Keen On Democracy

Anyone lucky enough to have seen Wim Wenders' 2023 masterpiece Perfect Days is familiar with the dignity of professional Japanese toilet cleaners. Mark Eltringham, the publisher of the excellent future of work newsletter Workplace Insight, hasn't seen Wenders' movie, but he is nonetheless sympathetic to the dignity of the armies of invisible workers paid to clean up our mess - from those who tidy up offices to to those who scrub public toilets. We conveniently ignore this precariat, Eltringham argues, when it comes to imagining the impact of AI on jobs. While tech elites debate hybrid schedules and productivity algorithms, these essential workers remain largely untouched by automation's promises and threats, establishing a convenient myopia in our understanding of work's future. So next time you go to your office or use a public bathroom, Eltringham suggests spare a thought for the professionals who made the experience palatable - and ask yourself why it's their voices that are missing from our mostly privileged and solipsistic AI centric conversations about the future of work. 1. The "Solipsism Problem" in Work DiscourseEltringham argues that workplace conversations about AI, remote work, and the "death of the office" suffer from solipsism - knowledge workers project their own experiences onto the entire workforce, ignoring that these discussions only apply to maybe 30-40% of workers.2. AI's Uneven Impact Across Job TypesWhile tech elites debate AI's productivity effects, vast numbers of workers - from toilet cleaners to factory workers - remain largely untouched by automation. The AI revolution is primarily a knowledge worker phenomenon, not a universal workplace transformation.3. The Return-to-Office ParadoxTech companies like Google and Microsoft led the push to get employees back into offices, despite having the most sophisticated remote work capabilities. This suggests that even digital-native companies see value in physical proximity that goes beyond mere productivity metrics.4. "Weak Ties" Matter More Than Water Cooler MomentsEltringham dismisses the clichéd "water cooler conversation" argument for offices, arguing instead that the real value lies in "weak ties" - the informal networks that help you connect with people who know other people, creating problem-solving chains that are harder to replicate virtually.5. Work Culture Trumps Office DesignA good working culture in a badly designed office will make people happy, but a bad culture in a beautiful office won't. The focus on trendy office furniture and Silicon Valley-style spaces misses the point - relationships and culture matter more than design aesthetics.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Once upon a time, it was very easy for the American left to determine progress. The working class was good, the traditional left knew, and so progress meant embracing the economic and cultural interests of that class. Today, however, in our age of authoritarian populism in which part, at least, of the (white) working class appears nostalgic for the economics and culture of industrial America, things aren't quite as self-evident. As both David Masciotra and Soli Ozel note, then, this leftist dilemma is that of nostalgia versus progress. This tension, these progressive thinkers note, is exemplified in the work of the American sociologist Christopher Lasch, which simultaneously critiques elite betrayal while romanticizing traditionally male and even religious working-class virtues that may never have really existed. It's the Lasch paradox. Contemporary progressives face an uncomfortable reality: delivering material benefits—whether healthcare, jobs, or infrastructure—doesn't automatically translate into electoral support or, dare I say it, the strengthening of democratic values. The puzzle deepens, Ozel and Masciotra agree, when considering that Trump's base includes not just struggling communities but also affluent exurban voters. Perhaps the real challenge isn't choosing between nostalgia and progress, but reimagining what progress means in a post-industrial capitalist society where traditional class-based politics no longer provide clear moral or strategic guidance for building the kind of sustainable democratic coalitions created by progressive Presidents from FDR to Obama. 1. The Lasch Paradox: Accurate Diagnosis, Flawed Prescription Christopher Lasch correctly identified elite failure and betrayal of democratic institutions, but his romanticization of working-class civic virtue ignored the reality of racism, sexism, and authoritarianism within those communities.2. Material Benefits ≠ Political Loyalty Progressive policies that demonstrably improve people's lives—from Obamacare to renewable energy investments—don't automatically translate into electoral support, challenging traditional left assumptions about economic determinism.3. Trump's Base Is More Complex Than "Economic Anxiety" Significant portions of Trump supporters are middle-to-upper-middle class exurban voters, not just struggling working-class communities, complicating narratives about purely economic motivations for populist support.4. Corporate Capital's Role in Democratic Erosion Major corporations and tech leaders, despite initial opposition to Trump, ultimately supported his return through funding and institutional backing, demonstrating how economic interests can override stated democratic values.5. The Progressive Coalition Crisis The left faces a fundamental challenge: how to build sustainable democratic coalitions when traditional class-based politics no longer provide clear guidance, and when moral righteousness often alienates potential allies while failing to win elections.Some post show thoughts from David Masciotra: Now that I had more time to think about it, I would add the following about Mamdani: I am disturbed by the allegations of antisemitism, and some of the inconsistencies in his moral positions (he condemns politicians who visit Israel, but enjoys time at his family's residence in Uganda, a country that executes gays). As Soli suggested, let's leave that aside. While I support the programs that Soli highlighted - free bus rides, creative solutions to food deserts - the DSA agenda has failed in other cities. For example, Chicago has its own version of Mamdani right now - Brandon Johnson. His approval rating is around 20 percent, because he hasn't delivered on the economic promises, but he has introduced eccentric ideas for fighting crime, to put it mildly, and implemented some unhelpful policies in the school system. The city council in LA is dominated by DSA members. They've also failed miserably. I would like to see a return of the "sewer socialism" of Milwaukee progressives from the early 20th century. They were very practical - improving the sewer system, creating vast public parks, expanding public health and public education services. In Chicago and LA, the DSA pairs its rational and helpful economic agenda with ideological excess that, invariably, creates dysfunction and alienates voters.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Tech nostalgia. Winner-take-all economics. The cult of "storytelling". A Stanford educated aristocratic elite. This was the week that nothing changed in Silicon Valley. Alternatively, it was the week that radical change broke some ChatGPT users hearts. That, at least, is how That Was the Week tech newsletter publisher Keith Teare described this week in Silicon Valley. From Sam Altman's sensitivity to user backlash over GPT-5's personality changes, to venture capital's continued concentration in just ten mega-deals, to Geoffrey Hinton's apocalyptic warnings about AI wiping out humanity - the patterns remain stubbornly familiar even as the technology races forward. So is nothing or everything changing? Keith says everything, I say nothing. Maybe - as AI Godfather Hinton suggested on the show earlier this week - it's time for an all-knowing algorithm with maternal instincts to enlighten us with the (female) truth about our disruptive future.1. AI Users Are Forming Deep Emotional BondsChatGPT users experienced genuine heartbreak when GPT-5's personality changes made their AI feel like a different "person." This forced OpenAI to backtrack and restore GPT-4, revealing how humans are treating AI as companions rather than tools.2. Silicon Valley's Power Structures Remain UnchangedDespite AI's revolutionary potential, the same patterns persist: 40% of VC money goes to just 10 deals, Stanford maintains legacy admissions favoring the wealthy, and winner-take-all economics dominate. The technology changes; the power concentration doesn't.3. The Browser Wars Are Over - Chat Interfaces WonThe future battle isn't about owning browsers (like Perplexity's bid for Chrome) but controlling the chat interface. OpenAI and Anthropic are positioning themselves as the new gatekeepers, replacing Google's search dominance.4. AI's Pioneers Are Becoming Its Biggest SkepticsGeoffrey Hinton, the "AI godfather," now believes there's a 15-20% chance AI could wipe out humanity. When the field's leading experts admit they "have no clue" about AI's future risks, it reveals how little anyone really knows about what we're building.5. Context and Prompting Are the New ProgrammingThe era of simple AI prompts is over. Success now requires sophisticated prompt engineering and providing rich context - making AI literacy as crucial as computer literacy once was. The abstractions are changing, and so must our skills.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

I'm not sure on this one. On the one hand, Isabelle Boemeke is a pin-up of an environmentally activist generation - going from superstar Brazilian model and Instagram influencer to the author of Rad Future, a manifesto about how nuclear electricity will save the world. On other other hand, there's something slightly troubling in our social media age about this kind of dramatic trajectory - especially given the existential stakes here. Especially since Boemeke - who happens to be married to Joe Gebbia, Airbnb co-founder and one of the world's richest men - acknowledges her lack of scientific knowledge about electricity, nuclear or otherwise. The New York Times just ran a piece about Boemeke , describing her appearance as “like the heroine of a dystopian novel”, and expressing similar concerns, even wondering is she might be in the pay of the nuclear electricity lobby. I guess my worry is less about Boemeke and more about a culture that is comfortable transforming “saving the world” into an Instagrammable meme. Or maybe, as Boemeke suggested in our feisty conversation, I'm just an old fart who just doesn't get the immediacy of the existential environmental crisis that the world now faces. 1. Nuclear Energy Has Surprising Bipartisan Political SupportUnlike most energy sources, nuclear power enjoys support from both Trump and Biden administrations. This rare political consensus suggests nuclear might transcend typical partisan energy debates, making it more viable for large-scale implementation than other clean energy sources.2. The Weapons-Electricity Connection Is Largely OverblownOnly 7 of the 31 countries with nuclear electricity have weapons, and 5 of those had weapons before developing civilian nuclear programs. The data suggests the fear of proliferation from civilian nuclear programs may be largely unfounded, challenging a core anti-nuclear argument.3. Nuclear Safety Data Contradicts Public PerceptionNuclear power has a death rate per terawatt hour comparable to solar and wind, and significantly lower than hydropower. Boemeke argues that Three Mile Island wasn't actually a disaster (no health impacts), and that safety fears are largely based on outdated perceptions rather than current data.4. Shutting Down Nuclear Plants Increases Fossil Fuel UseEvery time a nuclear plant closes (like Indian Point in New York), it gets replaced by fossil fuels, not renewables, despite political promises. This pattern suggests that nuclear closures may actually harm climate goals rather than help them.5. Expertise vs. Influence Raises Troubling QuestionsBoemeke's transformation from model to nuclear advocate highlights broader questions about who gets to shape critical policy debates in the social media age. Her acknowledged lack of scientific expertise, combined with her massive platform and wealthy connections, exemplifies tensions between technical knowledge and cultural influence in addressing existential challenges.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Few of the world's great scientists have given more thought to the existential threats to humanity than the irrepressible British cosmologist and astronomer Martin Rees. He's the co-founder of Cambridge University's Centre for Existential Risk as well as the author of the 2003 book Our Final Hour. So it's striking that Rees has a quite different take on the existential risk of artificial intelligence technology than many AI doomers including yesterday's guest, the 2024 Physics Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton. For Rees, bio-threats and network collapse represents the most dangerous technological threats to humanity in the near future. Unlike nuclear weapons, which require massive detectable infrastructure, Rees warns, dangerous pathogens can be engineered in small, unmonitored laboratories. Meanwhile, our civilization's complete dependence on interconnected global networks means system failures could trigger catastrophic societal breakdown within days. Apocalypse now? Perhaps. But, according to the prescient Rees, we are preparing for the wrong apocalypse. 1. AI's Real Danger Isn't Superintelligence—It's System DependencyRees is "very skeptical" about AI takeover scenarios. Instead, he worries about our over-dependence on globe-spanning networks that control electricity grids and internet infrastructure. When these fail—whether from cyberattacks or malfunctions—society could collapse within "two or three days."2. Bio-Threats Are Uniquely Undetectable and UnstoppableUnlike nuclear weapons that require massive, monitorable facilities, dangerous pathogens can be engineered in small, undetected laboratories. "Gain of function" experiments could create bioweapons far worse than COVID, and preventing this would require impossible levels of surveillance over anyone with relevant expertise.3. We're Living Through a Uniquely Dangerous EraRees believes "the prospect of a catastrophe in the next 10 or 20 years is perhaps higher than it's ever been." We're the first species in Earth's history capable of changing the entire planet—for good or ill—making this a genuinely special and precarious moment.4. Scientific Wonder Grows with Knowledge, Not Despite ItContrary to those who claim science diminishes mystery, Rees - the co-author of an upcoming book about scientific wonder - argues that "the more we understand, the more wonderful and complicated things appear." As knowledge advances, new mysteries emerge that couldn't even be conceived decades earlier.5. Humility About Human Limitations Is EssentialJust as "a monkey can't understand quantum mechanics," there may be fundamental aspects of reality beyond human comprehension. Rees warns against immediately invoking God for unexplained phenomena, advocating instead for accepting our cognitive limits while continuing to push boundaries.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

So will AI wipe us out? According to Geoffrey Hinton, the 2024 Nobel laureate in physics, there's about a 10-20% chance of AI being humanity's final invention. Which, as the so-called Godfather of AI acknowledges, is his way of saying he has no more idea than you or I about its species-killing qualities. That said, Hinton is deeply concerned about some of the consequences of an AI revolution that he pioneered at Google. From cyber attacks that could topple major banks to AI-designed viruses, from mass unemployment to lethal autonomous weapons, Hinton warns we're facing unprecedented risks from technology that's evolving faster than our ability to control it. So does he regret his role in the invention of generative AI? Not exactly. Hinton believes the AI revolution was inevitable—if he hadn't contributed, it would have been delayed by perhaps a week. Instead of dwelling on regret, he's focused on finding solutions for humanity to coexist with superintelligent beings. His radical proposal? Creating "AI mothers" with strong maternal instincts toward humans—the only model we have for a more powerful being designed to care for a weaker one.1. Nobody Really Knows the Risk Level Hinton's 10-20% extinction probability is essentially an admission of complete uncertainty. As he puts it, "the number means nobody's got a clue what's going to happen" - but it's definitely more than 1% and less than 99%.2. Short-Term vs. Long-Term Threats Are Fundamentally Different Near-term risks involve bad actors misusing AI (cyber attacks, bioweapons, surveillance), while the existential threat comes from AI simply outgrowing its need for humans - something we've never faced before.3. We're Creating "Alien Beings" Right Now Unlike previous technologies, AI represents actual intelligent entities that can understand, plan, and potentially manipulate us. Hinton argues we should be as concerned as if we spotted an alien invasion fleet through a telescope.4. The "AI Mothers" Solution Hinton's radical proposal: instead of trying to keep AI submissive (which won't work when it's smarter than us), we should engineer strong maternal instincts into AI systems - the only model we have of powerful beings caring for weaker ones.5. Superintelligence Is Coming Within 5-20 Years Most leading experts believe human-level AI is inevitable, followed quickly by superintelligence. Hinton's timeline reflects the consensus among researchers, despite the wide range.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

We all are familiar, of course, with Robert Altman's classic 1971 movie about the settling of the west, McCabe and Mrs Miller. But most of us, I'm guessing, don't know about another McCabe, this one African-American, the black Moses in fact, who almost created an African -American land in Oklahoma. McCabe's all-too-American story is told in Caleb Gayle's new book, appropriately entitled Black Moses, the saga of Edward McCabe's transformation from a Wall Street clerk to one of the first prominent American proponents of Black sepatism and self-government. What makes McCabe's story so compelling is how close he actually came to success. By the 1890s, tens of thousands of African Americans had followed him to Oklahoma Territory, establishing over fifty all-Black towns. McCabe had learned the art of selling dreams from hotel magnate Potter Palmer in Chicago, and he deployed those skills to convince Black families fleeing post-Reconstruction violence that they could build their own promised land in the American West. It's quite a story. If only Altman was around to transform this quintessentially American tale of a fresh beginning into American cinema. 1. The Power of Using America's Own Language Against ItselfMcCabe brilliantly deployed quintessentially American arguments - westward expansion, self-governance, constitutional principles - to advocate for Black separatism. Like Frederick Douglass before him, he insisted this was "a very American project" and even pitched directly to President Benjamin Harrison, using precedents like the American Colonization Society to make his case.2. How Close America Actually Came to Having a Black StateThis wasn't just a pipe dream - by the 1890s, tens of thousands of African Americans had moved to Oklahoma Territory, establishing over 50 all-Black towns. McCabe's vision of a Black-governed state with Black senators and congressmen was within reach until Oklahoma chose to "become the South" by making Jim Crow segregation its very first law.3. The Entrepreneurial Roots of Black NationalismMcCabe's transformation from Wall Street clerk to separatist leader reveals how business skills could serve radical political ends. Learning to "sell dreams" from hotel magnate Potter Palmer, he became a master at convincing Black families fleeing post-Reconstruction violence that they could build their own promised land.4. The Tragic Pattern of Zero-Sum American PoliticsThe ultimate failure of McCabe's vision - culminating in tragedies like the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre - illustrates how Black success was seen as a threat rather than an achievement. As Gayle notes, this reflects enduring "zero-sum politics" where one group's prosperity is viewed as another's loss.5. Why These "Lost" Stories Matter TodayIn an era when institutions like the Smithsonian face political pressure over African American history, Gayle argues for the importance of telling these stories "beautifully" for popular audiences, not just academics. McCabe's tale of ambition, near-success, and ultimate defeat offers both inspiration and sobering lessons about the ongoing struggle for Black belonging in America.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Should we be defending American democracy if it never really existed? That's the controversial thesis at the heart of Osita Nwanevu's new book, The Right of the People. What America needs, the Baltimore-based Nigerian-born Nwanevu argues, is a radical reinvention of its political system. Nwanevu dismantles liberal pieties about traditional American institutions, arguing that the founders deliberately created an anti-democratic republic designed to prevent majority rule. While conservatives celebrate this fact, progressives remain trapped defending a dysfunctional system that structurally disadvantages them. From the anti-majoritarian Electoral College to the archaic Senate's rural bias, America's "democratic" institutions consistently thwart popular will. To realize real 21st century democracy, he argues, requires extending direct democratic power into both the workplace and the economy. When Amazon workers can vote on American foreign policy but have zero say in their company's decisions, something is fundamentally broken. His radical solution? A new American founding that finally delivers on democracy's promise and guarantees real rights to the real American people. 1. America Was Designed to Be Anti-Democratic The founders intentionally created a constitutional republic to prevent majority rule, not enable it. Unlike progressives who argue the founders secretly wanted democracy, Nwanevu agrees with conservatives that the system was designed to thwart popular will—he just thinks that's a problem to fix, not celebrate.2. Democrats Are Defending a System That Hates Them While Republicans benefit from anti-majoritarian institutions like the Electoral College and Senate, Democrats inexplicably defend these same structures that make it nearly impossible for them to govern effectively. It's political masochism disguised as constitutional reverence.3. Democracy Must Extend Beyond Politics Into Economics True democracy means workers having a say in workplace decisions, not just voting for politicians. When Amazon employees can vote on foreign policy but have zero input on company decisions that directly affect their lives, the system is fundamentally broken.4. The Left Needs Bolder Vision, Not Institutional Defense Trump wins because he promises to disrupt a system people distrust, while Democrats offer tepid defenses of broken institutions. The left must offer transformative change, not restoration of "norms" that never served ordinary people.5. Extreme Wealth Inequality Kills Democracy When the world's richest man can donate $260 million and essentially buy a government position to fire thousands of federal workers, democracy becomes impossible. No political system can survive trillionaires—it's nothing more than an oligarchy with a voting theater.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

In what climate pessimists define as our environmentally apocalyptic times, we've become the metaphorical frog in the boiling water. That, at least, is the bleak conclusion of Roy Scranton, the author of Impasse, a new book about climate change and the end of technological progress. For the deeply pessimistic Scranton, the planet is screwed. So the real question is how we can live ethically in these environmentally apocalyptic times. Drawing on his experience as a soldier in Iraq, where he learned to accept death as an everyday spiritual practice, Scranton argues we must abandon fantasies of technological salvation, focusing instead on local community work and the humility of practical good works. This way to the stove, ladies and gentlemen. Our future will be boiling. 1. We're the "Frog in Boiling Water" - Humans adapt so quickly to gradual environmental changes (like rising temperatures) that we normalize catastrophic shifts, making it nearly impossible to recognize existential threats until it's too late.2. Progress is a Dangerous Myth - Our faith that more technology and science will solve climate change is misguided. Energy transitions historically add new sources rather than replace old ones - we used more coal last year than ever before, despite renewable growth.3. Embrace "Ethical Pessimism" - Instead of clinging to hope for global solutions, we should accept that civilization as we know it may not survive and focus on how to live ethically within that reality.4. Think Local, Abandon Global - Rather than trying to "save the world," focus on your immediate community and relationships. Do practical good works where you can actually make a difference in people's daily lives.5. Learn to "Die" Spiritually - Drawing from his military experience in Iraq, Scranton advocates accepting mortality (personal and civilizational) as a daily practice to free yourself for meaningful action in the present moment, without attachment to future outcomes.The core message: Stop fantasizing about technological salvation and start practicing humble, local ethics in the face of inevitably catastrophic change.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

How many more times can we report on a week in tech that changed the world? But here we go again…. We just had a week in Silicon Valley where everything, supposedly, changed. At least according to Keith Teare, publisher of the tech That Was the Week weekly newsletter. But last week really really was a special week, Keith insists. It was the week when AI became an actor. When it broke all our traditional software assumptions by becoming an actor, not an app. It was the week AI entered what Keith calls its 'Stone Age' - the moment machines finally got their own tools and began using spreadsheets, databases, and documents without being explicitly told to. If Keith is right, we're about to live in a world where toys talk back to children and cars introduce themselves to their new owners. Yes, AI is in the earliest stages of learning to think for itself. It was, indeed, just another historic week in Silicon Valley.1. AI Has Crossed the Tool-Use ThresholdThis week marked AI's transition from being a tool humans use to becoming an independent actor that chooses and uses its own tools. ChatGPT can now autonomously access spreadsheets, databases, and documents - Keith compares this to humanity's leap from the Stone Age to the Tool Age.2. OpenAI's $500B Valuation Isn't Crazy - It's StrategicDespite seeming absurd, OpenAI's path from $50B to $500B valuation in 18 months follows classic tech playbook: prioritize growth over early profits ("early profit is mismanagement"), focus on 90% gross margins, and build the biggest possible "money printing machine" before optimizing for profitability.3. Software and Hardware Are Being RedefinedWe're moving toward a world where software becomes invisible - delivered through conversational interfaces rather than visual apps - and hardware becomes interactive through embedded AI. Think toys that talk back to children and cars that introduce themselves to owners.4. Creative Generalists Will Thrive, Specialists Are at RiskAI threatens specialists with rule-based skills (consultants, certain scientists) but enhances "audacious" creative generalists who can think outside the box. AI excels as a servant or co-pilot but can't yet replace original thinking or path-breaking creativity.5. We're Entering an Age of AI EmbeddednessThe future isn't about using AI apps - it's about living in a world where AI is embedded in physical objects and environments, making the entire world interactive. This represents a fundamental shift from digital interfaces to ambient intelligence.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Like it or not, Trump and his surreal version of a libertarian patrimonial America is reshaping the world. At least in what the FT's Janan Ganesh dubs “the high summer of Donald Trump”. But my old friend Jason Pack, host of the excellent Disorder podcast, doesn't believe that a strategy of short-term chaos is a viable long-term global strategy for America. Pack argues that while Trump may be achieving tactical wins through short-term disruptions—from ending the Iran-Israel conflict to forcing favorable trade negotiations—this approach fundamentally undermines the strategic international coordination needed to address existential challenges like AI regulation, climate change, and systemic economic and military competition with China. Without coherent global governance structures, Pack predicts, we're sleepwalking into a long-term disordered world where private tech giants wield more power than governments themselves. Trump's high summer of disorder, he warns, could degenerate into an apocalyptic winter of our collective discontent.1. Trump's Chaos Is Actually Strategic Success Despite appearing haphazard, Trump has achieved major goals through disorder - ending the Iran-Israel conflict with bunker buster bombs, securing favorable trade deals through tariff threats, and making himself the global "swing player" that everyone must negotiate with.2. America's Disproportionate Global Leverage The US economy, though only 1.8 times larger than Europe's, wields 5-6 times the global influence. Trump has discovered how to weaponize this asymmetry more ruthlessly than previous presidents, while Europe remains largely irrelevant in AI and tech.3. Private Tech Giants Now Rival Government Power Multi-trillion dollar companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Nvidia are becoming more powerful than governments themselves. The old DARPA model of government-led innovation has given way to private sector dominance, fundamentally reshaping the relationship between state and market.4. The Missing "NATO for AI" Pack argues we desperately need international coordination structures to govern AI development, data storage, and energy infrastructure. Without treaty-based cooperation among democracies, we're ceding control to either authoritarian regimes or unaccountable private companies.5. A Crisis May Be Necessary to Restore Government Both analysts suggest that only a major catastrophe - economic crash, environmental disaster, or military conflict - will force people to recognize government's essential role. Until then, we're trapped in "libertarian patrimonialism" where personal networks trump institutional governance.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Are we Rome yet? It's become all too easy to compare contemporary America's woes with those of late republican Rome. And even easier to argue that the democracy destroying Donald Trump is the second coming of Julius Caesar. But according to the distinguished American classicist David Potter, author of Master of Rome, we've got Julius Caesar all wrong. Don't trust Cicero's version of Caesar, Potter warns. Julius Caesar was actually a friend rather than a foe of democracy—he wasn't even 'Caesarian' in the dictatorial sense we've come to associate with his name. Actually Caesar - with his veneration for the Roman state and his attention to detail - has much more in common with FDR than with Donald Trump. Rather than a warning, then, Julius Caesar offers a model for American politicians trying to rebuild democratic institutions and values in our populist age. 1. Caesar was more FDR than TrumpPotter argues Caesar was a competent, detail-oriented administrator who passed major social reforms (land redistribution, veteran benefits) to help ordinary Romans—much like Roosevelt's New Deal. Unlike Trump, Caesar valued facts, logistics, and effective governance.2. Roman "democracy" failed because elites stopped sharing powerThe Roman Republic collapsed not because of Caesar, but because the aristocracy concentrated wealth and excluded most Italians from citizenship despite promises of reform. Caesar emerged because the system had already broken down.3. Caesar was inclusive, not exclusionaryUnlike typical autocrats, Caesar integrated former enemies and conquered peoples (like the Gauls) into his system. He pardoned rivals like Cicero and promoted social mobility—even freed slaves could become citizens and rise to high positions.4. The "Caesarian" reputation comes from biased sourcesMuch of Caesar's tyrannical image comes from Cicero, who defended corrupt politicians and arbitrary executions when it suited him. Reading Caesar's own writings reveals a thoughtful strategist, not a bloodthirsty dictator.5. Competent authoritarianism beats incompetent democracyPotter's key warning: when democratic institutions fail to serve citizens, they'll accept strong leadership that delivers results. Caesar succeeded because he could actually govern—a lesson about the importance of making democracy work for everyone.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

For five hundred years, scientists as credible as Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Darwin and Freud chipped away at the scientific existence of God. So, by the beginning of the 20th century, Nietzsche was able to announce the death of God. A century later, however, modern science is now resurrecting God. That, at least, is the suggestion of Michel-Yves Bollore, the co-author of Europe's latest publishing sensation, GOD The Science The Evidence. It's a post Einsteinian science, Bollore and his co-author Olivier Bonnassies contend, which has enabled this kind of scientific Easter. With endorsements from Nobel Prize winners and over 400,000 copies sold across Europe, their controversial thesis argues that seven independent lines of evidence—from thermodynamics to quantum mechanics—point toward an absolute beginning of the universe, making materialism, in their words, 'an irrational belief' in the 21st century.1. The Historical Reversal For 400+ years (Galileo to Darwin to Freud), scientific discoveries seemed to eliminate the need for God. But since 1900, Bollore argues, every major discovery points in the opposite direction—toward the necessity of a creator.2. Seven Lines of Evidence for Absolute Beginning The authors present seven independent scientific arguments (thermodynamics, universe expansion, quantum mechanics, mathematics) that the universe had an absolute beginning—which they argue requires a creator, since "from nothing, nothing can come."3. The Multiverse Dilemma Materialism's only escape is the multiverse theory, but recent discoveries (2003) show infinite series of universes are impossible. This forces materialists into increasingly complex explanations while the "God hypothesis" remains simpler.4. Fine-Tuning as Evidence The universe's parameters are so precisely calibrated (down to the 15th decimal place for expansion speed) that tiny changes would prevent existence itself—suggesting intentional design rather than chance.5. Philosophical Not Religious The book deliberately avoids religious questions (who is God, what does God want) and focuses purely on whether scientific evidence supports the existence of a creator—making it accessible across different faiths and culturesKeen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

For all its multiple obituary notices, the American Dream is alive and kicking. That, at least, is the view of Matson Money CEO and founder, Mark Matson, author of Experiencing the American Dream. But you have to work for it, the Scottsdale, Arizona based Matson says, arguing that many Americans have lost agency over their own lives. Growing up in poverty in West Virginia, Matson built an $11.7 billion asset management firm by embracing his father's core principles: nobody owes you anything, provide value to others first, and view hard work as a core virtue. Matson rejects victim mentality and entitlement culture, even of his own kids (two of whom he fired from his company), insisting the dream remains accessible to anyone willing to serve others and create wealth through disciplined effort rather than expecting government or personal handouts. 1. Mindset Over Circumstances Success stems from how you think, not what you're born into. Matson argues that having the right mental framework—rejecting victimhood and embracing personal responsibility—matters more than your starting economic position.2. Service Before Self-Interest The path to wealth is counterintuitive: focus on creating value for others first, rather than asking "what's in it for me." This service-oriented approach naturally leads to personal prosperity.3. Work as Virtue, Not Just Means Hard work should be viewed as character-building and inherently valuable, not merely a tool to get rich. This perspective transforms how you approach challenges and opportunities.4. Merit Over Everything Even family relationships must be subordinated to performance standards. Matson fired two of his own children from his company, demonstrating that nepotism undermines both business success and character development.5. Media Creates False Narratives News outlets profit from fear and pessimism, leading to distorted perceptions of American opportunity. The statistical reality shows more social mobility and prosperity than headlines suggest.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Podcasts are ruining our lives. That, at least, is the thesis of the sometime podcaster, Liel Leibovitz. It's the insidious charm of chat, Leibovitz believes, that is behind the faux intimacy of popular podcasters like Joe Rogan. Speaking from Tel Aviv, the Tablet magazine editor-at-large argues that what began as a revolutionary medium for deep, unfiltered conversation has devolved into the same shallow journalism that plagues mainstream media. Podcasters, Leibovitz contends, have traded meaningful discourse for chummy celebrity interviews, creating parasocial relationships that feel intimate but deliver little substance. The medium's unique power to reach listeners in their most vulnerable moments—while doing dishes, walking dogs, working out—has been weaponized into artificial friendships that replace genuine human connection with performative conversations designed to maintain access rather than pursue truth. So what should wannabe podcasters and their audiences do? You could, of course, stop listening to podcasts like this one or Leibovitz's once popular Unorthodox show. Alternatively, as he suggests, you could start your own militantly anti-podcast Podcast (as he is planning with his revamped Unorthodox show), thereby reuniting the medium with the message. 1. Podcasts create dangerous parasocial intimacy Listeners develop artificial relationships with hosts they've never met, epitomized by the fan who named her cat after Leibovitz. This faux intimacy makes audiences trust podcasters more than they should, replacing real human relationships with performed ones.2. The medium has abandoned its revolutionary potential What began as a way to have deep, unfiltered conversations unavailable on mainstream media has devolved into the same shallow access journalism, with podcasters prioritizing celebrity guests and maintaining chummy relationships over pursuing truth.3. Intimacy doesn't equal authenticity The failure of Clubhouse (which offered real interaction) versus the success of podcasts (which offer performed intimacy) proves people don't actually want genuine connection—they want the feeling of intimacy without the work of real relationships.4. There's still hope for the medium Leibovitz argues we're at a "Fred Friendly moment"—ready to discover what podcasting can truly accomplish beyond its current limitations. He believes audiences will respond to genuinely substantive content when offered it, citing positive reactions to rare moments of real questioning.5. AI will increase the value of authentic human voices As artificial content proliferates, genuinely human storytelling, conversation, and analysis will become premium commodities—making this the perfect time for serious podcasters to distinguish themselves through authentic, meaningful discourse.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Yesterday, the Canadian writer Diane Francis argued that Donald Trump should consider Xi Jinping's China a competitor rather than an enemy. Perhaps. But in this zero-sum “competition” between Trump and Xi for top tough guy, there can only be one winner. As Xi Jinping's father's biographer, Joseph Torigian explains, Xi had a brutally harsh upbringing. In his new book about Xi's father, Xi Zhongxun, Torigian explains that it was a childhood descent from privileged son of a communist party aristocrat to utter poverty, political exile and literal homelessness. That's the kind of tough guy that our self-styled “tough guy” President is competing with in today's Hobbesian bipolar world of international politics. I'm pretty sure that only one of these tough guys will come out on top. And it won't be the pampered middle son of a real-estate mogul from Queens.1. Xi Jinping's "Toughness" is Genuine, Not PerformativeUnlike privileged leaders who talk tough, Xi was forged by real hardship - his father was purged five times, spent 16 years in political exile, and Xi himself experienced homelessness, street battles, and rural exile. This created authentic resilience, not manufactured bravado.2. China's System Remains Dangerously Leader-DependentDespite assumptions about "collective leadership," Chinese politics never escaped the strongman model. Even Deng Xiaoping, supposedly constrained by colleagues, made unilateral decisions like Tiananmen. Xi isn't breaking the system - he's following its core logic that only a powerful "core" leader can hold China together.3. Taiwan is Personal, Not Just Political for XiHis father Xi Zhongxun was the party's leading "United Front" strategist who handled Taiwan relations in the 1980s through secret back-channels. For Xi, Taiwan represents both unfinished family business and his promise not to be "the one to lose" Chinese territory bequeathed by ancestors.4. Xi's Strategy is Patience, Not RecklessnessGrowing up watching his father navigate purges taught Xi when to act and when to "bide his time." Unlike Putin's sledgehammer approach, Xi moves "deliberately and competitively, but cautiously" - preferring to win without fighting rather than risk catastrophic failure.5. The Party's Biggest Fear is Losing the Next GenerationXi obsesses over whether young Chinese will remain loyal to the revolutionary cause without experiencing the hardship that dedicated his generation. With property crashes and youth unemployment, he's trying to recreate commitment through "national sacrifice" narratives - but it's unclear if this will work on a generation that expects prosperity, not suffering.1. Xi Jinping's "Toughness" is Genuine, Not PerformativeUnlike privileged leaders who talk tough, Xi was forged by real hardship - his father was purged five times, spent 16 years in political exile, and Xi himself experienced homelessness, street battles, and rural exile. This created authentic resilience, not manufactured bravado.2. China's System Remains Dangerously Leader-DependentDespite assumptions about "collective leadership," Chinese politics never escaped the strongman model. Even Deng Xiaoping, supposedly constrained by colleagues, made unilateral decisions like Tiananmen. Xi isn't breaking the system - he's following its core logic that only a powerful "core" leader can hold China together.3. Taiwan is Personal, Not Just Political for XiHis father Xi Zhongxun was the party's leading "United Front" strategist who handled Taiwan relations in the 1980s through secret back-channels. For Xi, Taiwan represents both unfinished family business and his promise not to be "the one to lose" Chinese territory bequeathed by ancestors.4. Xi's Strategy is Patience, Not RecklessnessGrowing up watching his father navigate purges taught Xi when to act and when to "bide his time." Unlike Putin's sledgehammer approach, Xi moves "deliberately and competitively, but cautiously" - preferring to win without fighting rather than risk catastrophic failure.5. The Party's Biggest Fear is Losing the Next GenerationXi obsesses over whether young Chinese will remain loyal to the revolutionary cause without experiencing the hardship that dedicated his generation. With property crashes and youth unemployment, he's trying to recreate commitment through "national sacrifice" narratives - but it's unclear if this will work on a generation that expects prosperity, not suffering. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Should America go soft on China? According to the Toronto based foreign affairs writer Diane Francis, the United States ought to consider Xi Jinping's China a competitor, rather than a enemy. In contrast, Francis views Vladimir Putin's Russia as not just an enemy, but an existential threat to Europe, North America and free world. Putin Won't Stop, Francis' latest Substack post argues. Unless, perhaps, he's locked in a room with the redoubtable Diane Francis.1. Francis Views American "Isolationism" as Reasonable and Justified"Isolationism is reasonable, I think it is. I mean, traipsing all over the world, thinking you're the policeman and you have the answer and you pick the right side all the time and you're gonna squander the wealth and the tax dollars of your population is to me an ego trip to a certain extent." Francis sees Trump's America First approach as a logical response to failed interventions like Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.2. She Distinguishes China as Competitor, Russia as Malevolent Enemy"I see Russia as an enemy, as a malevolent force that wants to recreate the Soviet Union, imprison people, ignore rights and then take over other countries and commit genocide when necessary... China, on the other hand, is not an imperial power. It's never been a conquering country... China to me is not an enemy. China is a competitor, and it can be a ruthless competitor." This forms the core of her geopolitical framework.3. Francis Sees Trump as Effective but Lacks Statesmanlike Qualities"There is some logic to what he's doing, but he's really not, in my opinion, he's not capable of really statesman-like leadership. He just isn't. He's a fish out of water. He's are a developer of slum apartment buildings in Queens. This guy looks at everything as though it was just about dollars and cents." She appreciates his tough negotiating approach while criticizing his limitations.4. She Takes Canada's Merger Threat from Trump Seriously"Absolutely. I'll just give you a quick background. In 2013, my 10th book... was Merger of the Century, Why Canada and the United States Should Become One Country, and I wasn't endorsing the merger, but I was warning Canadians that if they didn't get their acts together... America will get fed up and gobble them up." Francis views Trump's threats as realistic given Canada's economic and military dependence.5. Francis Makes Controversial Claims About Russia's Global Reach"They started the war in Sudan. And they were behind the October 7th attack of Israel... according to Ukrainian intelligence, first of all, October 7th is Putin's birthday. Secondly, the Hamas terrorists were trained in Syria on Russian bases by Russian mercenaries called the Wagner troop." She presents Russia as orchestrating conflicts worldwide, though these claims are highly disputed and lack mainstream corroboration. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

I've always considered my friend Keith Teare a bit weird. Maybe it's living in Palo Alto amidst the tech plutocracy. But I wonder if the That Was The Week weekly tech news publisher has finally lost his mind. In this week's conversation, he speculates that OpenAI will soon be worth $10 trillion while its closest competitor Anthropic, will be valued at $5 trillion. Has he finally gone totally bonkers? Or is it really possible that these two still private companies will be collectively worth $15 trillion (more than the GDP of every country except the U.S. and China) in a few years?1. AI Valuations Have Entered Fantasy Territory OpenAI at $10 trillion and Anthropic at $5 trillion would make these two private companies worth more than the GDP of every country except the U.S. and China. Even tech insiders are now seriously discussing valuations that would have been laughed out of the room during the dot-com bubble.2. We've Hit the AI Search Tipping Point Traditional Google search is rapidly being replaced by AI-powered alternatives like Perplexity's Comet browser and specialized AI tools. About 25% of internet users now regularly use AI instead of search engines, fundamentally threatening Google's advertising-based business model.3. San Francisco's Tech Boom Is Back (Again) The AI revolution has revitalized San Francisco as the undisputed center of tech innovation. Real estate prices are soaring, rentals are impossible to find, and the talent war has reached late-90s intensity levels as AI companies compete for engineers and office space.4. The AI Race Isn't Winner-Take-All Unlike previous tech cycles where one company dominated (Google in search, Amazon in e-commerce), the AI market appears big enough for multiple giants. Anthropic has emerged as OpenAI's strongest competitor, with Chinese AI models also becoming serious contenders on the global stage.5. Big Tech's AI Panic Is Real Facebook is paying billions in bonuses to attract AI talent after their latest model failed to impress. Apple is sitting out the expensive AI infrastructure race, betting they can integrate others' AI into their devices. Meanwhile, the U.S. government has decided to avoid regulating AI development entirely.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Can Democrats pull a Ronald Reagan? That's the provocative question at the heart of Peter Wehner and Jonathan Rauch's New York Times intriguing piece about how the Democrats can win back the presidency in 2028. Just as the neo-liberal Reagan crushed the cardigan-wearing Carter by promising economic vitality over malaise, Democrats now have a chance to flip the script—if only they can drop their annoying cultural politics and reclaim the mantle of middle-class prosperity. By owning the American Dream, Rauch and Wehner suggest, you also own American politics. Given the Republican abandonment of growth politics, they argue, the seeds of a Democratic revival have already been sown. Now all the party needs is somebody with Reagan's messaging genius. Mark Cuban, perhaps?1. Democrats Are Abandoning Anti-Trump Strategy for Positive MessagingThe 19 Democrats interviewed for the article were explicitly asked not to mention Trump—a "disciplining exercise" that revealed the party's recognition that pure opposition isn't enough. They need an affirmative agenda focused on prosperity and the American dream rather than just being the anti-Trump party.2. Republicans Have Abandoned Growth Politics, Creating an OpeningTrump's GOP now runs on "scarcity" and "beggar-thy-neighbor" policies—tariffs that raise prices, fewer immigrants despite labor shortages, telling Americans to "make do with less." This abandons Reagan's successful abundance message and gives Democrats a chance to become the "party of prosperity."3. Cultural Issues Are Democrats' Biggest Barrier to Economic CredibilityEvery Democrat interviewed acknowledged they must move to the center on cultural issues before voters will listen to their economic message. As Rahm Emanuel put it: "If you don't get through that cultural barrier, people aren't going to listen to you on kitchen table issues." Early signs include Gavin Newsom's shifts on transgender policies and Wes Moore rejecting reparations.4. The "Abundance Agenda" Could Unite Progressive and Centrist WingsDemocrats see potential common ground: progressives can focus on breaking up monopolies and corporate price manipulation, while centrists tackle zoning reform and regulatory barriers. Both approaches aim to reduce artificial scarcity and boost middle-class prosperity.5. 2028 May Require an Outsider, Not a Traditional PoliticianWith Trump at 37% approval and voters seeking authenticity, energy, and change, Democrats may need someone like Mark Cuban rather than a typical governor or senator. The party is looking for someone who can challenge the status quo without sounding like a conventional politician—much like Reagan did in 1980.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

How to write about the kaleidoscopic Sixties in the gloom of 2025? According to James Grady, author of the classic Six Days of the Condor and the new mid-century novel American Sky, the key is calibrating nostalgia with unflinching honesty about the past's complexities. "You can't just write about the past and not have a focus also on current times and really the future," Grady explains. The novelist's approach involves fictionalizing personal experiences while ensuring memories of traumatic events like the JFK or MLK assassinations connect with the painful realities of MAGA America. Rather than romanticizing the Sixties, Grady emphasizes the civil rights violence, the generational divide, and the "silent majority's" anxieties alongside the era's optimism. Grady's goal isn't to escape into nostalgia but to help readers understand how past dreams and failures shaped our present moment, making history a lens for understanding America's current challenges.1. Historical Fiction Must Connect Past to Present "You can't just write about the past and not have a focus also on current times and really the future. Otherwise it's like you're looking back at an old photograph of a horse and buggy. It's lovely, but it doesn't really speak to you."2. The Danger of Elite Liberal Condescension "Starting in about 1975 and 1976, I saw a new kind of, quote, liberal or left-winger come into the power circles of Washington, D.C. They were elite-educated, Ivy League, and they did their best to ignore any working class roots that they had. They started to look down on the labor unions."3. Fiction Can Reveal Truth Better Than Facts "So we can change the facts, but the facts are not necessarily necessary to reveal the truths... this is not a memoir where you have to be factual. This is fiction. And yet there's an echo of all of us."4. True Rebellion Requires Positive Vision "I always think of the great French philosopher Albert Camus who said a true rebel says yes to something better instead of just saying no and rejecting and fighting. You've got to have something to fight for."5. Literature Should Focus on Ordinary Americans "I think that a good author has to write about us, and you, almost more than they write about me... I want to know what's going on with someone in, you know, there's a town called Beaver Crossing, Nebraska, or, you know, Sonoma, California... Where real people are leading their lives and we learn from each other."Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Both the American left and right are revolted by elites. But whereas the right has channeled its distaste for the powers-that-be into Trump and MAGA, the left has mostly failed to capitalize on populist hatred of American elites. So what to do? According to the influential Turkish political theorist Soli Ozel, progressives need to reread Christopher Lasch, author of the 1995 classic, The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy. In an essay entitled “Lasching Out,” Ozel observes that Lasch's critique of meritocratic elites who abandoned their sense of social responsibility—what he calls their noblesse oblige—offers a progressive roadmap for understanding why figures like Kamala Harris failed to connect with working-class voters, and how the left might forge a new populist coalition that prioritizes material interests over cultural absolutism.1. Lasch predicted Trump decades before 2016 - Writing between the 1970s & 90s, Christopher Lasch warned that American elites had abandoned their sense of social responsibility (noblesse oblige), creating conditions for populist backlash that would eventually manifest as Trumpism.2. The new meritocratic elite looks down on ordinary Americans - Unlike traditional elites who felt obligated to society, today's managerial class views working people as "uncouth, racist, xenophobic" and prefers to ignore them rather than engage or convince them of better ways of living.3. Kamala Harris epitomized elite denial - Harris couldn't acknowledge her elite status or explain why she wanted to be president, representing exactly the kind of disconnected leader Lasch criticized—one who presents herself as embodying the "American dream" while being fundamentally out of touch.4. The left needs "left conservatism" - Progressives should be economically leftist but culturally conservative, supporting incremental change that maintains social institutions like family while prioritizing working-class material conditions over cultural absolutism.5. Leadership and coalition-building matter more than ideology - Like FDR's New Deal coalition, the left needs charismatic leaders who can forge alliances across different constituencies, avoiding the absolutism that has alienated educated elites from the broader population.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Dubbed the Meme Queen of Depression by Mashable, Aiden Arata's real goal on Instagram was to build a big enough following to convince traditional publishers to let her write a book. Thus her new collection of essays, You Have a New Memory, in which Arata reveals the chillingly empty realities about her millennial "Doom" generation's relationship with social media. There really isn't much of an influencer economy, Arata confesses, acknowledging that most social media "stars" are, in fact, grifters. So the only way to monetize one's influencer status is by writing a traditional book which, Arata argues, also offers a refuge from what she calls the "flattened" language of digital media. 1. Arata Became an Influencer to Enable Her Real Dream"I think that I created an internet following to trick people into letting me write a book. I've always wanted to write a book... I've always been a writer."Arata reveals her Instagram success was strategic - a means to literary credibility rather than an end goal.2. Social Media Has "AI'd" Us Before AI Arrived"I think it's interesting because just sort of the way that algorithms train us to use certain language... we kind of have AI'd ourselves by mimicking certain phrases and just flattening... the field of interpretation for words."She argues we've already been conditioned to communicate like machines, making actual AI less of a leap.3. Digital Content Creates an Existential Crisis"I call it plastic bag theory. And it's this idea that... the internet is like a plastic bag, it's disposable, but it's also forever. It's sort of on its trash island swirling out there somewhere. And then when we use the internet, we kind of become that as well."Her metaphor captures how online content - and creators - exist in a liminal state between temporary and permanent.4. The "Doom Generation" Faces Unprecedented Awareness"We've never been so aware of all of the atrocities that happen around us and to us. And we've sort of also never been so aware of our own powerlessness to affect change."She explains why her generation feels particularly anxious about the future.5. Books Offer Refuge from Digital Language Flattening"A book is a really beautiful response to that. It's reclaiming language as something that can go on these sort of philosophical eddies and can have a metaphor that's a little bit complicated... that is like just perfect in its weird slanty little way."Despite her digital success, she sees traditional publishing as essential for preserving nuanced human expression.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

The troubling thing about William F. Buckley, the media savvy founder of modern American conservatism, isn't so much his politics, but his likability. How could such an overtly reactionary racist and homophobe (even if he was himself gay), be such a charming fellow beloved by all who knew him? That's one of the central questions which Sam Tanenhaus addresses in his massive new biography Buckley. Tanenhaus reveals shocking new details about the Buckley family's secret funding of segregationist newspapers and White Citizens Councils—information that even appalled Buckley's own son Christopher. Buckley explores how someone could be genuinely charitable and philanthropic in his personal affairs while promoting such corrosive politics. Tanenhaus argues we live in a moment when it seems "almost impossible to disentangle those personas," yet Buckley embodied both simultaneously. This wasn't just genteel bigotry—it was a foundational contradiction that changed the United States and now helps define the theatrical toxicity of Trump's America. 1. Buckley's Family Secretly Funded Segregationists"Buckley's family actually sponsored the publication of a newspaper that supported the White Citizens Council... Buckley had kept it secret. He never told anyone."Tanenhaus reveals that the Buckley family funded segregationist publications in the South—a bombshell that "appalled" even Buckley's own son Christopher.2. The Paradox of Personal Charm vs. Political Toxicity"Gary Wills... said Buckley was simply the most charitable man you would meet that he had ever known. And he said, I love everything about Bill Buckley, but his crazy reactionary politics."The central mystery: How could someone be genuinely kind in person while promoting destructive ideologies? Tanenhaus argues this contradiction is what made Buckley so complex and influential.3. Questions About Buckley's Sexuality Haunted His Public Life"Vidal called Buckley a crypto-Nazi and Buckley said, don't call me a Nazi, you queer or I'll sock you in the goddamn face."The famous 1968 debate with Gore Vidal exposed underlying tensions about Buckley's identity, with suggestions he was a "closeted gay man" himself while using homophobic language.4. Buckley Invented Modern Political Theater"Buckley's innovation... was to see that media itself could become the instrument for a kind of theatrical presentation of history. And that proved to be really precious. And that's what we're living with now is politics is a kind of theater and even entertainment."Through "Firing Line" and his seemingly ubiquitous media presence, Buckley pioneered the performative politics we see today.5. His American Dream Was Reactionary Restoration"It was a dream of restoration... what he wanted to do was to create an America his own parents would have been comfortable in."Buckley sought to return to the "late 19th and early 20th centuries of entrepreneurialism, of laissez-faire economics"—a world Tanenhaus calls "a powerful delusion." This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Yesterday, we focused on the death of the American way of work. But today the news on the AI front isn't quite as dire. According to the New York based economic historian Dror Poleg, AI will be too busy to take your job. That's the provocative thesis of Poleg's upcoming book focused on the radical opportunities in our AI age. He argues that AI's massive energy consumption will actually preserve human employment, as society redirects computing power toward critical tasks rather than simply replacing human labor with algorithms. Unlike Yuval Noah Harari's pessimistic "useless class" prediction, Poleg cheerfully envisions a future where everyone becomes valuable through constant experimentation and human connectivity. He believes we're entering an era where work becomes indistinguishable from leisure, interpersonal skills command premium value, and the economy depends on widespread human creativity and feedback to determine what's truly valuable in an increasingly unpredictable world. That's the electrifying truth about our AI era. For Poleg, AI represents something even more transformative than electrification itself—a utility that will flow like water and affect everything, reshaping not just how we work but the very nature of economic value and human purpose.1. AI's Energy Demands Will Preserve Human Jobs"Energy is too valuable to waste on tasks humans can do... we as an economy, as a society, will basically want to throw as much electricity as possible at the things that matter up to the point that maybe automating different tasks that human can do... we'll decide to take electricity away from today's computer, even from people using Excel today and saying, Okay, that electricity is more valuable somewhere else."2. AI Is More Transformative Than Electrification"I would say it's more significant... I think it's at least as significant as electricity and electrification. And in many ways... it is more of a utility than anything else for better or worse. So it will flow like water and it will affect everything."3. Everyone Will Become Valuable Through Experimentation"My view of the future is actually exactly the opposite [of Harari's useless class]. I think that in the future everyone will be valuable and almost any activity would be valuable because we will not have any idea what is or who is valuable... as a society we will need as many people as possible to constantly do whatever they feel like, create whatever they want to create."4. Work Will Merge With Leisure and Human Connection"The general trend that I see is that work will become increasingly indistinguishable from leisure if we're looking long-term... we'll see more of these types of jobs, basically giving each other attention, helping each other know that we exist and sharing with each other more and more specialized and granular types of... service that only we can give to each other."5. Physical, In-Person Interactions Will Become Premium"If you wanna know if something is true, the only way to know that is to be there or to know someone who was there... I think that also pushes us back towards offline. In-person physical interactions that will be at a premium." This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

In 1963, Jessica Mitford published her remarkable account of the American funeral industry, An American Way of Death. Over sixty years later, another distinguished Englishwoman, the workplace futurist Julia Hobsbawm, is announcing the death of the American way of work. Whereas Mitford exposed the predatory practices of funeral directors, Hobsbawn reveals how corporate America has become equally disconnected from reality—clinging to outdated workplace models while other nations innovate. From Thomas Edison's countless inventions to Henry Ford's revolutionary assembly line, Hobsbawm notes, America dominated innovative 20th century work practices. But as countries like the UAE introduce more flexible policies than Silicon Valley, and demographic shifts reshape global labor markets, American corporations are "sleepwalking into disaster” by failing to adapt to both generational changes and to the post-pandemic workplace revolution. 1. America's Century of Workplace Dominance Is Ending"I've always thought that America has dominated a century of the way the world works. I mean, everything we live and work on from, you know, the computer or the credit card or the communications industry, the car, it's all been American."Hobsbawm argues that while America invented modern work culture—from Edison's innovations to Ford's assembly lines—its grip on workplace leadership is slipping as other nations pioneer new approaches.2. Corporate America Is in Denial About Post-Pandemic Reality"There is a desire on behalf of boards, corporate leaders, large corporates to, quote unquote, go back, to be quite rosy tinted in their spectacle view of what the past of work looked like."She warns that American executives are refusing to acknowledge how fundamentally the pandemic changed worker expectations, instead clinging to outdated models while demanding returns to traditional office structures.3. Other Countries Are Now Leading Workplace Innovation"On the 1st of April this year the UAE introduced pretty much the most flexible working policies anywhere in the world, outside of the Nordics and the UK... America is weaker in the culture of work and the workplace policies around flexibility."Nations once considered less progressive are now outpacing Silicon Valley on workplace flexibility, while American companies retreat from forward-thinking policies.4. The One-Size-Fits-All Model Is Dead"There is now a complete disaggregation of what norm is. And that is what is so difficult for businesses and corporations... you cannot impose a one-size-fits-all."Hobsbawm identifies this as "the Achilles heel of the American way of work"—the inability to adapt to diverse, individualized worker needs across different generations and cultures.5. Work Change Is the Defining Challenge of Our Time"Work change is the new climate change. Every single workplace, every single worker, every single workforce, every single city product is going to be changed continuously."She positions workplace transformation as the most critical issue facing society, requiring the same urgency and comprehensive response as climate change. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

It's an old thesis - that capitalism has created a religion out of money. But nobody, not even Marx, has been quite as theologically explicit as Paul Vigna, author of The Almightier: How Money Became God, Greed Became Virtue, and Debt Became Sin. The former Wall Street Journal reporter argues that money literally functions as our modern deity, complete with faith-based belief systems, sacred rituals of accumulation, and moral frameworks that equate wealth with divine favor. Tracing money's origins back 5,500 years to — surprise surprise — Mesopotamian temples, he reveals how what began as a practical accounting tool has evolved into humanity's central organizing principle. Unlike Marx's revolutionary critique of capitalist exchange, Vigna argues in favor of recalibration rather than outright destruction. Imagining money as a useful hammer rather than an almighty god, he questions why we chase dollars instead of human welfare, especially in a digital age when innovative new technologies could provide basic needs for everyone.1. Money literally originated in religious temples 5,500 years ago: "Money shows up first time about 5,500 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia, it is a product of temples. The temple in Uruk is where we find it and the temple scribes developed this system to keep track of the temple's possessions, which is called money."2. Money isn't "real" - it's a collective belief system based entirely on trust: "Money isn't real. Money is an agreement among people. When you talk about trust, we're all trusting in this system. It's a system that we all buy into."3. The Protestant Reformation transformed greed from sin into virtue: "Calvin says, God controls everything... So if you have money, you have it because God want you to have it. Therefore, if you become rich, God wanted you to become rich... you should work hard to make a lot of money because that's what God wants."4. We've confused the tool with the goal: "We could provide the basic needs for every single human being on the earth... And what I say is, we don't do that... because we still have this deeply embedded belief that money... we are chasing money, we are not chasing the thing that society is supposed to be set up to do."5. Bitcoin perfectly illustrates money-as-religion: "Bitcoin is absolutely a religion. It's got its own god in Satoshi Nakamoto... it is the most fascinating thing to watch because it really is, you saw a religion grow up around a monetary system."Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Douglas Rushkoff has spent decades warning how each new digital technological “revolution” has promised liberation but actually only compounds social and economic injustice. Six months after describing AI to me as the "first native app for the internet," the New York City media theorist and author returns with a provocative historical parallel: AI as the next "dumb waiter." Just as Thomas Jefferson's mechanical food elevator appeared automated but relied on hidden slave labor, today's artificial intelligence presents itself as magical automation while depending on vast networks of invisible human workers in developing nations like Kenya and the Philippines. Rushkoff argues that slowing down AI development—not accelerating it—might be our most revolutionary act. And that successfully harnessing AI to our needs and desires might represent our "last chance" to rewrite society.1. AI is the "Dumb Waiter 2.0" - Like Jefferson's mechanical food elevator that appeared automated but depended on hidden slave labor, AI presents itself as magical automation while relying on invisible human workers. "So today you see AI is pitched to us as if you just put out a query and something comes back and there's been no human involved. There's tons of humans... it's not without humans, it's just that the human labor is hidden."2. The "Pedal-to-the-Metal" AI Deployment is Actually Reactionary - Tech billionaires pushing for rapid AI development aren't revolutionaries but reactionaries. "The tech bros who seem to want the most rapid deployment of this stuff... They are not the revolutionaries. They are the reactionaries. The reason they want to do this pedal to the metal, rapid deployment of AI is to prevent change."3. Jobs Were Invented and Can Be Reinvented - Employment as we know it was artificially created and can be reimagined. "Jobs were invented. Jobs were invented in the 11th and 12th century. When the charter monopoly came and said you're not allowed to be in business for yourself... jobs were invented. It means they can be reinvented or the economy can be re-invented."4. We Have a "Last Chance" Window of Opportunity - AI represents a brief moment when fundamental change is possible. "There's also the same opportunity, which is why I'm excited that same 1991/92/93 opportunity, there's a new technology that hasn't quite settled, the clay is still really wet. And the possibilities are really are wide and many."5. Slowing Down AI Development is More Revolutionary Than Speeding It Up - Rather than rushing deployment, we need time for thoughtful implementation. "What if we slow down enough to have distributed access to this technology? To look at more environmental ways of doing it... but really look at what do we want to do and have enough time to... ask deeper questions."Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

So who killed privacy? It's the central question of Tiffany Jenkins' provocative new history of private life, Strangers and Intimates. The answer, according to Jenkins, is that we are all complicit—having gradually and often accidentally contributed to privacy's demise from the 16th century onwards. Luther started it by challenging Papal religious authority and the public sacraments, thereby creating the necessity of private conscience. Then came Enlightenment philosophers like Locke and Hobbes who carved out bounded private political and economic spheres establishing the foundations for modern capitalism and democracy. Counter-enlightenment romantics like Rousseau reacted against this by fetishizing individual innocence and authenticity, while the Victorians elevated the domestic realm as sacred. Last but not least, there's Mark Zuckerberg's socially networked age, in which we voluntarily broadcast our private lives to a worldwide audience. But why, I ask Jenkins, should we care about the death of private life in our current hyper-individualistic age? Can it be saved by more or less obsession with the self? Or might it require us to return to the world before Martin Luther, a place Thomas More half satiricizes Utopia, where “private life” was a dangerously foreign idea. 1. Privacy is a Historical Accident, Not a Natural Human Condition"There was a sense in which you shouldn't do anything privately that they wouldn't do publicly... This wasn't a kind of property-based private life." Jenkins argues that before the 17th century, the very concept of leading a separate private life didn't exist—privacy as we understand it is a relatively recent invention.2. Martin Luther Accidentally Created Modern Privacy Through Religious Rebellion"Luther inadvertently... authorized the self as against, in his case, the Catholic Church... if you follow the debates over the kind of beginnings of a private sphere and its expansion, whether you're reading Locke or Hobbes, there's a discussion about... the limits of authority." Luther's challenge to religious authority unintentionally created the need for private conscience, sparking centuries of development toward individual privacy.3. The Digital Age Represents a Return to Pre-Privacy Transparency"I think we do live in a period where there is little distinction between public and private, where the idea that you might keep something to yourself is seen as strange, as inauthentic." Jenkins suggests our current era of social media oversharing resembles pre-modern times more than the Victorian peak of privacy.4. Modern Loneliness Stems From Social Fragmentation, Not Individual Psychology"I sometimes wonder if we're pathologizing, actually, what is a social problem, which is a society where people are fragmented, not quite sure how to go beyond themselves... I would see that as a social problem." Rather than treating loneliness as a personal issue, Jenkins argues it reflects the breakdown of intermediate institutions between family and state.5. Technology Doesn't Determine Our Privacy—We Do"Can't blame the tech, tech isn't the problem... It comes down really to what sort of society we want to live in and how we want to be treated. That's not a technical thing. That has not to do with technology. That's to do humans." Jenkins rejects technological determinism, arguing that privacy's fate depends on human choices about social organization, not inevitable technological forces.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Is Mohammed bin Salman a tyrant or an enlightened despot? According to the former Wall Street Journal publisher Karen Elliott House, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Man Who Would Be King, a new biography of MBS, he might be both. Or neither. House who spent years reporting from and writing on Saudi Arabia, offers a complex (and unofficial) portrait of the Crown Prince's ambitious transformation efforts, his deeply troubling human rights record, and the uncertain fate of his grand vision for modernizing the oil kingdom. Drawing on extensive access to MBS himself, she explores whether his reforms can succeed or will ultimately crumble like the ruins in Shelley's "Ozymandias." Rather than Lee Kuan Yew or Saddam Hussein, that's probably MBS' fate. A ruler neither sufficiently enlightened or tyrannical to leave a historical footprint. 1. MBS as an "Enlightened Despot" Shaped by Personal Experience"He is an enlightened despot. He grew up in that period when you couldn't do anything... all this trying to put the religious police aside is personal, not just policy for him."House argues that MBS's reforms stem from his own frustration with Saudi Arabia's religious restrictions, making his changes deeply personal rather than merely strategic.2. The Khashoggi Murder: A "Rendition Gone Wrong""I do believe that he too smart to order somebody to do that. I think what he ordered, that it was a rendition gone wrong. He said, bring the guy back... I don't think it would have happened if the crown prince had said, bring me that guy, but you know be sure he gets here alive."House suggests MBS likely ordered Khashoggi's return to Saudi Arabia but didn't intend for him to be killed, though she acknowledges the brutal outcome.3. Human Rights Have Worsened Under MBS"Yes, absolutely. But, you know, the only countries probably that are worse... basically Iran, China, North Korea, countries like that."When asked if Saudi's human rights record has deteriorated under MBS, House confirms it has, placing the kingdom among the world's worst offenders.4. Ambitious Projects Face Reality Checks"Some of his ideas are like the line in Naom... I mean that's a, you know, some might say a monstrosity... it's now down to there will be a mile and a half of it by 2030."House describes how MBS's grandiose vision for NEOM has been dramatically scaled back, suggesting his ambitious projects may be unrealistic.5. Uncertain Legacy: The Ozymandias Question"I quote in the book, the poet Shelley's poem, Ozymandias, about dirt and the look at me, mighty and despair, that it could all turn to dirt... if it were me and I had all of these issues that he faces now, I'd probably crawl under the bed and take a sleeping pill."House remains uncertain about MBS's ultimate success, comparing his potential fate to the fallen ruler in Shelley's poem while acknowledging his determination to persist despite enormous challenges.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Sociocide is a chilling word. Coined by the Norwegian sociologist Johan Galtung, it means the deliberate destruction of a society's social infrastructure and capacity to function as a cohesive unit. According to Boston College sociologist Charles Derber, this kind of social suicide is now destroying America. In his latest book, Bonfire, Derber argues that America is slipping and sliding into a sociocide of broken social and political relations. Drawing on decades of research, Derber connects rising isolation—people eating alone, losing friends, living in "civic deserts"—to the rise of authoritarianism. When social bonds collapse, he warns, isolated individuals become vulnerable to strongman leaders who exploit their fear and loneliness.1. Sociocide is Social Suicide at the Societal Level"We're kind of breaking apart into individual atomized individuals who have no sense of real enduring connection with each other... When societies commit suicide, unravel, it breaks down the possibility of sort of a normal, humane community and life and opens the door to what we're facing today, which is an authoritarian sort of dictatorial kind of leader."2. Americans Are Becoming Dangerously Isolated"More and more people are eating all their meals alone. I've seen data that has up to 68% of people say they eat most of their meals alone. The numbers of people who claim to have close friends, the numbers of who get married or stay married. The number of people who feel connected at their workplace to other workers or to their employers is all on a downward path."3. Isolation Creates the Perfect Conditions for Authoritarianism"Hannah Arendt, de Tocqueville, many great thinkers have recognized that isolation and atomization is a foundation for authoritarianism and strong labor who capitalize on the fear and disconnection. When people are isolated, they look to strong leaders who will protect them."4. Trump Voters Aren't Choosing Death—They're Choosing Survival"The people with the lowest integration into society have the lowest relationships, eat more alone, have fewer friends. The Trump base is, at least according to the data that I've been able to collect, is the part of America most characterized by sociocide... They're scared economically, most of them say they're one paycheck away from poverty."5. The Solution Requires Coming Together in Sustained Ways"The answer to social side is coming together... People have to persevere in public protest together. I mean, you have to come together... I think it's only by trying to build in every phase of your life these connections that give you a sense of hope and caring and possibility." This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

It's the fantasy of countless Wall Street analysts. Amran Gowani traded his lucrative career in hedge funds for the scarily solitary world of novel writing. His debut satirical novel Leverage draws from his insider experience at investment banks and hedge funds, exposing the toxic culture and perverse incentives that drive corporate America's financial sector. In this bracingly frank conversation, Gowani confesses his transformation from organic chemistry PhD dropout to pharmaceutical marketing executive to Wall Street analyst, and finally to full-time novelist. He reveals the harsh economic realities of publishing fiction, the challenges of first-time novel writing, and how he channeled his corporate experiences into satirizing the very system that employed him. 1. Publishing Economics vs. Wall Street Profits "The money I made in the mid 2010s on my Wall Street Bank dwarfs the money I made on the advance I got for my novel and that's and I actually got a pretty good advance... You don't write novels because you want money or at least you shouldn't if you're looking for money."2. Structural Problems Drive Toxic Behavior "When you run companies and you tell people that the only thing that matters in your company as shareholder value. Then people are gonna do everything they can to maximize shareholder value... When you create perverse incentives, I mean, you're gonna get perverse outcomes."3. Writing as Processing and Understanding "I wrote my book and I write in general because I think it helps me process the world around me. It helps me understand the world round me... that's my way of processing the world and and communicating ideas that I think are important using the the satirical framework."4. Modern Authors Must Be Marketers "I don't think that you can just be like, I'm going to sit it out. I'm not going to be on social media. I'm Not going to have a newsletter, and just be like, I'm just going to write a great book, and I'm going to get found. Like, I don't think that's really viable anymore."5. AI Won't Replace Human Storytelling "Nobody wants to read, no serious reader wants to read a novel written by a computer... It's not a person, it's not a living entity behind the words, no matter how realistic they might seem... when you're looking to connect it like a human experience... people wanna read a book written by basically a linear regression machine."No, not everyone can or will be Michael Lewis. But Gowani should be applauded for both his bravery and honesty. We should all wish him the best of luck with Leverage. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

How can anyone forget those photos of Trump's sons celebrating over the carcasses of dead animals that they shot in Africa? Fortunately, not all sons of American Presidents behave so tastelessly in the wild. As Nathalia Holt argues in her new history, The Beast in the Clouds, Teddy Roosevelt's sons found redemption - and regret - in their (peaceful) 1928 quest for the giant panda in northwestern China. Holt argues that their remarkable expedition marked a pivotal moment in conservation history, transforming scientific thinking from hunting endangered species to protecting them, while simultaneously offering the troubled Roosevelt brothers their greatest achievement and deepest source of remorse. We should all give thanks for Teddy and his boys. Where would the wilderness or endangered species be without them?1. The expedition transformed scientific thinking from hunting to conservation"The story that I'm telling is all about the birth of conservation biology and how scientists changed their minds, how they went from believing that endangered animals needed to be hunted and killed to be studied to instead be described and to be photographed and to given far more protections."2. The Roosevelt sons were escaping personal and professional failures"Both the sons at this point in their lives, they are 41 and 39 years old, they're in a way running away from life... Ted, the eldest son, has just been what his wife called politically obliterated... Kermit Roosevelt, who has struggled. He does not have a successful business. He suffers from alcoholism."3. The panda was genuinely mythical to Western science"The panda was this animal that was mythical. Many people did not believe it even existed in the Western world... Many people believe that the panda would be a cross between a polar bear and a black bear, a very aggressive, dangerous animal."4. The expedition's success led to immediate regret and conservation efforts"When they come back after this trip they immediately regret their actions with the panda... And the Roosevelts are devastated by this because they know that they are the ones that have caused this."5. The expedition pioneered modern species protection policies"The panda is really the first animal to gain these protections. It's a real turning point, because you've had many endangered animals previously, that they're just, they go extinct and nobody makes any laws... But the pandas, because they know how rare they are, they decide to change things."Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

The last time Peter Wehner, who I've always imagined as America's conscience, appeared on the show to talk about the “ethical darkness” that has fallen upon America, I suggested that this was an “important” interview. Today's conversation is much more important than being simply important. Based on Wehner's recent Atlantic piece about why MAGA evangelicals have turned their back on PEPFAR, the American relief agency saving the lives of millions of Africa's AIDS victims, this is a conversation about America's heart of moral darkness. It's not just Trump who has African blood on his hands, Wehner argues, but most of his evangelical supporters who are unmoved by the destruction of PEPFAR. For the first time in my many conversations with Wehner, he was visibly moved by both the cruelty of Trump and the indifference of his supposedly Christian supporters. 1. Trump's Destruction of PEPFAR is "Wanton Cruelty" "This to me was an act of wanton cruelty. You really had to go out of your way to think how can I kill millions of people quickly inefficient. And they found one way to do it, which is to shatter USAID, which is the main implementing agency for PEPFAR."2. The Scale of Death is Staggering and Real-Time "There is an adult being lost every three minutes, a child every 31 minutes. And ending PEPFAR could result in as many as 11 million additional new HIV infections and nearly 3 million additional AIDS-related deaths by the end of the decade."3. Trump's Hold on Evangelicals is Unlike Anything in American Politics "I think it is closer to a cult of personality than it is to a normal political party... I think in some senses, the truest thing Donald Trump said in the 2016 campaign was when he said that he could go on Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and he wouldn't lose support. And I think that turned out to be not hyperbole but prophetic."4. Evangelical Silence Reveals Their True Moral Priorities "In 2014, World Vision announced that they would hire at some levels of the organization, people who were in same sex marriages. And it was like a bomb going off in the evangelical world... Between 3,000 and 3,500 sponsors of kids primarily in Africa... Were ended... And now you have a situation... about what destruction of PEPFAR has done and will do and you can get barely get a peep out of them."5. This is About Mass Death, Not Policy Disagreement "Yeah, no, that is what I'm saying. I'm saying there will be a lot, lot more before this is done. There will be millions... We're talking really, really significant numbers. And that's an enormous amount of death, an enormous of suffering, and it's completely unnecessary."I hate the term “moral urgency”. But this is a morally urgent conversation about America's descent into a heart of darkness. Wehner exposes the cruelty and stupidity of destruction of the PEPFAR program. Even in the time you've spent reading this, a couple of African children will have died because of the callousness of MAGA disregard for human life. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

From suburban swimming pools and SUVs to White Lives Matter rallies, the Johns Hopkins anthropologist Anand Pandian has been exploring the everyday walls of American life. In his new book, Something Between Us, Pandian travels across the United States in his search to both climb and overcome these walls. What he finds is a nation tragically at war with itself. Through intimate portraits of communities divided by race, class, and ideology, Pandian reveals how ordinary public spaces have become literal battlegrounds for identity and belonging. From gated suburban neighborhoods in Florida to online echo chambers, his ethnographic journey exposes the invisible barriers that shape American social life. But he concludes with a degree of optimism. We can overcome those walls, he says, with the kind of collective political action that brings people of different ideological persuasions together.1. Anthropological Method Reveals America's Hidden Divisions"Ethnographic research is based on the idea that the best way of understanding the life of people in a particular social, cultural, historical situation is to immerse [in] the day-to-day circumstances of those people as much as possible, to imagine what it's like to live in those environments... and to try to see what the world would look like from that concrete point of view."Pandian applies traditional anthropological methods—typically used to study distant cultures—to examine contemporary American society, revealing how divisions operate in everyday spaces.2. Personal Experience Sparked Academic Investigation"My own father was yelled at one day when he was walking down the road in Santa Monica, California, go back to your own country. I recount in the book an incident that my own son faced that fall of 2016 at the swimming pool where he was learning how to swim at the age of eight."The 2016 election cycle and personal encounters with racism motivated Pandian to turn his anthropological lens on America, particularly after his son faced racial taunts at a historically segregated Baltimore pool.3. Understanding Radicalization Through Everyday Logic"I think it's really important to try to figure out how it is that radical positions, sometimes even monstrous positions, can grow out of really everyday banal circumstances... that gentleman in particular, I remember him making sense of this idea of the ethnostate by talking about how it is that when you're on an airplane, you're always advised to put your own mask on before you take care of anyone else."Rather than dismissing white nationalists, Pandian seeks to understand how ordinary reasoning can lead to extremist positions.4. Walls Are Both Physical and Mental"I talk about circumstances that are really difficult. I talk the fact that a fifth of all Americans who live in residential communities now live in communities that are gated. I talk about what the 80 percent market share that SUVs and light trucks now enjoy in the American automotive market represents with regard to the zenith of certain ideas of protecting oneself at any cost."The book examines how physical barriers (gated communities, SUVs) combine with mental walls (social media echo chambers) to deepen American divisions.5. Unlikely Coalitions Offer Hope for Change"I focus on... The certain kind of paradox that we might see, how do we make sense of the fact that in the same years that we saw the tightening of restrictions on reproductive rights in a state like Ohio, we saw a rollback of this particular measure [the pink tax], which advocates argued was discriminatory... that political opening grew out of some pretty unlikely coalitions that formed between people on the right and the left."Despite deep polarization, Pandian finds examples of successful cross-partisan organizing around specific issues, suggesting possibilities for bridging divides through shared concerns rather than comprehensive ideological agreement.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

So what, exactly, is the AI wedge? According to Ewan Morrison, author of For Emma, an already acclaimed novel about our dystopian biotech future, it means a “V-shaped” force that starts small but gradually drives people apart, replacing human connection with technological mediation."It starts off really small. You end up with something like internet dating... it begins as a novelty and then people become dependent on it," Morrison explains. What seemed harmless in the 1990s has evolved to the point where 60-70% of people now use dating apps, with younger generations saying they "don't wanna meet anyone outside of using an app because they don't trust anyone." But the wedge doesn't stop there. The final stage, Morrison warns, is the replacement of the humans completely by AI friends, partners, even therapists. The metaphor captures how each technological "solution" creates new dependencies while eroding our capacity for direct human interaction. As Morrison puts it, technology "removes that sort of tactile sense that humorous, trusting, improvisatory, make do sense that we have when we deal face to face with people." Morrison notes that "for some, it's easier. It's easier to have an AI friend because it's always going to tell you, you're wonderful." This highlights how the wedge works not just through dependency, but through the seductive appeal of artificial relationships that never require the messy, challenging work of real human connection.1. AI is Pure Hype, Not a Real Revolution"I think you just have to break it down and look at AI from a PR perspective and see what we were promised. We were promised human level AI by Marvin Minsky in 1970... And I think we're seeing the same cycle happening again."Morrison argues we're experiencing the third "AI winter" - a pattern of overpromising and eventual collapse that's repeated since the 1970s.2. The AI Wedge Drives Human Separation"They're a bit like a wedge, like a V-shaped wedge... So it starts off really small... and then the final stage of that wedge is the replacement of the humans completely by Mark Zuckerberg's AI friends, by AI partners, AI therapists, these human surrogates."Technology gradually separates us from authentic human connection through a three-stage process: novelty, dependency, replacement.3. Neuralink Represents Dangerous Human Experimentation"When it's a dirty operating table with surgical glue being squeezed into your skull as electronic treads have shaken themselves loose from deep in your brain... then it starts to become a different story entirely."Morrison warns that Silicon Valley's "move fast and break things" mentality becomes morally problematic when applied to human bodies and brains.4. We Shouldn't Ask AI Life's Big Questions"The tragedy that I'm trying to put forward in the book is that we shouldn't give that big question to computers to answer. We shouldn't ask AI, why are we alive?"His novel For Emma explores the danger of outsourcing fundamental human questions about meaning and purpose to artificial intelligence.5. The Utilitarian vs. Romantic Struggle Continues"We're never gonna solve this, but what will happen will be there will be periods in history where one side takes dominance over the other... And now we are seeing the return of the utilitarian mindset once again with the new technologies enabled by AI."Morrison sees current tech development as part of a historical cycle between utilitarian planning (Bentham-style) and romantic individualism, with AI representing a new form of surveillance society.I've know Morrison for many years and generally share his take on Big Tech. But I differ on his view about what he calls the coming 3rd “AI winter”. There's too much capital and technology now to imagine this kind of sharp freeze on the AI economy. For better or worse, this thing is happening now. The threshold has been crossed. It's already radically changing the nature of education and work. And we are still in the earliest chapters of the revolution. That AI wedge is going to get seriously painful. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

You've heard it before and you'll hear it again. AI is a gold rush. It will change everything. But 2025 is different, That Was The Week tech newsletter publisher Keith Teare argues. This is the year that the AI gold rush is changing everything. In our reflection of the first six months of 2025, Keith argues that we're witnessing a fundamental "phase shift" - not just another tech cycle, but an inflection point where scale becomes a necessity for survival. From Meta's $100 million developer deals to the consolidation of 80% of venture capital into just five firms, from Cloudflare's revolutionary "toll booth" economy replacing advertising models to the tokenization of private markets through platforms like Robinhood, the rules of Silicon Valley are being rewritten. As graduates face an employment crisis and AI superstars command unprecedented compensation, Keith and I debate whether this transformation represents capitalism's natural evolution or a dangerous concentration of power that could reshape the global economy forever.1. Scale Has Become a Survival Requirement2025 marks a shift where scale isn't just advantageous—it's necessary for survival. With 80% of venture capital flowing to just five firms (Andreessen, Sequoia, Cotu, Lightspeed, and one other), and late-stage investors writing billion-dollar checks for 3-5x returns instead of traditional smaller bets for 100x gains, the venture capital game has fundamentally changed.2. The "Toll Booth" Economy is Replacing AdvertisingCloudflare's "paper crawl" initiative represents a seismic shift from advertising-based revenue models to direct payment systems where AI companies must pay publishers for content access. This could create new revenue streams for content creators while giving them control over how their intellectual property is used for AI training.3. Tokenization is Democratizing Private MarketsRobinhood's tokenization of companies like SpaceX and OpenAI allows European retail investors to buy shares in private companies through crypto-backed tokens. This convergence of private markets, public markets, and crypto could fundamentally change who can access high-growth investments.4. AI Superstars Command Unprecedented ValueWhile AI eliminates many jobs, it's creating extreme value concentration among top talent. Meta's $100 million deals for individual AI experts and OpenAI's $6 billion deal with Johnny Ive illustrate how differentiated developers are becoming incredibly valuable in an age where most workers face displacement.5. 2025 is the Inflection Point, Not the FutureUnlike previous tech cycles, Keith argues this isn't about future potential—the transformation is happening now. With companies like OpenAI reaching $14 billion in annual revenue and AI's economic impact becoming undeniable, 2025 represents the moment when AI shifted from promise to reality, making it a true inflection point rather than just another tech trend.Where Keith and I fundamentally disagree is over jobs. He seems to skate over the implications of jobless consequences of AI, believing in some sort of magical age of abundance in which we will all be free to pursue our hobbies. I think this is entirely wrong. This is where his Silicon Valley language about having to “scale or die” is so terrifying. Over the next couple of decades, tens of millions of people are going to lose both their jobs and careers to the AI revolution. Some might find other kinds of work, but most won't. The age of abundance is total a myth. Instead of “scale or die”, the mantra of the coming age will be “scale or starve”. What we are about to experience is the kind of economic scarcity that will utterly transform our societies and politics. 2025 might be an inflection point for Silicon Valley. But that existential moment for the rest of us will come in around 2030.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

On July 4, 2025, is America still worth the fireworks? For Paul Orgel, producer of America 250, C-SPAN's upcoming celebration of 250 years of independence, the answer is a full stars 'n stripes YES! But even this C-SPAN veteran acknowledges the complexity of celebrating America in 2025. "We're not just going to be celebratory," Orgel admits, "but realistic to the good, the bad and the ugly of our country's history." As America stands one year away from its 250th birthday, the question isn't whether national independence deserves to be celebrated—it's whether Americans can still find common ground in their shared experiment. With political divisions deeper than ever and historical narratives under fierce debate, Orgel's mission feels both urgent and impossible: reminding a fractured nation why it's still worth celebrating together.1. C-SPAN's America 250 Will Address the "Good, Bad and Ugly:" "This effort of ours will not just be celebratory, but will be realistic to the good, the bad and the ugly of our country's history." Orgel promises C-SPAN won't shy away from difficult topics like slavery and treatment of indigenous peoples, even as they celebrate America's founding.2. The Founders Expected Political Division: "When you read about how the early debates and early politics in this country were conducted, very, very rabid, very opinionated, very harsh in their political campaigns... I don't think founders would be surprised at how divided politics are in the country now." Current political polarization isn't unprecedented—it echoes the fierce debates of America's earliest days.3. "Freedom" Still Defines the American Experience: "I just interviewed a bunch of people in Boston and Philadelphia about what it means to be an American. And the word that kept coming up was freedom. Freedom to live where you want, do what you want." Despite current challenges, Americans still see freedom as their defining characteristic.4. America Remains an Ongoing Experiment: "They talk about this country still being an experiment, right? How can we get better? How can we become more unified as a country? I don't think that conversation ever ends." The work of building America isn't finished—it's a continuous process of improvement and adaptation.5. The Constitution's Flexibility Was It's Genius: "The beauty... is that they left that Constitution amendable. I think they realized that they weren't gonna have all the answers to everything." The founders' decision to make the Constitution changeable shows their wisdom in creating a framework that could evolve with the times.Like C-SPAN's Paul Orgel, I think America is worth the fireworks. But not because the American Dream is alive and well—because it's still worth improving. What strikes me about this interview is how Orgel refuses to abandon the dream even while acknowledging its flaws, contradictions and, perhaps, even its fundamental imperfectability. Over the next 18 months, we'll be featuring more content from C-SPAN's celebration of America's 250 years of independence. So enjoy today's fireworks and get ready for many more over the next year and a half.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Few people have spent more of their lives thinking about the Nazis than the English filmmaker and writer Laurence Rees. In his new book, The Nazi Mind, Rees offers a lifetime of knowledge about the Nazis to warn about today's fragility of democracy. Borrowing from his extensive interviews of both former Nazis and Holocaust survivors, Rees discusses how Nazi ideology developed, why democracy proved so vulnerable in 1930s Germany, and what modern societies must understand about the enduring appeal of authoritarianism. Institutions we take for granted, he warns, can be far more fragile than we imagine.1. Democracy is More Fragile Than We Think"Everything is fragile and often a great deal more fragile than we think. That's the recurring theme of many of the interviewees that I met. Never saw this coming... You can have the most fragile piece of glass on your mantelpiece and it can stay there for 50 years, but someone can just touch it and it breaks." Democratic institutions require constant vigilance to survive.2. The Nazis Started as a Fringe Movement"Crucial statistic people should hold onto is that in 1928, the Nazis only got 2.6% of the vote. The vast majority of Germans rejected them... And then five years later, Hitler's chancellor." Economic crisis and democratic failure allowed extremism to flourish.3. Nazi Anti-Semitism Was Uniquely Dangerous"Unlike in previous anti-Semitic attacks going back hundreds and hundreds of years, there wasn't a possibility of a Jew saving themselves by saying, no, I'm baptized Christian... The Nazis saw you as a Jew based on your Jewish heritage, and so you found that there was no escape." This racial ideology made the Holocaust uniquely all-encompassing and deadly.4. Charismatic Leadership Requires Hero Worship"It was vital for a charismatic leader that the population see him as a hero... The notion of a charismatic leader being a hero figure is incredibly useful and important." Modern propaganda techniques were pioneered by figures like Goebbels.5. Historical Ignorance Enables Extremism"The bigger issue is absolute historical illiteracy... All this nonsense, all this misinformation, all this fake history, to coin a phrase, comes in to fill the gap." Without understanding history, people become vulnerable to manipulation and conspiracy theories.Forget the 12 warnings. There are only two ways of thinking about the Nazi mind: either it's evil or it's banal. In his historical movies and books, Rees treats Nazis as uniquely literal manifestation of pure evil. In contrast, Hannah Arendt's 1963 book, Eichmann in Jerusalem, focuses on its human ordinariness - what she called the banality of evil. It's an argument that Jonathan Glazer brilliantly develops in his controversial 2023 Oscar-winning movie, The Zone of Interest. As you can probably sense from my conversation with Rees, I'm in the Arendt/Glazer camp on this. Evil is always all around us. It's in Guantanamo and Gaza, as well as Belsen and Auschwitz. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

If the American dream died in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963, then who killed it? According to the crime novelist Terrence McCauley, the JFK assassination was carried out by organized crime. That's the heart of his new novel, Twilight Town, in which McCauley reexamines the JFK assassination in Dallas. But this wasn't Oliver Stone style CIA or shadowy government conspirators, pulling well-oiled strings from their deep state offices. Instead, McCauley argues it was something far more mundane yet chilling: a street-level contract hit executed by mob-connected criminals with intelligence ties. These were the same underworld figures who ran guns to Cuba, operated training camps for Bay of Pigs veterans, and had both the means and motive to eliminate a President they saw as soft on communism and hard on organized crime. In McCauley's vision, America's Camelot ended not through some grand operatic conspiracy, but through the banal efficiency of professional killers.1. The JFK Assassination Was a "Street Crime," Not a High-Level Government Plot "I approach it as the way I thought it was. And that is a contract hit and a street crime, which is ultimately what happened on the streets of Dallas that morning." McCauley argues the assassination was carried out by mob-connected criminals with intelligence ties, not CIA masterminds in smoke-filled rooms.2. Only a Small Group Knew the Full Plan "I think maybe 10 or 20 at the most who knew all the details and much fewer than that who knew exactly what was going to happen and when." McCauley believes the conspiracy was deliberately kept small, citing FBI recordings of Joseph Milteer who said such operations only work with minimal participants.3. Lee Harvey Oswald Didn't Pull the Trigger "I never was able to put a gun in Oswald's hands that day... I don't think he did. No, I think he was involved with the people who did." McCauley argues Oswald was connected to the plotters but wasn't the actual shooter, pointing to inconclusive gunpowder residue tests.4. The Assassination Marked "The End of American Innocence" "It was certainly the end of American innocence, where we thought we were always the good guys, where we were the liberators, and where we were one hope of the world against the ongoing threat of communism." McCauley sees November 22, 1963, as the moment America lost its post-WWII optimism.5. The Cover-Up Happened Because Intelligence Agencies Recognized Their Own Assets "The coverup happened because these organizations looked into it. They realized, well, so-and-so could have this off, and we worked with them for 10 years, let's back away from that." McCauley suggests the cover-up wasn't planned but emerged when agencies discovered their own connected operatives were involved.The American Dream has more lives than cats. It was supposed to have died in November 1963 in Dallas, then in 1968 with the assassinations of MLK and RFK, then in the Fall of Saigon, then at the Watergate Building, then at the Twin Towers on 9/11. And then, of course, there is Trump, who is supposed to have slain the American Dream not once but twice. And yet today, a couple of days before Independence Day, my sense is that the Dream is alive all over America. The promise of individual agency continues to inspire new generations of both native and immigrant Americans. JFK might be gone, but the Dream remains the defining quality of the American experience. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

If everything is propaganda (even this show), then we are forever engaged in a war to control other people's minds. That, at least, is the view of the self-described “freedom fighter”, Connor Boyack, the libertarian author of the best-selling Tuttle Twins series of children books. In his latest piece of Tuttle Twins propaganda, A Guide to the World's Worst Ideas, Boyack argues against all forms of government welfare, drug prohibition and foreign military engagement. And yet there's one institution that the Utah based Boyack religiously supports. The family, he says, offers protection for children and should be actively protected by the government. Children of the world unite, some might respond, you've got nothing to lose but your parents. 1. Everything is Propaganda - And That's Fine "Tuttle twins, quote me now, is libertarian propaganda. And I use that word intentionally because what is propaganda? Propaganda is just propagating an idea from one person's mind to another. It is persuasion. It is education. Everything is propaganda."2. America Isn't Really Free "I'm quite a libertarian and everywhere I look, there's a lot of reasons to think we're not independent. We threw off the shackles of Britain so long ago and if those same patriots and founding fathers who were part of constructing a new country could see all the heavy programs and taxes and all the things now, I think they'd have a thing or two to say about it."3. Foreign Intervention Creates More Problems "Look at Iran. Everyone's freaking out about Iran. But Iran, the whole conflict started in 1953 when the CIA waged a coup along with the UK and overthrew the democratically elected leader that led to the hostage crisis in 79, which led to of the destruction in the decades since."4. Family is the Natural Form of Government "I see the family and parents as the breeding ground of freedom, the natural form of governance... between Totalitarianism on the one hand and the naked individual on the other looms the first line of resistance against totalitarianism, and that is the economic and politically independent family."5. Drug Prohibition Mirrors Failed Alcohol Prohibition "Look prohibition, I think there's common like there's there's general consensus that the alcohol prohibition of a century ago didn't work But it's that same sentiment that fuels the drug war today, which of course has led to cartels It's led to fentanyl. It's lead to all of these problems where people are being harmed and dying."When somebody claims that everything is propaganda, you know that something isn't. There's always some ideological “truth” at the heart of all everything-is-ideology messages. For the freedom fetishizing Boyack, it's the “natural” truth of the family. But I'm not convinced. As Philip Larkin wrote, “They f**k you up, your mum and dad.” Equally troubling, they infect you with bad ideas. So my message this July 4 week to all American kids: don't trust anything your mom or dad reads to you. It's bound to be propaganda. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

As we transition from the social media age (the internet of trolls) to the AI epoch (the internet of tolls), has the publishing apocalypse finally arrived? That's the question Keith Teare and I discuss in our That Was the Week summary of tech news. Two major court cases this week—Getty Images vs. Stability AI and the Anthropic lawsuit—have fundamentally shifted the legal landscape around AI and copyright. The courts ruled that AI systems can legally "learn" from published content without copying it, essentially giving artificial intelligence a free pass to consume human creativity at scale. Meanwhile, publishers are scrambling to find new business models as search traffic evaporates and AI “answers” replace traditional web browsing. From CloudFlare's proposed toll system to the rise of AI browsers like DIA, Keith and I explore how traditional link economics are being completely reimagined—and whether human creators can survive the transformation. Dead Links Walking everyone. It's going to be a bloody entertaining spectacle. * AI Won the Legal Battle: Two major court cases (Getty Images vs. Stability AI and the Anthropic lawsuit) ruled that AI systems can legally "learn" from copyrighted content without permission, as long as they're not directly copying it. This distinction between learning and copying has massive implications for content creators.* The Search-to-AI Shift is Killing Publisher Revenue: As consumers increasingly use AI instead of search engines, publishers are losing the traffic that drives their advertising-based business models. Google's own CEO admits about two-thirds of their revenue still comes from search ads—a model that's under threat.* The "Internet of Tolls" is Coming: Publishers will be forced to return to pre-internet subscription models, putting content behind paywalls. CloudFlare is even developing technology to charge AI systems for accessing content at the network level, creating micro-transactions for publishers.* Links Are the New Currency: The future monetization model for publishers may depend on getting AI systems to surface and properly compensate for links to original content, rather than just providing direct answers.* We're Still Waiting for Native AI Products: Despite all the hype, we haven't yet seen the "Netscape moment" for AI—a truly native, intuitive product that isn't just AI bolted onto existing technology. The real transformation is still coming.“The tollbooths are rising”, Keith ends his That Was The Week editorial, “the road ahead is ours to choose”. I think he's wrong. Yes, he's right, of course, that the AI revolution is inaugurating a new toll economy of walled garden AI leviathans. But the future isn't ours to choose. We - and I mean the broad content industry from individual producers to larger publishers - are spectators to this epochal change. Agency no longer exists. We don't shape the future; it shapes us. Maybe that was always the case. But in the age of trillion dollar AI start-ups, we don't matter. As I said earlier, it's going to be a bloody entertaining spectacle. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Yesterday's show was on the Great White Hoax of manufactured racism in America. Today's is on Black Capitalists, the title of a provocative new book by Rachel Layrea. But is this a great black hoax? Or might her focus on race and class really be a blueprint for a more ethical 21st century capitalism? Laryea, who holds a PhD from Yale and works in wealth management at JPMorgan Chase, argues that Black capitalists can strategically use the tools of capitalism to create social good, not just profit. But in a week when Jeff Bezos's lavish Venice wedding sparked protests about wealth inequality, can any kind of capitalism - either black, brown or white - ever truly serve social justice? And with the dismantling of DEI initiatives across America, is Booker T. Washington's style self-reliance the only path forward for Black economic empowerment?1. Black capitalism means using wealth-building strategically for social good, not just profit . Laryea:"To be clear, a Black capitalist is someone who identifies as a Black person and strategically repositions themselves within the economic system in order to create social good... it's someone who is still kind of in pursuit of excess resources, but it's also with the intention to create and produce social good."2. Race and class are inextricably linked in America's economic system Laryea: "When you think about systemic inequality, that's predicated on racism, implicated in systemic inequality focused on racism is also a story about inequality when it comes to classism as well... there is a correlation between race and class."3. Black people face different standards and expectations as they accumulate wealth Laryea: "When people ascend the kind of economic social ladder, they are held to different standards than their non-white counterparts... oftentimes correlations that we see around wealth and whiteness are not questioned. But when we see black economic thriving, we question why they should be thriving."4. Communities can't rely on external institutions to solve economic inequality Laryea: "The cavalry is not coming. We see the strategic kind of dismantling of DE&I initiatives, programs that have aimed to create access and channels to opportunity... it really starts with us and looking within and creating those mechanisms ourselves."5. Traditional capitalism is fundamentally exploitative, requiring a different approach Laryea: "What's wrong with capitalism is that it is predicated on exploitation, extraction, harm of some sense... You can have a billionaire exist while still have people who don't have access to meet their fundamental needs to food, water, shelter. Those two things should not coexist."Like apple pie, everybody loves the idea of ethical capitalism. But just as most “homemade” apple pie in stores today comes from a factory, not some rustic kitchen, most for-profit capitalism - whether practiced by black, white, or brown entrepreneurs - ends up focused singularly on profit. Laryea's example of a unicorn fintech company (ASUS) may help people build credit, but it's still a billion-dollar business extracting value from financial transactions. Blueprints remain just blueprints. I'm wary of coloring capitalism. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

There's something fishy about what Philip Kadish calls The Great White Hoax. It's his new book about America's long con - how racist scientific hoaxes have shaped two centuries of racist politics. From the 1840 Census Scandal to Henry Ford to George Wallace, Kadish exposes the conmen who have tried to sell racism to America. But here's the chilling twist: many of these fraudsters knew exactly what they were doing. They weren't true believers - they were cynical opportunists who saw profit in peddling fake science to justify white supremacy, creating elaborate deceptions that sometimes fooled even legitimate scientists. 1. Many racist "scientific" theories were deliberate, cynical frauds, not misguided beliefs"The thing that really characterizes the particular thread that I am following in my book and things that I was finding is that they all involved varying degrees of a kind of cynical, very self-aware, purposeful deception."2. The 1840 Census created the template for American scientific racism through knowing falsification"So this was a case that was starting out as an accident, but then he knowingly investigated it, saw the falseness, and then re-certified it, and that information was then used in the defense of slavery for decades."3. Authority and social credibility mattered more than actual scientific expertise"Madison Grant... did not have a degree in biology. He was trained as a lawyer... the reason he was trusted about race, all of these politicians and wealthy philanthropists, is because, A, he came from a very wealthy family himself."4. The hoax pattern shifted but didn't disappear after World War II"It became socially unacceptable to be that, to be making such openly racist arguments... And things shift into a kind of coded mode... while we're talking about state's rights or he's developing a language talking about the federal government as a tyranny."5. Many hoaxes continued to influence people even after being exposed as fraudulent"Over half of the hoaxes that I described in the book were revealed as hoaxes in the midst of them. And yet were still embraced by many people and often for a long time after."I'm in two minds on this. One the one hand, Kadish' expose of two centuries of selling fraudulent scientific racism is chilling. On the other hand, I wonder if progressive historians like Kadish are themselves becoming overly preoccupied with race and racism. I'm also not convinced that the MAGA movement, RFK Jr or Fox News are a return to the overt racism of D.W. Griffith's movie Birth of a Nation or the “science” of eugenicists like Madison Grant. History, particularly American history, is too complex to simply repeat itself endlessly. Sometimes it rhymes and sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes, the historical hoax is in the hoax. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Next month, America will celebrate the centenary of the Scopes Trial, the so-called 1925 “Monkey Trial” on evolution that riveted a nation. Although perhaps celebrate is the wrong word to describe the Tennessee trial that not only riveted America but also divided it. According to the historian Brenda Wineapple, author of Keeping The Faith: God, Democracy, and the Trial that Riveted a Nation, the Scopes trial is as relevant to America in 2025 as it was in 1925. According to Wineapple, the trial wasn't really about science versus religion at all. Neither side truly understood Darwin's theory of evolution, which had been settled science for decades. Instead, the Scopes trial served as a cultural battleground where deeper American anxieties played out—fears about immigration, racial integration, women's suffrage, and rapid social change in the post-World War I era. The real combatants weren't evolution and creationism, or even the courtroom celebrities Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, but competing visions of American identity. Today, as debates rage over book bans, curriculum restrictions, and civil rights, Wineapple argues that America is still fighting the same fundamental battles that erupted in that sweltering Dayton, Tennessee courtroom a century ago.1. The trial wasn't actually about science versus religion Neither side understood Darwin's theory, which had been settled science for decades, revealing the real issues lay elsewhere. KEY QUOTE: "Nobody knew the science. Nobody understood the science, and Darwin had published, in 1859, The Origin of Species."2. It was a proxy fight for deeper cultural anxieties about rapid social change The evolution debate masked fears about immigration, women's suffrage, racial integration, and post-WWI upheaval. KEY QUOTE: "So there was a proxy fight that was occurring, because it really couldn't be about what it was said to be about, and I think people on the ground in 1925 knew that."3. Race was a central but often hidden issue in the proceedings Black communities understood that evolution theory undermined racist hierarchies, making this fundamentally about racial anxiety. KEY QUOTE: "Certainly many in the Black communities felt that this was about race because they understood... that the theory of evolution itself helped make absolutely indefensible the idea that racial hierarchies."4. William Jennings Bryan embodied the contradictions of progressive populism Bryan simultaneously championed common people while holding reactionary views on race, showing populism's complex nature. KEY QUOTE: "So in that sense, he was a progressive, as you said he was for the common people... at the same time as being very conservative, even to being reactionary."5. The trial's relevance to contemporary America lies in ongoing battles over freedom and education Today's debates over book bans and curriculum restrictions echo the same fundamental questions about who controls knowledge. KEY QUOTE: "The issues that are being debated in terms of the trial or raised at the trial really are about freedom... who decides what we learn, what we can read."I've always been intrigued by William Jennings Bryan, the three-time Democratic candidate for President, passionate Prohibitionist and lead prosecutor at the Scopes Trial. As today's Democrats struggle to invent a progressive 21st century populism that can compete with MAGA, what can Bryan teach us? Bryan embodies populism's central paradox: his passionate defense of ordinary people against economic elites coexisted with deeply reactionary social views. He championed workers and women's suffrage while refusing to condemn the KKK. His "Cross of Gold" speech attacked Wall Street, but his fundamentalism led him to Dayton to prosecute a schoolteacher for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution. This wasn't a bug but a feature of Bryan's thinking —he believed "the people" should decide everything, from monetary policy to what children should learn about evolution. Today's progressives face the same dilemma: how do you harness populist energy for economic justice without empowering the “traditional” (ie: reactionary) values that seem to inevitably go with it? The example of William Jennings Bryan suggests that this tension may be inherent in democratic populism itself. A hundred years after Scopes, this remains the real monkey business confronting American progressivism. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Don't blame women. Men are failing spectacularly and it's totally their own fault. In What Is Wrong with Men, cultural critic Jessica Crispin borrows from Michael Douglas movies to dissect how masculinity devolved from Seventies style vulnerability into today's aggressive displays of insecurity. While billionaires like Musk compulsively impregnate women and Zuckerberg learns jujitsu to feel "manly," basement-dwelling incels worship sex traffickers like Andrew Tate. The old patriarchy died in the 1980s, Crispin argues, but men refuse to adapt, expecting the world to revolve around them instead of building female-style support systems. It's the Michael Douglas Trap. From Gordon Gekko's greed to crypto-gambling bros, modern masculinity has degenerated into a grotesque performance of insecurity—and it's getting worse. 1. Modern masculinity is trapped between dead patriarchy and refusal to adapt Crispin argues that traditional patriarchal structures collapsed in the 1980s, but men still expect the world to revolve around them instead of building new support systems like women did. KEY QUOTE: "The world is supposed to adapt to men. Men are not supposed to adopt to the world."2. Billionaire masculinity reveals desperate insecurity despite ultimate success Even the world's richest men obsessively seek validation through physical transformation and procreation, proving that external markers of success no longer provide masculine identity. KEY QUOTE: "Nothing is ever enough anymore. And so that's why you see Elon Musk will never stop having children, never stop fathering children. Jeff Bezos will never have enough money to be satisfied."3. The 1980s created a fantasy of male rejection to mask female-initiated abandonment As women initiated two-thirds of divorces, Hollywood created the "midlife crisis" narrative where men chose to leave, protecting male ego from the reality of being unwanted. KEY QUOTE: "There was this sort of fantasy that was being created at the time of the male midlife crisis, where a kind of, you can't fire me, I quit. Fantasy was being generated."4. Today's male influencers have inverted basic human connection into pathology The evolution from 1970s male vulnerability to Andrew Tate's misogyny represents a complete rejection of emotional intimacy and romantic love. KEY QUOTE: "Andrew Tate does not fall in love, you know, he sexually violates, he's charged with sex trafficking... You can't hold a woman's hand, that's gay. You can have sex with women, that is gay."5. The crisis requires material solutions, not emotional band-aids Rather than teaching boys to cry, society needs to address the gambling-based economy and lack of meaningful work that creates destructive masculine behaviors. KEY QUOTE: "You're not gonna be able to fight against that just by learning how to cry... This is about making sure people have steady employment, making sure that people have study income, making sure the people have health care and community."Nothing explains everything. Not even Michael Douglas movies. But just as women like setting traps, men love stumbling into them. I'm not convinced by Crispin's reading of Hollywood movies. Men have always been making fools of themselves on screen - from Jimmy Stewart in Vertigo to the equally pathetic Douglas in Wall Street. Everything is supposed to be in crisis in America these days: from democracy to capitalism to masculinity. But if crisis means that men (or women) aren't quite sure how to behave around the other sex, then they've been in crisis forever. So I'm unconvinced. No doubt because I'm in crisis. What would Michael Douglas do/think?Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

So I get why Jeff Bezos isn't popular in Venice this week. But why would Africans in general, and Kenyans in particular, not love Bill Gates after the philanthropist pledged to give away $200 billion of his fortune to Africa? According to Tablet staff writer, Armin Rosen, it's because Gates' top-down, metrics-driven approach often ignores what Africans actually want. Drawing from extensive on-the-ground reporting in Kenya, Rosen highlights how Gates' Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa pushed unwanted agricultural technologies onto Kenyan farmers, while his foundation received controversial diplomatic immunity from Kenya's unpopular President Ruto. Though acknowledging Gates' successes in vaccination programs, Rosen questions whether billionaire-led development truly helps or undermines local agency and democratic governance. Maybe Gates should, instead, pledge his billions to Venice to enable the sinking city to outlaw tasteless American celebrity marriages. 1. Gates' philanthropy often imposes unwanted solutions on Africans Rosen argues that Gates consistently brings his own technological fixes to problems without consulting the people he claims to help, particularly through initiatives like the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa. KEY QUOTE: "So a lot of his philanthropy either sort of goes towards bringing his own solutions to these places or his money is spent in such a way that there isn't a lot of consultation with the people that he's actually trying to help."2. The Gates Foundation operates with government-scale power and spending With massive operational costs and diplomatic immunity, the foundation wields influence comparable to state actors, raising questions about accountability and democratic oversight. KEY QUOTE: "The Gates Foundation spends something like $140 million a year just on travel expenses... They have the same scale as a government agency."3. Gates has become deeply unpopular in Kenya due to political associations His close relationship with Kenya's controversial President Ruto has damaged his reputation among Kenyans who already distrust their government and foreign interference. KEY QUOTE: "At the moment, Bill Gates is not a very popular person in Kenya. And the reason for his bad name is the trust deficit with the government."4. Diplomatic immunity controversy reveals troubling governance patterns The secretive granting of legal immunity to the Gates Foundation, announced after deadly protests against the government, exemplified the lack of transparency that fuels public mistrust. KEY QUOTE: "The Gates Foundation had gotten full diplomatic immunity from the Kenyan government... it was relatively unusual in Kenya for any non-governmental organization to get that kind of legal protection."5. Local innovation often outperforms foreign philanthropy African societies frequently develop their own solutions more effectively than external interventions, as demonstrated by Kenya's creation of mobile money systems that became global models. KEY QUOTE: "It turns out that these societies can kind of solve their problems on their own... Kenya is where basically mobile money began, you know, and M-Pesa is a Kenyan invention." At least Gates isn't spending $200 billion on gross Venetian weddings. Despite all Rosen's valid criticisms of Gates' African interventions, I think we should still prefer billionaires who try (however imperfectly) to solve global problems over those buying massive yachts and throwing obscenely expensive parties. Armchair philanthropy criticism is easier than solutions.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Are Donald Trump and Steven Miller terrorists? Pakistani-American lawyer and author Rafia Zakaria argues that their willfully cruel immigration policies reflect what she describes as an "architecture of terror." In her June Liberties Quarterly piece "Silencings", Zakaria argues that these policies represent a deliberate strategy to terrorize communities and systematically dismantle the American democratic public sphere. Drawing on her experience both in practicing immigration law and as a naturalized American citizen, she connects domestic enforcement tactics to broader patterns of dehumanization affecting brown people globally—from detention centers in California to the US/Israeli bombing campaigns of Iran to what she dubs the “historical shame” of orchestrated mass starvation in Gaza. 5 key takeaways and quotes1. Immigration Enforcement as Deliberate Terrorism Zakaria argues that the Trump administration's immigration policies are intentionally designed to terrorize entire communities, not just target individuals for deportation. The strategy involves detaining people without legal basis, forcing them into expensive legal battles, then releasing them after causing maximum pain. KEY QUOTE: "It's kind of a terrorist act on the part of the Trump administration, which knows that eventually they'll have to release the people, but why not cause them as much pain and harassment as possible in the meantime."2. Legal System Double Standard The administration manipulates public perception by calling immigration violators "criminals" in public discourse while simultaneously denying them the constitutional protections afforded to actual criminals in court proceedings. KEY QUOTE: "You can't have it both ways, where in the public realm, you're calling them criminals, but in court you're saying, oh no, no, this is a civil matter, this is a civil matter."3. Systematic Silencing of Public Sphere Even naturalized citizens and legal residents are being chilled from speaking out due to fear of legal and financial harassment, effectively destroying the independent public sphere that serves as a democratic check on state power. KEY QUOTE: "I have to really kind of talk to myself a lot before I give an interview like this, because I'm a naturalized citizen."4. Connected Dehumanization Campaign Zakaria sees the domestic immigration crackdown and military actions abroad as part of the same broader strategy of systematically dehumanizing brown people, whether they're "invaders" at the border or targets of bombing campaigns. KEY QUOTE: "This is the systematic demonization and dehumanization of brown people."5. Gaza as Historical Moral Failure She believes the world's inaction on Gaza will be viewed by future historians as a moral failure comparable to other historical atrocities, where people knew genocide was happening but did nothing to stop it. KEY QUOTE: "I think this will be the world's shame."Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

In today's age of authoritarian plutocracy, the UCLA political theorist Natasha Piano argues that we need to rethink the supposed “elitist” school of Italian thinkers like Vilfredo Pareto and Gaetano Mosca. In her intriguing new book, Democratic Elitism, Piano suggests Pareto, Mosca and even the Marxist Antonio Gramsci were actually "democratic theorists of elitism" who warned that electoral institutions can often enhance elite domination. Piano contends that American political science created a "founding myth" by misrepresenting these Italian thinkers to legitimize electoral democracy during the Cold War. And in our current political climate she says, their warnings about plutocracy are particularly prescient. Five takeaways1. Flipped Interpretation of Italian Elite TheoristsPareto, Mosca, and Gramsci weren't "elite theorists of democracy" but rather "democratic theorists of elitism" - they studied elite power to expose its dangers, not endorse it.KEY QUOTE: "They investigated elitism not to endorse it, but to study it and figure out how democracy could actually create genuine accountable leaders."2. Elections ≠ DemocracyEquating democracy with competitive elections creates two major threats: it conceals plutocratic domination (rule by the wealthy) and enables demagogic manipulation by those claiming to represent "the people."KEY QUOTE: "Elections are actually representative mechanisms, they're not democratic mechanisms."3. American Political Science's "Founding Myth"The discipline misrepresented these Italian thinkers during the Cold War to legitimize electoral democracy as superior to communist alternatives, covering up their warnings about plutocracy.KEY QUOTE: "My book kind of tries to understand why we lost the extent to which plutocracy can undermine electoral institutions, as the Italians warned, and why American political science kind of covered this study of plutocracy up."4. Democracy as "Good Government"Piano advocates redefining democracy not as elections but as good government with three attributes: popular support, actively anti-plutocratic measures, and genuine pluralistic competition with majoritarian pressure from below.KEY QUOTE: "What I've understood or what I think we should take from them is that perhaps a redefinition of democracy, not as election, but as good government is in order."5. Elite Self-Recognition is EssentialContemporary "coastal elites" must acknowledge their own elite status and impose limits on their power - the solution requires elites to honestly assess their role, not blame "the mob" for democratic failures.KEY QUOTE: "They would really encourage all elites on the left or right to look within themselves and ask themselves if they're genuine aristocrats and what that would mean vis-a-vis the resurrecting the polity."Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Yes, there still are some well meaning folks in Silicon Valley. Take, for example, Jimmy Chen, founder and CEO of Propel, an app designed to simplify food assistance for 41 million of the poorest Americans. Growing up food insecure himself, the Stanford educated Chen left lucrative jobs at Facebook and LinkedIn to build technology that actually serves those who need it most, proving that some Valley entrepreneurs are driven by social rather than financial ambition. Propel replaces the outdated 1-800 number system that food stamp recipients previously had to use to check their benefits, while connecting users to additional online resources and discounts. Chen's story challenges the conventional narrative that all tech founders are solely profit-motivated, and demonstrates how growing up in poverty can fuel mission-driven entrepreneurship. Five Key Takeaways1. Silicon Valley's Echo Chamber Problem Tech companies typically build for people like themselves - affluent, educated users - because founders solve problems they personally understand. This explains why so many startups focus on convenience for the already-comfortable rather than addressing real needs of vulnerable populations.2. Personal Experience Drives Authentic Mission Jimmy Chen's childhood food insecurity, including watching his father skip meals to ensure his children could eat, directly shaped his motivation to build technology for low-income families. This personal connection distinguishes mission-driven entrepreneurs from those simply claiming social impact.3. The For-Profit vs. Nonprofit Debate Chen argues that sustainable social impact requires a viable business model, not just philanthropic funding. Propel generates revenue by connecting users to vetted financial services and discounts, proving that companies can be profitable while serving society's most vulnerable.4. Technology Infrastructure Failures Hit the Poor Hardest Food stamp recipients still rely on outdated systems like calling 1-800 numbers to check balances, while criminals exploit antiquated magnetic stripe EBT cards through skimming schemes. These technological gaps disproportionately harm those who can least afford it.5. Scale Reveals Impact Potential With 41 million Americans receiving food assistance and Propel serving 5 million monthly users, Chen argues that technology solutions for underserved populations can achieve massive scale while creating genuine social good - challenging the current pessimism about “profitable” social enterprises.Jimmy Chen is the founder and CEO of Propel, an app used by over 5 million low-income households to manage their government benefits. Propel has over 500,000 five-star reviews and has been recognized by the White House, and Propel's investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Kleiner Perkins, JPMorganChase, Kevin Durant, and Serena Williams. In addition to his work at Propel, Jimmy serves on the boards of Share Our Strength, a national anti-hunger nonprofit, and TechNYC, a nonprofit coalition focused on the technology industry in New York. Jimmy holds a B.S. in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University, where he was an inaugural winner of the President's Award for the Advancement of the Common Good in 2022. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Can we ever really know Primo Levi? We know his books, of course, especially If This Is A Man, the astonishing account of his survival from Auschwitz. But what, then, of his apparent suicide in 1987? How can a man who miraculously survived Auschwitz take his own life forty years later? That's one of the questions that Joseph Olshan asks in Milo's Reckoning, a new novel about Levi, suicide and our own unknowability. Olshan, himself deeply affected by Primo Levi's death when he first heard the news during a newspaper interview in Italy, explores the profound mystery of human nature and the limits of what we can truly understand about others, even those, like Levi, whose experiences have been supposedly laid bare in their autobiographical work. 5 takeaways1. Suicide is often impulsive, not premeditated Most suicides happen in the spur of the moment when people "snap" under pressure, rather than being carefully planned decisions. The majority don't even leave notes, contrary to popular belief.2. Personal trauma shaped Olshan's literary obsessions Olshan's lifelong fascination with suicide stems from witnessing a child's drowning at age six, followed by the suicides of an influential college professor and his aunt - experiences that ultimately inspired Milo's Reckoning.3. We can never fully know another person Even when someone writes intimately about their experiences, as Levi did about Auschwitz, we still can't truly understand their inner life or predict their future actions - hence the shock of Levi's apparent suicide.4. Language barriers limit authentic cultural understanding Olshan argues that American writers who spend brief periods abroad without knowing the local language cannot authentically capture those cultures, emphasizing the importance of linguistic fluency for true cultural insight.5. Too much self-knowledge may be dangerous Olshan suggests that suicide might result from excessive self-awareness - people who contemplate life's inequities and their own perceived deficiencies too deeply may become overwhelmed by the world's suffering and their place in it.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Yesterday, The Talking Heads, today, Dylan. The Great Man's Jewish identity has long been overshadowed by his pantheistic status as American prophet. So when, for example, at the beginning of his biopic “A Complete Unknown”, Dylan arrives in Greenwich Village, he is presented as having no history, like a biblical prophet wandering out of the desert. But the London-based historian Harry Freedman argues against this tabula rasa version. In Bob Dylan: Jewish Roots, American Soil, Freedman suggests that Dylan's upbringing in a committed Jewish family in Hibbing, Minnesota—complete with B'nai B'rith leadership and summer camps—profoundly influenced his artistic vision and social consciousness. From his early protest songs to his recent embrace of Chabad fundraising, Freedman argues his Jewish heritage makes him equally Zimmerman and Dylan, a Known Unknown. five takeaways* Dylan's Jewish upbringing was deeply embedded - Far from superficial, his family life included his father as B'nai B'rith president, mother active in Hadassah, Jewish summer camps, and a 500-person Bar Mitzvah in a town with only 280 Jews.* Early career involved deliberate identity concealment - Dylan spent his first 3-4 years creating elaborate backstories about circus and carnival origins to hide his middle-class Jewish background, likely due to antisemitism and desire to fit folk music's authenticity narrative.* Jewish cultural values shaped his protest period - Freedman argues Dylan's focus on social justice and civil rights emerged from growing up in an environment emphasizing welfare and human rights, typical of Jewish immigrant communities.* His genius lay in lyrics, not initial musicianship - Dylan's early success stemmed from extraordinary wordplay and poetic ability rather than musical skill, making him fundamentally a poet who set words to music.* Late-career Jewish reconnection - After his Christian period in the 1980s, Dylan has become increasingly involved with Jewish causes, particularly Chabad fundraising, suggesting his roots remained significant throughout his life. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe