On Monday, Hilary Allen explained how Silicon Valley Venture Capitalists turned “innovation” into a smokescreen for regulatory arbitrage—and how we underwrite this corrosive behavior by showering VCs with public subsidies. On Tuesday, Amy Kapczynski concluded our series on market p
Phillips's Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Hi All,Regular readers of this substack might have twigged that while I sympathize a great deal with the situation in which Volodymyr Zelensky finds himself,
fucking gorgeous coverTwo months from today, my first novel will be published by Coffee House Press. I'm very excited and very proud of the book. I've mentioned its origins before. Over the years I've been asked by many people to write a mental illness memoir, and in fact was told by someone at a ma
The latest on Trump's approval ratingUpdated August 7, 2025Donald Trump's approval rating has been holding relatively steady since the end of July. After hitting a second term low of -10.3 on the 22nd, Trump's net approval rebounded to -8.0 by the 25th. Where is Trump's net approval rating as of t
With the recent firing of Colbert and the coming end of The Late Show, the right has gone with the story that late night comedy has declined because it became too political. They see Colbert as another case of "Go Woke, Go Broke."I don't think such critiques make sense, as they seem to assume some o
I'm in Persuasion talking about the irrationality of stranger danger fears, and I was in The Times of London this past week writing about Zohran Mamdani. Please check them both out.New Jets quarterback and presumptive starter Justin Fields was carted off the practice field during training camp this
Google is following OpenAI, Anthropic and Amazon, and Microsoft to promote AI in education. Yesterday's conversation between Matt and Joseph Gordon-Levitt addressed the need for regulation. As Matt mentioned in his post on Monday, I've joined Slow Boring as a writing fellow! I'll be sharing more of
Nate Silver: This is Part II of II of our NBA Future of the Franchise rankings. And it's the fun part — the top half of the league1 — though we're still expecting some pushback from area codes such as 617 and 213.There's almost 6,000 words of analysis ahead, so I'll just recap the rules briefly. The
Last month, Tulsi Gabbard in her capacity as the head of DNI released a number of documents pertaining to Russiagate. On the right, an entire mythology has grown around the idea that the Obama administration, Hillary, and Deep State actors fabricated the idea that Russia helped get Trump elected, al
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If anyone has any recs for Hokkaido and Osaka in Japan or Seoul, Busan, and Gyung Ju, in Korea, let me know! Headed there for a three week trip starting Friday. Read more
[Adapted from this bluesky review thread]The world's population is still growing. Today there are over 8 billion people on the planet. Demographers estimate the world population will grow to 10 billion in the next five or so decades. And then it will peak. And then it will decline.The rate of popula
Next week, maybe, there might be a meeting between President Putin and President Trump. Once again, many people are speculating about the end of the war, what it would take for both sides to stop fighting. As it happens, this was the subject of a conversation I had a few weeks ago with a Russian jou
AI generated for more cheap irony purposesThe ChatGPT/LLM era is now old enough that the discourse cycle has gone round quite a few times, which means we now find ourselves in the metadiscursive phase, when half of the discourse is about the discourse. Since we're mostly all sitting around waiting f
Phillips's Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Hello All,Before I start into the weekend update, I have a personal announcement. My latest book, War and Power: Who Wins Wars And Why, is now one month from
I know Joseph Gordon-Levitt as an actor from the TV show Third Rock From The Sun and then later from his roles in everything from Ten Things I Hate About You to Brick, Looper, Lincoln, The Dark Knight Rises, and the Trial of the Chicago 7. Don Jon which he wrote, directed, and starred in back in 201
"heh, probably never expected to have a professor with full sleeve tattoos, huh? well, that's not the last time your mind's gonna be blown this semester..."I have a piece in the Times of London on Zohran Mamdani and what his victory in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary does and doesn't me
While sitting in my vacation home in Maine, I learned from Brian Potter's article on vacation homes that Maine is the state where the largest share of homes are seasonal residences — and it's not particularly close. This is a fact about the Maine housing stock, but it reveals a larger truth about th
Matsyanyaaya: Trump2.0 and India - the Avengers editionBig fish eating small fish = Foreign Policy in action—Pranay KotasthaneThe last time we discussed Trump 2.0 and India was in February, just ahead of the Indian PM's visit to Washington. At that time, the Indian government, anticipating Trump's t
Hey guys, sorry, the posting of discussion threads got a little messed up during the personnel transition. We'll get back on top of it. If you've got questions for this week's mailbag, this is the place to ask! Read more
After the US election last November, I changed my plans.For many years, I had been writing about America, Europe, Russia and Ukraine, describing and analyzing the breakdown of international norms, the spread of authoritarian propaganda, deliberate attempts to create refugees and violence. I knew tha
According to President Donald Trump, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is “not Jewish anymore.” Nor are Jewish Americans who vote for the Democratic Party. Nor are Jewish college students who oppose the Israeli government’s ongoing and intensifying genocide in Gaza. This rhetori
On July 9, 2025, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese became the latest target of unilateral U.S. sanctions. There has rightfully been much outrage at the Trump administration’s unprecedented move, both domestically and across the globe, including from the United Nations and other Special
A lot of redistricting talk lately — I drew this 8-0 Dem map of Maryland in Dave's Redistricting App. Read more
Phillips's Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Hi Everyone,I gave an interview to the New York Times recently that would have been unremarkable otherwise, had they not so carefully omitted mentioning Pola
For many readers of this blog, Uber represents a cautionary tale. While the company attributed its initial success to cutting-edge technology—such as dynamic pricing, matching algorithms, real-time data—subsequent analysis has demonstrated that its growth was largely driven by ignoring,
This is the latest in an occasional series called Writing Today, where I write about writing and media and publishing and the writing life in the 2020s. I was recently on the Changed My Mind podcast talking big think education stuff. Check it out.There's a certain image of the 2010s that I can't sha
"One of the most notable characteristics of any group developing towards domination is its struggle to assimilate and ideologically conquer traditional intellectuals — an assimilation and conquest which is all the more rapid and effective the more the given group simultaneously develops its own orga
The latest New York Times viral outrage story is a Catherine Pearson article looking at the trend of women who are "Weary of the Emotional Labor of 'Mankeeping'". Mankeeping, Pearson explains, is a term devised by Angelica Puzio Ferrara for "the work women do to meet the social and emotional needs o
Phillips's Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Note: Phil and Minna will do their next Substack Live tomorrow (Friday 1 August) at 2pm UK time, (3pm CET and 9am US East Coast Time). We will be covering US
The month of Augustus Caesar has arrived, which means that the Blog is officially on hiatus until the new school year. But before we hit the beach (library) and catch some rays (plan our fall schedule), a few brief announcements. A reminder that proposals for the inaugural ALPE Conference are due be
I'm going to start this post by describing two almost identical powers that existed one century apart. One of these powers had reached its relative position in 1900 and the other in 2000. These powers were both continent-spanning, with large populations, access to natural resources, excellent univer
People sometimes ask me how I manage to write so many articles about such a wide range of topics and the answer is (1) I've always written fast and (2) I have invaluable help from some amazing people. This is not directly relevant to work, but our editorial assistant Ben is the only person I've ever
As I wrote some seven ago in The American Interest, the integrity of government statistics is one of the essential foundations of democratic modernity. Systematically collected and disseminated government data — on inflation, employment, trade, demographics, weather, crime, pollution, traffic, pover
I love cooking from this guy's newsletter/instagram.ChuckEggplant Coconut AdoboEggplant Coconut Adobo...Read more14 days ago · 37 likes · 2 comments · Chuck Cruz Read more
Another day, another attempt to grab more power Read more
Like the rest of the internet, I've been watching viral clips of Mehdi Hasan debating 20 far-right knuckle draggers for nearly two hours. It's an impressive display of stamina, poise, and argumentative skill from Hasan, who is quite good at this sort of thing. He even published a book called "Win Ev
The relationship between ideas and policymaking is sometimes imagined as linear: politicians seek solutions, and intellectuals provide them. In reality, the dynamic is more complex. The role of policy intellectuals and the institutions that incubate their ideas — think tanks, universities, and polic
I have a new article up at Human Progress on the importance of high-skill immigration. In the article, I discuss the MAGA alliance between technofuturists and nationalists. People within the Trump coalition act as if these groups have a great deal in common, and in areas like crime and DEI, that is
For most of us, our identity – and our loyalty – is clear. We belong to our families, our local communities, and our country. And our behaviour reflects this fact. We work hard and make sacrifices for our loved ones. We observe social norms and do what we can for our neighbours. And we respect the l
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