Will Solfiac’s Newsletter

Assessing our AI future

Which scenario is most likely: AI as a normal technology, AI doom, or AI utopia?

Oct 19 • Will Solfiac

7

2

1

September 2026

Modern Folk Beliefs VIII: “Immigration is justified payback for colonialism”

Taking Jameela Jamil seriously

Sep 3 • Will Solfiac

34

3

2

August 2026

On the myth of the British cutting off Indian weavers’ thumbs

A brief explanation

Aug 23 • Will Solfiac

42

4

3

June 2026

Modern Folk Beliefs VII: “Immigration built Britain”

The rise of the ill-fitting ‘nation of immigrants’ template for national identity

Jun 5 • Will Solfiac

51

17

13

May 2026

How to stop anti-racism harming our institutions and our country

An anti-racism inquiry, reforming the Equality Act, transforming the incentive structures within public bodies, and changing minds.

May 13 • Will Solfiac

56

14

17

April 2026

Immigration and the dangers of sticking to outdated ideologies

As demonstrated by the fall of the Mamluks, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Moriori, among others

Apr 10 • Will Solfiac

71

12

16

March 2026

Modern Folk Beliefs VI: Anti-Essentialism

The history and consequences of the denial of human nature and of cultural difference

Mar 17 • Will Solfiac

55

18

10

February 2026

Grooming gangs and the failure of social science

How a 1980s study into Oxford's Pakistani community highlights the blindness of our institutions

Feb 24 • Will Solfiac

140

12

25

AI and the true nature of technological progress

LLMs are cotton spinning, not space travel, and the 20th-century idea of progress was an anomaly.

Feb 15 • Will Solfiac

23

5

7

Modern Folk Beliefs V: “Your ancestors had kids in their teens”

How marriage and family structure really differed across the world in history

Feb 11 • Will Solfiac

53

9

9

January 2026

Notes on China’s alternative modernity

Mostly impressive, sometimes eerie. Surface order, with an undercurrent of chaos.

Jan 21 • Will Solfiac

118

16

15

December 2025

The rebirth of Anglo-America?

The true level of British ancestry in the US census compared with genetic studies. How the ‘nation of immigrants’ came to be, and the status of Anglo…

Dec 21, 2025 • Will Solfiac

31

2

5