A six-part series on conflict, state fragility, resource pressure, and the structures that keep turning local crises into regional ones. I have traveled through parts of the Middle East: Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, and Dubai. Travel does not make anyone an authority on a region this large or…
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How loops turn capable AI into practical work This is the first of a three-post series on AI as an operating system rather than only a conversational tool. This post explains loops and the six elements that make them useful. The next posts will examine digital twins—connected representations that can…
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Humanity has more options than collapse or denial. But every solution changes the system—and usually reveals the next bottleneck. On July 2, 2026, the PJM Interconnection—the largest U.S. power-grid operator—came close to breaking its all-time peak-demand record during an eastern heat wave. PJM activated emergency conservation measures, including a demand-response program…
Comments closedWhy studying abroad is infrastructure, not a vacation. This is the eighth post in a series on globalization, and the through-line has been simple. Nothing important gets built by one country alone. A Short History of Human Interdependence traced how far back that dependence runs. The Economics of Why explained why two countries both…
Comments closedWhy a richer developing world is in everyone’s interest In 1990, about 2.3 billion people lived in extreme poverty. By 2025 that figure had fallen to roughly 830 million (World Bank, 2025), even as the world added more than two and a half billion people along the way (UN World…
Comments closedOr: what we actually mean when we say “AI” in 2026. In November 2022, ChatGPT reached one hundred million users in two months, faster than any product in history. Today, that chatbot is the simplest thing AI does. When most people picture AI, they picture a chat window: type a…
Comments closedIt’s the topology, not the geography Post 4 of a series on globalization, concentration, and strategic de-risking. On July 19, 2024, a flawed software update from a single cybersecurity vendor, CrowdStrike, took roughly 8.5 million Windows machines offline in about two hours: Hospitals turned away patients. Delta cancelled thousands of flights and…
Comments closedWe have always traded across distances. The hard questions are not whether, but on whose terms, and for whose benefit. Post 2 of a series on globalization, concentration, and strategic de-risking. See the first post on Substack here. Early on… Archaeologists found obsidian tools at Çatalhöyük, a Neolithic settlement in central…
Comments closedInterdependence is inescapable. Pretending otherwise may make things worse. On Friday, April 17, U.S. crude oil fell 11.4 percent in a single day. The trigger was one sentence from Iran’s foreign minister: the Strait of Hormuz, closed since February’s conflict, would briefly reopen to commercial vessels. The next day, Iran…
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