February 2026 Updates

Hello readers! I have three brief announcements I wanted to share this month.

Misaligned Markets is on Medium and Bluesky

I’ve started writing blog posts on Medium under Mike @ Misaligned Markets to share my ideas with a broader audience. Most of these will be reposts; however, occasionally I will write new content over there. Right now you can read two new posts that haven’t been published here:

1. Greed is not selfishness: This post is a rewrite of one of my earliest posts Beyond greed, where I elaborate on goal misalignment via my metaphor to Aristotle’s notion of “wealth-getting” or chrematistics.

2. Chrematistics and why we struggle to solve societal problems: This is a follow-up to Greed is not selfishness and ties in to many of the themes I talked about in an early post titled When optimization goes wrong.

In addition to Medium, I’m also now on Bluesky. I’m still active on Mastodon as well. Feel free to say hello!

Updated charity donation pledge

A year ago I published a post called Risking Risks which is a list of books on social and environmental risk available through my bookshop.org store. Since the post was published around the time of the 2025 Los Angeles fires, proceeds were pledged to California Fire Foundation’s Wildfire & Disaster Relief fund.

I now want to expand the scope of organizations I’m supporting. I’m starting by changing the pledged organization for this book list to the Union of Concerned Scientists. Given the Draconian cuts to science in the United States over the past year, as well as the subsequent brain drain, this feels timely. The Union through its independent funding is able to do policy and scientific work towards many of the issues specifically highlighted across the 12 books on the list.

Going forward, I may adopt the practice of rotating which organizations I’m supporting through my work. Also, be on the lookout for other book lists pledging to other groups. And don’t hesitate to name or suggest ones you’re personally interested in supporting, I can see if I can work them in!

Open invitation for feedback!

Misaligned Markets is growing in subscribers! I’m interested in growing a community, so I’d love to hear from you to learn why you subscribed or if there are specific topics you’re hoping I can cover through my writing and upcoming podcast. If you’re subscribed you can leave a comment on this post after logging in. You can also contact me any time using the email provided at the bottom of the about page.

Thanks for reading!