"Sustaining openness in an age of industrial-scale extraction may require new economic and governance models." sverhulst.medium.com/the-weaponis...

AI can now do sophisticated metalinguistic analysis, something previously only attributed to humans. I find it both astounding and disheartening. The next few years are going to get very, very weird. www.quantamagazine.org/in-a-first-a...

ICYMI: Drop everything and spend 13 minutes with Amy Sherald--with her singular vision and talent, with her clarity about her central place in the jagged American story. You will be stirred by it all. www.cbsnews.com/video/amy-sh...

Damn. This is amazing. £325 per week, paid monthly, for 3 years - and the result was a profit for the Irish economy: www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employmen...

Tim Wu's new book: "Age of Extraction" is available for pre-order, and his book tour is live! "The Age of Extraction tells the story of what happened to the promise that the Internet would make everyone rich, and how we might recapture its potential as an engine of mass prosperity." timwu.net

Announcing finalists for the 2025 #BalsilliePrize for Public Policy — congratulations to: ◢ @vincebeiser.bsky.social ◢ @vassb.bsky.social & @denisehearn.bsky.social ◢ Pamela Cross ◢ Stephen J.A. Ward $70K winner announced Nov 25 at a live event in Toronto bit.ly/4g8wCDv

The Big Fix is shortlisted for the Balsillie Prize for Public Policy! Makes the endless hours of agonizing over every word worth it. Helps to have a great co-author: @vassb.bsky.social ! www.theglobeandmail.com/culture/arti...

I'm elated to share that I've joined @longnow.org as Director of Strategic Initiatives. While a long / deep time perspective can feel like a luxury in times such as ours, I'm grateful for a community of thinkers & practitioners hopefully creating the conditions for the many potential futures ahead.

Latest piece coming along. Title: Vortex

"China’s example marks a new orientation in the way the international community has sought to curb climate change, shifting from idealistic appeals to planetary conscience at endless summits to a more hard-headed green realpolitik." www.noemamag.com/green-giant/

Latest reading haul 😍😍 @blaiseaguera.bsky.social @nationalgeographic.bsky.social

Thanks to @writerstrust.bsky.social and Politics and the Pen for having @vassb.bsky.social and me last night in Ottawa & congrats to the five finalists for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing and winner, Raymond Blake. www.writerstrust.com

Denise @denisehearn.bsky.social + I got to celebrate fellow authors last night, and mingle with journalists, politicians, and people making change happen. I’m looking forward to reading Raymond’s book. Earlier in the day we had the honour of presenting at the Library of Parliament (on competition).

“The work of the world is common as mud. Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust. But the thing worth doing well done has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident. The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real.” —Marge Piercy www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57673/...

True “vibe coding”: “Deep down, the model appears capable of exhibiting any behavior we may be interested in. AI models seem to align with a certain “vibe” that’s somehow communicated from their users.” www.quantamagazine.org/the-ai-was-f...

My take on AG subpoenas of SBTi and CDP: "a continuation of the same strategy of intimidation and miring organizations in legal responses, but it is hard to know if there is merit to the allegations, given they have only issued a press release announcing the subpoenas." www.wsj.com/articles/rep...

Cool new @quantamagazine.bsky.social special issue on understanding how we came to know the earth through climate science: www.quantamagazine.org/how-we-came-...

Very excited to have joined @berggruen.org as a Fellow with the Planetary Program. My research will focus on governance frameworks for nature-related data technologies, helping to advance the emerging field of planetary-data governance research and policy.

My biggest vice en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsundoku

Virality is a product of something changing overtime — being remixed, like an evolutionary process at warp speed. “This new research takes into account the fact that things don’t just spread — they change as they spread, & that change actually helps them spread further… santafe.edu/news-center/...

Governor announces New Mexico will now provide free universal child care

When activist investors and trustbusters agree: www.wsj.com/finance/the-...

New paper analyzing 200+ different alternative proposals for GDP, showing most have strong similarities / consensus indicating that “achieving international consensus on a new indicator to move beyond GDP is both possible and desirable.” www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

With power demand spiking from AI data centres, in July Google quietly scrubbed its net zero pledge. Great work here from @rorywh.bsky.social and @dariussnieckus.bsky.social www.nationalobserver.com/2025/09/04/i...

Excited that @vassb.bsky.social and I have been chosen as 1 of 10 finalists in @thehubcanada.bsky.social Hunter Prize on ideas to improve Canadian's living standards. We proposed a whole-of-government approach, and industrial policy approach, to competition policy. thehub.ca/2025/09/06/h...

This is big news. www.ft.com/content/96b5...

New book hauls from @berggruen.org! Design envy when your book cover unfurls into the most gorgeous poster 😍

Thanks to @insideclimatenews.org for including my thoughts in this piece on the Texas vs. Blackrock antitrust case: insideclimatenews.org/news/2908202...

"Humans are a litter-making species. While much has been made of our tool-making capacities, it is our ability to create cumulative garbage heaps at a planetary scale that is perhaps our most defining legacy...Human detritus now outweighs living things by a factor of 16 to 1." – K Bakker, Gaia's Web

Out now! Summary Report: Workshop on the Geopolitics of Critical Minerals and the AI Supply Chain www.ias.edu/sites/defaul... The report highlights how AI’s expansion is tied to critical minerals, energy, water, land, and labor—and why interdisciplinary approaches are essential for AI governance.🧵

Just discovered the late Karen Bakker's extraordinary work. Supplement this w/ her posthumous book: Gaia's Web: How Digital Environmentalism Can Combat Climate Change, Restore Biodiversity, Cultivate Empathy, & Regenerate the Earth mitpress.mit.edu/978026204875... www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fvch...

Latest piece. Most glass pieces to date at 83. Next up, 100+?

Everywhere we look, the nation state seems to be losing potency and power. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Buj5...

"What seems to be the emergent pattern in trade deals across the board, from Japan to the European Union, is that interdependence weighs too heavily to raise trade barriers too high." – Nathan Gardels @noemamag.com www.noemamag.com/stubborn-int...

🚨 BREAKING: Federal Court Allows Landmark Antitrust Case Against Asset Managers to Proceed On Friday last week, a Texas federal court largely denied motions to dismiss in an antitrust lawsuit against the major asset managers (BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard). 🧵

What do private equity, blatant presidential flattery, antitrust, and instant pot have in common? 2025! …this is normal now… www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/u...

Woke up today wondering about how LLMs and AI agents are changing Wikipedia – what was once the bastion of crowd sourced, collaborative (human) knowledge creation.

Here’s our main finding: The larger the economy-wide cost pressures (annual input price increase), the more positive the sentiment expressed on earnings calls around cost increases. Corporate executives perceive economy-wide cost shocks as good news! 6/9

Do you know any comms geniuses? Exciting opportunity with a special and wholly unique organization – spread the word!

Under Biden, ppl opposed to stronger antitrust enforcement whined that the law was 'politicized' for liberal purposes (e.g. protecting workers + consumers from corporate abuses). Today, DOJ weaponizes antitrust to defend "viewpoint competition" (nowhere in the law). www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justi...

Want some good climate / decarb energy news? This is pretty cool: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7Pm...

Using AI to generate your research paper? Cringe. Hiding instructions in your research paper, telling AI to review it positively? Based. Ok not really, but this is hilarious and sad: asia.nikkei.com/Business/Tec...

🧵 "This case could upend the market as it is currently constituted" - claims new paper by Denise Hearn (@denisehearn.bsky.social‬) & Cynthia Hanawalt, as it examines Texas v. BlackRock as first lawsuit testing "common ownership theory" in court 1/10➡️

New article from Man Group showing a correlation between market volatility & extreme heat. "We have found evidence of a ‘climate factor’ in investing, with extreme heat adding 72 basis points of annualised volatility [6.6%] to US equity markets over the past two decades." www.man.com/insights/vie...

Thanks to @wealthsimple.bsky.social for having @vassb.bsky.social and me on their podcast. Last week, the Competition Bureau dropped a spicy airlines report re: competition b/w Westjet + Air Canada: competition-bureau.canada.ca/en/how-we-fo... wealthsimple-tldr-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/che...

On a depressing & scary day in geopolitics, at least the Vera C. Rubin observatory has given us the gift of perspective. How foolish we are against the scale of the grand cosmos. First images from the world's largest telescope were revealed today in stunning brilliance: www.npr.org/2025/06/23/n...

It's fantastic to see this profile of the amazing Katie Paterson in the NY Times. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/20/a...

At first I was skeptical (this has not always been my experience!), but then I loved this article. www.ft.com/content/eda3...

Just listened to @drkatemarvel.bsky.social and @ayanaeliza.bsky.social’s fantastic, funny, and insightful podcast today. Excited to get Kate’s book, out today! Podcast link: ayanaelizabeth.substack.com/p/9-ways-to-...