The TL
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In the second episode of the RETURN podcast, Nic Carter sat down with Executive Editor Jon Stokes to discuss the crackdown on crypto ecosystems and Operation Chokepoint 2.0.
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In a fascinating conversation, Balaji Srinivasan sits down with Vitalik Buterin to discuss the history of Ethereum and what a perfect country would look like for him.
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Digital sovereignty is important, but there are times when it’s ok to let it take a back seat to growth.
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In the inaugural podcast for RETURN, Editor Jon Stokes sat down with Brantly Millegan to discuss faith, getting canceled, and the history and future of the Ethereum Name Service.
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Balaji Srinivasan’s new book, The Network State, lays out a speculative roadmap for the formation of a new kind of political entity — an online community with its own laws and commerce that eventually grows and evolves to the point where it can acquire land and some of the other hallmarks of what we think of […]
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The fact that all these disparate people are interfacing with the same Mecha-Niskanenzilla bred in a lab by an EA macropolycule is just a weird artifact of the present moment.
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I’ve been tracking the trials and tribulations of a project called Unstable Diffusion — this is essentially an effort to take the Stable Diffusion code and train a model that can generate “erotic imagery.” In other words, porn, though the project’s backers are careful to position the effort as appealing to other than prurient interests.…
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Looking back on 2022, I expect Twitter’s acquisition will be seen as a turning point in political history. Until this, digital platforms were treated primarily as “tech” companies. Elon Musk recognized that Twitter is effectively a layer of government. While Musk’s experience is not in this sort of governance, he is probably a far more…
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There’s an online game I find myself playing way too much of, and I hate it. I would love to never play this game again, but its existence is a consequence of the deep structure of social media, so if I’m going to argue about things on the internet then playing it is unavoidable. I…
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Don’t tell my mom, but sometimes I circumvent paywalls on articles. I’ll tell you a reliable way to do so later on in this little blurb. But first, I know what you’re thinking, the good little Kantian that you are, “What if we universalized that maxim, Mason? How would writers make a living?” And that’s…
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I see the circle game, but you see a white supremacist hand sign. I see a good-faith disagreement between two deeply held positions, but you see a mask that has finally slipped to reveal the grifter beneath. I see a successful move-fast-and-break-things entrepreneur with an impossibly successful track record of moving fast and breaking things, but you…
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“How to Avoid Another War?” It’s a bit late for that. But Henry Kissinger is not done effort posting. No one will listen to his plea for a full-dress late-twentieth-century pathway to peace, from ceasefires to negotiations to internationally supervised referendums. Certainly not Moscow. “Russia would disgorge its conquests thence”? Nyet. But he’s not writing for…
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Enough time has passed since the ascendance of the “literary brat pack” that we might be able to reorient its parts more accurately. Because they came at the same time in the 1980s, wrote about the same kinds of people, shared the same publishers, and caroused in the same clubs, the media made a diversified…
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Scene: Television studio for a public broadcasting talk show. A HOST, in a dark suit and a warm and earnest expression, sits at a circular table across from a large ROBOT wearing a bandana over its glassy top. HOST: Good evening, viewers. My guest tonight is the TITAN 9000, the latest operating model of a verbal processing AI unit made…
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When you survey the state of your life, spending Saturday night watching five movies straight and making consistent progress on a $13 12-pack, you think yourself a modern-day Caligula. Yes, Caligula would live this way if he were alive in 2021 AD and not 21 AD. Caligula would wear high-top Chuck Taylors holding onto dear…
