October 2026

Luma AI COO Caroline Ingeborn argues that generative AI could help bring more film and television production to Los Angeles by lowering costs without replacing creative professionals. She points to “hybrid filmmaking,” in which actors and crews work onstage while AI places performances in different environments, as a way to make ambitious projects more feasible to produce locally.

Glenn Tiffert, a Hoover Institution research fellow, argues that China’s military role in the Arctic remains limited, but its ability to operate there is growing through research, ice-capable ships and commercial activity. Those investments can build knowledge and options with potential military uses, even as China seeks greater influence over regional governance. Tiffert says restrictions on Chinese investment in Western Arctic states have narrowed Beijing’s path there and redirected more of its activity toward Russia.

SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station on Crew-13, a scheduled rotation that will include a handover with the departing crew. Bloomberg space correspondent Loren Grush said four more crew-rotation missions are planned after this one, but the longer-term role of Crew Dragon in NASA’s program is uncertain; speculation that SpaceX may retire the capsule after the ISS program ends is not a confirmed plan.

SpaceX launched four astronauts aboard Dragon Grace to the International Space Station, continuing the series of crew-rotation flights NASA uses to keep the station staffed. The crew is expected to live and work there for six months, making the launch part of the recurring transport operation that supports the station’s continuous staffing.

Historian Andrew Roberts argues that Britain’s declining pride in its history reflects a public account of the past that emphasizes the British Empire’s abuses while giving too little weight to achievements such as the abolition of slavery. He says that imbalance weakens national confidence by making it harder for people to feel pride in the country’s future. Roberts draws a parallel with the removal of a statue of Thomas Jefferson, arguing that acknowledging historical wrongdoing need not erase other achievements worth remembering.

Suno chief executive Mikey Shulman argues that AI could make music less passive by letting listeners remix, cover and collaborate with their favorite artists. In a Bloomberg Tech interview, he says those experiences could draw people into making music and expand the business, while partnerships with rights holders could support products built around licensed music, voices or likenesses. These are possibilities he describes, not products he says are already available.

Elizabeth Gilbert argues that resentment in relationships can reveal expectations a person had not admitted to having. When disappointment shows her what she wanted, she says, she can either take responsibility for that desire or sulk. Gilbert also says romance makes it harder for her to separate her moods from her partner: she has learned that bad feelings can arise without anyone causing them, yet still finds herself blaming a partner when she is in a relationship.

Historian Andrew Roberts argues that Napoleon and Winston Churchill’s capacity for command was built through military education, historical study and the confidence to act under pressure. He describes their sense of purpose as a “holy fire”: not religious faith, but a conviction that their actions were good, right and necessary, even when command carried a human cost.

In an interview with Tim Ferriss, entrepreneur and investor Kevin Ryan argues that the Internet’s early commercial potential was clear to people who watched how users behaved, even as established companies declined to act. After testing the idea with a Dilbert website at United Media, Ryan left to join DoubleClick, where rapid international expansion helped turn an early foothold in online advertising into a market-leading business.

Military historian Si Sheppard argues that a few hundred Spaniards did not defeat the Aztec and Inca empires on their own: Indigenous allies supplied most of the fighters, often joining the Spanish to pursue their own political aims. Horses, steel and the capture of rulers helped turn those alliances into military leverage, but the conquests also depended on divisions within the empires and the vulnerability of centralized rule. Sheppard’s account treats the outcomes as contingent campaigns shaped by local choices, within a longer contest increasingly tilted by disease, sea power and accumulated European knowledge.

DoxxNet founder Barrett Lyon argues that privacy tools such as VPNs leave the internet’s underlying reliance on centralized infrastructure largely unchanged. In a conversation with a16z’s Joel de la Garza, he describes DoxxNet as a separately controlled mesh network designed to let users communicate and transfer files directly, without routing those exchanges through central application servers. Lyon says the project reflects a broader need to rethink internet protocols as tracking expands and collected data becomes easier to analyze with AI.

Bodybuilder and YouTuber Sam Sulek argues that progress depends less on finding perfect exercises or plans than on making sustained effort and basic habits part of ordinary life. He favors hard training over chasing novel variations, and applies the same preference for fundamentals to diet and motivation. Sulek also says he has chosen to coach himself because he wants to own both the decisions and their results.

Hoover economists John Cogan, Michael Boskin and David Henderson trace Thomas Sowell’s influence to a method that joined economic history with close scrutiny of assumptions and evidence. They argue that Sowell used that method to challenge ideas from Say’s Law to Keynesian economics, then brought economic reasoning to a broad readership through clear prose and concrete examples.

KCRW president Jennifer Ferro argues that public-service media cannot rely on its mission alone to hold an audience: it has to make work people find interesting. In a Masters of Scale conversation with Jeff Berman, Ferro draws on her years as deputy to KCRW founder Ruth Seymour to explain why candor about dull programming matters, and why stations must build community beyond the radio dial.

Former Navy SEAL and podcast host Shawn Ryan says the pursuit of intensity that shaped his military and contracting careers continued after he left service, drawing him into drugs and dangerous situations. In an interview with Steven Bartlett, Ryan describes how therapy, psychedelic treatments and a turn toward Catholicism changed his life, while acknowledging that he cannot establish what caused the frightening experiences he interprets as spiritual oppression. He argues that personal alignment also means turning down money and opportunities—and limiting work—to protect his independence and time with his family.