From 2022: Newton invented calculus during a plague lockdown; Ken Thompson built UNIX in a week. Dwarkesh Patel @dwarkesh_sp on the prerequisites for genius

Every World Cup, someone says we'd dominate soccer if our best athletes played it. The science says they're looking at the wrong athletes. A dive into the physiology of soccer: substack.com/home/post/p-201…

Why is the fertility crisis so universal? I argue that there’s a human drive toward solitude, which technology and markets keep getting better at delivering. Here’s the evolutionary logic.

Ray Dalio on his method for building wealth: "Global macro investing—i.e., understanding what is going on in the world and testing your ability to navigate it by betting in the markets—is a very fun, enthralling, and rewarding game" raydalio.substack.com/p/why-…

Since Donald Trump returned to office, nearly all net new payroll jobs have gone to women. Are men losing the jobs race? @JustinWolfers dug into the data - here's what he found

The conventional wisdom is that Sweden has low income inequality because of taxes and transfers. But Sweden redistributes less than France or Germany. So how does it end up with a lower Gini? Arin Dube explains: "Sweden’s equality is built on the shop floor" arindube.substack.com/p/the-…

Why are false claims about AI data centers sticking, spurring widespread panic? @AndyMasley traces the errors back to their sources - including some claims "invented out of thin air" blog.andymasley.com/p/why-i-…

When I’m on my 17th hour of working on my 7,000-word definitive essay on esoteric Dungeons and Dragons lore

Productivity hack of the day

He's ready for corporate life

Today, I wrote about how if you're young and inexperienced, you have a high chance of developing negative or bitter feelings about the opposite sex based solely on content you see online--including some content not intended to be ragebait. Link in replies.

I absolutely loved this essay. There are a lot of cautionary points about a post-commodity, relational economy would look like, and I agree with all of them. But there is also well-argued optimism too. The closing paragraph in particular: “What we can say is that the relational economy does not have to be the “Nosedive” dystopia. A free and plural post-commodity future of work is possible. This world wouldn’t be a utopia but it might be one where a teenager at the back of a classroom could sense, correctly, that there is more than one way to exist and be fulfilled.”

make something heavy: workingtheorys.com/p/make-so…

what problem should you be working on now: henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/problem…

How this Meta engineer ships up to 40 PRs a day while rarely reviewing code - deep dive with video, from @petergyang's Behind the Craft creatoreconomy.so/p/how-this…

A fortnight ago, Vijay Gokhale observed that China sees Indian democracy as a long-term ideological problem. The Chinese commentary that followed went to lengths explaining why India does not matter, why Indian democracy is a curse, and why Indian aspirations exceed Indian means. That vehemence is a tell in itself. Indifference does not produce it. That India even manages to function at this scale, with this civilisational depth, absorbing its contradictions with a democratic polity, worries Beijing far more than it is willing to admit. Even after decades of neutralising democratic experiments in China's near abroad (read Hong Kong), the CCP has no template to explain India to its own citizens. A short breakdown of Beijing's anxiety in my Sharp for @SwarajyaMag — rb.gy/kmq1q7

Why did Scotland punch so far above its weight in the age of industrialisation and enlightenment? The usual answer is education. But I argue that this puts the cart before the horse, and that it was almost entirely down to capital: ageofinvention.xyz/p/age-of-…

Weekend Reading from @9others: 13th / 14th June 2026 Writing worth reading featuring @polinapompliano @William_Blake & @buccocapital

Here’s @katrosenfield on her viral essay about getting canceled when she was a YA author