TouchStone Reads - July 24th, 2026

We often set aside articles that are longer, deserve a re-read, are broader in scope…or just for fun - for weekend reading. Below are some from this week - pour yourself a hot cup of coffee & enjoy... 

• You’re obsessing over the wrong Peter Thiel conference (How to Survive the Broligarchy)

• Prediction Markets Are Minting a New Type of Insider Trader (Businessweek)

• American AI is locked down and proprietary. It’s losing. China’s open-weights AI strategy is winning: its companies are taking the lead. (Ben Werdmuller)

• From ducks to spaceships: ‘weird buildings’ explores unconventional architecture worldwide (designboom)

• ‘Whataboutism’ makes the internet exhausting. Why people think this way: “It’s normal for us to have egocentric processing, to filter the world through our own experiences”. (CNN)

• It’s no longer illegal to destroy the one thing endangered species need most to survive (Vox)

• As Odd as a Clockwork Orange: The Unreliable Narrator and Primary Sources: The Memory Hole revisits Kubrick’s masterpiece through the lens of 2026 — and finds it uncomfortably prophetic about state violence, media manipulation, and the aestheticization of cruelty. (The Memory Hole)

• Why Am I Left-Handed? (Quanta Magazine)

• The 16 Most Painful Health Conditions in the World (U.S. News)

• Nuclear energy could be in for a big decade: The global fleet of nuclear power plants is poised to expand quickly as climate. (Canary Media)

• Shooting Starlink: The “no limits” partnership between Russia and China is taking aim at Elon Musk: Secret documents from a series of clandestine Russian-Chinese military forums reveal a joint plan to defeat Elon Musk’s Starlink and a weapons development partnership far deeper than either country will admit. (The Insider)

• Teen Invents Award-Winning Adaptive Crosswalk System (Nice News)

• Video of the day: Will Ferrell | Good Hang with Amy Poehler (YouTube)

What are you reading or listening to?