A weekly compilation of Luke’s short-form thoughts and links—what he’s reading, watching, or looking at differently in the world. No essays—bullets.
Read by over 200,000 people across platforms · Fridays · Free
On desire, imitation, and the forces that shape who we become.
The full archive is at read.lukeburgis.com.
The shortest path into the idea that organizes everything else in Burgis's work: we don't come up with our desires on our own.
An excerpt from The One and the Ninety-Nine, on attention, mortality, and the marks that set one life apart from the herd.
The most personal piece on this list — written in a season when everything seemed to be speeding up, and a question about what the acceleration was doing to attention and to the soul.
The longest and most demanding essay here: a study of agency, freedom, and betrayal, read through Judas and Peter, and an argument with the early Girard about whether individuals matter at all.
A practical guide, commissioned by Psyche, for telling thin desires from thick ones — the most hands-on application of mimetic theory Burgis has written.
For The New Atlantis: why political conflicts look so much alike from either side. Rivalry turns enemies into twins.
The founding document of the Cluny Institute. Written for Wired in 2022, it led directly to the NOVITATE conference and gave the Institute its frame.
A prediction, made early, that AI would raise the value of the very things it cannot do: perception, judgment, the education of the senses.
A weekly compilation of Luke’s short-form thoughts and links—what he’s reading, watching, or looking at differently in the world. No essays—bullets.
Read by over 200,000 people across platforms · Fridays · Free