Beyond Doomscrolling
We built tools that learned to harvest us. Not intentionally. No Bond villain, no master plan. The designers asked their algorithms to increase usage. They asked them to hold attention. They asked them to optimize for engagement.
Redesigning the Sky
There is an alternative to more satellites as internet infrastructure. It's cheap by comparison and more resilient.
Waste-Heat Recapture
The hidden truth is that we already have vast reservoirs of free energy. We just lack the courage to treat them as resources instead of exhaust.
The Case for Human-Scale Power
When a system grows large enough, it becomes fragile in ways no amount of patching can fix. The national grid is stretched across thousands of miles of wire, hundreds of aging substations, and a regulatory maze that treats failure as an acceptable cost of doing business.
Designing the Human-Scale Century
We were promised a future of wonders.
Instead we woke up inside machines that no one can steer.
We Have Outgrown Our Wisdom
Humanity became global before it learned to be whole.
A Third Rail Special Report
This report accompanies the essay Buried Light: A Pragmatic Path to Local Energy Resilience, outlining a policy vision for distributed, sealed micro-reactors as a cornerstone of post-carbon energy infrastructure. Interested individuals may request more by asking in the comments section.
AGI Is a Cathedral Built on Quicklime
Artificial General Intelligence has become Silicon Valley’s Last Supper: a holy promise that one more exponential leap will redeem the very messes we no longer trust ourselves to face.
But we are not building with stone and meaning. We are building with hype and memory holes.
The 90% Problem
How does transparent, ethical collaboration with AI enhance or reveal human agency?
What Happens When You Stop Believing in Your Money
The dollar was a shared hallucination with staying power. It let strangers transact as if they lived in the same world. But hallucinations are fragile. Symbols crack.
