Maia

New post: what actually just happened in Brazil? someunpleasant.substack.com/p/trouble-in...

trump dragging the us to a nonsensical war with iran while consolidating authoritarian power and centering the economy on oil and artificial intelligence megainvestments while he publicly executes a rando... the "sa" in USA seems to stand for Saudi Arabia

i kept telling people rachel carson had won a nobel prize and nobody corrected me

people blaming the french student riots on “mass islamic migration” or other such nazi bullshit like yeah, if there’s one thing young educated french people are known for is NOT being incredibly politically combative

last week brazil banned sports betting. this week a football player started influencing people to buy the death of ivan illich

what's the obsession with the talmud about. 90% of it is very long and boring arguments about what happens if a donkey kicks a lamp

New post: why is country music so big and why are we so nostalgic? someunpleasant.substack.com/p/choosin-it...

“Can't believe Mamdani is a proud supporter of a terrorist group's awful tactics” “Yeah man the intifada stuff was rough” “What's Hamas? I'm talking about Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal”

🆕 Who gets what? Budgets and discretion in community-led social protection targeting Today on VoxDev w/Kibrom Abay (International Food Policy Research Institute), Guush Berhane, Daniel Gilligan, Kibrom Tafere (World Bank Group) & Alemayehu Seyoum Taffesse: https://ow.ly/lJmh50ZP1QX

why are they all wearing fedoras

The first tweet is right, this is unbelievably crass.

gen z boss and a mini was a folk hero that emerged during the late 2020s as an agglomeration of figures characterized by their objection to the era’s conservative values. gen z boss and a mini is credited with inspiring the peasant uprisings that led to the destruction of the american empire

how it started: cry, stupid libs, we’re going to flatten iran and take over the middle east how it’s going: the houthis control the strait of bab el mandeb

No notes.

www.nytimes.com/2026/09/18/o...

a lot of people saying that ai safety loses its mass popular appeal because the rationalists are weird... brother i guarantee you karen and bob from pittsburgh don't know who aella is. they think ai is google

"Human beings may overcome the economic problem(s) of the human species, but the question of meaning and existential satisfaction will remain 'the permanent problem of the human race.'" www.liberalcurrents.com/you-should-r...

lmao

New post: AI safety - it’s kinda crazy, kinda communist, kinda anticommunist. But most importantly: does it make any sense? someunpleasant.substack.com/p/apocalypse...

lonely but exciting road... what a song

sadly i'll be on vacation during the best football match of the year... como versus roma... la joya versus el heredero...

we need to protect women's sex-based rights, which i believe shouldn't exist

so is anybody in the professional political media going to ask any Republican candidates whether they disavow Elon Musk (the single largest GOP donor) and his white supremacy?

i am a tech company from 2026. i am called nazgul after the evil soulless gouls from the lord of the rings that go around killing people. i have no viable products and no profits. my ceo is a crazy drug addict who keeps talking about war and jesus christ on tv. give me a trillion of your tax dollars

“Rosalía went to watch an aura farming battle with her French model girlfriend in Mexico City” You bolt awake in the mountains of Tennessee. You are not online. It is 1977 AD. You are the senator Albert Arnold Gore, and you have changed your mind. The future cannot come to pass. Arpanet must burn.

“Why is Lewandowski playing for the Chicago Fire” “why is Messi at Inter Miami” if there's one thing I'm not surprised by is an Argentinian wanting to live in Miami and a Polish man choosing Chicago to move to

how my writing sounds when i read it back

Socialists: Joseph Stalin would be in the DSA and love Mamdani!! ︀︀Other Socialists: NO! He would hate WOkeness!! ︀︀Josef Stalin in 2026: Comrade Ezra Klein, thank you for having me on your show. I'm a massive fan of your recent book. We need a Five Year Abundance Plan.

this sounds less like a plan to help stay-at-home parents and more like a one to punish working ones www.nytimes.com/2026/09/05/u...

I like the MLS is half teams larping as European clubs and half clubs larping as NFL teams so every match is like Borussia Minneapolis Calcio versus the Tallahassee Torpedoes

when is geese magazine going to cover the cameron winter / ivy wolk situation

Was waiting for this! "It’s Emily Wilson versus Joyce Carol Oates for people with STATA licenses."

New post: what’s the deal with Gen Z? Why are young people these days like that someunpleasant.substack.com/p/okay-zoomer

At long last, we have rebuilt the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway from Robert Caro's classic biography of Robert Moses, "Don't Build the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway"

The Arday affair is disastrous and only made worse by how clearly avoidable it was. An absolute and total failure of any sort of ethical behaviour at every stage of the proceedings, entirely based around massaging the egos of senior figures at the university.

Recently accepted by #QJE: “The Transmission of Reliable and Unreliable Information,” by Graeber, Noy (@shakkednoy.bsky.social), and Roth: doi.org/10.1093/qje/...

Recently accepted by #QJE: “The Employment Effects of a Guaranteed Income: Experimental Evidence from Two U.S. States,” by Vivalt, Rhodes, Bartik, Broockman, Krause, and Miller: doi.org/10.1093/qje/...