The hottest Intellectual history Substack posts right now

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Master Plan: An Interview with John Lewis Gaddis

The Octavian Report • 0 implied HN points • 23 Dec 25
đź’ľ History Intellectual history
  1. Effective grand strategy mixes hedgehog focus and fox agility, knowing when to pursue one big aim and when to shift into adaptive, creative problem-solving.
  2. Planning and disciplined preparation are essential, but you must be ready to abandon plans and improvise when unexpected realities hit.
  3. Today’s short attention spans, political polarization, and technological pace make long-term strategy harder, so leaders should cultivate a lightness—flexibility and a broad perspective—rather than rigid ideology.

Carl Schmitt, Friendship, and Technology

Theory Matters • 0 implied HN points • 19 Feb 26
đź“– Philosophy Intellectual history
  1. Technology and AI are changing how people make and keep friends; they can provide companionship but also deepen loneliness and enable harmful behavior.
  2. Social bonds are weakening in ways that spill into politics, turning personal relationships and everyday institutions into battlegrounds and eroding solidarity.
  3. We need clearer ideas of what friendship is to rebuild it; classical views that value friends for who they are offer a guide, and using modern political theory to explain these changes should be done with caution.