Was Hitler Inevitable? Lessons from the 1930s for Navigating Today’s Polycrisis
What the 1930s teach about periods of converging crisis: do historical cycles lock us into repeating the past, or can we steer them somewhere better?
A world in change
Money, work, technology and power: what’s shifting, and why it can feel so unsettled.
Why the World Feels Like It’s Coming Apart
Written in early 2026: why so many people feel the world is coming apart, the overlapping cycles I once thought explained it, and why I now see it differently.
From Fear to Frontier: Exploring the AI Transition with Honest Eyes
An honest look at the fear many feel about AI: what it threatens in our work and identity, and how to meet the transition with clear eyes.
Will AI Create Jobs or Destroy Them? What Coase’s Idea of Frictions Suggests
A counter to the fear that AI only destroys jobs: how Coase’s ideas about transaction costs suggest AI could start loops of new work and creation.
The Dystopian Drift: How 1950s Sci-Fi Sold Hope, and Why Ours Sells Dread
Why science fiction once sold technology as hope and now sells it as dread, and what that shift says about how we see the future of AI.
The Treadmill Economy: Why Harder Work Buys Less, and How the UK Got Here
Why longer hours and second jobs buy less than they used to: an essay on stagnant real wages, rising costs, and how the UK economy arrived here.
Why Networks and Power-Law Dynamics Quietly Shape Today’s World and What They Mean for the Future Amid the AI Revolution
How networks and power-law dynamics quietly concentrate value, from Amazon’s early days to the AI revolution, and what that means for the years ahead.
The Extractive Legacy of Industrial Systems – A Path to Abundance in the Intelligence Era
Why so many households feel stretched despite progress: an essay on the extractive habits of industrial systems and a possible path to abundance with AI.
From Linear to Exponential: What the Wheat and Chessboard Problem Teaches Us About Change
The grains of wheat on a chessboard and what they teach about exponential change: why our linear intuitions struggle with technologies that double.
Education as Economic Machinery: From the Prussian Factory School to the Age of AI
How mass schooling grew from the Prussian factory model to serve industrial economies, and why that model strains as AI changes what work needs.
The Inevitable Elite: Understanding Modern Western Democracy and the Roots of Distrust
From the direct democracy of ancient Athens to today’s Westminster: why power concentrates in modern democracies and why trust in politics is so low.
Is AI Bigger Than the Industrial Revolution? Productivity, Costs and Opportunities for Individuals
A comparison of the AI era with the industrial revolution: productivity, costs and the opportunities it may open for individuals.