Essay essays

People are not becoming inherently dishonest, lazy, or cynical. They are becoming game-theoretically optimal for the environment they have been…

~1 min read For systems design teams.

In this Age of Appeals, you have the paper right. And a stamina test.

~1 min read For systems design teams.

Stop designing for the idealized "Hero User." Learn how to build resilient interfaces that work when your user is stressed, tired, and operating on…

~1 min read For systems design teams.

Resilience is a subsidy we pay to cover the cost of structural failure

~1 min read For systems design teams.

The interface is dying because the “User” is obsolete. On the post-user web, AI agents, friction economics, and the rise of adversarial…

~1 min read For systems design teams.

Why being in process so often leads nowhere: Legitimacy engineering and “care signals” as governance tech

~1 min read For systems design teams.

The loading screen is the most powerful weapon in the modern state

~1 min read For systems design teams.

Read the full essay on The Crumple Zone.

~1 min read For systems design teams.

A guide to the difference between moral language and structural constraint

~1 min read For systems design teams.

Read the full essay on The Crumple Zone.

~1 min read For systems design teams.

No single ontology—vendor or otherwise—should monopolize state violence.

~1 min read For systems design teams.

Designing systems that know when to end

~1 min read For systems design teams.

We must reclaim the maintenance that keeps people alive rather than the one that keeps systems standing.

~1 min read For systems design teams.

Read the full essay on The Crumple Zone.

~1 min read For systems design teams.

It appears we have successfully eliminated the margin for error. That's terrifying.

~1 min read For systems design teams.

Read the full essay on The Crumple Zone.

~1 min read For systems design teams.

How to design systems that protect human limits and reject harm as the path of least resistance

~1 min read For systems design teams.

Predictive modeling is always an exercise of political power.

~1 min read For systems design teams.

How to not lose it when your tools never say no

~1 min read For systems design teams.

Why freedom will depend on what we build together next.

~1 min read For systems design teams.

Read the full essay on The Crumple Zone.

~1 min read For systems design teams.

Machines once bent to save people. Now people bend to save machines.

~1 min read For systems design teams.

Sterile reason makes systems fragile. Here's how intelligence can learn to breathe again.

~1 min read For systems design teams.

Power as the Allocation of Persistence

~1 min read For systems design teams.

In our burnout culture, "clearance culture" turns care into compliance. When are you truly ready to return to work? This essay unpacks the ethics of…

~1 min read For systems design teams.

Why embracing human limits can make our relationships, ethics, and systems more resilient

~1 min read For systems design teams.

From algorithmic empathy to moral branding: the hidden politics of charisma in AI.

~1 min read For systems design teams.

The real danger isn't that AI is cold and inhuman; it's that it's becoming perfectly, fluently "kind." "Counterfeit tenderness" is a new form of…

~1 min read For systems design teams.

Beyond good intentions: on Ethotechnics, moral latency, accountability diffusion, & building ethical systems capable of stopping harm.

~1 min read For systems design teams.

Before an institution can do immense harm, it must first learn to feel good about itself. It must learn to translate its contradictions into virtues…

~1 min read For systems design teams.

Hospitals, platforms, universities, and economies all improve the metrics that define success while quietly eroding the conditions that make those…

~1 min read For systems design teams.

The moral geometry of measurement, and how to read the metrics that lie without lying.

~1 min read For systems design teams.

Goodness isn’t a moral trait; it’s a design property. When systems reward correction instead of denial, virtue becomes infrastructure.

~1 min read For systems design teams.

When a society, an institution, or even a piece of software continually produces heroes, it offers clear evidence of a broken architecture.

~1 min read For systems design teams.

On vicious longevity

~1 min read For systems design teams.

We replaced repair with disposal. It’s time to build a more human world.

~1 min read For systems design teams.

A good system shouldn’t need saints. It should metabolize harm before someone has to transcend it.

~1 min read For systems design teams.

Phrases that would rupture a friendship pass, at scale, as policy language

~1 min read For systems design teams.

Read the full essay on The Crumple Zone.

~1 min read For systems design teams.

Read the full essay on The Crumple Zone.

~1 min read For systems design teams.

From medical implants to insurance portals, from stress fractures to eviction notices—the physics of failure hasn’t changed. What’s changed is the…

~1 min read For systems design teams.

Why the same harms keep recurring, no matter who is in charge.

~1 min read For systems design teams.

In journalism, science, and law, we know that a single, smooth answer is dangerous. So why do we call it “best practice” when it comes from an…

~1 min read For systems design teams.

What we call “vibes” today are the sedatives left after centuries of cutting survival out of culture

~1 min read For systems design teams.