Some big news @USDResponse & for me personally - today we launch our search for our next CEO, and in Dec I'll be transitioning from full-time to an org advisor. This is the best team & mission imaginable. You should apply. usdigitalresponse.org/press-…

📢@CodingItForward is seeking mentors to support early-career technologists for Summer 2026. If you have 3 years of full-time public interest tech experience, help us uplift the next generation! Apply by Friday, May 15 docs.google.com/document/d/1…

Listened to an education talk where they said they focused on limiting student device use while walking the halls/campus and that change alone led to so many more nourishing interactions. Wondering how that would feel at a city scale. A “no devices en route” intervention?

love the idea of hosting a community-wide baby shower to connect people with resources, as featured in today's @newhavenindy newhavenindependent.org/2025…

september is a month for poems and for otherwise poets.org/poem/otherwise

The work to be done in this world is so interesting and meaningful. Some days I can’t believe we get to do it.

must read @pahlkadot, featuring @MattMahanSJ "I want to find the politicians who are reforming the machinery of government so that it actually works, describe how they spend their time..and how they conceive of their jobs that’s different from others." eatingpolicy.com/p/better-po…

So this is a great question. State capacity is an annoying political science term, and classically the definition is something like “a state’s ability to achieve its goals.” If you’re assessing early states, you’re asking a couple basic questions about state capacity: - Can they collect taxes? Or grain? - Can they muster men for an army? If they can, they have “high state capacity” in those domains. As you get closer to the present day, states try to do more things, so you’re measuring the state’s “capacity” to do those things: like providing a social safety net, or to regulate a given market. It often implies a particular focus on implementation. The king says, “Let it be done.” Okay. Now what? How does “it” actually get “done”? Also, state capacity gets used in the modern day to talk about governance generally, at multiple levels. Although NYC is a city, you could talk about the fact that trash gets dumped out on the street as a failure of state capacity. State capacity is a pretty contestable term, obviously. Do we want more state capacity? For most people, it depends on the domain: maybe you want the state to be better at deporting people who are here illegally, but worse at regulating crypto. Or vice versa. I write statecraft.pub for a couple reasons. For one, I’m just interested in how policy actually happens. I think the stories of the people who are told by Congress or the President “go do this thing” can actually be quite fascinating. But I’m also pretty convinced that a lot of things people think are problems with policy are actually problems with state capacity. Often, the American people have tasked the government with doing something, and we just don’t do it very well, because we haven’t built a system that would be able to do it well. So the project is an attempt to figure out if that’s true — and how we can fix American state capacity if it is.

⏰ The application for our summer 2025 Science & Technology Policy Fellowship closes tomorrow at 11:59pm PT! This full-time, paid opportunity introduces Fellows to real-world policy training and a tight-knit network. Don’t miss your chance to apply 👇: aspenpolicyacademy.org/Fello…

Hosting an annual reflection ritual for friends today for the 11th(!) yr. Repeated community is so forever precious.

5 days ago my friend forgot her fancy hot cocoa mix at my apartment. 4 days ago, I began a tradition of having a 3pm cup of hot cocoa each workday. …when do I tell her.

"We give because someone gave to us. We give because nobody gave to us."

Woolf was feeling it.

Sometimes, when the light

Ferries: the gift that never stops giving

"The information you gather through the motivation of being an actual actor in a system, as opposed to an observer, is distinct and often pronounced in its value." @allafarce, as usual daveguarino.substack.com/p/j… (worth sticking around for SNAP reddit system detangling at end)

.@keeshlauria just released fall apps for his Improvisational Indian Cooking Class: docs.google.com/document/d/1… He's one of the best teachers I've ever had. Posting here bc I can't keep track of all the people who wanted the link after hearing me rave this spring.