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Daniel Knowles

@dlknowles.bsky.social
30K followers 1.8K following 1K posts

Midwest correspondent at The Economist, in Chicago. Before that, in London, Mumbai, Nairobi and DC. Buy my book: shorturl.at/BJOUV

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Reposted by Daniel Knowles
Jonn Elledge @jonnelledge.bsky.social · 13h
Wrote about this last year - all the "AI will save you all time you spend on emails!" stuff just made me think, "wow you have never even encountered the concept of 'induced demand' have you"
jonn.substack.com
What cars did to your city, AI will do to your brain
Once again, I rage against the dying of the light. Also this week: some maps to show that England is not concreting the countryside; and the longest conveyor belt in the world.
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 8h
www.fec.gov/data/receipt... You can browse it. But no 5-figure sums because of contribution limits. And I haven't done the totals myself but plenty of small donors for Marshall too. The big money isn't donations to candidates - it is to SuperPACs out and other outside groups
fec.gov
Browse Individual contributions - FEC.gov
Explore current and historic federal campaign finance data on the new fec.gov. Look at totals and trends, and see how candidates and committees raise and spend money. When you find what you need, expo...
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 13h
Yeah, I think there will be stuff like that. And for a lot of services I absolutely agree AI agents will improve things! I've been selling some stuff on FB marketplace recently and I'm not using Muse but it still is great - pulls info straight from a photo
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 14h
Already happening! We had a great story on it a few months ago: www.economist.com/leaders/2026...
economist.com
How AI is breaking the British state
Equipped with models and agents, citizens could bring government to a halt
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Reposted by Daniel Knowles
Holly Thomas @holstat.bsky.social · 14h
And running kinda wild with it, if that story about someone asking an AI agent to book a gym class, and the AI agent hacking the system & kicking someone else out of their slot to make space is anything to go by? Everyone's calendars dictated by a gladiatorial showdown of AI agents.
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 14h
Yeah this is exactly what I mean
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 14h
Look at how many businesses now get just overwhelmed by Tiktok trends!
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 14h
There are already examples of this. A year or two ago I was reading about how AI will make job search and recruitment way more reliable. What is actually happening? 1000s of people applying for every job using AI and firms going back to personal recommendations to hire people
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 14h
That piece you sent: every single example near enough is something that tells you why AI will be brilliant if you're the only person with AI. The writer does not even bother to consider the second order consequences. Like most writers on AI
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 14h
And that is going to get worse! Who is going to bother submitting TripAdvisor reviews when nobody except an AI is reading them. AI is *already visibly* killing the web and you know where AI gets its recommendations? Oh yeah, the web
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 14h
Add to that the examples *in* that. Asking your AI to find you the best restaurant creates a massive incentive for businesses focus much more on gaming the AI (which cannot eat) than it does attracting customers with the quality of its fare or service.
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 14h
Loads of private markets are organised by queueing and the physical effort to get something. It's not only in-person stuff. A few years ago you couldn't buy a Playstation or more recently a Nintendo Switch without entering a lottery on Amazon or queuing at a physical shop
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 14h
There's a *lot* of stuff where the friction isn't to squeeze consumers, it is to manage what are essentially social interactions
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 14h
This isn't really what I am talking about though. I see all of this, but what I am talking about is stuff where demand outweighs supply massively but prices can't actually rise - like high demand restaurants. Lots *already* have stopped taking reservations. Or camping spaces in national parks
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 14h
A wild figure from the Kansas Senate campaign. In the last FEC reported donation cycle, Roger Marshall took contributions from 77 donors within the state of Kansas. Adam Hamilton took 3,000
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Also, "racist" isn't an insult in this case, it's an objective description
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
You called me a "wordcel" and an "NPC" like two minutes ago
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Well, even if you're right, which obviously you're not, you're just racist, you might have noticed it's not fucking 1983-1988
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
lol.
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
let me know how it goes
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
(Also, btw, it's "proven", not "proved")
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Powell predicted "in this country in 15 or 20 years' time the black man will have the whip hand over the white man." But sure, yeah, "reality denial"
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I haven't watched a Trump rally for a while (catching up with his Ohio one from Saturday) and honestly I had forgotten how camp he is
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Rule by 25 year old men is it
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Reposted by Daniel Knowles
Feena van @feenavan2099.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
"Before Stonehenge was raised, before Egypts first pyramid broke ground,before the Nazca people drew their famous lines across the Peruvian desert,someone in what is now southern Arizona shaped a 272-foot fish into the earth On April 23,2026,"a border-wall contractor drove heavy equipment across it"
gadgetreview.com
Trump's Border Wall Construction Destroys 6,500-Year-Old Arizona Geoglyph – Older Than Stonehenge
Arizona's 6,500-year-old Las Playas Intaglio, the oldest dated geoglyph in the Americas, was irreparably damaged by border wall construction in April 2026.
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
There's something a little depressing in the fact that the British establishment stood up against Enoch Powell's racism in the 1960s than it seems to be willing to be now
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Reposted by Daniel Knowles
ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
very few people actually behave as if they believe the AI takeoff stuff.
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Do not ask why I drift into the NYT comment section but this amused me. Masked men bringing explosives to a sensitive location in England? Unimaginable a few decades ago!
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Reposted by Daniel Knowles
Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I don't understand how this graph is compatible with an overall drop of only 2 million. I understand that there's a lot of the rest of the world's US visitors not represented, but that's a drop of 20 million from Mexico and Canada.
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Good start
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Familiar
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
They can get through plastic wrapping and into stuff that hasn't even been opened. It's nuts
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
You just have to throw everything out, scrub *everything* and then keep all of your food in thick plastic containers for months. There's no other way
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Eventually everything will be forgotten but we are three millennia into some written works not being forgotten
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Undoubtedly true except for Shakespeare, Defoe, Swift, Plato, Herodotus, Homer, Defoe, de Cervantes, etc etc etc
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Reposted by Daniel Knowles
Matt Steinglass @mattsteinglass.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Trump, MAGA and the New Right intellectuals don’t *simply* hat Europe; it’s much more complicated. I wrote about MAGA’s weird “love-hate relationship” with Europe, as Laura K Field put it to me. Gift link
economist.com
Why MAGA hates and loves Europe
Three big reasons explain the New Right’s hostility to Europeans
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Reposted by Daniel Knowles
Ben McKenzie @benmckenzie.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
There’s that crypto company Tether in the news again 🤔 apple.news/ATZI2jCK5THy...
apple.news
Senate Investigation Finds Rampant Use of Tether’s Stablecoin by Iranian Regime — The Wall Street Journal
Wallets sanctioned over Iran ties overwhelmingly dealt in Tether’s USDT stablecoin, according to Senate Democrats
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I struggled to finish reading this important and horrifying reporting www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
theatlantic.com
The Babies Left Behind in America
The United States is deporting parents without their children, creating a whole new family-separation crisis.
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Reposted by Daniel Knowles
Christopher Hale @christopherjhale.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
“When our government laid siege to the city of Minneapolis with wanton violence and the killing of those who had spoken up in resistance, we were outraged.” “We could not believe that the mask had become the new symbol of American justice.” — Cardinal Robert McElroy
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Reposted by Daniel Knowles
Stephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 28/09/2026
Funny bit to get upset about a lack of alt text on an Instagram post by a bar located down a literal flight of stairs
Last Ditch, a basement bar down a set of concrete steps, beneath a Mexican restaurant, drew news coverage in Europe and the United States this week after a Boston Globe story about the bar's plan to lift its Covid mask requirement on Saturday
nights went viral.
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
It's the same thing with restaurants, nightclubs, dating apps, etc. There are good reasons why profit-maximising firms still frequently set prices at which demand outstrips supply
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The problem with stuff like Glastonbury is that if the price were set to the classic market clearing level, it would end up being a worse event, because a lot of the appeal is the other people there. If it were all rich 40 somethings the energy would disappear. That's why commercial operators don't
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Horrifying
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
My latest story - on Adam Hamilton, the United Methodist pastor apparently making Kansas a competitive Senate race: www.economist.com/united-state...
economist.com
Can Jesus Christ sell moderates on Democrats?
Donald Trump’s faltering support among Christians creates an opportunity
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The joy the picture editor must have had seeing that laid out on the page. Moments like that are what keep us going into the office in this industry
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Incredible headline/photo combo from the NYT today
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
(It's a private business)
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I mean, that's not how bankruptcy works. The creditors eat the debt, not "society"
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Reposted by Daniel Knowles
Ronyo the Windfox @wndfx.link · 27/09/2026
Re: gigs: Phoebe Bridgers did a tour of surprise shows at small venues this summer: each show was announced day-of and with in-person ticketing only. She came to my city, and by the time the box office opened the line was multiple blocks long in the direct sunlight.
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Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The trains will probably come out of this still running, with the debt gone
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