The Curious Engineer

All blogs / Essays / personal

Luke Burgis Newsletter

read.lukeburgis.com

Pursuing the mysterium tremendum et fascinans and writing at the intersection of philosophy, culture, art, technology, and religious wisdom. Click to read Luke Burgis Newsletter, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.

Essays / personalSociety / politics / economy

’20’21’22’23’24’25’26
Posts
293 from 7 May 2020 to 10 Oct 2026
Posting
monthly (22 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
Feed
https://read.lukeburgis.com/feed

2026 18

  1. Magnifica Humanitas—By the Force of Subtraction
  2. Anthropic’s “Discernment”
  3. The Human Worker as Civilizational Nexus
  4. The Moral Mandate for Freedom
  5. What My Father Gave Me by Forgetting
  6. The One and the Ninety-Nine is here.
  7. The Book As Live Wire
  8. Psychedelic Sheep
  9. The Real and the Unreal
  10. I'd Love to Meet You in Person
  11. Political Judas
  12. What is Life?
  13. A Good Contagion: René Girard's Influence
  14. Combatting the Hive Conscience
  15. Is the Truth Boring?
  16. Be Not Conformed—René Girard at the Crossroads
  17. The One and the Ninety-Nine
  18. Agency Is Relational—Let's Meet

2025 27

  1. The Borification of American Education
  2. Reading Between the Lines
  3. Friday Catch-Up—I'm Hiring
  4. Talent Networks of the Future, with Tyler Cowen
  5. Spirit and The Cost of Cognition
  6. The Truth Coming Out of Her Well
  7. Life Abundant in an Artificial Age
  8. I'm Going to Prison
  9. The Edge of the Crowd
  10. On Spiritual Manipulation
  11. The Dao of Technology
  12. You've Invited: The Foundations of Agency Workshop
  13. Innovation and Repetition
  14. Behind the Scenes: On Style
  15. Becoming a Vampire
  16. Taking Pills
  17. Tender Love
  18. Basic Instincts
  19. Live Trialogue: "I Came to Cast Fire"
  20. Everything is Fast
  21. The Substack Experiment: A True Community?
  22. René Girard and the Animation of Dry Bones
  23. Fantasy, Technology and the Future of Belief
  24. Common Sense, Synesthesia, and the Soul
  25. Your Invitation to METANOIA
  26. Cold, Achey Bones
  27. Epiphany and the Modern World

2024 45

  1. Liturgical Resistance to Mimetic Contagion
  2. Martin Girard on his Dad, René Girard
  3. Battle for the Real
  4. Things Hidden: The Life and Legacy of René Girard
  5. Anti-Anti-Anti-Anti-AI
  6. The Counter
  7. I Came to Cast Fire
  8. The Limits of Rationality
  9. Introducing CLUNY
  10. How to Ruin a Great Conversation
  11. Unreal Words
  12. Philosophy for Creators and Entrepreneurs
  13. Labor Day Surprise
  14. My Relationship with Crowds
  15. Mystagogy as Marketing
  16. Open Thread #10—What's your tech strategy?
  17. What Shapes Our Desires?
  18. The Eschatological Problem of Technology
  19. It's Time to Build (Unsiloed Edition)
  20. There Are No More Hedgehogs
  21. Looking for the Anti-Mimetic Doctors
  22. Trialogue: What Is Political Atheism?
  23. Harold Bloom in Silicon Valley
  24. A Bull Market in the Humanities
  25. Eschatological Vision
  26. Girard x McLuhan: The Medium is the Mimesis
  27. Open Thread #9: What is your most surprising mimetic desire, and how did you discover it?
  28. Mimesis, Technology, and the Apocalypse
  29. Spe Salvi
  30. Trialogue: The Three City Problem
  31. Chasing Mimesis in China
  32. The Quest for Authentic Freedom
  33. Why I Write
  34. Nobody Is Home
  35. Beyond Deceit: René Girard and Luigi Giussani on the Meaning of Desire
  36. Imitation, Innovation, and Heresy in the Digital Public Square
  37. Original Sin—A Theological Reading of Innovation
  38. I'm Hiring
  39. Deceit, Desire, and the Contemporary Novelist
  40. Open Thread #8: Rites of Passage
  41. New Book, New Look
  42. The Case for Being Wrong
  43. Positions and Dispositions
  44. Architects of Desire
  45. Chasing Purity

2023 58

  1. Girard, Race, and Cultural Desire
  2. Free Speech, Censorship, and the New Media
  3. In Defense of Minor Obsessions
  4. The Rituals That Bind and Unbind
  5. Vibes Are Not Enough
  6. It's Time to Build—Aboveground, Not Underground
  7. Mimetic Collapse, Our Destiny
  8. The Mortification of Ornette Coleman
  9. The Mimetic Landscape of Media
  10. The Church of A.I.
  11. The Beauty of Freshmanistan
  12. Lineup Announced for NOVITATE 2023
  13. Givenness, Antidote to the Abstract
  14. Transcending the Transactional
  15. Lamborghini vs. Ferrari—The Hidden Story of Desire
  16. Anti-Mimetic Medicine
  17. The Three-City Problem of Meaningless Work
  18. Love in the Time of Altruism
  19. Selling Charlie's Sunset
  20. The Age of Gladiators
  21. Megamen, Weak Mimesis, Jokers Wild
  22. Thread #7: Naming Three City Problems—What do you see?
  23. Leisure As Anti-Mimesis
  24. Lifting the Painted Veil
  25. Get Rewarded When Friends Read Anti-Mimetic
  26. Aesthete Insensibilities
  27. Podcast Heroes
  28. Mystagogues Wanted
  29. Annual Update—What's In Store for 2023
  30. The Loneliness of Pauline Kael's Opinions
  31. The Digest #3
  32. How to Craft an Anti-Mimetic Career
  33. The Versus Everyone Verses
  34. My Life-Saving Lesson from A Hitman
  35. The Ride of Family and Emotional Systems—and the Drive Toward a Real Self
  36. BE NOT CONFORMED: A Gathering on Nov. 3 in Washington, DC
  37. Anti-Mimetic Advice —Ed. #1
  38. Longing After the Fleshpots
  39. Reflections on the Three City Problem
  40. Open Thread #6
  41. The Erosion of Free Will: Why Society's Loss of Belief in Freedom is Dangerous
  42. Tuning In To a Different Rhythm
  43. A Conversation on Political Atheism
  44. Mining A Few Thick Desires—and the Introduction of a New Q&A Column
  45. The Digest #2
  46. The Hall of Content Mirrors
  47. Escaping Farinata's Tomb
  48. An Everyday Mercy
  49. Invitation to NOVITATE 2023—Be Not Conformed
  50. Political Atheism
  51. The Digest #1
  52. Group Subscriptions Are Here
  53. New "Rights" of Passage
  54. Things Hidden Book Club—Session 2
  55. Do You Know Your Motivational Pattern?
  56. Open Thread #5 — Voices from Around the World
  57. The Scandal of Financial Nihilism
  58. Meditation in an Art Studio

2022 64

  1. An End-of-Year Buffet from Anti-Mimetic
  2. Becoming Like Children
  3. 10 Anti-Mimetic Ideas for 2023
  4. Things Hidden Book Club—Session 1
  5. FTX, Hijacked Attention, and Re-Adjusting Our Focus
  6. Dr. Hollis Robbins Leads a Group Discussion on Sam Bankman-Fried and The Emperor's New Clothes
  7. The Unbearable Lightness, The Search for Gravity
  8. On Mimesis, Thick Desires, and the Four Layers of Happiness
  9. Special Offer to Join the Community
  10. Everyone Deserves An Advocate
  11. The Case for Silence
  12. Book Club + Free Subscriber Special Offer
  13. "Your Personal Occam's Razor"—Audio Version
  14. Your Personal Occam's Razor
  15. The Uncut, Original Opening of "Wanting"
  16. What's New: In-Person Meetups, The Book Club, and a New Salon
  17. 10 Things I Appreciated This Week
  18. The Philosophy of "Zero to One"
  19. Introducing Threads (And Ourselves)
  20. Imitatio Machina
  21. The Three Cities and the New Fremen
  22. A Conversation with Thomas J. Bevan—Audio from Our Group Zoom
  23. The Anti-Mimetic Act of Obedience
  24. Intellectual Humility
  25. The Video Book of "Wanting" Is Out
  26. Contentless Worlds
  27. Announcement—Upcoming: Anti-Mimetic Salon #3 with Thomas J. Bevan
  28. The Orthodoxy of Heterodoxy
  29. A conversation with Demetri Kofinas: "Mimetic Attention"—Full Audio, Video, and Transcript
  30. Invisible Appetites
  31. Announcement—Upcoming: Anti-Mimetic Salon #2 with Demetri Kofinas, Host of the "Hidden Forces" Podcast
  32. The Directional Language of Interior Movement
  33. Transcending the Transactional
  34. Mesmerize Me
  35. Interview with Byrne Hobart on Applying Mimetic Theory to Financial Bubbles
  36. Vibe Shifts and Inarticulate Knowledge
  37. What I Invested In This Week
  38. Manias, Mimesis, and Markets
  39. Anti-Mimetic Communication
  40. Open Thread #4
  41. The Philosophy of Zero to One
  42. Deafening Silence
  43. The Noonday Demon—Our Metaphysical Laziness
  44. The Violent Bear It Away
  45. Cultural Anorexia
  46. Cultural Anorexia—Audio Version
  47. Open Thread #3
  48. The Danger of Ignoring Beauty
  49. Group Learning Experience—Next Steps (Plus: An Audio Essay)
  50. Don't Feed Your Conscience to the Dogs
  51. The Moral Necessity of Danger
  52. Desires Are Blowin' in the Wind
  53. A Different Kind of War
  54. Joe Rogan is Burning
  55. Beneath the Founding Mythology
  56. The Barbell Ethics of Modernity
  57. The Fourth Wall
  58. You're Invited—A Seminar on Identifying Core Motivational Drives
  59. Flat Jobs and Thick Desires
  60. Atomic Habits of Desire
  61. Open Thread #2
  62. Writing in a Sea of Humanity
  63. Harvard's Freshmanistan Problem
  64. Ozymandias: Breaking Bad Mimesis

2021 72

  1. We're All Chasing One Another's Goals
  2. The Engine of Rivalry
  3. Deep Bookshelf 2021
  4. Decluttering Our Desires
  5. Mimetic Monday: December 13, 2021
  6. 25 Anti-Mimetic Ideas
  7. Give the Gift of Anti-Mimetic
  8. Coming In the Air Tonight
  9. The Cult of Experts
  10. Peter Thiel, Irresistible Pariah
  11. Note on My Unexpected Absence
  12. Mimetic Monday: October 18, 2021
  13. Open Thread #1
  14. Why We Need More Omakase Creators
  15. Mimetic Monday: October 4, 2021
  16. The Real Social Dilemma
  17. The Mimetic Media
  18. Athens, Jerusalem, Silicon Valley
  19. Mimetic Monday: September 20, 2021
  20. Shaping the Narrative
  21. Elizabeth Holmes is a Scapegoat—Even if She's Guilty
  22. Mimetic Monday: September 13, 2021
  23. Our Non-Straussian Moment
  24. Zoom Hangout #2
  25. Mimetic Monday: September 6, 2021
  26. NFD's: Non-Fungible Desires?
  27. Racism, Anti-Racism, & Mimesis
  28. Mimetic Monday: August 30, 2021
  29. Thick and Thin Culture
  30. The Reflexivity of Books
  31. Mimetic Monday: August 23, 2021
  32. The Marx Cafe
  33. Prophet of the Pandemic
  34. Mimetic Monday: August 16, 2021
  35. Psychedelics and Mimesis
  36. Thinking in Social Layers
  37. Zoom Hang #1
  38. Core Motivational Drive
  39. Speaking Out (Of Order)
  40. The Creation Story of Wall Street
  41. The Portrait of a Mirror
  42. The Fourth Wall of Freedom
  43. 5 "Big Ideas" from Wanting
  44. Mimetic Stocks, Not Meme Stocks
  45. Management by Missions
  46. Mimetic Desire in Babies
  47. Lessons from René Girard Part II
  48. The Dangers of Goal Setting
  49. My Battle with Misdirected Ambition
  50. 12 Life Lessons from One of the Most Penetrating Minds in History
  51. Top 10 Books on Mimetic Theory
  52. Our Mimetic Culture
  53. Single Greatest Desire
  54. Violent Rivalries
  55. The Desire Chamber
  56. Peter Thiel on René Girard
  57. Why Every Creator Deserves an Agent
  58. The Discord Channel
  59. The False Binary of Imitation <> Innovation
  60. Mimetic Desire: An Existential Awareness
  61. The Law of Group Polarization
  62. Cancel Non-Culture
  63. The AMA Edition
  64. Creating Real "Social Distance"
  65. Intellectual Genealogies
  66. Diving for Pearls
  67. Mimetic Desire 102
  68. What People Are Really Doing When They Play Hard to Get
  69. The Mimetic Market
  70. Cargo Cult Startups
  71. Mimetic Desire 101
  72. The Twitter Ban: Handshakes and Email

2020 9

  1. The "Deep" Bookshelf
  2. About Systems of Exchange
  3. Desire Paths & Design
  4. The Art of Disengagement
  5. The Anti-Calculator
  6. The Mysterious Portal of Hope
  7. Mimetic Theory Podcasts
  8. Torches of Freedom
  9. What the Blind May Dream