iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

HOW TO GET RICH IN AMERICA In today's piece, I wrote about what happens when owning things is rewarded over doing things, the generational divides it creates, the casino economy that emerges from it, specifically the yolofolio, and how it's changing the way we think about work.

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

THE CRISIS BEHIND THE HOUSING CRISIS In today's NYT piece, I wrote about how the housing fight is both about housing *and* retirement. We made the house do two jobs at once, and it's pitting the old against the young. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/14/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | The Housing Crisis Is Also a Retirement Crisis (Gift Article)

A home has stopped being just a place to live — it has also become an asset.

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Is AI Going to Destroy Us or Not? New essay compiling some of the great research around AI and the labor market, the whole token-maxxing thing, who gets to be wealthy in the age of AI, what a job means in a time of enormous change, and what to do about all of it. Enjoy!

kyla.substack.com

Is AI Going to Destroy our Lives or Not?

dimensionality, freeze-dried food, the SpaceX IPO, and what to do about all of it

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 18/04/2026

Why is the stock market shrugging off... everything? Well, maybe it's betting that AI will save it and that the government won't let AI fail. Call it the AI put. My new piece in NYT Opinion on the market's reliance on getting rescued: www.nytimes.com/2026/04/18/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | Why the Stock Market Makes No Sense Right Now

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 26/03/2026

We've built an entire economy around selling people the feeling of control through bets, hacks, subscriptions, and optimization. But the model only works if people stay desperate. New essay on control and agency, financial nihilism, belief markets, the manosphere, and spectacle during war.

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Some exciting public events over the next few weeks!! Come hang out if you can! 🙂 March 29th, Los Angeles: with Kai Ryssdal and David Brancaccio at the Aratani Theater April 19th, Boulder CO: with Planet Money at Boulder Theater April 20th, Albuequerque, New Mexico: with Planet Money Links ⬇️

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

New NYT Opinion from me: America’s debt math only works if the rest of the world believes in the US… but they’re starting not to. What does that mean for our future (and for all this debt)? www.nytimes.com/2026/03/12/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | Trump’s Way of Doing Business With the World May Cost All of Us

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

Betting on Jesus returning by 2027 and the Backstreet Boys singing about crypto are kind of the same thing. Speculation and nostalgia are both exit strategies from the present, and neither provides answers. New piece on what happens when the economy grows without… people.

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

HOW BETTING BECAME POLITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE In today's New York Times piece, I wrote about how prediction markets validate political events before Congress can respond, and how those market outcomes can end up deciding what's legitimate.

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

New piece attempting to synthesize the past few weeks: media logic, market structure, geopolitical trust, and lessons from history. The bond market, the Fed, Japan, AI hype vs. energy reality, and what happens when the infrastructure that made the show possible starts changing channels.

kyla.substack.com

The Great Entertainment

Can you govern the world like a reality TV show?

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

NEW INTERVIEW I sat down with San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly and Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin to talk about what really matters in 2026. Are we headed for the 1970s or the 1990s? Why does the economy keep not breaking? And why should we count cranes?

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

WHY YOUNG PEOPLE ARE BETTING ON EVERYTHING In today’s Wall Street Journal, I wrote about how an economy with fewer stable paths is pushing young people toward low probability, high payoff bets in search of upside - even though this is not what people actually want.

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

In today's newsletter, I wrote about why everyone is gambling and why no one is happy

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Reposted by kyla scanlon

kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

I wrote about the burning Waymos and gentle singularity and ragebait and how everything is coalescing into a giant contradiction kyla.substack.com/p/everything...

kyla.substack.com

Everything Feels Like It Doesn't Make Sense

Immigration, incentives, and the contradiction of Gentle Singularity

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

If anyone cares about the flight update, it got cancelled so I decided that I'd rent a car and just fly out of Nashville but turns out all the rental cars companies were out of cars (Even if you Reserved) so I have rebooked myself to fly out of this airport haha

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

But one could argue that the systems that profit by drowning us in information and platforms that make money by making everyone confused and angry are even scarier. The panopticon perhaps is less frightening than the slot machine.

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

Most dystopian narratives focused on authoritarian control like Big Brother watching, governments suppressing information, which we are increasingly experiencing.

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

I wrote about the burning Waymos and gentle singularity and ragebait and how everything is coalescing into a giant contradiction kyla.substack.com/p/everything...

kyla.substack.com

Everything Feels Like It Doesn't Make Sense

Immigration, incentives, and the contradiction of Gentle Singularity

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

In dialogue with Jon Cohen, the author of Losing Big, about sports betting in the United States of America. We talk about the past, the present, and the future, and how we increasingly are turning psychological vulnerabilities into financial infrastructure. Enjoy! kyla.substack.com/p/gamblemeri...

kyla.substack.com

Gamblemerica: How Sports Betting Apps Rewired a Generation's Relationship to Risk

In dialogue with Jon Cohen on sports betting, dopamine, and the strange ways we turn human vulnerability into infrastructure

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

From rubbery crypto steaks to disappearing universities in Rust Belt towns, from robots named Ruby that know where they’re going (Mar Vista, to deliver exactly one KitKat) to humans idling in parking lots - we are all living inside a phase transition right now. But what happens next?

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 29/05/2025

We are living through massive technological change and are actively dismantling the very systems that are supposed to help us adapt. kyla.substack.com/p/the-four-p...

kyla.substack.com

The Four Phases of Institutional Collapse in the Age of AI

How democracy, expertise, and institutional memory are eroding during technological change - or @grok is this true?

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

Rejection, convenience, and predictability are all core parts of the economy - think college kids trying to get jobs right now, Klarna and DoorDash and the defaulting NACHOs, and the downfall of Cartoon Network. What would CS Lewis think about where we are now? kyla.substack.com/p/economic-l...

kyla.substack.com

Economic Lessons from the Screwtape Letters

Rejection, Convenience, and the Budget Deficit

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

Sticker drop! All stickers designed by me! Put them everywhere. On your dog. On your friend. On your friend's dog. Enjoy! Proceeds support independent economics education (aka my next big project 🙂). Link in next post!

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

The American economy isn’t built to think - it’s built to comply. Risk aversion is reshaping our politics, our education system, and our global standing. We’re raising a generation that’s optimized for survival, not innovation - and it’s costing us everything. kyla.substack.com/p/compliance...

kyla.substack.com

Compliance is the New American Dream

How risk aversion has shaped our schools, our government, and our global standing

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

In NYT Opinion discussing (1) the viability of Trumponomics and (2) the increased warring among the MAGA populist, Wall Street conservative and tech futurist factions. We need an industrial revival in the US. But this isn't the way. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/16/o...

nytimes.com

Opinion | Trumponomics Is a Delusion

Why an effort to reindustrialize America is likely to fail.

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

I also talk about what policies would work better according to history and how you can think about your portfolios.

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

Ray Dalio has said that this is the 'Overall Big Cycle' and that this all had to happen - which maybe, but torpedoing the world into an economic downturn and kneecapping industry probably isn’t the best solution to fix it.

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

This isn't just Wall Street. Small businesses will get hammered by this. And - it won't bring that many jobs back, because automation is key. What we do bring back will be exorbitantly expensive, and we can't make things like coffee or bananas here.

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

And the goal of all this is to apparently bring manufacturing back, right? Well, manufacturers are already hurting. Microsoft has already cancelled $1b in data centers in Ohio and Haas Automation is pulling back in CA.

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

It is certainly threatening the world order, and China is perhaps completely ready to fight both a trade and capital war.

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

So maybe will Congress step in? (remember, all of this is under the guise of emergency power) or maybe we see state level negotiations with manufacturers? Someone will have to do something.

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

The bond market is selling off which is exactly the opposite of what we would expect to see during a stock market meltdown (and exactly the opposite of what the administration wants). What can the Fed do - they can't really raise rates because of the inflationary pressure and they can't really do QE

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

We now have the largest tariff hike in US history (even with the 90 day pause and 10% universal tariffs that just happened + 125% on China).

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Reposted by kyla scanlon

kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

Tariff Q&A: the Actual Inbox! I’ve gotten many, many questions about a lot of things, which has understandably increased over the last few months. It’s time to do a series of experimental biweekly Q&As to answer some of those questions! Starting with... tariffs! kyla.substack.com/p/tariff-q-a...

kyla.substack.com

Tariff Q&A: Welcome to the Actual Inbox

a brief comprehensive guide that hopefully answers all your questions

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

kyla.substack.com

Tariff Q&A: Welcome to the Actual Inbox

a brief comprehensive guide that hopefully answers all your questions

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

The plan is that there isn't one

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kyla scanlon @kyla.bsky.social · 02/04/2025

Perhaps the question is - does it need to be so stupid? What is the discount rate of stupidity? How many mistakes should be avoided at the expense of lessons learned. Maybe that's the thing.

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