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On Monday 6/15, I'm hosting a workshop to kick off a reading group for classic essays: RSVP here.

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Michael Dean
michael-dean-k/

Architect-turned-writer, founder of Essay Architecture. Building pattern languages, software, anthologies, and community for essayists.

Essay Club ↗
Recent Essays
#conspiracy8 pieces
Michael Dean
michael-dean-k/

Architect-turned-writer, founder of Essay Architecture. Building pattern languages, software, anthologies, and community for essayists.

Essay Club ↗
Michael Dean
Michael Dean

Architect-turned-writer, founder of Essay Architecture. Building pattern languages, software, anthologies, and community for essayists.

Michael Dean
Michael Dean

Architect-turned-writer, founder of Essay Architecture. Building pattern languages, software, anthologies, and community for essayists.

Essay Club ↗
Michael Dean
Michael Dean

Architect-turned-writer, founder of Essay Architecture. Building pattern languages, software, anthologies, and community for essayists.

Human-shaped sensemaking

Why essays see what algorithms can't (the themes in The Best Internet Essays 2025)

· 3,122 words

I remember flipping through TIME’s 1999 Year in Review in elementary school, thinking some all-seeing committee had seen it all, reporting on the celebrities, wars, and gadgets that would one day make a history textbook. It wasn’t just a recap of the year, but a pivot into the millennium. It…

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Cannibal rumors

· 186 words

I conveyed the conspiracy to my wife and her mother that Ellen Degeneres & Co. actually ate Stanely Kubrick after they realized what he was trying to push through the full uncut version of Eyes Wide Shut. I guess the Epstein files are bringing back longstanding rumors on satanic and ritualistic cannibalism. The most disgusting thing I read—which I did not share with them, for not wanting to evoke imagery of infant harm, and so STOP HERE if you're sensitive to that— was that Melania and Trump were on a yacht with Epstein, and they witnessed cannibals dismember babies, take out their intestines, and eat feces from it, which is absolutely inhuman and vile on so many levels, and I can barely understand why such a thing would even occur. Maybe there’s an elite postures where Epstein was boastful about his depravity: “look what I can orchestrate.” Or maybe (and most likely) the emails are intentionally fake to falsely incriminate others down the line? Either way, I find it very strange that such visceral images are entering public consciousness and large masses of people believe it.

GPT-5 letdown

· 76 words

There is a striking clash between today's GPT-5 release—which seems like a router to switch between existing models, and SAMA’s meme from yesterday: the Death Star, a weapon. GPT-5 does not feel dangerous. It makes me wonder if they had to pull the real GPT-5 for security concerns. Obviously this is a conspiracy theory, but I’ve long thought that their consumer apps are just a side project compared to the geopolitical power their research might yield.

Cranberry Sauce

· 56 words

One of the classic rumors in the Paul is Dead conspiracy is that if you play Strawberry Fields Forever backwards, you hear Lennon saying, “I buried Paul.” He’s more likely saying “Cranberry Sauce” (they both have X-bury x-Aw-x). It only finally clicked how Lennonesque the humor is to snarl cranberry sauce in a song about strawberries.

Agenda 47 Notes

· 128 words

Why was agenda 47 pushed on X? It seems like old videos (1-2 years old) are being presented as breaking. Hundreds of people are restacking. I saw one community note indicating that this was old (and it then appeared to disappear).

Some points on what it includes:

  1. Ability to remove rogue bureaucracy
  2. Clean out corrupt actors in national security & intelligence
  3. Reform FISA courts
  4. Expose the hoaxes and abuses of power
  5. Stop collusion between government and media
  6. Independent Inspector General
  7. Independent auditing of intelligence, no spying on citizens or disinformation against American people
  8. Move bureaucracies out of Washington
  9. Ban bureaucrats from taking jobs from companies they regulate
  10. Push a constitutional amendment to oppose term limits on members of Congress

Coup Scenarios

· 72 words

The norm is for power struggles to happen in private. While each party is positioning itself to the working class, this really might just be a coup–some private elite overthrowing the established public elites. Some scenarios:

  1. It's thwarted;
  2. They integrate;
  3. A struggle—they both die;
  4. Coup (no change);
  5. Coup (far worse);
  6. Coup (better off);
  7. Coup (the battle kills both, makes room for new);
  8. Power vacuum (the emergent order is worse);
  9. New party (exposes both, well-oriented, popular but limited power);
  10. Constitutional reboot (system-level change).

Exposers are offenders too

· 90 words

In 2016, Trump brought the word “deep state” to public consciousness. Conspiracy theorists used to be an Internet fringe group. Now it’s partisan. The killing of Epstein in 2019 brought a new level of lucidity; that half of the insane things Alex Jones rants about might be true. Now in 2024, the assassination attempt of Trump is drawing parallels to the JFK assassination. I think Trump’s will to power came from exposing the corruption of rival power—that doesn't mean he’s not equally implicated. Is there any precedent of this?