Nadia Asparouhova

Nadia Asparouhova is a writer and researcher who has spent her career in service of the question: ‘what’s happening here?’ across various parts of the internet.She’s worked at Substack, Protocol Labs, and Github, and has written extensively on Silicon Valley Culture; the importance of ideas and institutions; consciousness, attention, meditation, and more. Her most recent book, Antimemetics: Why Some Ideas Resist Spreading is probably the book I reference most in casual conversations.In this conversation, we get into the parts of AI that almost no one is talking about. What happens to the public commons when our most transformative conversations are happening privately with machines? Why is a culture built around measurement and progress so bad at producing human flourishing? If AI removes the work that once put us into flow, what happens to our brains? We also talk about San Francisco’s new nihilism, the emptiness of viral X articles, jhanas, and the part of her creative process she refuses to let AI touch: “the poetic, numinous part of me. The part that touches God.”-Check out the Granola Notes for this conversation ⁠here⁠.Follow along on ⁠⁠Substack⁠⁠This episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠Granola⁠⁠, the AI notepad for people in back-to-back meetings. Use code SUBLIME to get 3 months free. Hosted by Alex Dobrenko, creator of Code for Creatives, a course for creative people learning to build with AI. Apply to Cohort 4 ⁠⁠here⁠⁠.⁠⁠Sublime⁠⁠, the inspiration management tool creatives use to collect, connect, and create with their inspiration.