Dispatches
Notes from the edge of the present.
Briefings, essays, field notes, and scenario sets from the edge of the present. We keep them plain and we keep them honest.
Brief — 07 · Machine Cognition
The Compute Settlement
The argument for treating large-scale AI infrastructure the way the last century treated railroads and the grid: as public works, governed in public, before the lock-in is permanent.
18 min · 2026-04- Essay · Energy After Scarcity, Before Abundance The awkward middle decade of the energy transition, and who pays for it. 12 min · 2026-02
- Field note · Statecraft Statecraft for Long Horizons How a handful of ministries are learning to govern past the next election. 9 min · 2025-11
- Method · Speculative Systems Worldbuilding as Risk Management Why we put novelists in the same room as the risk committee. 7 min · 2025-09
- Scenario set · Orbital Three Ways to the Asteroid Belt Divergent paths for the off-world economy, and the choke points on each. 15 min · 2025-07
- Brief — 06 · Information Integrity The Provenance Problem When anything can be generated, origin becomes the scarce resource — and an infrastructure question. 11 min · 2025-05