A data essay about mobile Europeans — EU citizens living in another EU country — and how they are effectively disenfranchised from national elections.

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A short illustrated story for the winter solstice — best read on the web.

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It’s autumn. The elation of summer dissolves, the air cools, and the trees burst into color. It’s the season for staying in, wearing warm socks, and savoring pumpkin stews.

I am a child of autumn, born on a dark November night. I love this colorful transition into introspection and calm. Most of my creative work happens in autumn, when I’m still carried by the energy of summer, but drawn by the weather to build a cozy den indoors.

This essay is all about autumn, but of a different kind: the autumn of the menstrual cycle. And before you click this essay away because you think it doesn’t concern you, I invite you to stay. You might be surprised by how much of it does.

The monthly cycle in childbearing bodies has its own seasons, similar to the ones we see in nature. Bleeding is winter, when the body is at its weakest and craves rest above all. As the bleeding stops, spring arrives and with it energy is returning. Then comes summer, peaking with ovulation. Ovulation ushers in the luteal phase, the inner autumn, when energy turns inward again, preparing the body and mind for winter’s stillness.

Though half of the population experiences this cycle twelve times a year, it remains shrouded in taboo, shame, and misunderstanding. Our society often speaks of the premenstrual phase, the inner autumn, only in terms of discomfort: mood swings, irritability, anxiety, fatigue, bloating, tenderness, headaches.

For much of my life, I too saw this time only through tension, tears, and sugar cravings. But lately, I’ve begun to fall in love with it. Just as no season is less magical than another, every part of this inner cycle too carries its own beauty.

Hormonal beings

What actually happens during the menstrual cycle? Very technically said, it's a fluctuation of two hormones: estrogen and progesterone. These hormonal waves divide the cycle into two main phases of roughly equal length: the follicular and the luteal phases. Ovulation and menstruation mark the transitions between them.

Schematic overview of the menstrual cycle; individual cycles differ widely

The follicular phase begins with the shedding of the uterine lining (bleeding) and the maturation of a new egg. After about two weeks, the egg is released and descends toward the uterus, ready to become a new human. This phase is estrogen-dominant.

Estrogen brings a boost of dopamine and serotonin. During this time, I might feel more energetic, social, and outwardly focused. My body often feels stronger too. The follicular phase carries the bright, expansive energy of spring and summer.

After ovulation, estrogen drops, progesterone begins to rise, and the luteal phase starts. Progesterone helps thicken the uterine lining in case a fertilized egg arrives. If pregnancy occurs, progesterone continues to rise, nurturing the tiny human and stimulating the milk glands in the breasts. If there’s no fertilized egg, progesterone levels fall, the uterine lining is shed, and the show starts again.

In the luteal phase I might be lower in energy, calmer, slower, introspective, more intraverted, conserving energy for the coming winter.

The late luteal phase is infamous. Its effects are collectively known as PMS (premenstrual syndrome), or in a more severe form, PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder). Neither is pleasant, and both often manifest in the emotional realm by irritability, sadness, anger, or a general heaviness.

Why does this happen? There isn’t one clear answer.

Some studies point to the drop in estrogen, the mood-brightening hormone, as a possible cause. Physical discomfort from progesterone, such as water retention or breast tenderness, may also contribute to emotional discomfort. Some research suggests that symptoms in women receiving psychiatric care tend to worsen during the luteal phase.

But the truth is: it’s deeply individual. When I ask my friends about their experiences, the answers vary wildly: anger, insecurity, but also calmness, slowness, introversion, or feeling horny. Also: not every cycle feels the same. Sometimes, nothing much happens at all.

So how did our collective image of PMS become reduced almost entirely to mood swings and irritability?

I'm PMSing!

In 1981, 37-year-old Christine English crushed her lover against a utility pole with her car. That same year, barmaid Sandie Craddock stabbed a colleague through the heart. Both women were able to avoid criminal punishment by blaming PMS. For the record: they were also the only ones ever.

Before the 1980s, PMS was largely considered a private medical matter, barely discussed in public. Even medical journals paid little attention. But after these trials, PMS began appearing in popular literature as a social problem. Of course, this didn’t happen in a vacuum. The 1980s saw a growing number of women entering the workforce, sparking public debates about gender roles and whether biological differences affect women’s ability to perform certain jobs. That conversation continues, in various forms, to this day.

I have also experienced PMS being used against me. Any sign of irritability dismissed with “Oh, you’re just PMSing.” And I’ve also used it as a shield myself, a way of saying, let me be, I’m PMSing. But over time, I’ve realized just how trapped in the societal perception I was. Our shared narratives strongly shape the reality we live in. The images and stories we create about ourselves and others often form a self-reinforcing loop.

This idea was captured by many. For example Charles Cooley’s looking-glass self (1902) suggests that we develop our sense of self based on how we think others see us. Bandura’s reciprocal determinism (1986) describes a three-way dance between ourselves, our environment, and our behavior, each influencing and reinforcing the others.

In other words: if everyone expects me to be a bitch at a certain time of the month, I might as well be a bitch. But keeping each other stuck in that expectation is not only unnecessary, it's harmful.

This isn’t to say the intense feelings aren’t real, because they are. But it’s not enough to shove them into a PMS-labeled box and shut it tight. These feelings exist for a reason: they are part of a rhythm, a larger cycle. In order to have a good winter and a joyful spring, I need to respect the autumn.

Moon lodge

Cold nights and rainy weather pull us back inside, to the warmth of our homes. Similarly, in some cultures, women would spend their bleeding time in secluded spaces called menstrual huts or moon lodges. In some places, this was because women were considered impure. Despite government bans, it still occurs in for example Nepal.

But in other cultures, women seclude themselves voluntarily, using the time to reconnect with themselves, to rest and renew their energy. For example, the Ojibwe people, one of the largest Native American tribal populations, regard menstruation as a time of cleansing and renewal, a chance to release accumulated stress and experiences.

I recognize this myself. The premenstrual phase, as I now experience it, is a natural preparation for some kind of release. I sift through what no longer serves me and try to let it go. This process is, of course, uncomfortable and sometimes painful: big feelings take over, and I become sensitive to anything external.

But to understand what truly needs to be released, I have to allow these feelings in and give them space. The inner autumn calls me not only to slow down, but also to listen, to reflect, and to express.

Say it

I've found that sharing the discomfort is often the best way to process it. It helps to have another person present to witness, acknowledge and respond. It also creates an opportunity to receive love.

This can happen in many settings. I've had very positive experiences in women’s circles, where emotions are addressed communally. Our individualistic society puts enormous pressure on us to deal with our shit ourselves. Why though? A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved.

The biggest gains, of course, come from those I'm around most, as they will likely be there when my emotions start spinning out of control. My partner and I therefore have a deal: I tell him everything. It sounds simple, but try it out. The practice is not always easy.

Very often, I have no idea what is happening. I first need to access it somehow. That usually starts with expressing whatever I can and moving on from there. Journaling is another useful tool: just writing without thinking about it too much. Once I begin to understand what’s going on, opening up about it becomes the next big step. It means sharing my innermost fears and demons which feels incredibly vulnerable.

For him, it means not only listening but also receiving whatever comes up. This can be crying, blaming or even screaming, with compassion and hugs. It’s important to understand that the emotions surfacing aren’t necessarily caused by what’s happening in that exact moment. They might be echoes from childhood, recently triggered fears, or unresolved pain. And I don’t truly know what they are until I express them, bring them into the light, and examine them piece by piece, sometimes over several days.

My friend described it beautifully: "It’s a time when my intuition speaks loudly". Since I began sharing these emotions regularly and without shame, I’ve learned to hear and release them better. Now, when I enter my premenstrual phase, I don’t fear the tension. I feel gratitude for the insights it brings and the opportunity to reflect.

Sometimes my partner complains that I don’t make any sense. That’s fair and it's not a bug. Emotions are not rational. They are meant to be felt and expressed.

So next time you are pre-menstrual and you feel the need to get something out, find a friend, prepare your partner, and lay it all out. Cry, scream, share, feel. When the storm passes, laugh. And then let it go.

And if you are around someone in their inner autumn, be receptive. Be present, be supportive, and don’t take it personally. You might help them enter their spring feeling a little lighter.

I wrote this essay while being pre-menstrual. 🍂

Thanks to my early readers Johan and Lenka.

I am passionate about food. I love making it, eating it and feeding it to others especially.

But passion has a shadow side: obsession. I used to eat until I couldn’t sneeze (this is true), because even taking a deep breath would hurt my belly. I turned to food for comfort, for emotional support, or simply out of boredom.

One day, I stepped on the scale and saw the number 90 staring back at me. That moment of shock sent me on a long journey to change my relationship with food.

That was ten years and 25 kilos ago. So today I want to share one of the things I’ve discovered along the way: how our current economic system shapes our relationship with food and how in turn, that relationship shapes our bodies.

During my final years of high school, I worked part-time at McDonald’s and honestly, I had a fantastic time. The colleagues were great, and for post-communist Slovakia, the pay was decent.

It also gave me a peak behind the curtain of the fast food industry.

McDonald’s likes to promote the idea that its food can be part of a healthy, balanced diet. But in reality, it doesn’t meet any of the criteria: meals that are limited in calories, made with healthy fats and whole grains, low in salt and sugar, rich in essential nutrients and fiber, and built around fresh, unprocessed ingredients.

In truth, there was hardly anything fresh in the entire kitchen except the tomato and cucumber slices we had to grab from the local supermarket. And it gets worse.

Burger patties arrived in giant plastic bags from who-knows-where. Frozen gray discs that only got their brown color after a couple of minutes on the grill. In fact, nearly everything was frozen and varying shades of gray before it was deep fried.

But the most disturbing I found the eggs: they came in already peeled, in big plastic buckets filled with greenish water. To this day, I have no idea what it was. We put them on the Caesar salads. The McDonalds website by the way lists the salads as one of the "healthy" options, along apple slices and orange juice.

I stopped eating the food within a couple of months of working there.

Tortilla, Reimagined

Real food is nothing like what I saw in the kitchen of McDonalds. For example, all you need to make a basic tortilla is wheat flour, salt, water, and oil.

Now compare that simple ingredient list to the ones on these random Spar wraps: wheat flour, water, rapeseed oil, glycerin, dextrose, mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids, iodized salt, malic acid.

You’ve probably heard the term "ultra-processed food" or UPF. It’s not just a fast-food chain problem. Our supermarkets too are full of them.

To show you what I mean, let’s dive into some Open Food Facts data. Many products today come with a Nutri-Score: a five-color label designed to help us choose more nutritious options. There’s also another widely used system that classifies food based on how processed it is. It’s called the NOVA classification and it divides food into four groups:

Group 1: Unprocessed or minimally processed foods. Think fresh apples, lentils, milk, plain yoghurt, or fresh meat.
Group 2: Processed culinary ingredients used to season and cook food, like olive oil, salt, honey, or butter. These are also based on natural or minimally processed foods.
Group 3: Processed foods such as cheese, canned vegetables, or packaged bread.
Group 4: Ultra-processed foods are the most industrially altered, often containing additives, flavorings, emulsifiers, and too much salt or sugar.

As you see, I am not even talking about the obvious culprits: snacks like crisps or microwave dinners. Also items you would usually consider healthy can be UPFs: your breakfast cereal, coconut yogurt, pesto, canned beans, hummus, tofu, or pasta sauce.

So how do you recognize an ultra-processed food? It's actually not that hard. They are usually products with five and more ingredients, often with too much salt or sugar and containing things you wouldn't find in your own kitchen, like glycerine, potassium tartrates, disodium diphosphate, or soy lecithin.

They are not real food, but industrially manufactured substances pretending to be food.

Now that you know how to spot them, let's talk about why it matters.

Starving microbes and obesity epidemics

Did you know that more than half of you… isn’t you?

Most of the cells living in our bodies are microbes and the majority lives in our bellies. Gut health is a big deal. A healthy gut microbiome helps digest food, regulate our immune systems, and even influences our mood and mental health. But they rely on us as much as we rely on them. What we eat directly affects their well-being. For example if we don't feed them fiber, they might starve. Or even worse they might start eating the lining of our own intestines. Yikes.

UPFs are energy-dense, but nutrition-poor. Eating them can disrupt the happy times in our bellies and even encourage growth of harmful bacteria. Imbalances in our gut microbiome has been linked to a wide range of diagnoses you don't want, such as allergies, Parkinsons, diabetes, irritable bowels, even cancer.

As usual, science lags a few steps behind industry. But the evidence is mounting. Research shows strong links between UPF consumption and chronic illness. Not necessarily because of one single harmful additive (though the sugar substitute aspartame was recently labeled as possibly carcinogenic), but because of the sheer volume of additives we now regularly consume. It’s this cocktail effect that lands us in an iffy territory.

The rising percentage of UPFs in the diet is also strongly correlated with rising body fat levels in general population. One major driver of this trend is simple: we're eating more. And that increase in calorie intake is likely linked to rising UPF consumption, which may disrupt appetite regulation and promote overeating. With obesity comes another long list of companion conditions: heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis, depression.

“But Ada,” you might say, “is it really that bad? If it were, why would they sell so much of it? Why would it be everywhere?” Here is where our economical system comes into play. Shareholders of food companies don’t profit when we eat apples and cabbage. They make money when cheap ingredients can be turned into branded, shelf-stable products, designed to bypass our body’s natural stop signals and keep us coming back for more.

The Business of Bliss

I remember when the first McDonald’s opened in Bratislava. Except for a few animal activists, we all welcomed it with open arms.

It wasn’t about the food. It was about what it represented: democracy, modernity, and access to the Western world. It was deeply emotional. It was a taste of freedom.

That emotion, the ability to attach identity, meaning, and memory to a product is exactly what companies understand and leverage. Take those Coca-Cola bottles with names of people printed on the labels. Those mean nothing to the company, it's just statistics. But they mean something to us: real people we love. And that bottle has their name on it.

If you look closely, Coca-Cola isn’t really advertising bubbly sugar water at all. Their campaigns are about "Open Happiness" and "Taste the Feeling". The imagery is all about joy, friendship, family and human connection. The message is: you crave meaning, so here have some sugar.

Have you ever heard of the hyperpalatable foods? These are foods engineered in labs to hit the 'bliss point': that irresistible ratio of sugar, salt and fat that keeps our brains begging for more. It's the reason you (or at least me) can't eat just one cookie. These foods are designed not to nourish but to override your body’s natural signals. They bypass fullness. They encourage compulsive eating. They are profitable not because they’re good for us, but because they’re designed to be irresistible and they keep us coming back.

Food in our current economic system isn’t nourishment, it’s a commodity. A revenue stream. A product optimized for "stomach share", meaning: “the amount of digestive space that any one company’s brand can grab from the competition.” (from the 2014 book Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us ). That’s the metric. Not your well-being, not public health.

Food companies spend a lot of money on this. They test what sugar ratio six-year-old kids like best so they can make the most addictive pudding. This ice cream brand even blatantly takes advantage of our brain’s love of sugar to claim it’s "scientifically proven" that ice cream makes us happy.

There is no regard for a better life for us, only for making more money.

And these products are everywhere. The golden arches of McDonald's have become such a familiar part of the global landscape they are almost invisible. This constant, repeated exposure reinforces a sense of comfort and normalcy. Therefore we do not even question whether these products should be everywhere. We simply accept their presence as a given.

Food companies have us by the proverbial balls. So we keep associating chocolate with comfort, soft drinks with good times, and crisps with celebration.

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Food is such an important part our lives: it's our nourishment, culture, self-care. It’s our time with family and friends. We eat every day. Every bite becomes part of us. And yet it’s being hijacked by corporations that latch onto our emotions and manipulate our biology.

We like to believe the system we live in protects us from choices that are harmful to us. But if think about it for a moment—no carrot, apple or bag of lentils has a sticker screaming: “Now packed with fiber!”.

Michael Pollan, author of several books on food, put it this way: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”. It’s the most elegant motto I came across until now. It also aligns with big scale studies, like the Global Burden of Disease Study, that found that eating unprocessed plant foods like fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, and whole grains, while also limiting processed foods high in added salt and sugar will prevent us from getting ill.

Therefore, I think it’s time we take the matter into our own hands. And it starts with reading.

Next time when buying anything from the supermarket, read the ingredients list first. Then choose products with fewer and recognizable ingredients. And don’t be fooled by labels boasting how healthy something is. If a product has to tell you it’s full of nutrition, it probably isn’t.

Stock up on basic ingredients that have a long shelf life on their own. Things like spices, seeds, nuts and nut butters, legumes, and grains. You can turn them into just about anything: veggie burgers, fritters, side dishes, spreads, soups, stews, mashes.

You don’t need a plastic tub of guacamole (avocado, ascorbic acid, citric acid, red pepper, onion, salt, jalapeno pepper, coriander, concentrated lime juice, xanthan gum, dehydrated onion, dehydrated cumin, dehydrated pepper,potassium sorbate, chili sauce). You are perfectly capable of whipping it up yourself.

And let yourself be surprised! For example, I recently realized that not only chickpeas and tahini, but almost any combination of a legume and nut butter makes a hummus-like spread. Some of my favorites: French lentils and hazelnut butter. Or red lentils and cashew butter. 🤤 This way I can easily avoid all the extra sodium carbonate, citric acid, and potassium sorbate of store-bought hummus. Moreover—it is way cheaper.

And you can make it as crazy as you like. I buy nuts, seeds, legumes and grains like rice, wheat, spelt, rye and oats in big bulks and use an electric grain mill to grind my own flour. I also have a cereal flaker to squish oats for my own breakfast.

Buying in bulk is even cheaper. For example wholesale organic red lentils in 5 kg paper bags that last me a year are two thirds of the price (€3.1/kg) of what I would pay at the supermarket (€4.98/kg). The organic basmati rice is half the price.

Looking for food in places other than the supermarket has also led me to new discoveries, so now I regularly cook with grains like einkorn, millet or barley.

And if you don't know how to cook something you like, go online, or ask a chatbot. The prompt I use often is : "I have a carrot, lentils and rice. I feel like a light dish for a summer lunch. Give me 5 ideas of what to make. Feel free to suggest additional ingredients to the ones I have." Or reach out, ask a friend, ask your mom!

It all doesn't need to be perfect. Taking small steps such as being aware and curious, reading labels, cooking simple meals and trying out new recipes, is all it takes. So bit by bit, we can take food back from the corporations and return it to where it belongs: in our own hands, on our own terms.

In this essay, I’ve been talking about food. But it’s also a metaphor for everything we consume that’s deceptively delicious but low in nourishment. Take a closer look at the entertainment you feed your eyes and ears, or the beauty products you put onto your skin.

You’ll start to notice the same patterns: flashy packaging, feel-good messaging, immediate gratification, designed more to hook us than to help us. These systems aren’t limited to the grocery store. They’re everywhere.

---

Thank you to my early draft readers: Johan, JJ, Siem, and the Open Food Facts community for thinking with me about the analysis of the data.

I have a recurrent dream. It's been going on for years. The circumstances are always different, but the theme is constant: I am packing. Packing, but I can't finish in time. Packing, but I don't have enough bags. Packing and suddenly discovering more things that need to be packed. You get the idea.

The significance of this dream has eluded me for years. But I think it’s time to get to the core of it. So I’ve decided to unpack. Unboxing party! And you’re invited.

Safety

Bags. We all have them. Big bags, small bags, fabric bags, backpacks, shoulder bags, hand bags, bum bags, shopping totes, purses, suitcases, briefcases, luggage. Even pockets and car trunks too.

At their core, bags are containers. Tools that help us carry what we need. But they are more than that. They are a fashion statement, reflection of our identity. Do you carry a sporty backpack with hip straps? A sleek designer purse? A minimalist bum bag?

A former colleague of mine carried both a backpack and a purse. When I asked her why, she said, “The backpack is for the laptop. But that’s not me. The purse, that’s me.”

Curious, I asked my friends on Instagram what they carry around: keys, phone, lose cash, credit card, wallet, raincoat, lip balm, moisturizer, eye drops, water bottle, mirror, lip stick, ear plugs, bottle opener, mints, allergy pills, pocket knife, inhaler, ear phones, sunglasses, sewing kit, pain killers, hand fan in the summer. Condoms ("cos you never know"). Some carried just three items. Others fifteen.

In fact, researchers studying people with dementia in care homes found that handbags often became "something to continually clutch or hold" as their sense of orientation slipped away. A kind of anchor. Another researcher, who rummaged through dozens of women’s handbags, noted the mix of practical and emotional objects like photographs or talismans. Each, he concluded, tied to a specific anxiety or fear.

I relate. My own anxiety often unpacks itself when I pack for travel. Overthinking what I might need, packing too much. As a result I create an absurdly heavy bag that I lug around the entire trip. It’s as if I believe that if I just pack perfectly, everything will be okay.

But I can’t pack for everything, can I?

Perfectionism

Last week I hiked up a mountain to sleep in a hut. After climbing all day, I arrived, removed my boots, and as my feet touched the stone cold floor I realized: my slippers were still at home, about 1,500 meters below.

Cue the voice in my head.

Whenever I used to mess something up this angry voice would kick in. How stupid can you be? I call this voice the Asshole. It took me a while, but now I see that the Asshole is a perfectionist.

I would never have described myself as one. I thought perfectionism only meant turning in pristine projects or obsessively scoring top marks on every test. That didn’t feel like me.

But perfectionism, I’ve learned, is much broader. It’s the internal critic. It’s comparing myself to others: prettier, smarter, more successful. It’s feeling like I always need to be prepared for anything, or I’ve failed to make my world safe.

But do I really want to live like that? Isn’t it actually more fun to leave space for the unexpected?

As my feet grew colder high up on the mountain, I remembered a table in front of the hut selling Nepalese scarves, gloves and yes, you guessed it: thick woolen socks. I bought a pair. They’ve become the warmest socks I own.

It was kind of perfect, wasn't it?

Emotional baggage

Because it’s 2025 and this is what we do now, I asked a chatbot what my packing dream means. And boy, it did deliver.

“In dreams, luggage, bags, and boxes are classic symbols for a person’s 'mental baggage'—the emotional burdens, unresolved issues, and past experiences that have shaped and weighed on them.”

Hmm, go on...

“The recurring nature of the dream suggests a resistance to letting go of that baggage.”

Ouch.

“The dream is a stressful reminder that it’s impossible to carry every past experience, trauma, and former version of oneself into the future. The psyche is indicating that, to move forward, a release is necessary.”

Bags are also a metaphor. Not just physical containers, but mental ones too. Mental baggage can weigh us down in the same way as a heavy backpack. Carrying around trauma, fear, or shame will in turn shape the way I act in the world. And not for the better.

But letting go isn’t simple. It's not like we can just take it out with the garbage and leave. Emotional baggage may be heavy, but it’s familiar. It also creates the illusion of predictability and safety.

Letting go

When I was 25, Miško died. He was my partner, my soulmate, my best friend. We broke up and he took his own life. It is the most painful thing that has ever happened to me and naturally, it created a lot of baggage. Sorrow. Fear of abandonment. And probably other things I still can not name.

I mourned him for years. I organized a memorial for his death anniversary every year. And then, after 11 years, I stopped.

I realized I had been clinging to grief because I thought I owed it to his memory to be sad forever. That it would somehow erase his existence if I stopped. Turns out none of that is true. My baggage was shaping my world and I let it.

Letting go wasn't instant. It took years. But little by little, with conscious attention, it is possible.

I have thought about this specific line from the chatbot's text: "To move forward, a release is necessary". And a little poem came to me:

I need this

But is it still shiny?
Still light?
Or are the colors fading?
Is the flame dwindling down?
Maybe it is time.

Years ago, after another long-term relationship ended, I had a different dream. I lost my backpack in the dream and then thought: That’s fine. Everything I need will find me.

I would like to work towards that trust.

So I stopped seeing my packing dreams as something to fix and started seeing them as invitations to loosen my grip. So I can travel light.

Building trust

The trust that everything I need will find me actually comes quite naturally when I stop interfering. The urge to plan for every possible outcome is still a bit squirrel-like.

Squirrels are scatter hoarders. They hide thousands of nuts in dozens of places every season. But they also forget where they put most of them. And yet they survive. The forest sustains them even in winter with bark, tree sap, berries, fungi and lichen. Or they might find the stash of another squirrel. Their survival isn’t based on a perfect memory or planning, but on living in relationship with their environment. And the forgotten nuts? They grow into trees.

In the same way, whatever I let go of, whatever I forget, can become a fertile ground for something new. A new discovery, a needed item turning up. A new connection when seeking support. Finding a water fountain in the city, or warm socks on the mountain. I’m learning I don’t need to be perfectly self-sufficient. There is abundance out there.

And if all fails, there is cash in my wallet (not that poetic but very practical!).

So when I tune into my body, I sense what truly wants to come with me. I listen for what is essential and what feels right. When I’m unsure, I leave it and come back later. And sometimes, I experiment by leaving behind something that seems too heavy or clunky—just to see what happens.

Most of the time, it turns out just fine.

Apparently, the big trend for 2025 runways is “absurdly enormous” bags. “If you're the kind of person who likes to be ready for any eventuality."

And hey you know—being prepared is fine. But trying to be prepared for everything? That might break your back.

So invite a little uncertainty in. Go nuts! And dump some baggage now and then.

It’ll do us good.

Somewhere in the early 2010s, I met Melanie in Barcelona. I was a broke freelance journalist traveling for a workshop and needed a place to stay. I found Melanie on CouchSurfing, and she kindly agreed to host me. Back then, mobile data wasn’t really a thing yet, but Wi-Fi was everywhere: open city networks, cafés. Just not in her apartment.

Melanie was a young American who had moved to Spain a year earlier. She used to work at Apple, which made her one of the early adopters of the iPhone. She told me how she’d hang out with friends at bars or restaurants, but everyone would just be on their phones. They’d even chat privately about people at the table—as if talking behind their backs, while sitting right next to them. She came to hate that, and eventually banned the internet from her home. The evening I spent with her, she knitted and drew,

In the study, the Chinese users ranked among the most addicted. Another small study among 180 Chinese university students found they spent on average 5.5 hours a day on their phones. That is more than one third of their waking hours. To put that into perspective: in 2023, the Chinese government proposed to limit children younger than 8 to 40 minutes of smartphone time a day, increasing the time limit to two hours daily when adult. That is also roughly how much time I spend on my smartphone.

You know what? Let’s get intimate. Here is my data 🤳

Back to the Chinese students: as a result of their smartphone use, some reported mild depression, blurring eyesight, sore fingers, distorted sense of time, poor sleep or feelings of anxiety when scrolling. But not everone is bothered by it. One student put it this way: “I know that using a smartphone for 6 hours daily is a bit too much [but] since I am so happy when playing on the device, and making changes will be painful, why do I need to control my usage? If the purpose of life is to pursue happiness, smartphones can indeed fulfill my needs.” And honestly, who’s to say they are wrong?

A very persuasive design

The main reason your phone brings you that hit of joy in the moment is because it’s intentionally designed to trigger your dopamine reward centers. It’s not that the phone is incredibly useful. It’s just incredibly good at creating compulsive behavior.

This is called persuasive design, and it’s what Duolingo uses to keep you coming back to your language lessons. But even well-intentioned features, like Facebook’s "like" button, originally meant to spread positivity, ended up fueling also feelings of comparison or envy. In the battle for our attention, platforms deploy all kinds of design tricks to keep us hooked: endless scrolling, endless recommendations, and so on.

This is actually also a field of study, called captology. It explores how interactive technologies are built to shape what we believe and how we behave. It observes that we humans respond to computers as though they were well ... humans.

Take a simple slot machine with two animated characters cheering you on every time you win. It is their job to persuade you to keep pulling that lever over and over again. Or when a chatbot that says “I’m sorry.”, making it seem like it understands how you feel. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.

Other ‘captologically enjoyable’ experiences include infinite scroll, or the bright attention-grabbing colors used in the apps. Or just fact that you carry the device on your person everywhere you go.

“When you pack a mobile persuasive technology with you, you pack a source of influence. At any time the device can suggest, encourage, and reward.”

~ B. J. Fogg, Persuasive Technologies

As an investigative journalist I often ask myself the question who is benefiting (and despite of that yes my life is still fun.) According to several — let’s say “less than perfect” — data sources, rocking the charts of most downloaded apps are Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, Facebook, and ChatGPT. In other words, a large chunk of our phone time is spent inside the carefully crafted gardens of Meta and a few others. These apps are packed with persuasive design, and none of them let you opt out of it. I can’t tweak or change how they work. There is no choice. Which makes me believe, that my smartphone isn’t really mine at all.

But it could be! We could design apps that put users in control. For example by giving us the option to:

• build in stopping points—so scrolling actually ends

• hide like, view, or comment counts when you choose to

• set time limits for how long you use certain apps

• customize how an app looks and behaves

• fine-tune how content is personalized

• or even just get a gentle reminder to take a break

These are not radical ideas. But sadly, I don’t see them being adopted anytime soon. As long as our attention keeps making these companies richer, they’ll keep mining it—relentlessly.

Leave my attention alone

Right now, the only real weapon I feel I have is boycott. That’s why I’ve chosen to completely disconnect from my smartphone between 8PM and 10AM. I put it in the designated wooden box, close the lid shut and just like that ✨ it stops existing.

Then I sit on the sofa with a cup of tea and feel a small wave of panic. What now?

So I sit a little longer. And slowly, ideas start to arrive. I get up and browse the bookcase. I sit at the piano. I take out my watercolors and play kindergarten for a bit. I practice handstands. And by the time I go to sleep, I feel so much better knowing I didn’t spend my last hours of the day numbing my brain with dopamine triggers.

Later this year, I plan to take things even further—go for a long hike in the mountains, pack a tent and some food, and spend at least a week off the grid, surrounded by nothing but nature.

I can’t wait.

At the end of 2024, I asked some friends and colleagues a question: "Which topic do you think is the most important to write about next year?" I loved these conversations because they took me to unexpected places. So, I posed the same question to people on the internet and received 31 responses, which I am now sharing with you. In my previous post, I discussed the first seven answers that addressed the new world order. Today, I will dive deeper into two other categories: climate & energy and conflict. 

Climate and conflict are closely intertwined, as both contribute to vulnerabilities in our societies. As a warm-up for what is coming below, you might want to explore Climate-Conflict-Vulnerability Index and their interactive world map, which is both beautiful and disturbing to look at.

I am sharing all answers in full, with only slight edits. Beneath each response, I offer my reflections, additional resources, and datasets, hopefully inspiring you to explore further.

I must confess, this post isn't exactly cheerful, but if you hang in there, you'll discover the curious connection between duck bellies and solar power production. 

Let's get to it.

Conflict

To be honest, this category made me feel very uneasy—so uneasy that I didn't want to comment on any of the answers at all. However, as I witness the world becoming a stranger place every day, I'm realizing how important it is that we face these conflicts and consider carefully how we want them to be resolved.

8. Conflicts around the globe e.g. Ukraine, Gaza, because humanity will erase itself in WW3

This is likely very true. There are 12,000 nuclear warheads in the world. Half of them are in the hands of an authoritarian despot, and the other half... well, never mind.

9. Gaza, because it s the moral defeat and the win of money, capitalism and colonialism.

Gaza is a place that, years from now, we will look back on with the same horror as we do Auschwitz today. The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) has identified Palestine of 2024 as the world's most dangerous and violent place. Fortunately, President Trump's administration plans to step in, promising to "Make Gaza Beautiful Again".

10. Why are violent cultures are more likely to succeed? Violence throughout history, but also the middle east, and in religion has always led to people becoming apathetic and retreating. See China, see Russia, see Gaza, Afghanistan or Lebanon. In what non-violent ways, can a people or culture win against a violent Regime? Is it possible? For example Falun Gong. Or Kurds. Is it OK to lose ones cultures and identity, if it leads to peace?

Non-violent actions can indeed topple governments. One of the most significant examples in relatively recent history is the series of mostly peaceful protests that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. More recently, we have witnessed the Arab Spring. So, is it possible? Yes. But how?

To refine your nonviolent strategies, read the free guidebook published by The International Center for Nonviolent Conflict. The authors delve into strategies, marketing, security, resources, and more. I especially liked the part focusing on pillars of support: civilians, businesses, police, military and other structures that keep the power in place.

11. The military upscaling world-wide, especially European countries USA will probably diminish in their role as a deterrent for aggressors on European soil, waking up the EU to take action to be able to fend for themselves in case it's necessary. This may be a good thing, since it would mean less dependency on the US for our safety. But historically, whenever all of Europe decided the best course of action is to increase their military spending, world wars happened. It's a bad sign, or omen, if you will. And something that we should all be following closely the coming year.

12. State of the military industrial production in the NATO countries. Russia has switched its industrial output to full military economy. When there is a peace in Ukraine it will take 1 year for Putin to re arm to the state before the war.

Let's combine insights from two datasets to gain some fresh perspective. First, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, these are the countries that spent the most on the military in 2023. Second: China, India, and Turkey have emerged as Russia's most prominent trade partners post-invasion.

13. The war to end all wars. On principle, we, humanity, want to end all wars but we’ve seen a huge surge in disgustingly violent, ruthless and needless wars. I do hope that a war to end all wars will not be necessary but looks like Others will make that decision and dump it on us to deal with. It might not suffice, though, because the military complex will find more wars to be had. They gotta put food on the table! :) Are we ever getting off of this bloody merry-go-round?

In their yearly wrap-up, the Uppsala Conflict Data Program concluded that 2023 marked the highest number of active state-based armed conflicts "ever recorded by the UCDP, totaling 59." It seems the time to invest is indeed ripe.  
  
In October 2024, Citigroup, one of the big four US banks, published a report outlining possible future scenarios and investment opportunities in the defense sector. I found point 3 here especially cynical.

Also, check out Figure 27 of the report (which I am not allowed to reproduce) for a handy list of companies to start exploring—or investing in. Your call!

Ok now take a deep breath. Ready for the second tranche of man-made catastrophes? Here we go.

Climate & Energy

14. Climate, because civilizational collapse is a thing

15. I'm an economics journalist – but climate is going to touch everything. The sooner we make the connections the better.

16. Climate crisis. Why is quite clear: without a livable planet no life.

Half of the answers in this category were very short, yet the topic is incredibly broad.

17. Climate change is the most pressing issue we're facing right now. And of course this ties in with many other issues: inequality (between and within countries), politics (populism, lack of faith in politicians, growing apathy from voters when talking about politics and policy-making?), (social) media (where do people get their information? how can journalists/writers/... make people care? and how do we avoid depressing people to the point of apathy?)

I liked this answer because it touches upon a topic that I haven't seen addressed often: the mental health aspects of climate change. On one hand we are dealing with mental health issues associated with extreme weather events: PTSD, trauma.

We also deal with something called solastalgia: the distress that comes from environmental changes around our home environment, combined with a sense of powerlessness over these changes. The word comes from the Latin sōlācium (solace or comfort), solus (desolation), and the Greek algia (pain, suffering, grief). It reminds me of the disappearance of snow in winter, but for others, it will be more severe.

Although data on all of this is scarce, I came across a 2021 study that surveyed 10,000 people between 16 and 25 years of age from all continents. They did not have many happy thoughts.Perhaps stories about the energy transition could provide some solace?

18. The energy transition. The news in 2024 has largely, and understandably, been captured by politics, and it has been ages that climate change has been front and center. I am afraid, that is partly because climate change lives in people's minds as yet another disaster we don't want to think about, which is why I think that stories about the energy transition can be a force for good. It's happening, amazing strides are being made, and it builds a future that we want to live in if we pull it off.

This seemed quite bleak, so I asked the robots at Perplexity if we are on track. Initially, the bot said, “The energy transition is not on track, and the situation is likely to worsen without significant changes.” This made me properly sad, so I asked if they could find me some hopeful news. Luckily, they could. “The message is clear: we are making substantial progress in the global energy transition, and there’s genuine hope for a sustainable, clean energy future.” That made me feel better. Who said hallucinations were a bug?

19. Climate change and the impact of new technologies like crypto, cloud, AI, etc. Because of the immediate and future impact of it. With such high demand for high energy requiring technologies, we risk a worsening of the actual conditions to a point of no return.

While the recent generative AI boom is making tech companies increasingly energy-hungry, the International Energy Agency's analysis suggests that we should be more concerned about the rising energy demands of air conditioning. 

Nevertheless, it's definitely something to keep an eye on.

20. (New) Energy Production - Battle between nuclear and renewables. Big tech is investing in nuclear power plants, so won't be long before investors also realize electricity production is a priority. This could buck the renewables trend.

So basically society always needs more energy. Electricity can be the more efficient way to power things (e.g. induction stove uses less raw energy than a gas stove). So there has been a push to electrify much of society in the last decade or so (think electric cars. On top of this, and this is probably the bigger thing, is the use and production of AI models requires a lot of power, and big tech are building record amounts of data centres. All of this means that we need much more electricity.

While there is a lot of traditional renewables (wind, hydro, solar) being added to grids around the world, the intermittency can be annoying since it requires either battery storage, dynamic pricing (so factories will operate at night when its cheaper), or large inter-connectivity (e.g. Spain sells its solar to Netherlands) to flatten out the duck curve (google it).

In response to this, big tech in the US have started taking matters into their own hands and are producing the electricity themselves for the big data centres, since they don't want to wait and let the AI trend miss them. For example google is looking into buying and running an old nuclear reactor (three mile island).

Right now, vast amounts of capital are flowing into the AI boom. I think because the power needed for that is becoming a bottleneck, we will see capital flow into electricity production in the coming years. I think it will be interesting how this capital is spent, since gas and nuclear can give a solid predictable power output, these are desired by data centres, however the public leans towards renewables (usually). I think there will be a bit of a battle between the nuclear camp and the renewable camp over this, with possible more money going towards nuclear in many places. It may also be the case that big tech could say: '"We will only come to places where there are good nuclear reactors with cheap power, since we prefer predictability and profits". This might impact political decisions, and have consequences for some countries like Germany.

As a side note, there are so many advancements in renewables, especially solar (look into perovskites) that they might be able to just brute force the duck curve with better efficiency. Also large inter-connectors are being built, and studies have shown trading electricity over large distances like Spain and Netherlands can allow both places to use renewables longer.

Anyway, caffeine rant over.

Some sources/ Youtube channels: this topic, good channel for renewable tech updates , nuclear could get smaller/ cheaper, also a good channel, this guy is amazing

As promised, I will now explain the relationship between a duck's belly and solar energy production. Introducing the duck curve.

See the orange line? While the sun is shining, there's a lot of energy coming in, and the need for other energy sources decreases. That's the belly of the duck. And that's good—free energy! But it's also problematic because the grid needs electricity at all times. So, once the sun sets and energy demand rises sharply, other sources need to be up and running again. Sudden changes like that can stress the grid. Moreover, you can't just turn off a nuclear plant in the morning and switch it back on in the evening.  
  
This rabbit hole is deep, and I won't dive into it for now. But the more I explore, the more I find it miraculous that in Europe, we have a constant supply of electricity at all times.

That wraps up the first 20 answers my survey. If you haven't already, have a look at my previous post on the topics around the new world order. And stay tuned for the final installment!

Next time, we'll explore the small and unexpected. Categories such as journalism, oneness, trust, and demography.

At the end of 2024, I asked a some friends and colleagues a question: "Which topic do you think is the most important to write about next year?" and got some very diverse answers. A friend who is a designer and visual artist suggested to make people aware that no piece of information is neutral. A colleague reflected on the power of Musk and his army of satellites. And another friend simply said: "Nothing. I can't do anything with the news." 

The conversations were so interensting that I decided to scale it up. At the end of November I tossed a survey into my network and let it cook there for a couple of weeks. This resulted in a fresh batch of 31 answers to ponder.

Some topics made an expected appearance. Climate, for instance, was mentioned 11 times accross all the answers. However many responses surprised me. And so I have found myself diving into democracy metrics, world population predictions, duck curves and dark data.

While putting all the answers together to share with you, it started turning into a bit of a mammoth piece. So, I decided to split it into multiple parts. In the upcoming weeks I will write multiple posts. In each of them I will unpack several of the responses, divided into categories (more on those below).

In this first part, I will discuss the (simple) analysis I used to organize the responses and share the first, albeit unsurprising, category: world order.

Analysis

While the survey was open, I considered using some of the modern and hyped ways to analyse and visualise the data. Should I use an LLM? While browsing the Hugging Face models, I realized that my data were actually little stories, rather than numbers. And that to make sense of these stories, it was better to approach them with attention and understanding. So, I closed the browser tab full of models and opened the spreadsheet with the responses. Then I spent a few hours — and then a few more — studying them.

Even if not using any fancy statstics, I wanted to introduce some structure. My beautiful organic brain proved to be the perfect tool for this. First I wrote down a few keywords for each response. Then, I looked for overlaps and recurring themes within these keywords and distilled them into broader categories. In practice, I added two columns next to the responses, which looked something like this:

The categories that came up in the end were 🥁: climate & energy, world order, conflict, information, oneness, demographics, housing, human rights, journalism, and trust. Naturally, there is some overlap between them, but I did my best to extract the most prominent theme from each response to highlight larger trends.

Below you will find the responses from the first prominent category: world order. The answers are provided in full, lightly edited, and include some of my own reflections, data and other resources. Enjoy!

World order

The responses in this category focus on the shifting political climate. They highlight concerns about the rise of populist leaders, far-right sentiments, and the changing role of the U.S. They question the direction modern democracies are heading.

2. The democracy is under pressure in Europe, in some countries more than others. In the Netherlands, people generally believe everything is still OK,  but also here the democracy gets weaker and weaker. It would be good to get some relevant data, do some comparisons, pick some interesting examples and raise some awareness on this. 1. Europe: European Union, how Europe is becoming more and more right-wing

This observation is simple and straightforward and has some interesting implications. For example, after the Austrian government recently failed to form a coalition, Reuters noted a "growing difficulty of forming stable governments in European countries [...] where the far right is on the rise but many parties are loath to partner with them."

I wanted to verify this claim, but the most recent data analysis I found was from 2015. In the process, I came across wondeful data from ParlGov, though they unfortunately don't seem to offer an easy way to calculate how long coalition formations take.

2. The democracy is under pressure in Europe, in some countries more than others. In the Netherlands, people generally believe everything is still OK,  but also here the democracy gets weaker and weaker. It would be good to get some relevant data, do some comparisons, pick some interesting examples and raise some awareness on this. 

Curious about how democracy is measured, I fired up Ecosia search and found an impressive overview of the eight leading indexes to measure democracy by Our World in Data. Spending some time exploring their interactive visualisations I began to see that there just might be something to it. See below the Varieties of democracy index for the Netherlands. Similarly, their recent report is not very uplifting: "Almost all components of democracy are getting worse in more countries than they are getting  better, compared to ten years ago."

3. Totalitarianism in Europe. Totalitarian trends (or fear of totalitarian trends, fear of public unrest, active instrumentalisation of groups in difficult political challenges) overshadow meaningful political discussions on all important topics such as the climate crisis, inequality and polarisation in societies, environmental issues such as pollution with chemicals, plastics and the resulting health crisis... The general wish to maintain a "business as usual" approach in spite of all the above concerns may be among the keys to start covering this challenge. 

This response, as I interpret it, suggests focusing on totalitarian trends in Europe to clear the way for discussions about truly pressing issues.

Three other responses focused on the situation in the US, with Trump and Musk at the wheel.

4. The change in geopolitics brought on by the US elections. With Trump (and Musk) getting into office, we will see a shift of power away from the state to private individuals. In military conflicts, this has already been foreshadowed by the Starlink story in Ukraine and Musk’s ties to the global far-right. Moreover, capital will become increasingly privatized as the new government aims to unleash anonymous cryptocapitalism. Gradually, governments’ former monetary powers will slip from democratic control.

5. Trump and how it influences our safety in Europe or the Pacific even (Taiwan)=

6. Broligarchy: how tech and similar bros are broing away rights and broifying politics. The bro approach to business and politics shapes social media algorithms, elections, lobbying and political priorities

('Broing away' is now my new favorite verb!) On a serious note, what fascinates me most about the U.S. situation is how the ultra-rich are taking over politics. Although this is nothing new.

Chrystia Freeland (then a journalist, now Canada’s former finance minister) wrote a book about rising plutocracy already in 2012: "As the people at the very top become ever richer, they have an ever greater ability to tilt the rules of the game in their favor. That power can be hard to resist." And the trend is not going away either. According to data from Altrata, the population of billionaires in the US went up by nearly 10% (1,111 people) in 2023. Both US and Europe hold 1/3 of worlds billionaires.

Recently I came across a fascinating essay in the MacGuffin magazine. Here, the author reflects on the world perception of the ultra-rich: "My main observation is that for individuals born into extreme wealth, it is almost impossible to grasp anything about material or social reality." He continues: "To inherit a condition of unjustifiable wealth means to never experience cause and effect. All external pressures are alleviated by capital: there are no consequences to missing a deadline, to not finishing a project, to dropping out or giving up. It is terrifically difficult to fail, in any normal sense." Trump and Musk are both second generation ultra-rich. I recommend to read the whole essay. It's terrifying. Let's just hope it's not such a match made in heaven.

7. Ukraine and and derivative stories such as societal security and preparedness in a new world order, where the climate is also 'attacking' us harder and harder. It is fundamentally about our existence and our way of organizing the world: democracy, equality, diversity - the right to be an independent human being. There is a reason why people fleeing to northern Europe! The refugee flows are not going away from Europe and certainly not away from the northwestern corner. So we do something right here, something other people on this planet wants too. No one flees to the autocracies!

The final answer in this category suggests something intriguing: we are doing something right here. 

What exactly is it, and how can we preserve it amidst a shifting world order?

In the next part we will explore topics around climate and conflict. Want to to get the rest of the series in your inbox? Sign up for my newsletter!

Internet search sucks. It's not just my personal opinion.

If you don't trust the media, maybe you do trust the Germans: their university researchers came to the same sad conclusion “that higher-ranked pages are on average more optimized, more monetized [...] and they show signs of lower text quality”, reads their recent paper.

Maybe you recognize this from recipe websites. While the recipe is the part you are really interested in, at some point in history recipe pages started to bloat. Now you need to plow through a pile of text and pictures before you can even take a look at  the recipe itself. This additional clutter helps individual recipe pages rank better in search results: "When I’m writing, I try to tell a story that has a hook as well as please[s] the Google algorithm,", says this food blogger. But what Google wants to show is not necessarily what everybody wants to read. Such ‘optimisation’ then gives birth to projects like justtherecipe.com - a website and app that only extracts the recipe from any given website.

Pessimists say that the internet is only going to get more cluttered. With the dawn of generative AI, we will swim in more and more low quality content. The internet will never be the same as it was when populated just by us  - the humans. And as much as I love robots, they also produce text that can contradict itself in consecutive sentences;  in a much worse case it can make you poison yourself with mushrooms. The bots are also capable of making us forget what a baby peacock looks like.

So how do we search for high quality content in waters made murky by SEO optimization and generative AI? For me a  search engine is like a map, and I have to keep reminding myself that like a map it only ever shows part of the landscape.

Google has been steadily holding about 90% of the search engine market for at least the last 15 years. But the good news is you don’t have to keep on only Googling. The key to any healthy diet is variety. So take my hand into the (expanding) possibilities of searching the web.

Every day I use a couple of different search engines. All of them are designed with a different approach to indexing the web.

Keyword search

Ecosia

Ecosia is my default search engine. I use it when I know what I am searching for: company names, people, wikipedia articles, documentation. Under the hood it uses two of the big boys : Google and Microsoft Bing. The search is therefore still not better than Google, but their business is. Ecosia is the largest not-for-profit search engine that puts 100% of their revenues into planting trees.

As well as search, Ecosia also offers a free AI chat feature, based on GPT-3. This one I use for translations and when I need definitions of some terms or phenomena. I also use it for basic recipes, and tweaks for recipes (especially for baking - which I still find mesmerizing).

Google

Google is not completely out of my system, but I currently use it only when I can not find things via Ecosia. Google is amazingly good at finding out where to buy things online, so I do my infrequent online shopping ventures on Google.

Marginalia

Marginalia is what I like to see as a serendipity search engine: you never know what you will get. The index is built by Swedish developer, Viktor Löfgren, mostly on grant money (he also has a patreon). It  focuses on “small obscure websites and non-commercial content”, as the author puts it. 

What I love about Marginalia is that when I searched for a recipe for a crumble, instead of one of the sterile over-optimized recipe pages, I discovered the Kitchen Projects substack, where somebody called Nicola Lamb documents their experiments in crumble baking. Next to the recipe, she also shares explanations of how baking with fruit works. If this doesn’t give you warm fuzzy feelings for the internet, I don’t know what will.

I use Marginalia if I am interested in anything related to craft (cooking, basket weaving) or if I feel like online exploration outside the social media ecosystem. Their rainbow ‘random’ button is perfect for that.

Embeddings search

LLMs are also taking over internet search. There are new search engines that let you chat with the search results and even formulate new questions based on the previous search.

Two examples of these are Exa and Perplexity. I have discovered them only recently but use them regularly to discover material around a certain topic for my work related searches. 

Perplexity

Perplexity lets you chat with the internet. The interface is very user friendly and includes all the search results the robot is basing its answer on. But be careful here, because LLM models do hallucinate and as WIRED reported: “it falsely claimed that WIRED had reported that a specific police officer in California had committed a crime”. It is therefore more suitable for general overview questions rather than in-depth search.

Exa

Where perplexity makes you chat with the internet directly, Exa returns actual search results first, that you can then chat with if you like, so resembling an actual search engine more closely. It also (automatically) alternates between keyword search and embeddings-based search depending on what you ask. This is a good call, as keyword search is less thirsty for resources. I also like Exa’s focus on using LLMs to return relevant search results.

Premium

Kagi

Kagi is the only search engine in the list that you need to pay for - if you want to do more than 100 searches a month. In return they won’t run ads or sell your data. You can personalize their keyword search;  they also offer an AI bot feature where you can choose from a dozen LLMs . 

As I don’t have premium access, I use Kagi sparingly, for the most in depth part of any research. The search results are very good and it helps me find things that I could not find using any of the other search engines.

—

This list is personal, and by no means exhaustive. I for example don’t use the most famous privacy oriented alternative to Google, DuckDuckGO. There also exists a little army of small ‘folk’ search engine like Marginalia. This list is very much a work in progress and a living active process. 

The Internet morphs and changes. Looking ahead to 2034 the internet will be at least as different from now as now is different from how things were in 2014. Therefore we need to keep our strategies for navigating it flexible too.

Have other search engines you use and love? I would love to hear about them!