Featured Essay
Blogs and journaLism
Fully Automated Desert Dystopia

This is my latest newsletter published at Substack. Read more and subscribe here. It takes some chutzpah, you would think, for Saudi Arabia to portray itself as a modern, forward-thinking state. Ruled by crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country is an authoritarian theocratic monarchy. Political parties are outlawed. No religion other than Islam can … Continue reading Fully Automated Desert Dystopia

Nostalgia for the Concrete Age

This is my latest newsletter published at Substack. Read more and subscribe here. Our forebears did not think as we do. In the late 1940s, the Soviet émigré Berthold Lubetkin served briefly as chief architect for Peterlee, a new town in England’s northeast coalmining region. The glorious centrepiece of Lubetkin’s vision? A highway carving through … Continue reading Nostalgia for the Concrete Age

Against Minimalism

This essay was published by The New Statesman in March 2023, under the headline “Life After Apple.” Make it simple: this is the design formula that rules our world.  It is the ethos of user-friendly minimalism, whereby complex gadgets are made both stylish and easy to operate. For this we can thank Apple, which probably … Continue reading Against Minimalism

The Age of the Enclosed Self

This is my latest newsletter published at Substack. Read it here.