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Clock monks. Wiki wars. Life inside the whiteboard panopticon. Where do prison gangs come from? Beijing urban dictionary. Embrace your inner cult leader. Gambling for fun and Prophit. Readers added context they thought you might want to know. Americans aren’t actually lonely. Blue antelopes. The rationalist essay review you’ve all been waiting for.

Asterisk is a quarterly journal of clear writing and clear thinking about things that matter (and, occasionally, things we just think are interesting). In this issue:

Chimes at Midnight

by Alec Nevala-Lee

The 10,000-year clock, conceived to promote long-term thinking, reflects both the ambition and compromises of technologists, as its realization—funded and controlled by Jeff Bezos—raises questions about the intersection of philanthropy, power, and the genuine pursuit of future-oriented impact.

Community Organizing

by The Editors

Effective communities shape knowledge, connection, and impact, but their growth and resilience depend on shared purpose, adaptability, and the individuals driving them forward.

Why We Have Prison Gangs

by David Skarbek

As prison populations grew and informal reputation-based governance broke down, gangs emerged as alternative governing bodies, regulating violence, enforcing social norms, and controlling illicit markets—raising complex questions about institutional stability, incentives, and the trade-offs between formal and informal systems of order.

The Making of Community Notes

by Jay Baxter, Keith Coleman, Lucas Neumann, Emily Thai

Community Notes on X exemplifies a scalable, decentralized approach to combating misinformation by leveraging open-source algorithms and crowdsourced fact-checking, fostering trust and cross-partisan agreement while maintaining transparency and speed.

A Chinese Internet Phrasebook

by Molly Huang

The evolution of Chinese internet slang reflects growing disillusionment with labor conditions, economic inequality, and government censorship, highlighting the power of shared language in fostering awareness and resistance.

Looking Back at the Future of Humanity Institute

by Tom Ough

The Future of Humanity Institute, once a pioneering force in existential risk and AI safety, succumbed to administrative friction and shifting institutional priorities, leaving behind a lasting intellectual legacy that continues to shape global discourse on humanity’s long-term future.

A User’s Guide to Building a Subculture

by Jeremiah Johnson

Effective subculture-building requires rallying around a distinctive cause, fostering in-group identity through symbols and shared language, defining an outgroup to strengthen cohesion, cultivating dedicated spaces, leveraging existing networks for growth, and ultimately embracing decentralized community evolution.

Rat Traps

by Sheon Han

The rationalist blogosphere, once a hub for innovative and rigorous discourse, risks stagnation due to insular jargon, intellectual redundancy, and performative monomania, making it crucial for the community to adapt, diversify its influences, and prioritize epistemic freshness to maintain its impact.

The Biggest Community Development Program You’ve Never Heard Of

by Clara Collier

The failure of India’s national Community Development Program, despite the initial success of its pilot, highlights how scaling requires not just effective methods but also strong institutional culture, dedicated leadership, and mechanisms to prevent elite capture—lessons crucial for impact-driven interventions in development and philanthropy.

The Death and Life of Prediction Markets at Google

by Dan Schwarz

Google’s internal prediction markets, Prophit and Gleangen, demonstrated the potential of collective intelligence for corporate decision-making but struggled with regulatory hurdles, organizational resistance, and integration challenges, underscoring the need for structured buy-in from leadership and a clear operational value proposition.

The Depths of Wikipedians

by Annie Rauwerda

Wikipedia thrives on a dedicated, diverse volunteer community balancing rigorous editorial standards with deep personal passions, yet it faces challenges in governance, inclusivity, and content maintenance—issues that highlight the complexities of decentralized knowledge curation and the trade-offs between open collaboration and efficiency.

The Myth of the Loneliness Epidemic

by Claude S. Fischer

Concerns about a “loneliness epidemic” are historically recurrent and often overstated, with evidence suggesting that friendship levels have remained relatively stable over time, though changing societal expectations and measurement biases may amplify perceptions of decline.

A huge thank you to everyone in the community who helped us make Asterisk a reality. We hope you all enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed making it.