Soul Musk

How To Do Soul-Craft With State Tools

Jac Mullen | After Literacy | 14th May 2025

Writing began as a tool of state control wielded by a small managerial class. Mass literacy was the result of centuries of struggle, made possible by portable alphabetic systems, print technology, public education — a “fragile, unnatural achievement”. It makes a “cognitive commons” possible. If outcompeted by machine intelligence, it may once again become the “province of a specialised elite” (2,600 words)

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The Tragedy Of Elon Musk

Francis Fukuyama | Persuasion | 31st May 2025

Elon Musk’s disastrous foray into politics illustrates America’s “oligarch problem”: tech entrepreneurs who, because of their success in one arena, are convinced they will be good at anything and stray into areas well out of their depth. The tragedy is that Musk may have destroyed his most outstanding creation, Tesla, which was leading the way to a low-carbon future. “That future may now belong to China” (1,600 words)