Top Of The Week: Carney, Greenland, Dilbert, Grandmother, Deathbed
Middle Powers Navigating A Changing World
Mark Carney | CBC | 20th January 2026 | U
Carney's speech to the World Economic Forum is well worth reading in full. For "middle powers" like Canada, he argues, the "bargain" offered by an international order dictated by American hegemony "no longer works". "If we're not at the table, we're on the menu." The old order will not come back. One of his country's most valuable assets, he says, is "the capacity to stop pretending" (2,500 words)
The Making Of Modern Greenland
Felice Basbøll | Engelsberg Ideas | 19th January 2026 | U
On 20C tussles between Denmark and Norway over Greenland, via a profile of explorer Knud Rasmussen. In 1917, the US recognised Danish sovereignty in northern Greenland as a condition for buying the Virgin Islands from Denmark. Other countries followed suit, except for Norway. Rasmussen was held up as a mascot of Danish-Greenlandic relations to challenge Norwegian aspirations to Greenland (1,900 words)
The Dilbert Afterlife
Scott Alexander | Astral Codex Ten | 16th January 2026 | U
Lengthy eulogy for Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert. “Adams knew, deep in his bones, that he was cleverer than other people. God always punishes this impulse, especially in nerds. He created Adams only-slightly-above-average at everything except for a Mozart-tier skill at making silly comics about hating work. Too self-aware to deny it, too narcissistic to accept it, he spent his life searching for a loophole” (10,400 words)
My Day Of Extreme Comfort And Luxury
Jean Hannah Edelstein | Thread | 21st January 2026 | U
Genealogical musings. "I am struck in particular by a photo of Bertha, a woman who was born in Minsk, in 1866. The photo was taken towards the end of her life, and the hardness of it seems written on her body and her face. She endured so much." Dozens of people are alive today because this great-great-grandmother decided to flee instead of remain, and was lucky enough to survive (800 words)
Japanese Death Poems
Roger’s Bacon | Secretorum | 17th January 2026 | U
Compendia of Jisei, a centuries-old Japanese tradition of poems written in one’s last moments. Some are vivid: “Cherry blossoms fall on a half-eaten dumpling”. Some are prosaic: “I wake up from a seventy-five-year dream to millet porridge”. Some are humorous: “Raizan has died to pay for the mistake of being born: for this he blames no one, and bears no grudge”. Nearly all of them are astonishing (2,600 words)
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Podcast: Why We Still Trust Wikipedia | GZERO World. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales describes what it takes to build trustworthy institutions and addresses recent controversies around the site’s neutrality on hot-button issues (37m 15s)
Video: A Visual Essay On Balance | YouTube | Nowness | 3m 19s
A skateboarder, a spider, a motorcyclist, a person on a tilting chair — all share a sense of balance that must be maintained in every moment, as demonstrated in this visual meditation on the concept.
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