Spending my fifth summer in a particular location has made me realize a fascinating thing about myself, or maybe about human nature: there are some summers where I'll go the same places or do the same things 15 times, and then 0 the next. Things that become habits for one summer, disappear the next, then return the next. Each one takes on a particular shape within the first two weeks—associations with specific songs, places we like to take walks, what days we eat in vs. out, which beaches we go to. Because it's 1/4th of our year, I've come to see it like the third quarter of a basketball game: we come out after halftime and establish certain rhythms, and that momentum is hard to change until the fourth quarter.

The Olivia Nuzzi story is just sad. Everything about it is pathetic—and one of the worst is the PR makeover facilitated by the New York Media machine. Vice signaling is fully profitable. Shame on every single outlet that is fueling this circus. With that said: I can't help but notice that she lost both of her parents within 6 years of one another before she turned 30. Nuzzi might be a lot of things, including a narcissist or psychopath who knows how to exploit the press and powerful politicians, but one thing I feel fairly confident about is that she's also in a hell of a lot of pain.

I thought that this was overblown until I joined my wife's new mom's group in our DC neighborhood after our first daughter was born. Dads were invited to the last meetup. We went around the room and said how we were feeling, what we were grateful for—I dislike that format in general, but I was being a good sport. Anyway, it came around to one of the dad's and he just straight up said, with his beautiful child sitting on his lap, that he had extremely mixed feelings because of the carbon footprint his child had brought into the world. It was the first time this kind of discourse was truly made real to me. I suppose I thought, before that happened, that nobody REALLY feels that way, and that it's just part of a discourse/signaling thing—let alone once their newborn child is actually sitting on their lap. I was wrong.

What is the strongest argument from the political Right AGAINST Great Books programs? I can't imagine it's the "the humanities are dead, study STEM" argument, which has currency in Silicon Valley, but maybe I'm wrong.

I get asked about this at least once/month still. I've been asked to write about it from almost every major news outlet, and have had a major publisher suggest I write a book about the depersonalization of hospitality and, in the past year, how AI is changing consumer interactions. I'm not going to say I've totally ruled any of those things out. But here is the update on the AirBNB experience, baed on some of the most frequent questions I get: 1) AirBNB threw me some comps toward free stays (not much at all—enough for a modest 2-3 stay somewhere) and tried to bury it and make me go away after this tweet went viral. I'd started circling a legal team—which I realize not everyone can afford to do, or is willing to do—and perhaps AirBNB got wind of that. That just makes me even more angry: the tolerance for fraud when you know you can get away with it, but immediate concessions when you realize you can't. That is why people get screwed. My main problem with the way the company handled the situation is that they never admitted any wrong-doing at all. They just started giving me credits. I'd like to shake the General Counsels hand, hug him, and tell him it's not his fault repeatedly. 2) No, @bchesky never reached out to me. And frankly, I don't think he cares. One-third of AirBNB customer service issues are apparently handled by AI at this point, and his business is booming since Jan 2025. He has launched a new AI lab. 3) The well-known tech CEO who owned the apartment in NYC who initiated this fraudulent claim has since dropped off the face of the earth, as far as I can tell. My theory is that his business was failing and this was some kind of ruse that he was using to plug cash gaps to fund his lifestyle. His girlfriend, or some close female friend who either co-owned the property or co-managed with him, seemed to play a major part in the claim. Given the dozens of people who have written my over the past 18 months, and my own complete dissatisfaction with the resolution and AirBNB's response, I've decided to "re-open this case" and embark on some investigative journalism of my own, and may take one of these outlets up on their offer soon. I just smell something very fishy about AirBNB's trajectory, especially the use of AI to engage in more customer service, and I'm almost wondering now if it was AI that was trying to handle my claim—and even if it was AI that tried to perpetuate the fraud. There was things that were so bizarre about the situation that I can't really forget it, and I don't buy the idea that a massive investment in AI is just going to make everything more efficient and prevent more fraud—if anything, it might increase it, or at least make the game a war of my AI against his. Is that things are coming to? Either way, you're going to have to now fight my human brain and soul, and the thousands of others who have been defrauded in some way through these tactics. Good luck.

My parish in Washington, DC has a "singles night" meet-up, to which 130 people showed up. My wife and I have been asked to be mentors to newly married couples, or engaged couples going through pre-CANA. It's totally thriving, and that is partly because the pastor seems to have an intense focus on very practical concerns of young people, like finding a spouse and finding a job. These things matter. He is also is instituting an ambitious perpetual adoration chapel at the same time. It's not either/or. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

This is a tweet about Lou Holtz, the legendary coach of Notre Dame, on the very day of his death. There are some things that deserve to be much more taboo than they currently are—things considered completely unacceptable—and speaking ill of the dead within 24 hours of their death, while their body is still warm, regardless of what you think about their politics, has got to be one of them. This guy—and I won't say this on the day that Olbermann dies—is a scumbag for engaging in this kind of behavior, which he is never actually punished for because it has become normalized in our society.

I hope you'll join me in NYC at the @92ndStreetY for this conversation with @DavidBrooks224 about my new book, "The One and the Ninety-Nine"—2 weeks from now! There are still tickets available: 92ny.org/event/luke-burgi…

Augustine had a word for the vice of the internet age: curiositas. It doesn't mean "curiosity", but rather a disordered desire for knowing stuff regardless of its real value. It is the intellectual twin of bodily lust—the following of ephemeral passions without regard for consequences or what they're leading to. It's the act of knowing stuff as a form of possession; as if knowing everything that the latest Dwarkesh podcast guest had to say has any real value in itself.

I don't understand the appeal of marches and rallies, even for something I whole-heartedly believe in. It's true that I've never liked being in crowds—so maybe there is simply a strong personality dimension to it. But I am asking with genuine curiosity: if you're the kind of person who likes to participate in marches, rallies, and the like, why do you do it?

If you actually understand how LLM's work, you understand that that none of this stuff is real from an existential or emotional standpoint—and the fascination over it, while totally understandable, begins to seem a bit silly when you realize that it's pure Reddit mimesis. Interested what @alexisohanian thinks about it all, though. I'm more interested in what it says about mimesis, and mimetic desire—and ultimately what it reveals about us, as humans. A lot of anthropomorphizing going on right now, though.

This is one of the most toxic lines imaginable, in a book that has sold many millions of copies. You should not give up the desire to be a saint, for instance, simply because you don't desire "the process" by which it takes to become one. Nobody does. There are many things that are worth desiring that we don't want to do what it takes to achieve, but that doesn't mean that we stop desiring; on the contrary, it's all the more reason to keep desiring them until we finally do what it takes. The desire is the very thing that breaks through our unwillingness, and might one day allow grace to break in.

I don't recommend going to confession at a thriving, traditional Catholic parish. The lines are way too long, 20 deep with young men queued up in the pews 15 minutes before the official start time, absolute savages in the box. Instead, find a UFO-shaped church with a hidden tabernacle and numerous 70's murals adorning the walls, and you will be guaranteed to receive an equally effective absolution in half the time.

Genova is the most underrated city in Italy, at least for Americans. It is on nobody’s list of stops, but it is completely alive. you will die a thousand beautiful deaths by trofie al pesto and “beaches” made up of giant boulders.

Those using Clawdbot—okay, I tried it. Critical question: I have the Max subscription for Claude, but it seems Anthropic is basically forcing me to use the API and pay entirely separately. Can anyone confirm? Did Anthropic just make a change? I can't seem to get it connected to my t.co/feJPwTsh3A Max account, only t.co/6ufS6S1hZm via APi credits.

When you give birth to a child, you can treat the next 20 years like any other. You wake up each day and face it, get your child into the best school in a given year, think in 1-4 year increments, like an investor diversifying a portfolio, staying basically agnostic to world history. Or you can have a 20-year thesis on where the world is heading. You and your spouse can actually develop a worldview together and consider how the country or world you live in is changing, and the actual decisions you must make to position yourselves and your child to develop into mature, healthy adults, fully alive: physically, emotionally, spiritually. In other words, you can become agents. I suggest the latter.