week 30 / 2026: here and elsewhere
In this episode: contemplating the end of the Western cosmopolitan urge; hanging with the New York neoLuddites; and Silicon Valley’s highly selective readings of science fiction. Plus, G K Chesterton!
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week 29 / 2026: protocols and performances
In this episode: Scott Smith on “protocol communities”; the face as the site of surgical interventions into reality itself; and another look at “body futurism” as dark enantiodromia.
week 28 / 2026: flats and boxcars
In this episode: can you make the words come without effort? You might think your LLM is helping, but really it’s a fast track to empty mediocrity. In the meantime, why not get a grip on your curiosity and (re)learn to enjoy reading books the old-fashioned way?
week 27 / 2026: progress and myopia
This week, a debunking of bio-factory protein production, which leads us to a broader look at solutionism, and the frustrating impossibility of simply swapping one metanarrative for another. Plus, the short fiction of Iain M Banks...
week 26 / 2026: filtration and modulation
Take a peek inside to find a strong point of view on point-of-view, to learn the differences between writing for the page and for the screen, and to consider the importance of abeyance in our dealings with futurity…
week 25 / 2026: rest and relaxation
Weeknotes are having a week off.
week 24 / 2026: showing and telling
Like science fiction literature, a well-executed work of experiential futuring can look prophetic in hindsight—but it’s what they get wrong that tells you the most in hindsight. Plus: when to show, and when to tell?
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.