Questions without settled answers.

Geopolitics, history and technology, examined with established analytical frameworks and forecasts specific enough to be wrong.

Named for the curved staff a Roman augur used to mark out a region of sky before reading what passed through it.

The Lituus logo: a Roman augur's curved staff forming a question mark

Method

Three stages, published alongside every conclusion.

Ground it

Claims meet the historical record before they meet intuition.

Name the framework

The lens is chosen and its assumptions stated before the conclusion.

Break it

One assumption varied at a time. Whatever collapses was load-bearing.

Forecasts carry a probability and a resolution date. When one misses, the error is traced to the step that produced it.

Questions

A sample of what gets asked. The range is wider.

Production

One person and an AI stack. Published, because auditable reasoning needs an auditable process.

human judgment automated
70%
Research & scenarios — ChatGPT
45%
Script — Claude
25%
Stills — Nano Banana, Midjourney
20%
Motion — Veo 3, OmniFlash
15%
Voice — ElevenLabs
60%
Edit — CapCut

The machine owns the middle. The question and the final cut stay human.

Reading

The frameworks these run on, and the point at which each one breaks.

Changing World Order

Ray Dalio

Reserve-currency powers rise and decline through a repeating debt cycle.

Holds Gives shape to debt sustainability and currency transition.
Fails Drawn from few cases. Indicators, not a timetable.
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Animal Farm

George Orwell

Power edits the stated rule rather than repealing it.

Holds A reliable detector for narrative drift over time.
Fails Fables presume intent. Most reversals are incompetence.
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Why Nations Fail

Acemoglu & Robinson

Prosperity tracks whether institutions include or extract.

Holds Explains neighbours who share a climate and diverge anyway.
Fails Categories broad enough to fit any outcome afterwards.
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Common questions

What is The Lituus?

A channel examining open questions in geopolitics, history and technology using established analytical frameworks, counterfactual reasoning and explicit forecasts, for readers who prefer a calibrated view to a confident one.

How are the forecasts scored?

Each carries a stated probability and a resolution date. Outcomes are reviewed in public, and a miss is traced back to the specific step in the reasoning that produced it rather than blamed on circumstance.

What does "lituus" mean?

The curved staff carried by a Roman augur. It was used to mark out a region of sky before interpreting what passed through it. The instrument produced no answers; it imposed a structure on the question.

Contact

Thirty minutes, for AI production workflow, foresight work, or collaboration.

Anything else, email is faster.