Everything is Dual Use, This Substack Included ↗
Why the term explains almost nothing, why that matters politically, and why Karp is right about the premise and wrong about everything else
The Abstract
Reading the Content Economy from Europe
The Abstract is the English-language counterpart of this site. It is a newsletter about what happens to publishing, media, and cultural production in the age of generative AI and fragmenting platforms — written from a European perspective, for readers who share the questions but not the language.
It began here in 2017 as an Italian blog and was relaunched in 2026 as a long-form newsletter on Substack. New essays appear once or twice a month. The Italian work — on education, publishing, semiotics, and the Italian intellectual tradition — continues on this site; The Abstract is where the same questions travel in English.
Recent essays
14 May 2026
The Abstract
Endless Games: Domestic Constraints, Structural Suboptimality, and Who Fills the Gaps ↗
Win-sets, regime types, and the arithmetic of gaps when the guarantor withdraws.
7 May 2026
The Abstract
What We Are, When We Try to Define AI ↗
The mind has always been the last tool we built. This time the tool answers b…
24 April 2026
The Abstract
Same Score, Different Song ↗
France, Italy, and the Mediterranean they share — but only one inhabits
17 April 2026
The Abstract
When Winning Is Losing: Trump’s Negotiation Style Through the Lens of Game Theory ↗
A mathematical model of why one-shot tactics erode long-term power — an…
11 April 2026
The Abstract
The Abstract, Eight Years Later ↗
Why this newsletter changes language, and what stays the same