I finally finished Successful Prophets. An article that took essentially five years to write. It’s of no particular consequence to you, probably, but this was the article that got me writing again. Made me realise I could use my articles to think through ideas, and make it exciting to write.

What you will care about is, much like Mundane Cults, it shows just how vulnerable we all are to being collected into high-control groups like cults. That there’s nothing special about them, and nothing that especially protects you from them. In fact, the way we talk about cult leaders, like the way we talk about cults, actually leaves us more vulnerable.

I also republished the sister article, Folie à deux. This was the idea that started my thinking about cult leaders and successful prophets. Written during the height of the pandemic, I think you might be able to read the subtext. A time of widespread human craziness, and again very comprehensible if you look at what happens when people are isolated with just a couple of people to keep them company.

I think, after reading, the new era of digital gurus makes a great deal more sense, as do the more malevolent online communities surrounding them. If anything, it’s surprising that there aren’t more. It’s just the human machine at work. An article for another day, though. For now, I hope you enjoy these.

In other news, I’m writing a book chapter on making AI useful, so lots of marginalia about that, as I collect my thoughts and scattered notes. Worth a skim—the jagged edge of AI is less and less reassuringly far away. This is good for you in the short term—some clear ideas about how to make AI more productive for you. But bad in the long term, because the clear benefit of humans is in jobs that are more fragmentary, and we are getting better at chaining AI across fragments.