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Writes Slow Boring, a near-daily newsletter on American politics and public policy; co-founded Vox in 2014 and left it in 2020.

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  Major historical events do not necessarily have deep intellectual or ideological causes; assuming so is a common fallacy.

  Their words

  But I think this impulse to gild the lily and attribute the rise of Hitler to deep intellectual trends is an example of a pretty common fallacy of assuming that an incredibly important world event must have incredibly important roots.

  How to stop Hitlerslowboring.com

Economist at George Mason University, co-author of Marginal Revolution, host of Conversations with Tyler. Writes in short, dense claims about economics, culture and AI, and has moved position on AI in public more than once.

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  Relative to historical norms, the market is not pricing any major change in cybersecurity.

  Their words

  But the crucial point is that, relative to the historical norm, the market is not really pricing ANYTHING big to change.

  Callum Williams on cybersecurity pricesmarginalrevolution.com

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

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  Reading literature from a vastly different historical culture requires explanatory context, without which its characters can feel completely unrelatable.

  Their words

  The footnotes are critically important if you want to understand a world so completely different from the one we live in, and the characters generally behave, think, and feel in ways that are so outdated as to be completely unrelatable.

  Your Book Review: The Tale Of Genjiastralcodexten.com

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

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  Modern amygdalectomy techniques are as far removed from historical lobotomies as a smartphone is from an electrical telegraph.

  Their words

  modern amygdalectomy is as different from lobotomy as your smartphone is different from an electrical telegraph

  Absurd Adventure And Amygdalectomy Advocacyastralcodexten.com

Dutch bootstrapper who builds and runs their internet startups alone — Nomads.com, Remote OK, Hoodmaps, Photo AI and Interior AI — and has written about it at levels.io since 2013. Posts as @levelsio.

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  AI video can now be generated faster than you can watch it.

  Their words

  Today is a very historical moment for AI video generation You can now generate AI video faster than you can watch it Before it'd take let's say 2-5 minutes to generate 15 seconds of video @fal made a post-trained Minimax H3 variant called Max which is 50x faster than the original but still maintains quality It generates 15 seconds of video in 9 seconds!

  levels.io

Climate scientist and energy systems analyst; writes The Climate Brink with Andrew Dessler and leads climate research at Stripe.

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  The historical occurrence of extreme natural events does not by itself show whether their odds have changed over time.

  Their words

  But the existence of old events tells us nothing about whether the odds are changing, and heat waves happened in 1900 too (just less frequently).

  theclimatebrink.com

Epidemiologist; founded Your Local Epidemiologist in March 2020 to translate public-health science, and consults for organisations including the CDC.

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  Defunding public health surveillance systems allows foodborne disease outbreaks to go undetected.

  Their words

  When the public health systems meant to catch and stop this stuff are cut (less funding, less staff, less historical knowledge, and less leadership), outbreaks can, and will, emerge between the cracks.

  yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com

Non-fiction writer, podcaster and occasional TV host. Author of thirteen books including The Ghost Map, Where Good Ideas Come From and Extra Life, host of the PBS series How We Got To Now, and author of the Adjacent Possible newsletter on innovation.

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  Some historical raiders destroyed conquered cities for destruction's own sake, not to seize land, treasure, or slaves.

  Their words

  The Sea Peoples did not invade lands to claim them as their own, or extract treasure or slaves to bring back to their homeland. They seemingly torched the great capitals of the Bronze Age just to watch them burn.

  The Uses Of Terroradjacentpossible.substack.com

Climate scientist and energy systems analyst; writes The Climate Brink with Andrew Dessler and leads climate research at Stripe.

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  Raw, unhomogenized daily temperature records understate modern extreme heat because of historical instrument and observation-time changes

  Their words

  Third, raw daily data is the wrong tool for this question. Time of observation changes and the 1980s switch to MMTS sensors both suppress modern hot day counts relative to the past, and the raw and homogenized series diverge almost exactly when the instrument transition happened.

  Hot days, cold thermometerstheclimatebrink.com

Investing columnist for The Wall Street Journal and editor of the revised edition of Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor.

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  Glorious Country

  Their words

  I loved this historical biography of America's greatest landscape painter, and not just because I have an intense personal interest in Church. Johnson's writing is luminously beautiful, her assiduous research never impedes the narrative, and the illustrations are spectacular.

  jasonzweig.com

American historian of Central and Eastern Europe and the Holocaust; author of Bloodlands, On Tyranny and On Freedom, and writer of the newsletter 'Thinking about...'.

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  The war in Ukraine will prove as historically significant in its outcome as the First World War was.

  Their words

  The war in Ukraine has now lasted longer than the First World War, and there is every reason to think that its outcome will be of comparable historical significance.

  Sky Defense: Bringing it Homesnyder.substack.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.

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  China's claims to its historical lands rest on the two dynasties in which the Han were themselves a subjugated people.

  China

  Their words

  And what's fascinating is today when China claims whatever its historical lands are, they either choose the Mongol Yuan Dynasty or the Manchu Qing Dynasty when the Han were subjugated people.

  youtube.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.

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  The Doxies Penalty

  Their words

  Mind candy: continuing Robins's series of historical mysteries set in a very-slightly-alternate Regency London. (I re-read the last one, Sleeping Partner, before turning to this.) Robins continues to be great and I hope that many more of these will flow from her pen.

  bactra.org

Founding member of OpenAI and former director of AI at Tesla; creator of nanoGPT and the term "vibe coding".

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  AI will let citizens make their governments legible and accountable, reversing the historical direction in which only states could read society.

  Their words

  Something I've been thinking about - I am bullish on people (empowered by AI) increasing the visibility, legibility and accountability of their governments.

  @karpathy on Xx.com

Non-fiction writer, podcaster and occasional TV host. Author of thirteen books including The Ghost Map, Where Good Ideas Come From and Extra Life, host of the PBS series How We Got To Now, and author of the Adjacent Possible newsletter on innovation.

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  The Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age framework names historical eras after the inorganic materials that happened to survive, not what those societies actually valued.

  Their words

  That now ubiquitous timeline names eras after the inorganic materials that happened to survive in the dirt.

  Back To The Gardenadjacentpossible.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.

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  Knowing that poverty and child mortality have actually fallen is what makes people think the future can improve.

  Their words

  Only 17% of those who got no correct answers on historical development changes thought the world would be better off. 62% of those with more than five correct answers did.

  sustainabilitybynumbers.com

Founder and CEO of SaaStr, the B2B software community and events business, and a SaaS investor who previously co-founded EchoSign and sold it to Adobe.

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  In many software categories more than half of all prospects are now in market at once, against a historical three to five percent.

  Their words

  So, add all that up, 5%. In many categories, we're north of 50% in market. So, that just totally changes.

  youtube.com

Geneticist and writer on human population genetics, deep history and evolution; author of the Unsupervised Learning newsletter.

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  Defenders of the Truth: The Battle for Science in the Sociobiology Debate and Beyond

  Their words

  Though written accessibly, Segerstrale’s narrative rewards repeat reading, because it is so dense with historical detail that remains relevant today.

  razibkhan.com

Co-founder and co-chairman of Oaktree Capital Management; author of the Oaktree memos.

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  If AI enthusiasm does not produce a bubble on the historical pattern, it will be the first transformative technology that did not.

  Their words

  If that enthusiasm doesn’t produce a bubble conforming to the historical pattern, that will be a first.

  Is It a Bubble?oaktreecapital.com

Founding member of OpenAI and former director of AI at Tesla; creator of nanoGPT and the term "vibe coding".

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  The best historical analogy for AI is not electricity or the industrial revolution but a new computing paradigm, because both are fundamentally about automating digital information processing.

  energy

  Their words

  AI has been compared to various historical precedents: electricity, industrial revolution, etc., I think the strongest analogy is that of AI as a new computing paradigm (Software 2.0) because both are fundamentally about the automation of digital information processing.

  @karpathy on Xx.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.

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  Inequality: A Genetic History

  Their words

  I think a great book could be written on all this. (Among other things, it should be catnip to anyone who wants to call themselves a historical materialist.) This book, however, is merely OK.

  bactra.org

Writer and former McKinsey/BCG strategy consultant; author of The Pathless Path and Good Work, about leaving the default career track. Publishes the Boundless newsletter and podcast.

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  The Great Work of Your Life: A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling

  Their words

  A nice personal + historical deep dive into finding your dharma by embracing both your gifts and limitations in service of something greater than yourself.

  pathlesspath.com

Founder and chief analyst of SemiAnalysis; reports on semiconductor supply chains, AI datacentre economics and what the chip export controls actually do.

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  The world has been at its most peaceful precisely when a single power was hegemonic, which is why the arrival of a second AI superpower is dangerous.

  Their words

  It's an objective fact that the world has been the most peaceful it's ever been when there are global hegemons, or regional hegemons in historical context. The Mediterranean was the most peaceful ever when the Romans were there.

  youtube.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.

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  At the Midway

  Their words

  Mind candy, historical creature-feature thriller: in which the US military, in the form of the very worst ship in Teddy Roosevelt's Great White Fleet, comes up against beasts which are not oversized plesiosaurs. (Exactly what they are instead would be a minor spoiler.) I have no idea how I found this online, but it's perfectly enjoyable as a specimen of the genre.

  bactra.org

Archaeologist of the Maya and the ancient Americas; directs the Maya Exploration Center and presents the ArchaeoEd podcast.

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  Graham Hancock's research is good; his conclusion that one lost civilization seeded all the others is not.

  Their words

  I do not believe Graham’s idea that a single, now lost ancient civilization seeded the rest of them. I just don’t see that on a number of levels, artifact wise, technology wise, art, historical analysis.

  youtube.com

Indian software developer working with React and TypeScript; writes and publishes a newsletter at sreetamdas.com.

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  Maccy

  Their words

  Maccy for lack of better words, a copy-paste manager? allows you to search through your historical copy-s, super helpful

  sreetamdas.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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  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

Historian of Ukraine at Harvard; wrote The Gates of Europe, Chernobyl and The Russo-Ukrainian War.

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  The war Russia is fighting in Ukraine is, in intellectual terms, the plan Solzhenitsyn formulated: a Russian nation state of Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians, and failing that, Donbas, Crimea and southern Ukraine.

  Russia

  Their words

  So in historical terms and intellectual terms, what is happening today in the war between Russia and Ukraine is the vision on one level or another level that was formulated by the noble laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, half Russian, half Ukrainian.

  youtube.com

Science fiction novelist, journalist and technology activist; writes the daily blog and newsletter Pluralistic, and coined the term enshittification.

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  Platform decay is the result of specific decisions by identifiable people rather than impersonal historical forces, which is precisely what makes it reversible.

  Their words

  I think that the enshittification framework goes a long way to explaining it, moving us out of the mysterious realm of the 'great forces of history,' and into the material world of specific decisions made by named people – decisions we can reverse and people whose addresses and pitchfork sizes we can learn.

  My McLuhan lecture on enshittificationpluralistic.net

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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  The United States is a historical rarity: after 1945 it could have taken the whole world without losing a soldier, and instead it rebuilt the countries it had defeated.

  America

  Their words

  After World War II, the US could have basically taken over the world in any country, we’ve got nukes, nobody else has got nukes. We don’t even have to lose soldiers. Which country do you want? And the United States could have taken over everything and it didn’t. And the United States actually helped rebuild countries.

  youtube.com

Historian of invention; writes Age of Invention on where the Industrial Revolution actually came from.

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  Historical myths are close to unkillable: once in print they keep being repeated for decades or centuries after being disproved.

  Their words

  Historical myths are especially zombie-like. Even when disproven, they just. won’t. die.

  ageofinvention.xyz

American novelist and critic, author of Real Life, The Late Americans and Minor Black Figures; writes the newsletter sweater weather on literature and culture.

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  Fellowship Point

  Their words

  There have been many novels written in historical modes this year, and I've hated all of them except Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark precisely because that novel feels vibrant and lively and full of characters and it reminds me of early 20th century literature.

  blgtylr.substack.com

Pseudonymous essayist. Writes at gwern.net on AI scaling, statistics, genetics and long-running internet research, with heavy citation and a habit of revising old essays in place rather than leaving them wrong.

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  The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

  Their words

  It was surprisingly unliterary and unpostmodern for Mitchell, but in exchange, he nailed the historical details and gave us an adventure which subverted many of the usual tropes

  gwern.net

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  The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography from the Revolution to the First World War

  Their words

  This is incredibly interesting because from our perspective, we have forgotten (if we ever knew) what went into the process of taking the thousands of villages and regions differing in all sorts of ways

  gwern.net

Ancient and military historian; writes A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, long series checking what history actually says against how popular culture tells it.

From one piece Collections: Why No Roman Industrial Revolution? 2 beliefs, in the piece's order there

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  Long-run GDP charts hide what matters: technologies are contingent and path dependent, so the same number can describe economies that work in entirely different ways.

  Their words

  All of which is why simple graphs of things like ‘global historical GDP’ can be a bit deceptive: there’s a lot of particularity beneath the basic statistics of production because technologies are contingent and path dependent.

  Collections: Why No Roman Industrial Revolution?acoup.blog

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  History has no predetermined path: its course turns on unpredictable contingencies rather than on deep currents that would have produced the same outcome anyway.

  Their words

  As much as we might want to imagine that the greater currents push historical events largely on a predetermined path with but minor variations from what must always have been, in practice events are tremendously contingent on unpredictable variables.

  Collections: Why No Roman Industrial Revolution?acoup.blog

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

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  The United States really is short several million homes, and the shortage shows up as a historically low vacancy rate rather than as too few homes per person.

  America

  Their words

  So, historical evidence suggests that the US is short at least several million housing units.

  Is There a Housing Shortage or Not?construction-physics.com

Co-founder of Netscape and of the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz. Argues at length for building things, mostly in short form.

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  Open access to information makes a closed information regime on the Soviet model fundamentally impossible to sustain.

  Their words

  it's like could you ever have another Soviet Union like in the era of the internet? Um you know North Korea's doing their damndest to try to maintain that model you know but without going full North Korea like I'm not sure you can. I I mean, I guess I'm an optimist on this point. Like I tend to think open access information basically makes a lot of these historical things, you know, fundamentally impossible.

  youtube.com

British novelist, author of the His Dark Materials and The Book of Dust trilogies.

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  Oxford historical thesaurus

  Their words

  Have you seen the Oxford historical thesaurus? Fantastic. It must be one of the last great books produced as a printed object.

  fivebooks.com

Ancient and military historian; writes A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry, long series checking what history actually says against how popular culture tells it.

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  The point of academic history is to put historical knowledge into the public’s hands so that the public can make better decisions with it.

  Their words

  I am going to contend that the primary purpose of the discipline of history is to foster greater historical knowledge in the public, in order that the public can use that knowledge (and the skills that come with it) to make better decisions.

  Collections: How Your History Gets Madeacoup.blog

Mathematician and Senior Lecturer in the Mathematics department at Columbia University. Author of the book Not Even Wrong and of the long-running physics blog of the same name.

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  Lectures of Sidney Coleman on Quantum Field Theory

  Their words

  David Kaiser has contributed an introduction to the book (available here , or, if this doesn't work, try here ) which does an excellent job of putting the material in historical and intellectual context

  math.columbia.edu

Cook and food writer specialising in Chinese cuisine; the first Westerner to train at the Sichuan Institute of Higher Cuisine, and author of Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper and Invitation to a Banquet.

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  Classic Food of China

  Their words

  Classic Food of China was really her great work, though. I think it was the last book she produced before she died, some years ago. It's one of the few really well-researched historical and cultural Chinese cookery books.

  fivebooks.com