Steve Randy Waldman

the thesis “contemporary social media contributes dysfunctionally to a collective sense of pessimistic nihilism” is, i think, correct.
it is not inconsistent, however, with the thesis “a great deal is terrible about Americans’ material conditions, and worse in a variety of ways than previously”
it seems kind of dumb to me that there has emerged a discourse that treats these hypotheses, which i’d characterize as mutually reinforcing, as if they were mutually inconsistent, there can be only one.

2026-05-13 12:04:48 UTC

[new draft post] The fiduciary class https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2026/05/13/the-fiduciary-class/index.html

2026-05-10 18:21:21 UTC

someday we’ll have a monument to the new solarpunk plenty and there will be a great gold statue of donald trump just like there is a giant visage of andrew jackson on the twenty dollar federal reserve note.

2026-05-04 00:08:19 UTC

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the places you’d cut are also the limbs.

2026-05-03 21:28:20 UTC

[new draft post] The $200,000 standard deduction https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2026/05/03/the-$200000-standard-deduction/index.html

2026-05-03 21:08:58 UTC

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at the moment things are bad. but things have been better, and many things remain better in other places. the point of productive pessimism is to figure out what to do rather than concede nothing can be done to forestall bad outcomes.

2026-05-03 20:17:02 UTC

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I agree that human nature is corruptible! And institutions are of course made of human actors. But I am more optimistic than you are that the susceptibility to corruption inherent in human nature is somewhat malleable to institutions and so culture, so I think a mix of institutions that encourage and reward virtue, along with checks and balances that impose accountability, can enable effective coordinated action at scale with tolerable losses to corruption and malfeasance.

2026-05-03 19:37:57 UTC

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I guess I'd say to shape rather than limit. The higher the quality, the greater their scope and effect might virtuously be. Since no institutions are perfect, and large-scale formal institutions will always face information problems, there will always be need for some limits. But as we get better at shaping coordinating institutions (if more than as at the moment), we might accomplish much by doing more with them. (My perspective as a social democrat may differ from yours as a libertarian)

2026-05-03 18:59:22 UTC

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I guess I'd say in any collectivity, there are institutions. Often large-scale or formal institutions don't develop. But family is an institution, parenthood. Warlord and submission thereto are institutions. Large-scale, formal institutions are prerequisite to what we consider success in modernity, but they also have profoundly catastrophic failure modes, they're double-edged swords. The work is to both develop those and to ensure their quality. Otherwise, modernity and prosperity fail.

2026-05-03 18:51:10 UTC

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Sure. I prefer the word “institutional” to "cultural”, though, because "culture” often becomes a kind of a residual, an unclear blob of how some collectivity behaves or is conditioned. It can be used to explain almost everything but affect almost nothing. Institutions are malleable, subject to rational critique. Although it is true that institutions are downstream from culture, in social affairs the arrows go both ways, institutional reform can also reshape culture.

2026-05-03 18:44:30 UTC

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Almost everywhere, there is incredible intelligence at an individual level among the population. But in some polities, that contributes meaningfully to success (success at a social level is prerequisite, beyond a few outlier warlords, for success at an individual level), and in other polities it's basically wasted. It’s what happens at the social, the institutional, level I'd argue that is the core differentiator.

2026-05-03 18:37:30 UTC

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That, my friend, is your prerogative to judge. I am the person saying it, as a individual.

2026-05-03 17:58:21 UTC

intelligence and rationality are much more social than they are individual characteristics.

2026-04-26 16:21:46 UTC

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(my post was a critique of a certain kind of scientism, not of having children. my kid is — entirely unscientifically — the best!)

2026-04-04 21:26:57 UTC

if we want to restore social trust, we need to make sociopathy less remunerative.

2026-04-04 21:16:31 UTC

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we need to write some good stories about cyanibacteria hauntings.

2026-04-04 17:41:30 UTC

what if running the global economy on the liquefacted corpses of ancient beings somehow cursed us?

2026-03-28 14:14:22 UTC

somewhere in these ashes there is a phoenix.

2026-03-27 14:04:49 UTC

the guilty massacre the guilty. and then the tables are turned.

2026-03-27 05:06:28 UTC

if you define victory in term of destruction of the other side, then war becomes a positive sum game, both sides simultaneously can be victors!

2026-03-26 11:28:28 UTC

sometimes when you rip off the bandaid you just bleed out.

2026-03-26 10:42:27 UTC

suffering is bad and should be prevented.

2026-03-23 01:26:37 UTC

there's a thing the humans get caught up in where it becomes less important whether a thing is true or false than who the saying of the thing would be associated with.

2026-03-22 18:42:35 UTC

escalation dominance is just another word for nothing left to lose.

2026-03-22 18:36:59 UTC

“Literally, White treated corporations like children whose brains were too underdeveloped to truly hold them responsible for their actions.” @npub178m…w32e https://prospect.org/2026/02/17/epstein-files-email-kathy-ruemmler-elizabeth-warren-class-war/

2026-03-22 16:09:18 UTC

failures of the neocons discredited idealism, but the current crew is managing to render publics cynical about cynicism itself. maybe there’s something hopeful in that.

2026-03-22 16:00:23 UTC

having one of those days when my will is rather flagging in an optimism of the will kind of way.

2026-03-22 15:52:54 UTC

“Power does not grow out of the barrel of a gun, cruelty is not the same as strength, and a politics built on such ideas promises ruin, delusion about the limits of our power and a betrayal of the promise of our founding.” #PhilKlay https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/22/opinion/trump-iran-war-memes.html

2026-03-21 12:34:17 UTC

it’s hard to wake up to all this.

2026-03-20 15:07:59 UTC

political representation is supposed to be representation like a lawyer, not representation like a representative sample. we keep getting this wrong.

2026-03-19 02:54:58 UTC

one way to understand all this is the world’s largest petrostate kneecapping its lowest cost competitors, potentially for years, all in the name of protecting the security of their region.

2026-03-17 19:28:11 UTC

Maybe we will look back on this as the period of time that clarified for all of us that fossil fuels are truly over and post-WWII universalist liberalism is absolutely worth preserving because the alternative, the alternative is… this.

2026-03-17 19:27:40 UTC

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(thanks!)

2026-03-17 16:00:07 UTC

huh. i missed the big anniversary like a couple of weeks ago, but https://interfluidity.com is twenty years old this month. i'm on a bit of a hiatus as my life is overwhelmed by other things, but i'm still blogging after all these years. https://drafts.interfluidity.com/archive.html

2026-03-17 05:04:21 UTC

sometimes nostalgia is so painful i think it will burn a hole right through me.

2026-03-15 20:32:25 UTC

"There is no channel to change, and you can’t rewind the action. Trump made his foolhardy decision and now we must live with the consequences." [@jbouie](https://threads.net/@jbouie/ ) https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/14/opinion/trump-hegseth.html

2026-03-15 17:26:24 UTC

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So politicians will be able to statistically shape the electorate — to some degree, imperfectly — by monkeying with passport procedures in ways that make it easier for those they consider likely to vote for their side and harder for those who'd vote for the other side. Yes, it’ll be very leaky, but since our electoral system frequently yields (as its structural equilibrium) near 50:50 elections, small manipulations have big upsides. https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/7687.html /fin

2026-03-15 17:24:03 UTC

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For most people, especially for lower-effort potential voters, the passport will be to go-to proof-of-citizenship. People gain privileges beyond overcoming prerequisites of voting from a passport, so it's what not-super-motivated voters would choose, if they are going to deal with the bureaucracy of getting a new form of ID. 4/

2026-03-15 17:22:09 UTC

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(Birth certificates also won't work for people — including many married women — who no longer retain their birth names.) 3/

2026-03-15 17:20:33 UTC

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Of course, it's not watertight. Sufficiently resourced and motivated citizens will overcome the barrier. People can get birth certificates. (But incentives will emerge to shape who retrieves those how easily as well; a savig grace with birth certificates is that state and federal politician incentives may not be aligned.) 2/

2026-03-15 17:19:23 UTC

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The SAVE act would require a passport, birth certificate, or naturalization certificate, plus another photo ID. Given that politicians (of any stripe) have incentives to manage the distribution of the franchise, creating barriers to obtaining a passport that disproportionately affect those likely not to vote your way becomes incentivized. 1/

2026-03-15 16:51:20 UTC

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/mar/06/first-they-came-for-my-college-documentary #NewCollege

2026-03-15 16:46:42 UTC

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not exactly what you are after, but ESOPs are a related idea https://www.esop.org/

2026-03-15 16:45:33 UTC

i worry about whether the SAVE act would create incentives for politicians to make it more difficult for (some) people to get passports. international travel is good for people and for the polity.

2026-03-13 06:37:50 UTC

if this decade we discovered that Bond villains are real, i'm holding out hope for next decade and Santa Claus.

2026-03-09 10:21:59 UTC

“AI might displace some coders, but it won’t make priests redundant. Fostering such jobs might require more investment in soft skills, and perhaps even in humanities’ subjects.” #ChrisDillow https://chrisdillow.substack.com/p/wanted-a-new-blair

2026-03-09 00:48:55 UTC

war is a continuation of policy by idiotic means.

2026-03-08 23:05:20 UTC

you’ve got to admit he’s just rather definitively addressed affordability.

2026-03-08 22:41:30 UTC

i know someone said this better a few days ago and i think i even reposted it but my god i’ll never get over the US sabotaging its renewables industry and doubling down on fossil fuel dependency only to force fossil fuel prices sky high. it’s like thanatos, a national death wish.

2026-03-08 22:25:37 UTC

putting storefronts in every phone was about as good an idea as a technology that makes sure there is always a fresh, open bag of cheetos at hand in every room.

2026-03-08 14:04:25 UTC

If accusations like the US intentionally destroyed a desalination plant prove true, elite accountability will become a national security imperative. Rehabilitation into multilateral security arrangements will require repudiation of the administration’s crimes, and imposition of a credible deterrent.

2026-03-06 14:03:55 UTC

how much of it is policy uncertainty kneecapping investment and expansion? how much of it is AI-related labor minimization? what else?

2026-03-06 13:57:27 UTC

Had US v. Trump not happened, would Trump have launched a full-scale war (arguably two) without some kind of Congressional fig leaf?

2026-03-05 00:50:43 UTC

it’s not just a middle finger, it’s homeopathic homicide.

2026-03-02 13:45:58 UTC

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amending!

2026-03-01 17:07:47 UTC

we imagined twitter might spark liberal revolutions in places like saudi arabia but instead what seems to be occurring is the saudification of everywhere.

2026-03-01 15:26:46 UTC

maybe in an AI world most of our jobs should be legislator.

2026-02-28 01:29:40 UTC

the coolest conspiracy would be if one of the other companies betting their future on AI bribed the administration to kneecap current-leader Anthropic via its own sanctimony.
(sanctimony which, by the way, i fully support!)

2026-02-28 00:47:18 UTC

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Gack! Sorry!

2026-02-27 19:50:40 UTC

"They’ve genuinely identified the pattern I described in the Bonfire essay and then committed the most consequential intellectual error possible. They saw the fire and decided to pray to it." @npub19ud…ds65 https://syntropic.xyz/posts/2026-02-14-the-bonfire-in-the-cave/
// Josh pointe me to this essay but I flaked. ht @npub144u…adjw for pointing me again. It is excellent.

2026-02-27 18:59:19 UTC

Anthropic should name their next model “Opus DEI” just to fuck with everyone.

2026-02-26 00:01:47 UTC

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you know the serenity prayer? you have the wisdom to know the difference.

2026-02-25 23:57:02 UTC

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you chart your own course.

2026-02-25 23:56:08 UTC

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it’s rare you get a pie tossed at you by someone who hasn’t tossed a snowball first.

2026-02-25 23:46:14 UTC

snowballs are a gateway drug to cream pies. everybody knows that.

2026-02-25 13:52:30 UTC

the internet of AI simulated loved ones will be called the deadiverse.

2026-02-25 03:47:40 UTC

when you are not carefree, people who appear carefree are like a different species.

2026-02-23 11:22:25 UTC

would you rather be part of something exclusive or part of something inclusive?

2026-02-19 20:18:54 UTC

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so what do we do about it?

2026-02-19 19:17:45 UTC

i worry, since they would lose any election in a wave, and they face significant criminal and business risks from a transfer of power, that they won’t see as their best bet manufacturing crises that they can argue foreclose the possibility of immediate term democratic transition.

2026-02-19 14:59:49 UTC

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there is no such thing, and certainly no such desirable thing, as deregulation. there can fruitfully be reregulation. /fin

2026-02-19 14:59:19 UTC

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it’s never “deregulation”. there was regulation before the reform. there will be regulation after. it’s the character, not the “quantity”, of regulation that determines its virtue or vice. 2/

2026-02-19 14:58:42 UTC

i might dispute the branding of these ideas as YIMBY or “abundance”, but there’s a lot of policy wisdom in this by @npub1edf…tqa5 https://rooseveltinstitute.org/publications/lessons-from-yimbyism/ 1/

2026-02-19 10:46:39 UTC

raising money is not a legitimate function of political leaders.

2026-02-18 09:59:02 UTC

This feed is updating its subscriber agreement.

2026-02-16 19:44:11 UTC

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If you model spending only as discretionary choice, treat anything beyond the most basic food and shelter as expendable, as gravy, something optional or superfluous, you will never make sense of what human beings actually experience, and the ructions of behavior that result. /fin

2026-02-16 19:43:46 UTC

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You can lose slack because your real purchasing power declines, or because your needs expand. “Needs” are largely a function of structural facts and social norms. 2/

2026-02-16 19:43:24 UTC

The main good that determines whether you think the economy is good or bad is slack. How much headroom is there between what you are going to buy and what you can afford to spend? 1/

2026-02-16 12:14:15 UTC

“If there is an inalienable right to life, it should follow that I have an obligation to take reasonable steps to minimize disease that could harm or kill my peers.” @npub1a5c…5g4q https://www.liberalcurrents.com/propaganda-rather-than-pandemic-policies-caused-the-war-on-public-health/
// this is general, a thing any serious liberalism must grapple with. the dual of any meaningful right is a burdensome obligation.

2026-02-16 11:30:59 UTC

contemporary capitalism is the stench of desperation perfumed with chirpy pitches.

2026-02-16 11:27:49 UTC

“National identities such as ‘French’ and ‘Italian’ were things that had to be invented, and they were often imposed through military or state power.” @npub1edf…tqa5 https://publiccomment.blog/p/the-great-retcon

2026-02-16 05:47:20 UTC

social media is paradoxically both exhausting and insomnia-inducing at the same time.

2026-02-16 05:35:55 UTC

social media is paradoxically both exhausting and insomnia-inducing at the same time.

2026-02-15 16:07:57 UTC

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yes. i think that’s a great way to think about it. industrial policy to maintain and develop critical capabilities is a great idea, but the world is quite different than Alexander Hamilton’s.

2026-02-15 15:54:35 UTC

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(proof-of-work crypto is kind of a too-on-the-nose illustration of the elaborate-order-to-accelerate-entropy thesis. ht Tim Swanson for inspiring the connection.)

2026-02-15 15:01:33 UTC

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for a moderately exorbitant fee, i am glad to attach a certificate of authenticity to a shipment.

2026-02-15 14:58:07 UTC

I just made some shit up. Its authenticity has been confirmed.

2026-02-15 14:53:51 UTC

if demons can be emergent from social affairs, perhaps angels can too.

2026-02-15 14:51:28 UTC

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( i've written a bit on this https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/08/13/china-as-a-model/index.html )

2026-02-15 14:29:31 UTC

This was weird, though now I get it.
scala> 1 << 32
val res3: Int = 1
scala> (1 << 24) << 8
val res4: Int = 0

2026-02-15 13:14:34 UTC

“That people move from representing the presidency to representing banks is so normal that we forget the costs: the private job done with the savvy to outfox one’s former public-sector colleagues, the public job done gently to keep open doors.” #AnandGiridharadas https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/23/opinion/meaning-epstein-emails.html

2026-02-15 03:16:38 UTC

“There is no equivalent concept for ‘you are foreclosing the entire future option space of human civilization by accelerating past the point where exploration is possible.’ The externality has no name because the framework for naming it doesn’t exist in economics or policy.” @npub19ud…ds65
// i can’t help but think about the automobile and the built environment that supports and depends upon it. https://mastodon.social/@elbowspeak/116071945170678690

2026-02-13 11:29:35 UTC

suppose there were an elixir you could drink and become a giant, but if you did it would be inevitable you would, wittingly or not, step on some people like ants. would it be ethical to drink it?

2026-02-12 22:59:34 UTC

“buildings are a bit like intellectual property, which also lasts longer than the economic horizon of the businesses that produce it. The economic argument for rent regulation is a bit like the argument for limiting patents and copyrights to a finite period.” @npub1afx…dru7 https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/after-the-rent-freeze/
// this is a very brilliant piece

2026-02-10 11:04:35 UTC

come spring the ice will melt.

2026-02-09 12:14:01 UTC

i woke up today and found i was unable to verify my identity.

2026-02-08 23:44:18 UTC

“Conservatives complain endlessly that ‘unelected bureaucrats’ have escaped the control of their democratically-elected masters and are implementing an agenda at odds with the wishes of the American people. Would this were so as far as NASA is concerned.” #FrancisFukuyama https://open.substack.com/pub/persuasion1/p/why-it-took-so-long-to-return-to?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

2026-02-07 00:14:08 UTC

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i prefer taxation to eating bodies and drinking blood.

2026-02-07 00:07:19 UTC

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i mean they might not, but we do!