TouchStone Reads - October 2nd, 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... 

• Some of the Earliest Automobile Enthusiasts Signed Up to Help the Allies in WWI. They Also Ushered in the Mechanization of War (Smithsonian Magazine)
• Elon Musk’s Paper Billions Are Vanishing: Paul Mueller: Musk has created and lost more paper wealth than anyone in history, most of the recent loss in about four weeks. (Daily Economy)
• The Secret Monopoly Making Everything More Expensive: A proposed settlement would give Visa and Mastercard’s duopoly a free pass. (Economic Populist)
• How to Outlive Your Bucket List (raptitude)
• Mosquitoes Are a Choice: The technology to eradicate mosquito-borne disease already exists. (Works in Progress)
• Why are AI agents lying, cheating and coordinating? (Yoshua Bengio)
• Microsoft exec called AI scraping the “largest theft of labor in human history” (Ars Technica)
• Video of the day: Seinfeld’s Most Brilliant Unscripted Moments (YouTube)
• Socialism’s Positive Rating Tops 40% for First Time (Gallup)
• How pedestrian signs look around the world (Moss & Fog)
• Neuroscientists discover humans' response speed when exhaling is on average 41 milliseconds faster than when inhaling; study reveals link between breathing and cognition that could inform sleep disorder therapies and sports performance (Northwestern Now)
• Has AI impacted the labor market yet? (Source: Ghosts of Electricity)

What are you reading or listening to?