Hello! An exciting announcement: I am cohosting and participating in The UTOPIA Debates, a night of lively public debates in San Francisco on Wednesday, December 10 at 7pm, alongside a fantastic slate of other writers.
I would love to see my readers there. Tickets are free, but limited!
We’ll be sparring over what I curated as “the most SF topics possible”—or really, the most interesting societal questions of the moment—superbabies, AI/taste, full labor automation, and of course, whether SF is more back than ever or a meaningless dystopian hell.
I’ll be taking the “Yes” side of “Can you teach an AI taste?,” and my opponent is the acclaimed novelist, software engineer, and olive oil purveyor Robin Sloan—one of my favorite interlocutors on tech and creativity, and someone I’m frankly a bit intimidated to refute!
But any one of these topics or writers—Mike Solana, Sam Kriss, Noah Smith, Brian Merchant, Josie Zayner, PhD, Kristen Brown—is worth showing up to hear from. The whole event is hosted in partnership with Substack.
Or just come for the venue! The event will take place at Bimbo’s 365, an iconic North Beach nightclub that’s hosted the likes of Rita Hayworth, Adele, Jamie XX, and now…. some Substackers, I guess. I visited the venue last week and it’s spectacular in the way only a 95-year-old San Francisco fixture can be.
I’ve been hoping to do more public events in SF, so would be thrilled to see you all for an evening of fiery takes, classic cocktails, and good-natured dunks. I think it’s going to be a blast.
Doors/cocktail hour opens at 7pm, and the debate begins at 7:30pm. Light heckling is encouraged; so are debate prep tips. If anyone can help get Mayor Lurie to show up and say “Let’s go San Francisco,'“ that’d make my month.
See you on December 10!
Jasmine