Molly White's Reading List

Wasteland Warlords 3

2026-07-09T19:20:20+00:00

Wasteland Warlords 3

by James A. Hunter and Eden Hudson.

Published 2024. 141 pages.

Started July 9, 2026; completed July 9, 2026.

Wasteland Warlords 2

2026-07-09T19:19:16+00:00

Wasteland Warlords series, book 2.

Wasteland Warlords 2

by James A. Hunter and Eden Hudson.

Published 2023. 159 pages.

Started July 7, 2026; completed July 8, 2026.

Wasteland Warlords 1

2026-07-07T02:01:14+00:00

Wasteland Warlords series, book 1.

Wasteland Warlords 1

by James A. Hunter and Eden Hudson.

Published 2023. 150 pages.

Started July 6, 2026; completed July 6, 2026.

Kiosk Kingdom

2026-06-26T02:38:12+00:00

Discount Dan's Backroom Bargains series, book 3.

Kiosk Kingdom

by James A. Hunter.

Published March 31, 2026. 680 pages.

Started June 25, 2026; completed July 6, 2026.

Scarpetta

2026-06-22T13:24:27+00:00

Kay Scarpetta series, book 16.

Scarpetta

by Patricia Cornwell.

Published 2008. 500 pages.

Started June 21, 2026; completed June 25, 2026.

Book of the Dead

2026-06-22T13:23:59+00:00

Kay Scarpetta series, book 15.

Book of the Dead

by Patricia Cornwell.

Published 2007. 511 pages.

Started June 20, 2026; completed June 21, 2026.

Predator

2026-06-22T13:23:12+00:00

Kay Scarpetta series, book 14.

Predator

by Patricia Cornwell.

Published 2005. 453 pages.

Started June 19, 2026; completed June 20, 2026.

Leak Exposes Members of Peter Thiel's Secretive 'Dialog' Society

2026-06-17T12:48:10+00:00

“Leak Exposes Members of Peter Thiel's Secretive 'Dialog' Society”.

Dell Cameron and Yulia Almazova in Wired.

Published June 16, 2026. Read on June 17, 2026.

More than 200 of the world's elites registered for a retreat whose agenda runs from panels on cult-building and sex to prepping for World War III. An associated app offers matchmaking.

MAGA Pronatalism is Anti-Freedom No Matter the Packaging

2026-06-16T13:03:51+00:00

“MAGA Pronatalism is Anti-Freedom No Matter the Packaging”.

Anne Lutz Fernandez in Nobody Wants This.

Published June 15, 2026. Read on June 16, 2026.

But its sanewashing is underway

Anthropic's Safety Superpower

2026-06-16T01:19:08+00:00

“Anthropic's Safety Superpower”.

Ben Thompson in Stratechery.

Published June 15, 2026. Read on June 15, 2026.

Here’s the thing about these safety justifications: I think they work because, to Anthropic, they aren’t justifications. The company really believes that they are the only ones who believe in super intelligence, and thus are the only ones who are sufficiently concerned about the dangers. That excuses decision after decision, policy after policy, and confrontation after confrontation that, to people on the outside, look like a bizarre combination of cynicism and naiveté. The contrast to OpenAI is massive: I think that one way to understand how and why OpenAI lost its lead is that, in the years following the release of ChatGPT, the company has been at war with itself internally as what used to be a research lab was suddenly seized with the burden of being the accidental consumer tech company; to the extent OpenAI solved that conflict, it was by bleeding huge amounts of talent to Anthropic in particular. Anthropic, on the other hand, has perfect alignment between talent and mission and business. The company gets to sell to researchers the creation of a machine god, with the mantle of being the sort of person who cares about the dangers and is smart enough to navigate them on behalf of humanity; that every policy change that falls out of that happens to be great for business is the most beautiful coincidence in the world.

Choosing to Stay Human

2026-06-16T00:55:39+00:00

“Choosing to Stay Human”.

Ethan Mollick in One Useful Thing.

Published May 26, 2026. Read on June 15, 2026.

To be clear, I am cool with a lot of cognitive surrender. I don’t remember phone numbers anymore because my phone does that for me. I am happy my kids didn’t need to learn cursive. I am fine with calculators doing my daily math and my computer figuring out how to schedule my classes. These were once useful skills, but we were probably right to get rid of them. AI is different because the technology is general enough that virtually any cognitive task can be offloaded into it to some degree. I don’t want to be too precious about writing: there is no principle that says a polished email draft has to come out of a human mind any more than a column of arithmetic has to. But we don’t want to give up everything, and that we mostly don’t know yet, for any specific task, what is important and what is not. Deciding that is going to be a real challenge.

Why "Book-Shaming" Won't Solve the Children's Literacy Crisis

2026-06-13T15:22:21+00:00

“Why "Book-Shaming" Won't Solve the Children's Literacy Crisis”.

Jessica Winter in The New Yorker.

Published June 12, 2026. Read on June 13, 2026.

Barnett’s concerns about literary merit and professional esteem may be timeless, but they are not terribly timely; they seem to float high above the current on-the-ground realities of what many educators and researchers agree to be a literacy crisis. In urging his audience to see children’s books as “real books,” Barnett skips over larger, more pressing questions about why so many children aren’t reading books at all, real or otherwise.

Under the Trump crypto playbook, the family always wins. Investors don't

2026-06-09T13:19:08+00:00

“Under the Trump crypto playbook, the family always wins. Investors don't”.

Tom Bergin, Michelle Conlin, Koh Qing, and Tom Wilson in Reuters.

Published June 9, 2026. Read on June 9, 2026.

Risking little of their own money, the US president and his sons have added at least $2.3 billion to the family fortune from their main crypto ventures, while the investors they've wooed have taken a $2.3 billion hit, a Reuters examination found.

Rumor Has It

2026-04-24T23:35:53+00:00

Disco Space Opera series, book 3.

Rumor Has It

by Cat Rambo.

Published 2024.

Started April 24, 2026; completed June 8, 2026.

Genre glitches and unexpected promotional phrases as a sign of AI writing

2026-05-14T18:39:15+00:00

“Genre glitches and unexpected promotional phrases as a sign of AI writing”.

Jill Walker Rettberg in her blog.

Published May 13, 2026. Read on May 14, 2026.

A genre glitch is a characteristic of LLM-assisted writing where the text suddenly switches genre, typically inserting a short promotional phrase full of sensory details into an informational text.

Scoop: GOP called Howard Lutnick to reverse crypto PAC's Texas move

2026-04-25T12:47:41+00:00

“Scoop: GOP called Howard Lutnick to reverse crypto PAC's Texas move”.

Hans Nichols and Alex Isenstadt in Axios.

Published April 24, 2026. Read on April 25, 2026.

Senior Republican officials called Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Tuesday after a new crypto super PAC seeded by his former firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, indicated in a FEC filing that it planned to spend $1.75 million backing Ken Paxton in Texas, Axios has learned.

Scam messages offering ships safe transit through Hormuz, security firm warns

2026-04-21T13:51:37+00:00

“Scam messages offering ships safe transit through Hormuz, security firm warns”.

Reuters in Reuters.

Published April 21, 2026. Read on April 21, 2026.

Fraudulent messages promising safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for cryptocurrency have been sent to some shipping companies whose vessels are stranded west of the waterway, Greek maritime risk management ‌firm MARISKS has warned.

Jared Kushner's Mysterious Role in the Trump Administration

2026-04-17T14:08:01+00:00

“Jared Kushner's Mysterious Role in the Trump Administration”.

Andrea Bernstein in The Atlantic.

Published April 15, 2026. Read on April 17, 2026.

Is the president’s son-in-law carrying out the public’s business or pursuing his own private interests?

How Silicon Valley Humiliated the Democrats

2026-04-17T13:37:25+00:00

“How Silicon Valley Humiliated the Democrats”.

Alexis Goldstein in The New Republic.

Published April 16, 2026. Read on April 17, 2026.

When will they learn? The party remains far too solicitous of an industry that’s rewarded their fealty with four years of Trump and untold damage to democracy.

Devil's Gun

2026-04-15T00:56:50+00:00

Disco Space Opera series, book 2.

Devil's Gun

by Cat Rambo.

Published 2023. 288 pages.

Started April 14, 2026; completed April 17, 2026.