Albert Wenger

Definitely disagree. UBI is economic freedom -- it enables people to take back control of their attention. Meaning comes from all sort of places (family, friends, nature, etc).

YouTube video by TEDx Talks A BIG idea, a bot idea -- How smart policy will advance tech | Albert Wenger | TEDxNewYork

Talk from 11 years ago about personal bots and universal basic income -- we are close now on the bots, high time to push for basic income www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8qo...

That's an important question. Epistemic humility? Humility more generally? What's your take?

From yesterday

Immigration and Cheating in American Culture I am an immigrant, which has given me a profound appreciation of the interplay between culture and immigration. My first time in the United States was as an exchange student in Rochester, Minnesota. I...

If you are not watching the Super Bowl, here's a blog post on Immigration and Cheating in American Culture: An Immigrant's Perspective continuations.com/immigration-...

Automated Software: Some Implications I learned how to code on a Texas Instruments TI-59 programmable calculator and then moved on to an Apple II. The calculator had a kind of assembly language and on the Apple I had access to Basic but s...

Wrote a post about some of the implications of automated software continuations.com/automated-so...

Resurfacing this from early December ...

What Now? Slow down the Worst & Build the New If you want inspiration for this moment in time I have two recommendations: watch Babylon Berlin and read the Foundation Trilogy. They are roadmaps for living a moral life in a time of profound regres...

Blog post: What Now? continuations.com/what-now-slo...

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.

- George Orwell, 1984

European Federation Manifesto I wrote the following in April of 2025 and sent it to some friends in Europe. But now seems a good time to just publish it here as a provocation. Illustration by Gemini/Nano Banana Pro. European Feder...

European Federation Manifesto (A Provocation) continuations.com/european-fed...

European Federation Manifesto I wrote the following in April of 2025 and sent it to some friends in Europe. But now seems a good time to just publish it here as a provocation. Illustration by Gemini/Nano Banana Pro. European Feder...

European Federation Manifesto (A Provocation) continuations.com/european-fed...

Philosophy Mondays: From Is to Ought - Toward a Universal Moral Core (Cont’d) As introduced in the prior post, studying the interaction between “ought” and “is” permits a scientifically grounded approach to morality. Previously we looked at the importance of avoiding absorbing ...

Philosophy Mondays blog post: Resource mobilization as part of the universal moral core continuations.com/philosophy-m...

More Lazy Employment Thinking: Jevons Paradox Edition Invocations of the Lump of Labor Fallacy have recently been superseded by appeals to Jevons paradox in claiming that we shouldn’t worry about what AI progress will do to workers. As with the case of c...

Blog post for your weekend reading: More Lazy Employment Thinking (Jevons Paradox Edition) continuations.com/more-lazy-em...

Intent-based Collaboration Environments In the Beginning was the Command Line is a famous essay by Neal Stephenson, in which he argues against the Disneyfication of computing represented by Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs). And I do have fo...

Blog post: Intent-based Collaboration Environments continuations.com/intent-based...

Philosophy Mondays: From Is to Ought - Toward a Universal Moral Core One common objection to my program for Philosophy Mondays is an appeal to Hume's famous dictum "you can't get to ought from is." I recently read Science and the Good, an entire book dedicated to debun...

Philosophy Mondays is back: From Is to Ought - Toward a Universal Moral Core
continuations.com/philosophy-m...

The Imperative for Moral Progress in the Face of Technological Acceleration In science, theories eventually get discarded if they lack explanatory power. This mechanism acts quite slowly at times, as we can see in the case of string theory. But over the course of history it h...

Blog post: The Imperative for Moral Progress in the Face of Technological Acceleration continuations.com/the-imperati...

Abundance The term abundance is being slung around a lot these days. First came the discussion that was kicked off by the recent eponymous book, which fell comically short of its title. Now we are deep into a d...

For your weekend reading pleasure: blog post on Abundance continuations.com/abundance

The Magic Employment Fallacy The Magic Employment Fallacy Invoking the “Lump of Labor Fallacy” to shut down discussion of the labor market impact of AI and robotics is once again popular. Labeling something a fallacy is a powerfu...

Blog post: The Magic Employment Fallacy (aka friends don't let friends invoke the Lump of Labor Fallacy) continuations.com/the-magic-em...

Our full conversation on YT: youtu.be/U060lJc58R4

Dirtbag Billionaire (book): www.simonandschuster.com/books/Dirtb...

David Gelles shows in Dirtbag Billionaire how Patagonia’s unique structure powers real conservation through the Holdfast Collective:

Our full conversation on YT: youtu.be/U060lJc58R4

Dirtbag Billionaire (book): www.simonandschuster.com/books/Dirtb...

In my conversation with David Gelles (author of Dirtbag Billionaire), he explained how they've created a corporate setup that diverts nearly $100M/yr in profits directly to environmental activism.

When Yvon Chouinard (founder of Patagonia) became a billionaire for the first time in 2017, he called it the worst day of his life. He urged his senior execs to get him off the list.

Our full conversation on YT: youtu.be/U060lJc58R4

Dirtbag Billionaire (book): www.simonandschuster.com/books/Dirtb...

Malinda set up onsite childcare (including an accredited school) for Patagonia employees’ kids back in the early 70s, when this was unheard of.

Thousands of kids have come through these programs, which are rooted in a deep curiosity for the outdoors.

Patagonia (specifically Malinda Chouinard) pioneered many workplace policies that have become table-stakes today.

Here’s David Gelles (author of Dirtbag Billionaire) on Malinda’s impact:

The @miren.dev motto: Enjoy the Deploy!

Our full conversation on YT: youtu.be/U060lJc58R4

Dirtbag Billionaire (book): www.simonandschuster.com/books/Dirtb...

She ended up marrying Chouinard’s best friend, Doug Tompkins (founder of another iconic brand, The North Face) and they used their success to protect millions of acres across Chile and Argentina.

One of my favorite parts of Dirtbag Billionaire is David Gelles’ portrayal of Kris McDivitt Tompkins.

She started as an intern and ended up becoming Patagonia’s CEO when Yvon Chouinard stepped back in 1979. She grew the company from under $1M in revenue to hundreds of millions.