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Welcome to Asterisk!
Asterisk is the little magazine of the San Francisco Bay Area — which is to say, we’re the little magazine of the world, a few years in advance.
We put our scenes and subcultures in conversation with themselves, and with everyone else. We are the only magazine that has published both Aella and Lyman Stone. We’re the sort of place where you are as likely to read an in-depth debate about whether AI will lead to economic growth as a personal exploration of Bay Area cults, or an agenda for Africa’s YIMBY movement.
We publish new pieces here every Wednesday. Or get our print magazine delivered to your door. (We look good online, but we look even better on paper.)
To catch you up, here are some of our most popular pieces from past issues.
You can also order back issues from our store.
As always, we hope you enjoy.
—Clara Collier & Angela Chen, Editors
Why You’ve Never Been in a Plane Crash
by Kyra Dempsey
The United States leads the world in airline safety. That’s because of the way we assign blame when accidents do happen. Read now —> Issue 05: Mistakes
How Long Til We’re All on Ozempic?
by Greg Justice
Over 100 million Americans, and possibly many more, could benefit from GLP-1 drugs. When can they expect to get them? Read now —> Issue 07: Development
America Doesn’t Know Tofu
by George Stiffman
China has spent millennia exploring the culinary possibilities of soybean curds. The West has barely scratched the surface. Read now —> Issue 02: Food
Why Isn’t The Whole World Rich?
by Dietrich Vollrath
The question of why some countries join the developed world while others remain in poverty has vexed economists for decades. What makes it so hard to answer? Read now —> Issue 01: Inaugural
Manufacturing Bliss
by Nadia Asparouhova
A growing community centered on the Bay Area is rediscovering the jhanas, a meditation technique that practitioners claim could upend how we think about the brain — and transform our lives in the process. Read now —> Issue 06: California
The Great Inflection? A Debate About AI and Explosive Growth
by Matt Clancy and Tamay Besiroglu
A conversation about what happens to the economy when intelligence becomes too cheap to meter. Read now —> Issue 03: AI
You’re Invited to a Colonoscopy
by Dynomight
Colonoscopies are the first-line method for preventing colorectal cancer in America —and almost nowhere else. But do they work? We finally have a comprehensive trial, but it’s left gastroenterologists with more questions than answers. Read now —> Issue 04: Measurement
The Making of Community Notes
Interview with X’s Community Notes Team
The team that built X’s Community Notes talks about their design process and the philosophy behind their approach to combatting false information on the platform. Read now —> Issue 08: Communities
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