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Visions of Impossibility • Chasing Sunsets

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This essay was originally written for COLLEGE 118: Global Capitals. Much of it was written on the day it was due and has not been edited since. I'm particularly unhappy with the section on Latino experiences—I think that's worth an entire essay on its own and I'm disappointed that I left it so unfinished. That said, this essay is a window into why I care about policy. I hope you find it interesting, or at least informative. • • • I leave my friend’s apartment just after midnight. Every Wednesday, he hosts dinner at his San Francisco apartment for his friends: engineers at Standard Intelligence, an AI startup he co-founded; employees at Neuralink and Anthropic; students at Stanford and MIT and Minerva University. But when I step outside, the atmosphere changes. I walk briskly to the CalTrain station, past old men in tents and young women smoking and the few cars still on the road—half of which are Waymos—as I buy my train ticket to avoid a $75 fine. I board two minutes before the last t

Visions of Impossibility • Chasing Sunsets ← Visions of Impossibility Published: June 10, 2025 This essay was originally written for COLLEGE 118: Global Capitals. Much of it was written on the day it was due and has not been edited since. I'm particularly unhappy with the section on Latino experiences—I think that's worth an entire essay on its own and I'm disappointed that I left it so unfinished. That said, this essay is a window into why I care about policy. I hope you find it interesting, or at least informative. • • • I leave my friend’s apartment just after midnight. Every Wednesday, he

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