How AI creates a new ruling caste of “word magicians”

Paul Graham, the investor and Silicon Valley VC guy, wrote an essay about AI the other day in which he states the following: One of the strangest things you learn if you’re a writer is how many people have trouble writing. Doctors know how many people have a mole they’re … Keep reading

Is there any point to writing online anymore?

Word has it that J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, didn’t care for Frank Herbert’s Dune. “How could that be when these are two classics of nerd-dom?” shrieks a soyjak on reddit. I don’t know Tolkien’s precise reasons, but I can take a quick stab … Keep reading

The dilemma of the writer who must serve the braying crowd

On social media there’s a strange phenomenon of these accounts that brand themselves around “philosophy”. I saw one spamming up Substack this morning. What they do is take one- or two-line quotations and share them without comment. This baffles my inner philosopher. You can’t get anything from any serious thinker … Keep reading