Hi friends,
Welcome to the first edition of my newsletter! I’ll refine this as I go, but for now I plan to use this space to share what I’m thinking, reading, and making.
What I’m Working On
How Politics Became Pro Wrestling: I launched my YouTube channel last week and this is my first video essay! It’s the beginning of a three-part series on Eric Weinstein’s ideas about growth, stagnation, and political fakery. This first episode is about kayfabe, the system of lies that undergirds professional wrestling. The response so far has been incredible — especially this tweet from Eric himself! I’m really happy with how this turned out and thrilled to be getting started.
Why Frame Problems?: Curious about the name of the channel and of this newsletter? This essay explains it, as well as a little about my background and what I hope to do with my videos and writing. (I’ll update this website soon!) The short version: the frame problem began as a narrow technical challenge in AI research but proved to have widespread implications for cognitive science. How do we zero in on what’s relevant amid an infinite sea of information? How do we transform a world of inert matter into one of meaning and significance? These problems fascinate me and help bring my diverse interests under a single banner.
Why I’m Excited About Video Essays: A quick Twitter thread on why I think video essays are an exciting medium for collective sensemaking. YouTube and long-form podcasting have effectively broken the hegemony of legacy media and enabled a wide range of new and exciting conversations. Video essays can help synthesize these insights, creating little packets of meaning and coherence amid the cacophony.
What I’m Reading (and Watching)
Fantasy Politics: I’ve been diving deep into ideas about politics and fantasy for the Kayfabe series. This excellent essay by Antonio García Martínez about the work of Bruno Maçães, as well as this interview, has been a major inspiration.
Growth & Stagnation: The second part of the Kayfabe series focuses more heavily on the so-called Great Stagnation and why it might have occurred. The video will focus on Weinstein’s theory, but Jason Crawford’s writings over at Roots of Progress have been indispensable for contextualizing things. This essay on why Jason came to believe the stagnation hypothesis and this summary of Robert Gordon’s Rise and Fall of American Growth are especially illuminating.
The Boxing Film That Was Banned Around the World: Coleman Lowndes makes the excellent Darkroom series for Vox, which I’ve studied closely as I’ve been learning to make video essays. This episode in particular was a major reference for the “catch wrestling” section of the Kayfabe video.
That’s all for this week! If there’s anything you’d like me to be sharing in here or anything you’d like to discuss, feel free to reply to this email.
Cheers,
Jake