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laurence pevsner

@lpevs.bsky.social
157 followers 252 following 62 posts

📚 moynihan public scholar at ccny 🎲 riskgaming at lux capital ✊🏽abundance, nuance, democracy ✍️ former columnist at mcsweeney’s and lefty speechwriter at the UN, now working on a book about public apologies and a novel about buried treasure

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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
Imagine a butler whose sole purpose is to supply you with whatever you desire. He studies your dopamine output...and constantly supplies you with cigarettes. I wrote about why AI faces the same problem as social media: it's incentivized to feed our base desires www.riskgaming.com/p/ais-cigar...
riskgaming.com
AI’s Cigarette Butler Problem
Alignment, dopamine, and the danger of too much of what we want
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
Read here: laurencepevsner.substack.com/p/coco-gauf...
laurencepevsner.substack.com
Coco Gauff can accept an apology but her fans can’t
Are one-to-one apologies now impossible in the public sphere?
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
Coco Gauff is about to step onto the court at Wimbledon. But the headlines have been entirely focused on an apology she recently received—one she accepted, but her fans strangely did not. I wrote about this confusion that happens when a private apology goes public.
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
Listen here: open.spotify.com/episode/57J9...
open.spotify.com
The relevant axis of political conflict is change versus stasis
Riskgaming · Episode
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
It's election day in New York City! To celebrate, we had the leaders of @abundanceny.bsky.social on the Riskgaming podcast. We talked housing, subways, community boards, Robert Moses, and the politics of growth.
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
Listen here: shorturl.at/1OiuC
open.spotify.com
The relevant axis of political conflict is change versus stasis
Riskgaming · Episode
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 19/06/2025
The details of my friend Alistair’s deportation are even more horrific than I previously thought. Recommend reading his brutally honest account:
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Alistair Kitchen @alistairkitchen.bsky.social · 14/06/2025
Hi everyone I was denied entry, detained, and deported from the USA over the last 48 hours because of my reporting on the Columbia student protests I arrived back in Melbourne hours ago and had my phone handed back to me upon landing
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 09/06/2025
Read here: laurencepevsner.substack.com/p/joni-erns...
laurencepevsner.substack.com
Joni Ernst is right, we’re all going to die
And my uncle taught me why her apology is the worst I’ve ever seen
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 09/06/2025
I wrote about Joni Ernst's "apology," the medicaid cuts, getting banned on X, and the legacy of my late Uncle Ravi
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Danny Crichton @dannycrichton.com · 06/06/2025
Thanks to all who joined up for our Riskgaming meetups in DC and Pittsburgh and our runthrough of Southwest Silicon in London. We’ll have more Riskgaming events throughout the summer, so stay tuned. Sign up at www.riskgaming.com to be the first to know
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
The internet didn’t used to suck this much. @dannycrichton.com and I talked to the great @noupside.bsky.social about middleware, community gardens, this website, and how to make the internet fun again. Transcript below! www.riskgaming.com/p/how-can-we...
riskgaming.com
How can we make the internet fun again?
Renée DiResta on the future of social media
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
We have probably not found aliens, yet. Science is all about uncertainty—but you wouldn't know it from the headlines. I wrote about how the media has decreased trust in science, and aided the Trump Administration's war on science, for the Riskgaming newsletter: www.riskgaming.com/p/the-nyts-...
riskgaming.com
The NYT’s alien headline is everything wrong with science journalism
Building trust means teaching us all to live with scientific uncertainty
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 03/05/2025
I wrote about chess and a cheating scandal that happened today on Twitch and the apology that followed open.substack.com/pub/laurence...
open.substack.com
Cheating at Chess
DrLupo, Marina Keegan, and a Twitch charity tournament gone awry
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 29/04/2025
It’s a big day for us at the Riskgaming Initiative—we now have our own website and substack, and to celebrate Danny has penned a brilliant and only slightly crazed manifesto on what the hell this is and why we’re doing it. Give it a read! t.co/JWL8b8DbCN
t.co
https://www.riskgaming.com/p/riskgaming-against-a-world-on-fire
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 26/04/2025
Think Bush going after Kerry's military service. Or the Doolittle raid in WWII. From Karl Rove to Carl von Clausewitz, tacticians have always recommended and deployed attacking your opponent's strength. It proves that even their best isn't good enough.
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 26/04/2025
We should protest arbitrary deportations to El Salvadorian gulags because it's the right thing to do. But it's also a smart political tactic. You absolutely should attack your opponent's strength.
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 12/04/2025
but without yeast!
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
Yesterday a business school in Lithuania did a play-through of our China/EV Riskgaming scenario without us even knowing! Building a worldwide Riskgaming community like this is one of the great advantages of being open source.
LinkedIn post of Lithuanian business class playing “Powering Up”
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
I learned so much from talking to these two...about information overload, the energy transition, and why we've been "wasting trillions" on the wrong industries out of pure envy. Read: riskgaming.substack.com/p/the-hyper... Or listen wherever you get your podcasts!
riskgaming.substack.com
The hyper-competition of U.S.-China trade relations
Neil Thomas and Kate Logan on information overload, industrial strategy, and trade
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
The obsession with trade deficits, manufacturing jobs...Trump clearly has China envy. So we had @neilthomas123.bsky.social and @katelogan.bsky.social, two top China industrial strategy experts, on the pod. They played our riskgame and told us what we got right, wrong, and everything in-between
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
Maybe us Jews really do control the markets and the weather
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 04/03/2025
I wrote about comms consultants, that guy big ballz, and how the right wing plays the apology game better than the left on twitter. (Also: I'm moving from a private newsletter to substack!) laurencepevsner.substack.com/p/on-comms-c...
image preview of the linked substack
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 27/02/2025
TSA agents should be able to nominate well-behaved and efficient boarders to get lounge status
Subway take guy with metrocard as mic asking “so what’s your take?”
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
In LA they just sell you viral products straight from TikTok
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
Obsessed with this pickle tower, complete with a pickle juice waterfall, erected for a German election results watch party
Truly a tower of pickles above a charcuterie spread
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Nebula @nebula.tv · 20/02/2025
a special 60-second teaser for our lovely Bluesky fans
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
County has got to be up there (BK represent)
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 20/02/2025
Call me Wilt Chamberlain because I did this last week at the *exact* same location except it was the Ezra Klein Show
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 15/02/2025
Step 2 is where this thought process goes wrong
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 13/02/2025
We like to shame politicians for staying in their jobs too long and furthering gerontocracy. That means we should also do the reverse, and praise the ones that step aside for the next generation.
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Maany Peyvan @maanyp.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
The motto of USAID is "From the American people." But we've invested too much in arguing that foreign aid is for the American people. My piece in the Atlantic on foregrounding the moral case for foreign aid: www.theatlantic.com/internationa...
theatlantic.com
The Wrong Case for Foreign Aid
As Republicans seek to demolish USAID, its defenders should appeal to a higher principle than self-interest.
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Mike L. Miller, PhD @justdoeat.bsky.social · 16/12/2024
The Moynihan Center at The City College of New York is excited to announce our 2025–2026 senior fellowship opportunities! We are now accepting applications for the Moynihan Public Scholars Fellowship and the Moynihan Postdoctoral Fellowship. 👇🏽 1/ moynihancenter.ccny.cuny.edu/news-events/...
moynihancenter.ccny.cuny.edu
The Moynihan Center | Call for Applications: 2025–2026 Senior…
Applications are now open for the 2025–2026 senior fellowship opportunities for Postdoctoral Fellows and Public Scholars.
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
I'm hosting a new riskgame (immersive simulation) on the perils and possibilities of biotech. You’ll get to step into the shoes of a scientist, diplomat, or epidemiologist when a crisis hits. Tell me if you'd like to join us in NYC or LA. Fills up fast -- DC already full!
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
On the Riskgaming pod, with thanks to Scott Bade for inspiring us with his writeup, Danny and I analyzed this formidable trend. Come to find who loses and who benefits. Stay to find out why the coincidence of Rubio's name might just save us. pod.link/1615629580/e...
pod.link
Riskgaming
A podcast by venture capital firm Lux Capital on the opportunities and risks of science, technology, finance and the human condition. Hosted by Danny Crichton from our New York City studios.
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
Our commons are collapsing. The US pulled out of the Paris Accords, the WHO. China is cutting undersea cables. Antarctica is up for grabs. Online, fact checking is out, paywalls are up, and platforms are polarized. In person, we spend our time home alone. Third places, gone.
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
Real life Tashi Duncan getting to the Australian Open final is vengeance for the Challengers score snub at the Oscars
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
Madison Keys, American firepower, American hero
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Chandler Dean @chandlerjdean.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
My latest for @mcsweeneys.net on the biggest promise that has already been broken: www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-a...
mcsweeneys.net
I Am a Disappointed Trump Voter Who Was Told It Would Be the Past by Now
Well, they say you should never trust a politician, and it seems I’ve been duped. For months before and since I cast my vote for Donald J. Trump—an...
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
I’m putting together a regular “Abundance & Ales” happy hour for people who support or are curious about the abundance agenda. Flatiron in NYC, first drink is on me. DM me your email to get details
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 15/01/2025
Agreed. It was difficult for Harris to make corruption a theme when she was effectively the incumbent, but soon that tactic will have a lot of explanatory purchase
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 15/01/2025
This is a real internal struggle for the Democratic Party right now—do we pick our public messaging fight on democracy or on kitchen counter issues? Problem is the last campaign we tried to do both so we didn’t get a clear test case of either
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 15/01/2025
It’s true, Trump famously likes people who are neutral about him
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 15/01/2025
Naomi Osaka: "[Muchova] crushed me when I wore my best outfit at the U.S. Open, so this was my little revenge" *crowd reacts* "Revenge is not a bad thing!" #tennis
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Dr. Abigail Desmond @abigaildesmond.bsky.social · 13/01/2025
Ursula K. LeGuin on technology
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ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 14/01/2025
fascinating. I would have thought a fire resistant house would be solid concrete but it seems you can make a big difference with some relatively small design alterations www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
These Homes Withstood the LA Fires. Architects Explain Why
In Pacific Palisades and Malibu, some houses with fire-resistant designs remained standing amid neighborhoods of destruction.
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
Day 2 of posting my dad's #astrophotography until he notices: MILKY WAY SENTINEL "A hoodoo in Goblin Valley State Park, Utah, looks solemnly over a deserted landscape, as the Milky Way rises in the sky." 📸Charles Pevsner #space #astronomy
A hoodoo is an eroded spire of soft rock topped by a slightly harder and hence less eroded rock
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
Very proud of my brother who is literally unearthing the understudied connection between prehistoric beasts and us
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
Part of the success and thrill of congestion pricing is seeing a government program work immediately, at the snap of a finger. Imagine if we could build trains, housing, power plants at a similar pace. Instead, simple fixes feel like minor miracles.
Chart showing traffic times at NYC bridges and tunnels way down
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laurence pevsner @lpevs.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
Not for us but we’ll be cheering you on from the sidelines!
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