* “What Was Literary Fiction?” See also me, on the death of literary culture.

* Racism at literary journals: “Literary Submission Policies Shouldn’t be Color-Coded.” This seems obvious. On Substack, no one has to know who you are or what you look like.

* “On Having Children: The Most Private Choice We Make Has Potent Public Consequences.” I think there’s a big time preference issue here: having kids is great in the long term but very hard in the short term. That, and we’ve made housing very, very expensive. See also this catalogue of fertility matters. Information-dense, which is great!

* “Learning from Houston: It’s clear that the city’s permissive housing development policies help with affordability.”

* Paul Graham’s new essay, “Superlinear Returns.” He’s the best essayist of the age.

* “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto.” Beautiful, needed, and important.

* Carbon capture pipeline nixed after widespread opposition. In case you’re wondering whether we’re serious about climate change. We’ve just experienced the hottest summer on record, and 2023 is the hottest year on record.

* Apple won’t let Jon Stewart talk about China. Anything you get from Apple comes from a company that puts the priorities of the CCP first.

* Get an ebike cause they’re fun. Mine is fun! You should try one.

* Why Big Money Can’t Easily Change Campus Politics.

* “A Digital Pornutopia, Part 1: The Seedy-ROM Revolution The Digital Antiquarian.”

* Orwell’s Inner Party: The man behind the myth.

* On ambition and encouraging ambition. Nothing in in the essay is proven or causal but it’s interesting nonetheless.