Adjacent Weekend

This week: a decades-old ad-model mystery that turned into an obsessive internet hunt, why Francis Fukuyama thinks building things with your hands might be the antidote to AI dependence, the strange spectacle of a Sperm Racing World Cup, and what happens when a hobbyist typewriter collector explains, patiently, exactly how he uses the things.

The Eras of Francis Fukuyama: Building Things

Yascha Mounk sits down with Fukuyama for a conversation that starts in an unexpected place — hobbyist robotics — and ends up somewhere much bigger: whether AI is eroding the practical, hands-on skills that keep societies resilient. The Ukraine battlefield tangent alone is worth the click.

writing.yaschamounk.com · 20 min

If You Build It, Will They Come? On the Sperm Racing World Cup

An essay that starts with a 17th-century Dutch microbiologist and ends at an actual televised sperm race, and somehow makes total sense the whole way through. Equal parts science history and gonzo reporting on the strangest sports spectacle you haven't heard of yet.

The Paris Review · 15 min

The trouble with cancer screening

A pediatrician gets a cancer scare delivered via push notification, and the piece unfolds into a genuinely useful examination of overdiagnosis, false positives, and what we're not being told about the limits of early detection. Calm, evidence-driven, and more unsettling than any headline about screening usually manages to be.

Nautilus · 14 min

“It's possible that you were undermined, endangered, cut off or disrespected. But if we begin with that, then the relationship gets shaky.” — Seth's Blog

The Unexpected Persistence of John Rawls

Fifty years after "A Theory of Justice," a look at why Rawls keeps getting rediscovered by people who should, by now, have moved past him — and what that says about political philosophy's ongoing search for a moral foundation everyone can agree on.

Persuasion · 12 min

Complicated Legacy: Jay Bhattacharya on Fauci, RFK, and Vaccines

The current NIH director sits for an unusually candid conversation about what pandemic-era public health got wrong, why he thinks science needs a "replication revolution," and the uphill climb of rebuilding institutional trust from the inside. Worth reading whether or not you agree with him — it's a rare unguarded moment from someone now running the machine he used to criticize.

Niall Ferguson · 18 min

FAQ: How do you use your typewriters?

A collector answers, patiently and at length, the question he gets asked constantly — and turns it into a meditation on tools, attention, and why analog machines still earn their keep on a desk. No cynicism, no nostalgia trap, just someone who genuinely loves the mechanics of writing by hand-crank.

Boffo Socko · 8 min

Squish Toys Won the Summer

A dispatch from the Queens Night Market that becomes, almost by accident, a small essay on childhood, sensory toys, and what parents actually notice when they're standing around watching their kids for hours. Warm without being saccharine.

The New Yorker · 10 min

Europe Isn't Built for This Heat

An eighty-four-year-old man and his wife move to Paris for a month to live out a lifelong dream — and run straight into a city, and a continent, that wasn't designed for the summers it's now having. A family story that becomes a climate story.

The New Yorker · 11 min