Surveillance Log 001 - Noteworthy links for 2025-10-05
Hello! Welcome to a new experiment on Surveilled, a weekly (or less) log of five (or less) links that I found interesting. The subject matter will mainly remain economic, financial and tech adjacent of course.
The longer, infrequent and irregular posts will continue of course, time permitting, but I felt the need to write something with less pressure and more freewheeling. Let me know what you think, just by replying to this email!
Without further ado, on to the links.
The “Debate Me Bro” Grift: How Trolls Weaponized The Marketplace Of Ideas — Mike Masnick is a very astute observer of the (social) media landscape, and perfectly puts words to the vague feeling I had in the wake of the Charlie Kirk killing. In short, Kirk’s arguments were generally made in bad faith, and hence it is not worth engaging with them. (Techdirt)
Why Did a $10 Billion Startup Let Me Vibe-Code for Them—and Why Did I Love It? — We’ve already long exceeded the point of decreasing marginal returns on generic articles about the impact of AI, which makes this one stand out all the more. A Wired reporter “vibe codes” a new feature for Notion in a couple of days, using AI agents. It provides the best understanding of how AI is useful now and how it makes some individuals more productive, but equally, the kind of features it is good at delivering just feel like more of the same. (Wired)
Investor Jean-Philippe Bouchaud: ‘The whole bull run is because of an influx of money’ — The French are usually astute observers with original perspectives on matters requiring a degree of technical expertise, and the Chief Investment Officer of a discrete French hedge fund is no exception. Sharp takes on finance (the efficient markets hypothesis is rubbish) and economics (obsessed with mathematics at the expense of real world experience.) For similar vibes, see Yann Le Cun at Meta on AI. (FT $)
Have we passed peak social media? — FT data reporter John Burns Murdoch argues that daily hours spent on social media are past the peak. Which would be a hopeful message, but for the one exception to the trend: they are still rising in the US... (FT $)
This is where The Booker Prize nominees write: from kitchen tables to a cemetery bench — Interesting to me primarily because it serves as a reminder that you don’t need anything special to write, just write. (Wallpaper)