history essays

Modern life rewards a kind of “maturity” that often has very little to do with being right.

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

"We condemn the excesses" isn’t an apology, it’s a tactic. From Amritsar 1919 to Minneapolis 2026, discover how governments use condemnation to…

~2 min read For history teams.

​Why “we care” substitutes for obligation—and how delay gets disguised as kindness.

~1 min read For history teams.

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 philosophy teams.

We are living through a divergence between rights and remedies. If a system is "95% accurate" but concentrates errors on the vulnerable, fairness…

~2 min read For philosophy 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 politics teams.

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

~1 min read For history 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The interface is dying because the “User” is obsolete.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 history teams.

Across healthcare, bureaucracy, and customer service, systems increasingly avoid decisions while appearing responsive. This essay argues that modern…

~1 min read For history teams.

The loading screen is a weapon. "Pending" is a governing strategy of attrition designed to make you carry the weight of the process until you give up.

~1 min read For history teams.

We keep describing our institutional crisis as one of 'belief' or 'truth.' But in practice, the bottleneck is 'standing.' An essay on why 'we hear…

~2 min read For philosophy teams.

A guide to the difference between moral language and structural constraint

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

Stop assuming leadership is ignorant. "Tragic Institutionalism" argues that institutional harm is priced in, and your burnout is the fuel.

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

We build institutions for every crisis, then forget to give them an off-switch. This piece argues for “institutional apoptosis”: designing…

~2 min read For philosophy teams.

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

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

Exploring how modern systems are built around an imaginary “reasonable” user, blaming real people for design failure and arguing for infrastructures…

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

AI's fluency removes the friction that keeps our heads on straight. On lucid disorientation, and rebuilding resistance to machines that never say no.

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

Critiquing the myth of self-sufficiency and outlining a new politics of shared dependence, where care, maintenance, and cooperation become the…

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

Machines once bent to save people. Now people bend to save machines. A design essay on how digital systems reverse the ethics of safety, making…

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

When "okay" stops being a feeling and becomes a clearance code, care collapses into compliance. A new essay on "clearance culture" and the ethics of…

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

Feeling stuck or hollow in your career? This essay explains why the "career ladder" is a myth and a hidden "filter" rewards conformity over merit. A…

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

​“Be real” is the gospel of our age, chanted by politicians claiming to speak from the heart, influencers in “no-filter” confessionals, and…

~1 min read For philosophy 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 philosophy 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 corporations teams.

How to Fight the Feeling and Reclaim Your Voice

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

We often use lengthy explanations after a mistake to manage our own discomfort. But true accountability requires concrete steps, not just eloquent…

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

Stop searching for an ethical AI CEO. The job is impossible. The problem isn't a lack of individual virtue, but a system that makes virtue a…

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

For more than a decade, we've treated misinformation as a problem of persuasion. Fact-checks, media literacy drives, AI detection tools all assume…

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

Anarchism is often described like a bonfire: a political philosophy of no institutions, no coordination, just a perpetual “no.” But the anarchist…

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

How hostile systems draft us into our own denial

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

“Fickleness” is not always a moral failure; it’s fair to oscillate between incompatible demands.

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

Everywhere you look, people are proving how sorry they are through self-condemnation.

~1 min read For politics teams.

Resisting rule by expertise is not anti-science or anti-technology; it is a defense of democracy

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

You’ve heard the advice before: choose yourself; put on your own oxygen mask first. It sounds rational, but when you try to apply it, another voice…

~2 min read For autism teams.

It’s a neat, tidy, and incredibly convenient fantasy for cops, bosses, and security guards.

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

Are they really helping or just trying to take control? Here's how to know.

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

Try it tonight and see what happens.

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

Ten years ago, Gilead Sciences did what modern medicine says it exists to do: it cured a disease.

~1 min read For corporations teams.

Bureaucracy isolates us on purpose. Still, in the margins, people find each other.

~1 min read For politics teams.

It’s the diagnosis pulled out whenever a doctor or nurse pushes back on some new system, tool, or “transformation.” To outsiders, it sounds…

~1 min read For tech teams.

How American Policy Manufactures Bystander Inaction

~1 min read For inherent care teams.

How Denial Became a Revenue Stream—and What It Will Take to Break the Machine

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

In health insurance, credit, and employment, private actors mine ZIP codes, prescription histories, résumé gaps, and spending habits to assign risk…

~1 min read For politics teams.

It’s structural, intentional, and systemic.

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

You text “Dinner?” at six and only see the reply when you’re elbow-deep in dishes.

~1 min read For politics teams.

Ask someone outside the US to describe American life, and they might mention sprawling homes, last-minute December donations, business trips that…

~2 min read For philosophy teams.

American power has long been driven by what I call an “ergonomic ideal”: squeezing every bit of extraction out of a system while disguising or…

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

Why Denial Is the Core of Structural Power

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

You were trained to read like a browser tab—fast, extractive, always behind. This micro-guide shows you how to pause: roll a shoulder, unclench your…

~2 min read For autism teams.

Power’s greatest conquest isn’t crushing lone rebels or dispersing crowds—it’s sneaking into the everyday interpersonal bonds we rely on.

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

We’ve grown so accustomed to equating silence with peace that we overlook the heavy toll it exacts.

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

I nearly scrapped this draft because I’d already unpacked institutional forgetting in The Amnesia Engine. My inner editor—raised on Omit needless…

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

Capitalism doesn’t just cut corners—it cuts people out.

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

What happens when grief is routinized? When mourning scripts follow mass shootings, airstrikes, or police violence—but policy doesn’t move?

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

It’s only human to need help — but we have to be able to admit it.

~1 min read For autism teams.

I don’t want you to just avoid burnout, I want you to see labor as a site of struggle, defaults as political choices, and for us to reforge our…

~2 min read For philosophy teams.

To confront planetary crisis meaningfully, we must insist on refusal, accountability, and explicit, structural consent.

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

When systemic harm is repeated, profitable, and structured, complexity is not an explanation. It’s an alibi.

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

You’re looped in once the decisions are made—asked to “help it land,” not to change it. You learn to turn harm into “alignment,” risk into “tone.”…

~2 min read For politics teams.

How institutions metabolize critique, erase context, and make crisis their only teacher

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

Why neutrality isn’t fairness—and what it hides when institutions say it is.

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

Clarity that arrives before the group is ready gets coded as friction. And friction gets managed, not engaged with.

~1 min read For corporations teams.

Seamlessness isn’t always neutral. It’s often subsidized—by someone else’s time, attention, and emotional capacity.

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

Every hurricane season the ritual repeats: a governor steps to the mic, announces billions “secured on the capital markets,” and declares the state…

~1 min read For politics teams.

You open your phone to check the news; twenty minutes later you’re overstimulated and underinformed.

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

In August 2024, we decided to end Andwise, with no formal press release, no dramatic pivot tweets—just a resolve to shut it down before becoming…

~1 min read For tech teams.

While conventional thinking holds that only big bureaucracies can deliver universal healthcare, anarchist practices illustrate a very different…

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

You arrive at the hospital from the airport, taking MARTA straight to Northside.

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

Why Waiting for Boomers to Disappear Won’t Save Us

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

When does cunning becomes a strategic choice? Or, why are shitty people so wealthy?

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

Why “No” Makes Every “Yes” More Real

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

We Grew Up Asking If We’d Get To Have Kids. Now We’re Asking If We Even Should.

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

Real Cheaters Slip Away While the Vulnerable Get Flagged

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

From the 1996 Olympics to SoDo’s “Tech-Led” Land Grab

~1 min read For tech teams.

How Strict Building Rules Undermine Real Community

~1 min read For tech teams.

AI won’t rescue us from our own willingness to discard people—it just magnifies it.

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

We live in an environment flooded with illusions.

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

Are You Afraid of Being Too Big An Ask?

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

Once you label entire groups “too expensive,” friction-based eugenics is always just one step away

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

Most institutions—hospitals, welfare agencies, workplaces, schools—claim to prioritize “care,” “efficiency,” or “fairness.” Yet behind polished…

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

We keep witnessing departures that resist easy explanation:

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

Or, Why We Can’t Debias Our Way Out of a System Built to Exclude

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

How AI Helps Hospitals Quietly Filter Out Complex Patients and Call It “Efficiency”

~1 min read For politics teams.

Gatekeeping is what blocks care, not scarcity.

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

Reactionaries Will Use Disability Statistics to Justify Technofascist Control

~1 min read For philosophy teams.

When do "Standards of Care" tell us more about entrenchment than about efficacy?

~1 min read For autism teams.