James

"A textbook feeds information in a fixed sequence. AI feeds information in a responsive sequence. A library offers access. A gym builds capacity. The output lives inside the learner. This shift accelerates human cognition."

"more men would be cowardly if they only had courage enough" - William Ian Miller youtube.com/watch?v=wCj-y8…

@robkhenderson "As Pyotr Stepanovich reasons, one cannot make people equal by raising the bar but only by lowering it: “To level the mountain is a fine idea,” he tells Stavrogin. “In the herd there is bound to be equality.”"

"how it always is with modern revolutionary movements: The promise of absolute liberty leads to the worst possible slavery, just as the call for fraternity leads to the guillotine, and the ideal of equality to the domination of the few over the many." commentary.org/articles/gary-…

"On Hair as Memento Mori" by @AlvaroDeMenard fantasticanachronism.com/p/on-hair-as-m…

"Developing creative identity" by @michael_nielsen michaelnotebook.com/dci/index.html

Links - March 2026 the most interesting reads and listens i caught this month. ⭐️= highlights + full list continually updated here: james1ach.substack.com/p/links-march-…

@michael_nielsen "As we develop new means of understanding and explaining the world, we develop new literary forms. But those means of understanding and explaining emerge only slowly, as do the forms."

A personal essay, on how creative identity develops: michaelnotebook.com/dci/index.html

@david_perell the central question of a writer

Ocean Vuong is a poet, novelist, and professor at NYU. This is the anti writing with AI conversation. It's about breaking free from technology and convention in order to see the world fresh again, and then make beautiful art about what you see. Some highlights: 1) "We're out here to write sentences the species has never encountered, and it's possible in this lifetime." 2) "Eighty percent of writing is looking and thinking. The last part is syntax." 3) "When you have a sentence, what you really have is consciousness filtered through syntax. For every single person, it's different." And below are all the things we talked about, in the form of timestamps: 1:40 Writing metaphors 4:52 The problem with writing workshops 13:02 How AI changed writing 23:32 Why did writing get so rigid? 28:04 Rescue the cliche! 32:06 Seeing vs. recognizing 34:37 80% of writing isn't writing 41:31 What makes sentences memorable 50:31 Poetry as a testing ground for writers 1:02:30 Synchronic vs diachronic reading 1:09:03 Daringness and disobedience 1:14:27 The limits of language I've shared the full interview with Ocean below. If you'd rather watch on YouTube, or listen on Apple / Spotify, check out the reply tweets.

@jacksondahl @phokarlsson how reading is like running

Henrik Karlsson returns to Dialectic. One of my 2025 highlights was meeting one of my favorite writers in Copenhagen and interviewing him on my fairly new podcast. It was a fan favorite. This conversation may have topped it. I talked to @phokarlsson about smashing mental models, navigating confusion, and why getting lost is part of creating the new. We discuss: - rejecting our mind's tendency to hold onto neat, legible ways of seeing (knowledge shields) - why risk should be unevenly distributed, and how Brian Eno uses success to take greater creative risk - why artists ought to embody a ballerina's balance - his obsession with artists' (Bergman, Grothendiek, Knausgaard's) private notebooks - why great art "spits you back out" - introspection as subject, not object - like Nick Cave and Rick Rubin - remembering what childlike desire is like - what he believes in, in the cosmic sense - his late grandfather Nils: an ordinary, extraordinary man Timestamps: 0:00 - Opening Highlights 1:28 - Intro to Henrik 4:05 - Thanks to Notion 5:58 - Begin: Attention, Boredom, Predictability, Aliveness, and Dérive 14:52 - Confusion and Clarity: Mental Balance, Breaking Mental Models, and Making It Through the Woods 31:37 - Henrik's Notebooks, Personal Constraints 40:54 - Introspection as Subject, Not Object: Nick Cave, Rick Rubin, and Attending Outward 46:56 - Creative Risks, Constraints, and the Labyrinth: Eno, Von Trier, Cage, and Herzog 1:03:47 - Agency, The Right Kind of Risk, and What Else Is Possible 1:23:29 - Desire: Trusting Excitement and "Galloping Down the Street" 1:30:44 - Why Good Ideas Come from the Edges and Keeping the Space to Sit in Your Ideas 1:44:58 - Physical Space and Isolation 1:51:19 - Jenga Towers: Why Great Art Has Space and Spits You Back Out 2:01:30 - Conviction, Belief, Navigating Murkiness with Firmness and Openness 2:15:54 - Short Essays and How Reading Is Like Running 2:22:27 - What Love Is Like and Befriend Those We Read 2:29:18 - Grandfather Nils and a Final Reminder Ep. 41: Henrik Karlsson - Strolling Through Life's Labrynths - is out now, below and on all platforms.

"An extinction event for the author sets the stage for the golden age of reading." evernotquite.substack.com/p/a-portrait-o…

@jacksondahl @DialecticPod nabeel/winter roundtable????

First repeat guest on @DialecticPod. Episode 41 releases Monday, March 23rd. Subscription links below.