JUNE 23, 2026: The Knowledge-Production Game

A Nation Built on Racial Hierarchy; The Ethics of AI Writing; and Europe is Being Pulled in Several Different Directions

THE KNOWLEDGE-PRODUCTION GAME
Why your best ideas aren’t original: What the mysterious history of “multiple discovery” in science tells us about the nature of creativity. For half a decade we’ve been worrying that ideas are getting harder to find—in fact, they might just be harder to sell. Erik Baker on surviving the intellectual apocalypse. Beau Baumann writes in defense of the knowledge-production game—and the perils of the power game. “Speaking truth to power” is bad epistemology: If intellectuals want to hold power accountable, they should focus less on power and more on truth. Katie Jagielnicka on how anti-intellectualism has a hidden target—though it’s increasingly not so hidden anymore. George Scialabba on the changing ecology of public intellectuals, about some alterations in the conditions in which we practice our vocation.