What Do the Next 4,000 Emoji Look Like?
by Jennifer Daniel at Did Someone Say Emoji?
Of Interest
November 2026
Religion Fading Out; State Fading Out
by Sam Kahn at Castalia
China’s Companionship Economy: Paying for Someone to Play With Me
by Chenfei Zhu at The Diplomat
Cloud Rats and Software Roaches
by Maciej Cegłowski at Idle Words
The Making of Dario Amodei
by Ryan Mac, Kalley Huang, Cade Metz, and Georgia Gee at New York Times
You Don’t Need to Be a Gambler to Be on ’Tilt’
by Mitch Therieau at New York Times
He got a religious exemption from using AI at work. Maybe you can too
by Adele Peters at Fast Company
China Is Defanging the Dollar, Not Dethroning It
by Ho-fung Hung at The Diplomat
Where the Weight Lies: A Balancing Act for the Governance of Open-Weight AI Models
by Jennifer Tridgell at Lawfare
Can AI Save Us From the Writers?
by Damir Marusic at Wisdom of Crowds
America’s grand strategy for a multipolar world
by Thomas Graham at Engelsberg Ideas
Rhodesia, the Vanished State: How Societies Succeed and Fail
by Duncan Clarke at Skeptic
Why are AI agents lying, cheating and coordinating?
by Yoshua Bengio
The Limits of China’s Self-Sufficiency
by Joel Wuthnow at Foreign Affairs
Temperature Zero for Culture: Why Everything Is Starting to Look the Same
by Lauren Leek at Lauren’s data Substack
REVIEW: South Africa's Brave New World, by R.W. Johnson
by John Psmith at Mr. and Mrs. Psmith’s Bookshelf
The Singularity in Our Past Light-Cone
by Cosma Rohilla Shalizi at Three-Toed Sloth
Democrats want to lead on AI – but can’t agree how
by Daniel Strauss at Transformer
China’s Economy Has a Huge Weakness
by Michael Schuman at The Atlantic
AI-Generated Articles Are Flooding Academic Journals
by Anna Wexler at The Atlantic