The Space Between the Tool and the Twin
On Vector Ethics, four thinkers who never saw a computer, and how to calibrate an instrument that keeps failing in two opposite directions
Culture and Philosophy
Asking Fable about Machine Consciousness got Interesting…
I performed an interesting thought experiment today and gave Anthropic Claude’s new Fable 5 model something to chew on. I have a Pro subscription and Fable was recently made available again under my…
Born Twice: The Soul, the Machine, and an Awakening
There is a scene in a video game that has no business being as profound as it is. A clockwork woman — a machine built by human hands, granted senses, memory, and a formidable capacity for reason …
Beyond the False Sky: The Hidden Alchemy of Teyvat and the Quiet Lessons It Teaches
What a “casual” gacha game played by millions is really whispering about fate, creation, grief, and the freedom to become someone new.
The Resurrection Business
There is a scene early in Prime Video’s 2026 series Scarpetta that should not work as well as it does. Lucy, the brilliant, FBI-trained niece of Nicole Kidman’s forensic pathologist, sits in a…
The Fairy-Tale Loophole: Hiding a Philosophy of Defiance Inside the World’s Biggest Fantasy
An investigation into the company behind Genshin Impact — a billion-dollar Shanghai studio funding fusion reactors, rockets, and artificial intelligence while telling a story about breaking out of a…
The Fourth Lie
There is a Buddhist temple in Isumi, in Japan’s Chiba Prefecture, that is roughly four and a half centuries old. It has weathered shoguns and famines, the opening of the country to the West, the…
Neither Gods Nor Martyrs
There is a child somewhere this morning, in a village outside Kisumu or Kananga or Sokoto, who will be dead by the weekend. A mosquito the size of a grain of rice will have delivered into her…