climate questions with the numbers in front of them, and revising in public when they say something unexpected.

• Recommendsrcmnd.app

  Meat: How the Next Agricultural Revolution Will Transform Humanity’s Favorite Food—and Our Future

  Their words

  If you’re interested in the environmental impacts of our current food system and want to dig into the opportunities for meat-like products without the animals (and their impacts), I really recommend it.

  hannahritchie.substack.com

Entrepreneur and founder of Blueprint. Publishes a detailed, freely available longevity protocol documenting the food, supplements, devices and measurements he uses on himself.

• Recommendsrcmnd.app

  Eight Sleep

  Their words

  Consider using a noise machine to offset environmental sounds or earplugs if necessary. Temperature controlled mattresses such as Eight Sleep are great.

  protocol.bryanjohnson.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.

• Recommendsaffiliate linkrcmnd.app

  The Lean Product Playbook

  Their words

  , with lots of tactical advice and techniques for putting lean methodologies into practice.

  bringthedonuts.com

Novelist, author of twelve books including Foundry, Bandwidth and Cumulus. Sends a newsletter of monthly book recommendations.

• Lovedrcmnd.app

  Playground

  Their words

  Playground by Richard Powers is a strange and wonderful novel set (mostly) on a remote atoll in French Polynesia that follows the tangled lives of an environmental advocate, a sculptor, a tech entrepreneur, and a brilliant bookworm trying to escape the grinding poverty of Chicago's South Side. The richly drawn characters drive the story, but what I love most about the book is that it's a love letter to the ocean with prose that comes closer than anything else I've read to capturing what it feels like to, for example, dive a thriving coral reef.

  eliotpeper.substack.com

Data scientist at Our World in Data and author of Not the End of the World. Writes By the Numbers, working through energy and climate questions with the numbers in front of them, and revising in public when they say something unexpected.

From one piece Can we break the human development-environment trade-off? 3 beliefs, in the piece's order there

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  Humans have never been sustainable: earlier generations had a lower environmental impact and lives that were much worse.

  Their words

  By this broader definition, humans have never been truly sustainable.

  sustainabilitybynumbers.com

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  For the first time in history it is possible to improve human wellbeing and reduce environmental impact at the same time.

  Their words

  My argument is simple: for the first time in history, we can improve human wellbeing while reducing our environmental impact.

  sustainabilitybynumbers.com

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  Cheap clean energy has broken the old trade-off between raising living standards and cutting environmental harm.

  energy

  Their words

  The rapid drop in renewable energy costs in the last decade (alongside huge improvements in battery technologies) has started to break this deadlock.

  sustainabilitybynumbers.com

Founder of Terraform Industries and formerly a physicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory; writes about energy, space and manufacturing.

From one piece China is killing the US on energy. Does that mean they’ll win AGI? — Casey Handmer 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

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  Tariffs are beside the point in the energy race with China; what is actually costing America is environmental regulation, and Texas is out-deploying California ten to one because of it.

  energyChinaAmerica

  Their words

  In terms of things that are causing us to lose to China, tariffs are neither here nor there because, as we've discussed, we're not sensitive to cost on power. But the environmental regulations that are actively preventing us from deploying renewable energy in the United States, like this is the reason Texas is winning. Texas is out deploying California 10 to1.

  youtube.com

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  China's advantage in solar manufacturing is neither cheap labour nor a friendlier business environment: the first is gone and the second was never true.

  solarChina

  Their words

  so the mainstream view would say, well, China has cheaper labor, which is no longer true, uh, say compared to Mexico, and it's got lower environmental regulations, uh, which is true, and that it is more businessfriendly, which is absolutely crazy.

  youtube.com

Co-founder and CEO of OpenAI; previously president of Y Combinator.

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  AI will eliminate whole classes of jobs, but the wealth it creates will make policy responses affordable that were previously unthinkable.

  AI and jobs

  Their words

  There will be very hard parts like whole classes of jobs going away, but on the other hand the world will be getting so much richer so quickly that we’ll be able to seriously entertain new policy ideas we never could before.

  The Gentle Singularityblog.samaltman.com

Data scientist at Our World in Data and author of Not the End of the World. Writes By the Numbers, working through energy and climate questions with the numbers in front of them, and revising in public when they say something unexpected.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  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

  Unless you’re an extreme power user, asking AI questions every day is still a rounding error on your total electricity footprint.

  What's the carbon footprint of using ChatGPT?hannahritchie.substack.com

Independent AI policy researcher; led policy research at OpenAI from 2018 to 2024, latterly as senior adviser for AGI readiness.

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  AI will eliminate many millions of jobs within the next few years, and that disruption will shape the politics of everything else about AI.

  Their words

  I’m quite confident that AI will eliminate many millions of people’s jobs in the next few years.

  milesbrundage.substack.com

Historian at Stanford and the Hoover Institution; wrote Milton Friedman: The Last Conservative and Goddess of the Market, on Ayn Rand.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Friedman and Schwartz's account of the Great Depression became the Federal Reserve's permanent playbook, because no Fed chair wants to be the villain of the sequel.

  interest rates

  Their words

  Friedman and Schwartz becomes the playbook for the Federal Reserve. We have lived through this, the financial crisis. The Federal Reserve is ready to loan. Covid, the Federal Reserve does all kinds of new things, because no Federal Reserve chair wants to be in Friedman-Schwartz 2.0 that somebody writes, where they're the bad guy who let the economy meltdown.

  youtube.com

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

• Our readingkorrents.com

  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

Structural engineer and senior infrastructure fellow at the Institute for Progress; writes Construction Physics on why physical things cost what they cost.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  Fabs take roughly a third longer to build in the United States than in Asia, largely because of environmental review.

  America

  Their words

  Fab construction time in the US has increased from just over 650 days on average in the 1990s to over 900 days on average in the 2010s, compared to around 600-700 days in Asian countries, in part because of increasingly stringent environmental review processes.

  How to Build a $20 Billion Semiconductor Fabconstruction-physics.com

President of the French Republic since 2017.

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  Europe cannot keep the world's strictest environmental and social rules, invest less than its competitors and run a more naive trade policy, and still expect to create jobs.

  Europe

  Their words

  We cannot sustain the most stringent environmental and social norms, invest less than our competitors, have a more naive trade policy than them and think that we will continue to generate jobs. This no longer holds together.

  elysee.fr