Annals of Now
History is the only honest psychology lab.

Annals of Now

History is the only honest psychology lab.

Articles — Page 4

Same Exploit, Different Century: What Rome's Information Wars Reveal About Our Own
Tech History

Same Exploit, Different Century: What Rome's Information Wars Reveal About Our Own

The Roman Republic did not collapse because its citizens became uniquely irrational. It collapsed, in part, because sophisticated actors learned to weaponize the cognitive vulnerabilities that all humans carry. The mechanisms documented by platform researchers in the 2010s were already running at full speed in the Forum two thousand years ago.

Mar 12, 2026
When the Data Was Right and the Experts Were Wrong: The Enduring Logic of Professional Self-Defense
Tech History

When the Data Was Right and the Experts Were Wrong: The Enduring Logic of Professional Self-Defense

In the 1840s, a Hungarian physician named Ignaz Semmelweis proved that doctors were killing their patients — and was destroyed professionally for saying so. The mechanism that buried his evidence is not a relic of Victorian medicine. It is running, largely unchanged, through every field where new findings threaten established careers.

Mar 12, 2026
The Rise, Fall, and Reinvention of Digg: A Story of Internet Power, Community, and Survival
Tech History

The Rise, Fall, and Reinvention of Digg: A Story of Internet Power, Community, and Survival

Few websites have shaped — and then lost — the internet's cultural conversation quite like Digg. From its early dominance as the web's premier social news aggregator to its spectacular collapse and subsequent reinventions, the story of Digg is one of the most instructive cautionary tales in Silicon Valley history.

Mar 12, 2026