It’s Wednesday, October 15. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: On Breaking History, Eli Lake explores how the home of free speech embraced censorship. Obama speechwriter David Litt explains how his old boss launched podcast politics. Ashley Rindsberg investigates how Reddit created the first digital ghetto. And Peter Coy asks: Who cares if AI is a bubble? All that and much more.
But first: What makes America so innovative?
On Monday, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics to Philippe Aghion, Peter Howitt, and Joel Mokyr “for having explained innovation-driven economic growth.”
In other words, all three recipients have spent their careers grappling with variations on one of the biggest questions out there: How does progress happen?
For Mokyr, an American Israeli economic historian, economic growth and technological innovation is a rare exception in human history. “By and large, the forces opposing technological progress have been stronger than those striving for changes,” he writes in The Lever of Riches. “The study of technological progress is therefore a study of exceptionalism, of cases in which as a result of rare circumstances, the normal tendency of society to slide toward stasis and equilibrium was broken.” (h/t Alex Tabarrok.)
“A study of exceptionalism” would be a good alternative title for America at 250, our year-long series celebrating this exceptional country as it passes the quarter-millennium mark (read all about it here). And, as luck would have it, this month’s installment focuses on some of the same questions as the Nobel winners do.
It’s all about American innovation: the nonstop technological revolution that has been a constant of American life for 250 years, from John Fitch and Robert Fulton to Elon Musk and Jensen Huang. In the next few days, expect essays on everything from the brilliance of the humble shipping container to the rise of techno-pessimism. Later this week we’ll bring you Bari in conversation with one of the great innovators of today, Anduril founder Palmer Luckey. And click here to vote on what you think is the most influential American invention of all time.
To kick things off, we’re proud to present our dear friend, the journalist turned Silicon Valley investor Katherine Boyle. She writes about how America—and especially American tech companies—came to dominate the world.
Mokyr’s answer to the question of what drives innovation is culture. Ideas, not raw materials or imperial conquest, are ultimately what give us prosperity and technological progress. America’s first quarter millennium bears that out. Katherine argues that one idea—and one constitutional amendment in particular—is the key to understanding what turned Palo Alto from a sleepy university town into a world-famous innovation hub. Don’t miss Katherine on what powers American innovation.
—Oliver Wiseman
When antisemites descended on subreddits about Jewish life and Israel recently, calling users “Zionazis” thousands of times over and threatening to “kill Jews,” Reddit moderators lobbied Reddit officials to enforce basic rules of the platform. Instead, as Ashley Rindsberg reports today, Reddit siloed these subreddits, limiting the ability to cross-post to other subreddits, all while doing nothing to stop the fire hose of threatening content. In effect, Ashley finds, the platform has created the very first online ghetto.
How could the country that effectively birthed free speech and liberal democracy fall so far into the depths of illiberalism and come to embrace censorship? That’s the question Eli Lake tackles in the latest episode of Breaking History as he traces speech in the UK from John Stuart Mill to red-pilled moms doing time for their Facebook posts.
When Marc Maron interviewed Barack Obama in his garage in 2015, he didn’t just make podcast history—he changed politics. A decade later, podcasts are dominated by right-leaning comics and have become a major force shaping our politics. This week, Obama went back to Maron’s garage for his podcast’s final episode. Former Obama speechwriter David Litt looks back at how “WTF” blurred the line between journalism and entertainment—and altered the American political landscape.
In her latest dispatch from north of the border, Rupa Subramanya unpacks Prime Minister Mark Carney’s entanglement with Donald Trump, blasts Canada’s proposed “Combating Hate Act,” and brings some much-needed good economic news.
When the AI bubble bursts—as all bubbles do—many investors will lose fortunes. But in his column today, veteran economics journalist Peter Coy says that if AI is as important as its boosters say, it will have been worth it.
LIVE in New York City: Jonathan Haidt and Bari Weiss
Tickets are selling fast for How to Parent in the Digital Age, a live conversation with Jonathan Haidt and Bari Weiss about how we raise kids in 2025—and how we might be getting it all backward. October 22 at 7 p.m. in New York City. Get your tickets before they sell out!
News organizations have roundly denounced strict new Pentagon reporting rules. Everyone from The New York Times and CNN to Fox News and Newsmax has refused to sign on to the policy that restricts access to certain areas of the Pentagon to members of the press and requires them to pledge not to obtain unauthorized material. The one outlet on board with the changes? One America News Network.
Members of Hamas carried out public executions of blindfolded Palestinians in the days since the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip. If Hamas doesn’t disarm, “we will disarm them,” warned Trump on Tuesday. (Watch our video report on Hamas’s crackdown.)
The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal from Infowars founder Alex Jones over the $1.4 billion judgment levied against him for defaming the families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, an event he called a hoax staged by crisis actors. Jones filed for bankruptcy in 2022.
ICE’s use of a full-body restraint device, known as a WRAP, to restrict individuals during deportation has prompted accusations of inhumane treatment. “It was the most painful thing I’ve been through,” said a deportee who was restrained by a WRAP device for most of his 10-hour deportation flight.
Instagram announced sweeping changes to its content restrictions for teenagers on Tuesday, introducing guidelines based on the film industry’s PG-13 rating, and restricting adult content and some inappropriate accounts altogether. The new rules will also apply to AI chatbots accessed by teenage users on the platform.
A new version of ChatGPT will communicate in a “human-like way,” even providing “erotica for verified adults,” Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, said in a Tuesday post on X. Altman said that the move is now possible thanks to “new tools” developed by OpenAI to mitigate risks for those with mental health issues.
Corey Balmer, the arsonist who firebombed the residence of Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, pleaded guilty to the arson attack on Tuesday and was sentenced to 25 to 50 years in prison. Balmer said the attack was to show Shapiro that he “will not take part in his plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people.”
Multiple airports across the country are refusing to air a video of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem blaming the government shutdown on congressional Democrats. The video, according to critics, potentially violates the Hatch Act, a 1939 law requiring federal programs to be administered in a nonpartisan manner.
People who are frequently connected with friends age more slowly compared to those who do not socialize with friends, according to a new study conducted by the U.S. National Institute on Aging. Researchers found that social connectivity can also act as “preventative care,” regulating stress and reducing inflammation.
We have a packed season of conversations, debates, and live events. Here’s what’s coming up:
Reclaiming Childhood in an Online World with Jonathan Haidt and Bari Weiss
New York, NY • October 22, 7 p.m. • 🎟️ Tickets on sale hereWould America Be Safer Without the Second Amendment? Featuring Alan Dershowitz, Dana Loesch, and Bari Weiss
Chicago • November 5, 7 p.m. • 🎟️ Tickets on sale here
I would say that a culture that fosters competition is what drives sustainable innovation. Our iron clad property rights and lack of widespread corruption (we still have senators insider trading but we don't have local mayors stealing promising young companies and turning them over to their rich backers as can happen in most other countries). The Roman Republic and early Empire had a similar philosophy of fostering intense competition among it's citizens and lauding and rewarding achievements.
https://www.racket.news/p/gain-of-function-monetary-policy?r=2a36f7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false