@robertlynch66.bsky.social
I added audio versions to all three essays in my status series, for anyone who would rather listen than read. The series works best in order. Start here: I Was Wearing a Tutu When I Started Bragging About My PhD robertc12.substack.com/p/i-was-wear...
I Was Wearing a Tutu When I Started Bragging About My PhD
Editor’s note: This is the first in a series about declining status and name-dropping my credentials to people who couldn’t possibly care.
robertc12.substack.com
My essay “The Forgotten Virtue” has been condensed and republished by Plough under the new title “My Grandparents Knew Waste Is a Sin.” I’d love to hear which version you prefer. www.plough.com/articles/my-...
My Grandparents Knew Waste Is a Sin | Plough
My parents were raised by people who had starved – for whom waste was unthinkable.
plough.com
Here is my new essay on frugality. It’s about my eighty-three-year-old mother's daily rituals of thrift — and what her generation understood about the value of not always getting what you want that mine has lost. robertc12.substack.com/p/the-forgot...
The Forgotten Virtue
In Michigan you get ten cents for returning empties, and my parents used to pull over and pick them up off the side of the road.
robertc12.substack.com
New chapter from my book: What Is Funny? It’s Funny Because It’s True On laughter, self-deception, Bill Burr, Evolution, farting in a dog’s face, and why jokes reveal what we recognize before we admit it. Chapter 3: What Is Funny? open.substack.com/pub/robertc1...
My article in why soccer is so boring just came out in Quillette. quillette.com/2026/07/08/w...
Why Soccer Feels Boring: The Science of Luck and Skill
How the beautiful game convinced the world that boredom is sophistication.
quillette.com
My 3rd article on status came out in Quillette this morning: Check it out here: quillette.com/2026/07/06/w... Or on my substack for free: robertc12.substack.com/p/what-an-ei...
What an Eighth Grader Taught Me About Status
Comparing yourself to others locks you into a contest you can never win and makes other people’s wins feel like your defeats.
quillette.com
www.businessinsider.com/academic-phd...
I used to be a successful academic with a Ph.D., but now I'm a substitute teacher making $160 a day. I'm struggling to adjust.
When I couldn't find a job in academia, I became a substitute teacher. It's not glamorous, but there's some joy in working with students for a day.
businessinsider.com
The 3rd essay in a series on declining social mobility and status open.substack.com/pub/robertc1...
What an Eighth Grader Who Drew a Penis on My 510-Million-Year-Old Fossil Taught Me About Status
By Robert Lynch
open.substack.com
This is the second in a series I wrote about downward mobility for the credentialed class — a story that is likely to become much more common as AI eats white-collar work. open.substack.com/pub/robertc1...
I Was a Scientist. Then I Became a Substitute Teacher
Editor’s note: This is the second in a series about downward mobility for the credentialed class — a story that is likely to become much more common as AI eats white-collar work and the degree-leads-t...
open.substack.com
Here is an essay I wrote called "I Was Wearing a Tutu When I Started Bragging About My PhD." It's an essay about status and downward social mobility. Maybe some of you can relate. robertc12.substack.com/p/i-was-wear...
I Was Wearing a Tutu When I Started Bragging About My PhD
Editor’s note: This is the first in a series about declining status and name-dropping my credentials to people who couldn’t possibly care.
robertc12.substack.com
This is an essay I wrote for Quillette about substitute teaching, status, humiliation, doing the Macarena at a school assembly, and spending the day name-dropping my credentials to people who couldn't possibly care. quillette.substack.com/p/teacher-in...
Teacher in a Tutu
Bragging about my PhD to general indifference during the second-most humiliating day of my life.
quillette.substack.com
From a memorial I posted from my Substack about my PhD advisor who died in March. "He was like an alien visiting our planet trying to make sense of our strange habits — why we invest in our children, why we are nice to our friends, why we lie to ourselves." robertc12.substack.com/p/rememberin...
Remembering Robert Trivers
Robert Trivers, who died on March 12, 2026, was arguably the most important evolutionary theorist since Darwin.
robertc12.substack.com
An article I wrote explaining some of my research on how religion helps preserve social connections amongst relatives. open.substack.com/pub/robertc1...
Kinship and religion
How religion improves relationships with relatives
open.substack.com
A new article on how America lost its sense of humor originally published in the Chicago Tribune now on my substack robertc12.substack.com/p/how-americ...
How America Lost Its Sense of Humor
“I see a lot of unfunny comedians, I see unfunny TV shows, I see unfunny awards shows, I see unfunny movies — because everybody’s scared to make a move.
robertc12.substack.com
Excellent article in Compact about the left’s turn to embrace race at the expense of class. www.compactmag.com/article/how-...
How the Left Ditched Class
I remember where I was sitting when Adolph Reed Jr. and Walter Benn Michaels told the left that it was making a historic mistake.
compactmag.com
Here is another excellent big think essay from Dan Williams. Better than anything I’ve read in the Atlantic or NY Times in the past month. Here is one quote summarizing good progressive ideas from destructive ones: www.conspicuouscognition.com/p/on-becomin...
On Becoming Less Left-Wing (Part 3)
The reality of progress, the fragility of civilisation, the left’s role in making the world both better and worse, the case for capitalism, and how to think about “the West”
conspicuouscognition.com
An article previously published in the American Spectator on AI, effort and living a meaningful life open.substack.com/pub/robertc1...
Why Bother? An Effortless Life Isn’t Worth Living
AI rhetoric swings between utopia and apocalypse.
open.substack.com
Here is my latest article on AI and the comfort trap. AI will give us exactly what we want, turning us into pampered infants living emptier lives, for whom effort itself becomes a kind of torture — a future less like Star Trek or The Terminator and more like WALL-E. spectator.org/when-effort-...
The American Spectator | Conservative Commentary & News
Explore The American Spectator for fearless conservative news, political analysis, and cultural commentary. Join readers who think critically—read now
spectator.org
Here is my essay in Compact about how the internet effectively rebuilt the village life of our hunter-gatherer ancestors—where approval is measurable, conflicts are public, and the record is permanent—on a planetary scale. www.compactmag.com/article/how-...
How Technology Re-Tribalized Us
In Yanomamö villages, rules aren’t enforced by courts or police.
compactmag.com
My article on my PhD advisor Robert Trivers, the most important evolutionary theorist since Darwin, who died last week. open.substack.com/pub/robertc1...
Remembering Robert Trivers
Robert Trivers, who died on March 12, 2026, was arguably the most important evolutionary theorist since Darwin.
open.substack.com
I just learned that my PhD advisor Robert Trivers died a few days ago. His contributions to evolutionary biology are the stuff of legend. GodSpeed Bob! You were a tough mother fucker but I’m going to miss you. I’ll have much more to say about him later. lnkd.in/emCJHNZG
This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn
lnkd.in
My latest article on how AI rhetoric swings between utopia and apocalypse but that the likeliest outcome will likely be more banal: AI will give us exactly what we want and turn us into infants living emptier lives, for whom effort has become a kind of torture washingtonmonthly.com/2026/03/12/a...
AI and the Sin of Sloth
The real problem with generative AI is that it’s working as intended: making us lazier and less able to think.
washingtonmonthly.com
A very interesting essay on how in casting off all of mystery and wonder of the old metaphysical world we have stripped the “losers” of the modern world of any dignity. www.writingruxandrabio.com/p/equality-a...
Equality as a Consolation Prize
In a secular world, equality is a last attempt to offer some dignity to the weak
writingruxandrabio.com
Another great article on how reading the Epstein emails reveals a culture of peeping toms disguised as moral outrage. Another sign of a trashy culture but one with which our ape ancestors would have been very familiar. open.substack.com/pub/paulbloo...
Reading other people's mail
Should we be ashamed?
open.substack.com
The anatomy of a moral panic in real time. It’s got all the hallmarks: virtue signaling, conspiracies, moral certainty, hypocrisy, self-deception…. The monster's in the mirror. It’s the same performative culture that brought us Trump. www.compactmag.com/article/the-...
The Epstein Next Door
You might have noticed that the internet has been more bonkers than usual since about January 30.
compactmag.com
I heard on a podcast yesterday that Epstein was “torturing underage sex slaves in his basement” which seemed a bit far fetched but what do I know. Here’s a good contrarian counterpoint to the Epstein moral panic where anyone who emailed him is a pedophile. . www.compactmag.com/article/noam...
Noam Chomsky Was Right About Epstein
Judging by the delirium that has accompanied the latest release of “Epstein Files,” modern Americans no longer have any standing to snicker at their seventeenth-century forebears who convinced themsel...
compactmag.com
Paul Bloom argues that instead of saying that people care about status it’s better to talk about how everyone wants to matter (at least to someone). This is far more universal desire and probably easier for most people to accept. Here's the link: smallpotatoes.paulbloom.net/p/assistant-...
Assistant to the Regional Manager
The problem with utopia
smallpotatoes.paulbloom.net
Excellent article by Dan Williams on how institutions and incentives can help flawed apes like us improve society and culture. But virtue does not come naturally to us. It has to be cultivated and incentivized. conspicuouscognition.su…
https://conspicuouscognition.su…
When “Leaked footage of hidden camera sex acts by Gymnastics doctor” gets more views than the Super Bowl any good scientist would suspect that there’s something else going behind all the predictable outrage over Epstein. For more check out my Substack article: substack.com/home/post/p-...
Our Obsession with Epstein Is the Mark of a Shithole Culture
If you want to understand how we ended up with a president who derides war heroes for being captured, you might start with what Americans click on, binge, and argue about.
substack.com
