This month’s free essay is longer than the normal SI essay, but Rjurik Davidson just kept on adding fascinating ideas:
Identity as narrative
Time travel’s connection to the experience of, and coping with, trauma
Life as a series of bets - and what it means when your opponent is yourself
Individual history, agency… and time travel
Large-scale history and time travel
… you get the idea. It’s a wild ride through psychotherapy, science fiction and theories of history. Yes, Marty McFly is discussed. We’re also reprinting a short story he wrote for the anthology The Time Traveler’s Almanac, “Domine” - depending on whether you read it before or after the essay, you’ll get a rather different experience.