Libido Sciendi
The desire to understand the world deeply. Deep dives on AI & complex adaptive systems.
Journal
all →Notes, field reports & reactions
Apr 8, 2026 Why Nations Fail: What Venice's Rise and Fall Teaches Us About AI Governance
Acemoglu and Robinson's Why Nations Fail reads like a thousand-year dataset for anyone building institutions around transformative technology. The argument is monocausal by design, and that's both… read → 9 min
Apr 6, 2026 Climate Change May Cost 6x More Than the Nobel-Winning Estimate
Adrien Bilal, France's best young economist of 2026, swapped one variable in the standard climate damage model. The estimated cost of warming jumped from 1-3% to over 20% of global GDP per degree. In… read → 10 min
Apr 6, 2026 Reading What Is Intelligence? (1): Life Is Computation, and AI as the Next Symbiogenesis
Notes on Chapter 1 of Agüera y Arcas's What Is Intelligence?, where von Neumann reverse-engineers biology from pure mathematics, and Dawkins turns out to have told only half the story. I am currently… read → 8 min
Top reads
AI Moats Are Different: A Framework for Competitive Advantage deep dive Why traditional moats fail in AI, and a four-level framework for building defensible positions: technical foundation, product depth, market position, sustainability. · 16 min
On Systemic Errors: Probabilistic LLMs at Scale deep dive When your system is wrong 2% of the time but processes a billion requests. · 8 min
Foundation Models in Biology Hit the Noise Floor journal A new benchmark of 600+ model configurations reveals that biological foundation models do… · 12 min
Market Sizing for Founders deep dive A practical framework for sizing markets when you're building something new. · 23 min
Deep Dives
all →Analysis, summaries & research
Latest
Power Density: The Spatial Constraints Behind Every Decarbonisation Bet Apr 2026 Vaclav Smil argues that land will determine how fast civilisation can decarbonise. A decade later, his framework explains why hyperscalers are buying nuclear plants. · 18 min
Energy and Civilization: The Physical Constraints Behind Every Technology Bet Mar 2026 Vaclav Smil reveals why transitions take generations, why welfare saturates at 110 GJ, and why energy enables but never determines. · 17 min
Library
all →Recently read
The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations ★★★★★
Power Density: A Key to Understanding Energy Sources and Uses ★★★★★
Technology and the Rise of Great Powers ★★★★★
Strategy: A History ★★★★★
Intelligence artificielle; intelligence humaine : la double énigme ★★★★★
These Strange New Minds ★★★★★
How To Think Like Socrates ★★★★★
Reading list
Atlas of AI
Chip War
L'Évangile selon Pilate
La mort et le printemps
The Investment Philosophers
Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization
Digest
Essays, journal entries, book notes and curated readings, delivered to your inbox.
Food for Thoughtall →