Archive - Contraptions

The Modernity Machine III

Completion, Saturation, and Phase Transition

Dec 24 • Venkatesh Rao

2025 Book Club Hangout (Transcript)

Reflecting on a year of reading about the emergence of modernity, 1200-1600

Dec 24 • Venkatesh Rao

Revenge of the Dilettantes

Book club and AI adventures, age of bespokeness, study groups, new rules of engagement

Dec 20 • Venkatesh Rao

In which I launch a career as a Serious Artist™

Dec 15 • Venkatesh Rao

Doing Heideggerianism without the baggage of Care/Sorge

Dec 11 • Venkatesh Rao

What if bigger models, like bigger stars, fail faster?

A different way to think about the “too big to fail” take about OpenAI

Dec 7 • Venkatesh Rao

Causal Why vs Teleological Why

English sucks as a “why” language

Dec 7 • Venkatesh Rao

The Yakverse Chronicles

Volume 3 of my Art of Gig series is finally out -- free and online

Dec 5 • Venkatesh Rao

The Ethics of Meaning-Making

The search for "meaning" is not synonymous with "good"

Dec 4 • Venkatesh Rao

November 2025

Be Slightly Monstrous

Learning to feel time again in the Permaweird

Nov 29 • Venkatesh Rao

September 2025

Contraptions is going on hiatus

Sep 28 • Venkatesh Rao

The Band Theory of Societies

An extended physics metaphor for politics

Sep 25 • Venkatesh Rao

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