# Essays on Technology, Policy & Inquiry — Jordan Anderson

Source: https://jordananderson.work/writing/

Essays / 2026

 

# Thinking
in public.

 

 

Long-form work on institutions, computation, and inquiry. Each essay follows a question past its familiar answer and into the structure beneath it.

   
-  01 

 Trade & regulation 

##  [Friction by Other Means](https://jordananderson.work/writing/friction-by-other-means) 

 

Essay · 2026 · ~7,600 words

 

 

An investigation of the administrative machinery surrounding tariffs: customs enforcement, import review, valuation, and refunds. It asks how institutional practice can outlast a change in legal authority.

  
-  02 

 Industrial capacity 

##  [The Structural Failure of America’s Defense Industrial Base](https://jordananderson.work/writing/the-structural-failure-of-the-defense-industrial-base) 

 

Essay · 2026 · ~4,200 words

 

 

An analysis of consolidation, shareholder incentives, and the production capacity needed for military readiness. It examines government-owned, contractor-operated infrastructure as a structural alternative.

  
-  03 

 Computing & public power 

##  [The Great Recentralization](https://jordananderson.work/writing/the-great-recentralization) 

 

Essay · 2026 · ~9,000 words

 

 

An examination of the migration from personal computation to cloud infrastructure, the dependencies it creates, and the political choices that could preserve meaningful local control.

  
-  04 

 Inquiry & education 

##  [Philepistemicism](https://jordananderson.work/writing/philepistemicism) 

 

Essay · 2026 · ~9,300 words

 

 

An essay about the love of being inside inquiry rather than of having concluded. It develops a vocabulary for that stance and asks what an education built to recognize it might do differently.