Danny Crichton

willd10.substack.comWhat is LinkedIn?The rise of mindful slop

“When faced with a piece of text written in this format and style, the question of whether it was written by AI or not becomes not so much unanswerable, as immaterial, which is more troubling”: willd10.substack.com/p/what-is-l...

futurism.comHow Three Brothers Built an AI Slop Empire by Buying Legitimate News Sites and Turning Them Into Zombie Content Farms That They Say Get 50 Million Page Views per MonthBrown Brothers Media is a media empire raking in millions of clicks with AI, fake writers, and plagiarism.

This investigation is darkly cynical, but my god, this has to be one of the most cyberpunk stories I have read in some time. We need a Neal Stephenson for media orgs: futurism.com/artificial-...

newlinesmag.comWater Scarcity in Jordan Is Causing an Agricultural CrisisFarmers are reeling under the dual pressures of depleting groundwater and climate change

Water security is the defining global challenge of the 21st century. In some cases, you might just convert energy to desalination. But what if you don’t have any access to water at all? “Every projection from scientists is more bleak than the previous one.” newlinesmag.com/reportage/w...

noemamag.comNow Entering: The Era Of Bleh | NOEMAAirbrain, AI and the homogenization of knowledge work.

I’m more cynical about “taste” being the future differentiator than this essay. “And it will mark a return to valuing unfiltered human judgment, perspective and taste as the fundamental drivers of differentiation in the eyes of prospects and customers.”: www.noemamag.com/now-enterin...

newyorker.comWhat China’s Vibe-Coding Capital Can Tell Us About the A.I. BoomLiangzhu, a small town near the tech hub Hangzhou, has become a haven for tech workers burnt out by the grind of China’s booming tech industry.

Great dispatch: “In China, the A.I. fortune-telling industry passed a hundred and twenty billion yuan in 2025, growing nearly forty-four per cent a year, faster than most enterprise A.I. The West is experiencing a version of this, too” www.newyorker.com/news/the-le...

ft.comUndersea cables: the battle for the ocean floor Two books take a deep dive into the hybrid wars over the vital arteries without which most of modern life would grind to a halt

Fascinating reviews of two books on subsea cables: www.ft.com/content/f5c... “In 1870, writes Bego, undersea cable companies ‘accounted for nearly a third of all capital raised on the London Stock Exchange’ …”

“…Britain dominated the industry, not least since in the Malay Peninsula and on Borneo the empire possessed most of the gutta-percha trees, which then produced the rubbery, saltwater-resistant substance needed to insulate the first generation of cables.”

spectrum.ieee.orgFrom Candlelit Kitchens to Electrified Everything: Delhi's Grid ComebackIt slashed electricity losses from 50 to 5 percent

Great history of Delhi’s energy grid and the tactics used to improve reliability and financial stability: spectrum.ieee.org/delhi-elect...

“a remarkable effort by the government and the city’s distribution utilities has turned Delhi’s grid into a reliable, modern system. Power losses have shrunk from over 50 percent in 2002 to 5 to 6 percent in 2026—on par with France and Belgium, and better than Greece and Serbia.”

compactmag.comHow ‘Boys Love’ Conquered Asia | CompactIn the last week of July, two incidents involving disruptive Chinese fans of a genre of Asian media triggered something close to a crisis in international relations. Security personnel had forcibly removed a Chinese woman from an event in Bangkok. Patrons of this type of event, known as a “fan

Perceptive analysis on Thai BL that’s watched by 1 billion+ people: “Hollywood doesn’t yet realize it, or want to realize it, but in the process cultural hegemony continues to leak from Los Angeles and New York to Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul, and now Bangkok.”: www.compactmag.com/article/how...

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“…most live-action Asian BL dramas would seem to champion precisely those values needed to reverse the decline in birth rates.”

“Everything else—especially notions of identity and categorization that have so obsessed the West in recent centuries—is relegated to side issues, given a role to play only when they strengthen (or threaten) love, friendship, and affection between human beings.”

Part of the genre’s charms is it really does have this gauzy but relentless positivity that is just missing from Western stories. “Rather, the Anglophone arts establishment seems to have been overtaken by a paralyzing fear of sentiment without a protective wrapping of snark.”

Similarly: “Cheating and dishonesty are the great no-nos, and family and friends are usually depicted as loving and supportive. Indeed, if it weren’t for the sex of the principals…”

newscientist.comI am a top drone pilot in the Ukrainian Army – this is what it is really like | New ScientistKratos is the call sign of one of the leading drone pilots in Ukraine. As part of the Aquila regiment, 3rd Army Corps, he has taken down almost 1000 enemy drones

Incredibly moving and insightful perspective from the frontlines of Ukraine: www.newscientist.com/article/259...

4 Sept

Medical details on the first xenotransplanted kidney as a bridge to allotransplantation in The Lancet: www.thelancet.com/journals/la...

4 Sept

Is this not the definition of human progress and courage?

nytimes.comIn a First, a Pig Kidney Kept a Patient Alive Until He Got a Human OneTim Andrews was the first patient to receive a genetically modified pig kidney as a “bridge” to a human organ transplant.

4 Sept

The only thing more inspiring than the advancing science of xenotransplantation is the indomitable spirit of the patients willing to undergo experimental treatments in pursuit of a better life for themselves and future generations. Thanks Tim: www.nytimes.com/2026/09/03/...

25 Aug

Our game designer Stephen Rubino on what makes Riskgaming and gaming more generally useful from a venture perspective. #RatTapDancingTech

shrubino.substack.comRiskgaming for fun and profitFinance, simulation, and a massive multiplayer moon colony

25 Aug

Link: shrubino.substack.com/p/riskgamin...

25 Aug

15 years ago today, I moved to South Korea and lived as an expat for the first time. Seoul has gotten taller, better looking, richer, and sexier year after year. I, well … there's always Korean plastic surgery 😀

dannycrichton.comA Review of Jonathan M. Katz’s The Big Truck That Went ByIt’s extraordinarily pleasing to read field reporting from deeply embedded foreign correspondents, a vocation that is shamefully underfunded today given the myriad of crises engulfing the world. Even more scintillating is when those same correspondents transform their routine work into a synthesized volume, offering us both a panoramic view

16 Aug

Here's a new review from me of Jonathan M. Katz's The Big Truck That Went By, a great book from 2013 that I enjoyed the past week: www.dannycrichton.com/2026/08/16/...

15 Aug

New Post: Yes, "elite hubris and its most vile form — condescension — is the ultimate trigger of populism. Yet, infantile rebellion and shouting 'no' is hardly any more useful."

readsecurities.comAI backlash and the populist stagnationThe AI backlash, like a highly evolved virus, is now endemic.

15 Aug

Link: www.readsecurities.com/p/ai-backla...

9 Aug

New from me: a number of stories this week point to the ever increasing challenges of tech + asymmetric warfare in the 21st century

readsecurities.comWars fought without precedent or attributionTechnology is creating new forms of asymmetric warfare

9 Aug

Also exciting weekend reading

I had to restrain myself due to luggage, but London book 'haul' from Daunt, Foyles, Waterstones plus Blackwell's at University of Manchester. Yes I am very behind on Jacaranda – I forgot to pick up a copy in Paris

Glorious views of SF out the plane window ❤️

Speaking of global nuclear war, I wrote about @AnnieJacobsen's new book "Biological War: A Scenario" and how it compares with "Nuclear War: A Scenario." In short: the two books highlight the difference between well-defined catastrophes compared to the infinite uncertainty of bio

readsecurities.comShould we prefer nuclear or biological war?Annie Jacobsen’s newly-released Biological War: A Scenario juxtaposes two hells

Read more here: www.readsecurities.com/p/should-we...

Maybe the next gen is going to be okay? We had our delightful f(lux) fellows play Four Forks this week, and they pretty much all ended up with positive outcomes! Meanwhile, I led us to global thermonuclear war :( Find out where you end up: fourforks.riskgaming.com

4 July

A quick post from me on the meaning of America's 250th birthday.

readsecurities.comHappy Semiquincentennial America!It’s a holiday, so I’ll keep this brief before fireworks coruscate the night sky: America was and is the greatest living experiment in cultivating human ingenuity in furtherance of individual and collective progress.

4 July

Link: www.readsecurities.com/p/happy-sem...

dannycrichton.comA review of Fyodor Tertitskiy’s Accidental TyrantNorth Korea’s opacity is all but impregnable. Its neighbors, Russia and China, are dictatorships that work ever more diligently to control the speech of their citizens, but the two have got nothing on the Hermit Kingdom’s totalitarianism. Even the most rudimentary facts about what’s happening in the

28 June

New post over the weekend from me, "A review of Fyodor Tertitskiy’s Accidental Tyrant" on North Korea's founder Kim Il-sung: www.dannycrichton.com/2026/06/28/...

28 June

I didn't promote last week, but Kim Jong-un is on a roll – no one has bested the U.S. better in the past decade. How did he build a nuclear weapons program against all odds, and why are top U.S. policymakers resigned to their fate? Lessons from the Hermit Kingdom ⬇️

readsecurities.comKim Jong Un, Negotiator ExtraordinaireHow North Korea used crypto and defense tech to build its influence

28 June

Link: www.readsecurities.com/p/kim-jong-...

27 June

As a rent-stabilized NYC resident VC, I am the unique voter that benefits from combo of Mamdani's socialist rent freeze plus Trump's libertarian pro-QSBS improvements plus carried interest deductions. Yes, it all needs reform, but I will take my win-win

27 June

This weekend's essay from me – sorry, it's 5K words, but if you have the attention span: Chinese economic development, SV workaholics, factory work, what Ren Zhengfei and Steve Jobs share, the most beautiful data center in the world, and comments on the challenges of journalism ⬇️

readsecurities.comCareer suicide, whatever it takesA review of four new books on China, the U.S. and tech

27 June

Link: www.readsecurities.com/p/career-su...

warontherocks.comSouth Korea Could Build Nuclear Submarines, But It Shouldn’tIn late May 2026, South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back unveiled a roadmap to achieving one of Seoul’s top military acquisition goals:

16 June

1/ This article in WotR on why South Korea shouldn't build nuclear submarines is a perfect example of why other countries should ignore the diminished ambitions of DC policymakers and just chart their own strategic course: warontherocks.com/south-korea...

5/ "By focusing on whether South Korea’s defense industry can achieve this capability, policymakers risk assuming that the next rung on the technological ladder is inherently beneficial" – but that's how you stay *ahead* of the competition, by jumping up the ladder

16 June

6/ Korea (and Taiwan, and increasingly Japan) understand that China is coming for all of their industries. They need to upgrade their tech, their workforces, and their competitiveness constantly to have a chance of holding market share and profits. Status quo is death/ /end

3/ "This heady mix of high costs, specialized workforces, plus political and bureaucratic incentives creates a structural inertia that, once established, takes on a momentum of its own." – this is a remarkably DC-centric view that doesn't auto apply to other political economies