Announcing my first book, with my style of longform narrative journalism and philosophy @wwnorton. It's about the clash between governing by top-down rules versus discretionary decision-making, in law, in sports, in the household. Pre-order now.

Ever wonder how many meanings "room temperature" can have? No? Then this post isn't for you. This is what I was working on a decade ago but never finished to start a podcast.

I was on the Chasing Leviathan podcast talking about Fewer Rules, Better People.

Writing a trade book in philosophy is thinking that you can advertise with a nice looking flyer an eight hour monologue featuring only your thoughts, and betting at least 20,000 people will buy a ticket for $35.

Hua Hsu writes about the end of the college essay in the New Yorker, with an appearance by both my wife and I. The End of the Essay

In person, Robert Krulwich is exactly like he was on the radio. Really entertaining. A force of nature. I can’t believe how lucky I’ve been to meet my media heroes.

This week I learned that the cure for all anxiety is to “just let them”, and I gotta say I’m not blown away.

What do the Rise of Skywalker and McMansions have in common with Derek Parfit? I wrote about whether the academic philosophy publishing model creates a "too many cooks in the kitchen" problem.

Watching 12, hour long episodes of Andor, and then watching Rogue One, is actually a good lesson in the strengths and weaknesses of on-demand self-curated media and legacy media. It’s the difference between YouTube versus cable, streaming versus network, Substack versus.

Urte L. has a piece at Aeon!

Graham Parsons on the PBS News Hour about the use of military troops for domestic law enforcement.

Teaming up with @felixsalmon to talk about the GOP budget and how philosophy can help you understand it.

Why do players of games not use winning strategies like the underarm serve in tennis, the granny shot in basketball, or “pattern fighting” in Street Fighter II. I wrote about taboos in fames and what they say about the limits of rational self-interest.

Publishing a nonfiction book in the last five months was going to be tough for anyone to get any press attention, but I didn’t expect that what people really wanted to read about was how Biden was old and senile and stubborn.

When three drunk philosophers start talking completely honestly about why their PhD programs exist…I’m always the sober one….

Just explained to my wife, who has never fired a gun, what Nate Dogg had to do to have sixteen in the clip and one in the hole. She finally recognized just how much planning had to be done well in advance to make some bodies turn cold.

Woah, big news in podcasting! @marcmaron is calling it quits on WTF. One of the OGs recognizes the reality of burn out!

Too many moving parts to say anything general about whether this is "an issue." Are American kids who want to go to college not getting in anywhere because foreign students take their place? No. Are plenty of elite American kids not in elite colleges? Probably.

I think the jury is still out on whether legacy media editors or reader’s subscription dollars have a more pernicious effect on a writer’s creative autonomy and free thinking.