the right to refuse This is a response to “The Right to be Wrong”, Zoe Scaman’s recent piece on technology criticism.
week 4 / 2026: baleen and blubber Reading round-up: seeing monsters in the (geo)political mirror; the paradoxical essence of “community”; the enantiodromia of a far-right Euro-federalism; Melville's Moby Dick considered as science fiction.
week 3 / 2026: pulp and pith Reading round-up: the long game of fashion brand narratives; hints of a revivalist Romanticism; the magickal power of naming things; and the creation of history through the storying of the dead.
week 2 / 2026: ... and the circus leaves town Reading round-up: Rodney Brooks reassesses his own AI predictions; Dan Wang holds forth on China (and everything else); Bruce Sterling reports from the depths of the multitool rabbit-hole; an anthology of stories in homage to J G Ballard.
week 01 / 2026: the medium is the maxxage Reading round-up: the (temporary?) end of completion; the four laws of media; the failure of USian political science; and the end-game paths of the risk-maxxing paradigm.
week 51 / 2025: tearing away the caul Reading round-up: the performative shaming of “performative reading”; the post is the product; the illusion of inevitability; and maximalist manga-monster steampunk-fantasy strangeness.
bite the dog days that bit you Low humour in high summer... or is it the other way around? Anyway, here's what happened at Worldbuilding Agency this week.
feeling out the format Less a round-up of the last week on Worldbuilding Agency, and more an exploration of what such round-ups will likely look like, on weeks when things have actually happened.