distance elasticity −1.97***
contiguity −1.855***
common language −1.759***
US MLAT suppression −2.539***
observations 353,983
cryptomarkets 10
drug categories 57
exporters 63
importers 88
classifier accuracy 98.4%
distance elasticity −1.97***
contiguity −1.855***
common language −1.759***
US MLAT suppression −2.539***
observations 353,983
cryptomarkets 10
drug categories 57
exporters 63
importers 88
classifier accuracy 98.4%
Writing
Essays on labor, technology, and political economy — alongside archived columns from the Daily Californian, where an interest in argument first became a writing practice.
Essays & Commentary
Published on Substack. On automation, comparative advantage, and what institutions get wrong about human value.
March 1, 2026 · Ryder's Substack
Professional Purgatory II: When Intellect Became Abundant
AI didn't replace white-collar work — it cheapened it. On the labor supply shock hiding inside the productivity boom, and what happens to identity when the thing you were paid to do becomes abundant.
February 27, 2026 · Ryder's Substack
Professional Purgatory I: When the Machine No Longer Needs Your Mind
There is a tenth circle of hell — and we clock into it every morning. On compliance, automation, and the executive who learned to mistake obedience for competence.
Daily Californian Archive · 2019–2021
Opinion columns written for UC Berkeley's independent student newspaper between 2019 and 2021. Personal in the way only early-twenties journalism can be: earnest, occasionally furious, and written from the vantage point of a kid from rural Virginia who ended up at Berkeley by way of San Francisco.
April 2021 · Off the Beat
NYC's Inferno: Sin in the 21st Century
Dante meets disposable camera. Moving to New York amid pandemic grief, mapping the city's underbelly onto the nine circles of hell.
November 2020 · Opinion
Electoral Cannibalism: The Ritual of Division
Every four years the country offers us a ritual through which to name our enemies. On Blacksburg in 2016, class, and the herd we pretend not to belong to.
More pieces from this column — on grief, gerrymandering, and the American South — at writing-dailycal.html.