I didn’t write about Charlie Kirk last week, because it was so recent, everyone was jumping to conclusions and nothing seemed worth recommending here. I’m still hesitant, but I wanted to share some thoughts that have started to form, and a piece by Ta-Nehisi Coates that gets to the heart of why this moment is so dangerous. In the immediate aftermath, it felt like more violence was bound to follow, with the far right and their president blaming the left and calling for retribution. Now that the motive and the background of the shooter look less conclusive, something else seems to be happening – less violent, but no less dangerous. Kirk gets sanitised by the centre-left, turned into a martyr by the right and this death, ironically, gets weaponised against free speech. Maybe best captured by a satirical post by journalist Judd Legum: «Charlie Kirk was a champion of free speech and anyone who says otherwise will be fired.» Ta-Nehisi Coates stresses that one cannot praise Kirk for how he engaged in debate without calling out what he said. «If you would look away from the words of Charlie Kirk, from what else would you look away?»

Enlightening: the climate crisis, seen through the lens of insurance. As more and more things become too risky to insure, the ripple effects are felt everywhere.

Something to nerd out on. A 112-slide strong presentation by the energy think tank Ember on how electrotech is rewriting the economics and geopolitics of energy. If you remember just one chart, make it 32. («The electrification ceiling is high and rising»).

What a wonderful concept! This new podcast, aptly called «Only one question», is all about a single yes or no question. They ask the best possible expert and follow up until they arrive at something resembling clarity. In this case, the answer to the question whether we really exist, is: «No, but…». The intro is in German, the conversation starts at 3:30.

What a gorgeous piece, full of interesting facts and memorable anecdotes. The New Yorker tells the story of its one-of-a-kind fact-checking department. Really an ode to getting things right, no matter what it takes. My favourite quote: «Who cares, in the end? Does it really matter? I think we can safely say no. But, especially right now, we’re in this catastrophic moment where so many people assume they know things that either they don’t know or that aren’t even forms of knowledge. There’s this strange disappearance of humility before the incredible complexity of the world. It’s sort of an epidemic. The deep value in checking is just as a confirmation of how hard it is to know stuff.»

I made a new game. Dataguessr is a playful way to learn a bit more about the world every day. Hope you enjoy it!

I’m not always a fan of tech analyst Benedict Evans. However, this conversation with him about what he sees when looking at AI right now is very insightful. He starts with stating that his «most controversial take on AI is that I’m a centrist». What sets his perspective apart, though, is not that he neither hypes nor demonises AI, but how his understanding of it is deeply grounded in historical precedent.

While we’re celebrating facts and devotion to accuracy, why not do it twice? In many ways, Wikipedia is completely different from the fact checkers at The New Yorker, but they share the same set of beliefs. «Having a stubborn common ground of shared reality turns out to be a basic precondition of collective human life», as it’s described in this super interesting piece on the inner workings of Wikipedia. Favourite quote from this one: «A lie might be more plausible or useful than a fact, but it lacks a fact’s dumb arbitrary quality of being the case for no particular reason and no matter your opinion or influence.»