Goodbye Slopstack! Also, a $50,000 essay/fiction contest, adversarial consciousness tech, & more

The Desiderata series is a regular roundup of links and thoughts for paid subscribers, and an open thread for the community.

Contents

$50,000 essay (& short story) contest on the new axial age

Goodbye Slopstack! AI detection comes to Substack

Could we find the sequel to The Odyssey in the Herculaneum scrolls?

Cloudbursts seem to be increasing?

Each year, we speak 338 fewer words daily

Adversarial consciousness tech

Never invite an auto-fiction writer into your life

Surprise? Medieval people loved their children

From the archives

Comment, share anything, ask anything

1. $50,000 essay (& short story) contest on the new axial age

Last year, I advertised the 2025 Berggruen Prize on the topic of consciousness. Many readers here ended up submitting something: I’m pretty sure multip…