Dear Internet, Optimism has been part of my nature for as long as I can remember. As a child I remember watching my favourite football team thinking we’d never lose. I’d believe we could win until the very end of a game no matter how badly we were losing or who the...

Dear Bill McKibben, I’ve been following your work since my early days of climate activism. Back in college, when I was first exposed to the unbelievable reality of what we so nicely call “sustainability challenges”, I remember 350.org as one of the only climate organiza...

Dear Ali Rizvi, Is systemic racism causing American police officers to disproportionately kill black suspects? George Floyd’s death on May 25th [2020] angered a nation. Everyone on all sides of the political spectrum agreed what the officers did was abhorrent. In t...

Dear Yoon Suk-yeol, I congratulate you in advance. Several months from now, when you will be inaugurated as the head of state of the Republic of Korea (South Korea), the nation will be facing numerous challenges that require your prompt intervention, like monetary comp...

Dear Jason Crawford, Early in May, you tweeted something that fascinated me. You asked “how would society change if we cured aging, and people could have as many healthy years of life as they wanted?” [1] The idea is alluring indeed. I myself wish that I could live long...

Dear Tammy Duckworth, I am writing to say what a great honor it has been to live as your constituent for the last 8 years. You are a dedicated servant to the country and Illinois as a whole. I can always take pride in knowing I've helped you remain in office, even if I'...

Dear Elon Musk, [highlight=transparent]I am intrigued and alarmed by recent reports on your comments regarding ‘population collapse’—the notion being that we risk economic catastrophe if we do not take measures to increase the number of earthlings on this tiny blue ...

Dear Darren Henley, I write to you from Cardiff, after leaving the art world of London in 2020 (I am an artist and writer) to explore creative communities outside the capital city. Your book, The Arts Dividend Revisited: Why Investment in Culture Pays, elaborated on all...

Dear Kevin Love, I write to you as a longtime fan of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Firstly, I want to thank you for being a role model and global ambassador for mental health. For many communities and cultures around the world, topics of mental health are sometimes met w...

Dear Ian Stewart, Firstly, I wanted to thank you for writing your book Do Dice Play God?. I enjoyed the tour you took readers on across the “Ages of Uncertainty”. We forget sometimes that quantum mechanics and chaos theory are relatively new discoveries. And that mode...

Dear Antony Higginbotham, I hope this finds you well, especially in these challenging times. It seems we are on the brink of several crisis's simultaneously that threaten turmoil and chaos not seen since the first half of the 20th Century. As important and pressing as those a...

Dear Jovanka Houska, You don’t know me, but I am an awful chess player. While my ratings in online rapid matches have improved, my instincts for bullet and blitz leave much to be desired. That said, I will happily watch hour upon hour of high-level chess (much to my part...

Dear Taylor Swift, I remember when I was a teenager, I was a real music snob. I didn’t like pop music, I didn’t like music that was too ‘girly’ (I’m a woman by the way, which will prove useful context for this letter), and I was very convinced of the things I did like....

Dear Paul Krugman, In Britain, we have been mired with a series of right wing governments that were elected on platforms of cheap populism and empty economic soundbites. We suffered a long decade of austerity with a repeated insistence that we must all “tighten our be...

Dear Vivienne Westwood, I am a visual artist, and recently when trying to form some ideas for upcoming projects, I was struck by the way that aesthetics change over time — not only through being reimagined, but through being commercialised. And I was also struck by the inev...

Dear Boris Johnson, Where would you be today? Where do you reckon, you’d have got, if your parents had not had you, and you were born in Peckham not the upper east side? Imagine if I swapped out Eton for a Requires Improvement state funded school. Do you think if this h...

Dear Ranil Jayawardena, Congratulations on your appointment as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Among the many weighty responsibilities of your new position is the oversight of Britain’s agricultural policy and food security strategy. You will alr...

Dear Mae Jemison, As you know, the Biden-Harris administration has requested an annual budget of $26 billion for NASA in 2023 (with similar sums projected for the years ahead). [1] While this is less than 0.5 percent of yearly U.S. government spending, it is not an in...

Dear Melanie Mitchell, This letter is long overdue, but I wanted to thank you for writing your wonderful book Complexity: A Guided Tour. As an economist, I’ve been trained to think in a rigid sort of way. And it’s taken me a number of years and a lot of re-education to u...

Dear Paul Krugman, During a pre-pandemic holiday to Phuket in 2018, I noticed something peculiar. Every district or so was plastered with advertising for cryptocurrency conventions. Poster slogans ranged from “the next ten-bagger” to “the best investment alternative”. ...

Dear Olaf Scholz, His Excellency Olaf Scholz, the Federal Chancellor of the Republic of Germany, I write to you on a critical topic that will undoubtedly have impacts on the German people, the people of the EU, and the people of the World for years and even decades ...

Dear Michel Aoun, I am Lebanon; located at the crossroads of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Europe. Famous for my exquisite beauty, diversity, glamour, European flavour, and hospitable people. I am known for my rich culture and history, which put me on the ‘must see’ lis...

Dear Jim McMahon, I am writing to you in your capacity as Shadow Minister for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about the critical issue of our nation’s food security. In a time of short-termist, sticking-plaster politics, we need a serious, credible, long-term ...

Dear Paul Krugman, During my undergraduate studies at the University of Oxford, I attended a talk that you gave there on the response of various governments to the 2008 financial crisis. I was not a student of economics — my knowledge of economics comes from reading, l...

Dear Peter Wong, I am a Cardiff resident in your Council area, and I noticed recently that the Cardiff Council website notes that you have had some involvement with the organisation Artes Mundi, which is of course an important charity in supporting and developing the...

Dear Michelle Donelan, Congratulations on your appointment as Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. You must be all too aware that two of the key issues you have inherited with the office are the privatisation of Channel 4 and the question of the future...

Dear John List, Firstly, congratulations on your new role as Chief Economist at Walmart. It’ll be interesting to see the experiments and initiatives that your team gets up to over the next few years. (I’ve also picked up a copy of your book, The Voltage Effect, and ...

Dear Eleanor, I’m not Paul Krugman. But I enjoyed the letter that you wrote to him on ‘thinking about economics’. Perhaps I can share a few thoughts with you because I am curious as to what you might make of them. (For context, my background is in economics and fi...

Dear The next president-elect of the Republic of South Korea, Dear Mr./Ms. President-elect, Whoever you are, I congratulate you in advance. Several months from now, when you will be inaugurated as the head of state of the Republic of Korea(South Korea), the nation will be facing numerous challenges that requ...

Dear Imran Khan , You are a populist leader. And a certain amount of disappointment is to be expected when the country elects a populist because it is simply not possible to translate all the ambitious (and some outlandish) campaign promises into government policy. Ta...

Dear Paul Kofman, Now and then we hear the suggestion that economists are in need of some formal accreditation. Accountants, lawyers, doctors, pilots, and teachers, after all, require certification before they can practice. So why not economists? Yes, if only we had m...

Dear Joe Biden, I am writing to you to tell you that you have wasted an opportunity. Eighty one million people voted for you last year, and I feel that you are letting them down. You worked very hard to reach this point, so why are you throwing it away? You are a De...

Dear Kemi Badenoch, I’m writing to you as a member of the LGBTQ+ community urging you to universally ban, not just restrict, conversation therapy for sexual orientation and gender identity. As the Minister for Equalities, it is your duty to uphold and preserve the legal...

Dear Kate Raworth, On the front cover of my copy of your book, Doughnut Economics, reviewer George Monbiot calls you “The John Maynard Keynes of the 21st Century”. While I’m sure that glowing endorsement helped you to sell more books, it made me cringe inside a little....

Dear Boris Johnson, I am writing to express both my confusion and astonishment at how the UK governments response to racist attacks in regards to English National Football. The government has left very different answers to the same questions through contradictory action...

Dear Joe Biden, As we head deeper into springtime this year, millions of Americans across the western United States are gearing up for what is sure to be another intense fire season. Over the past several years, our country has experienced a dramatic uptick in sev...

Dear Boris Johnson, It is with deep sadness that I am writing to you to resign from the Government. It has been an enormous privilege to serve our country as Chancellor of the Exchequer and I will always be proud of how during the pandemic we protected people’s jobs an...

Dear Ruth Jones, I am writing to you in your capacity as Shadow Minister for Agri-Innovation and Climate Adaptation. At present, Britain clearly has a long way to go to arrive at a sustainable system of farming. While piecemeal changes are being made, we are not seei...

Dear Boris Johnson, I am writing this letter in order to address this current major issue regarding the safety of women in the UK which has clearly sky rocketed to hundreds of women who are at risk due to lack of protection by the police who themselves are the danger an...

Dear Michelle Donelan, Let me take this opportunity to introduce myself and the reason I am addressing you. I am writing this letter to express my concerns about the environment, and its impact on us students of Brunel University London and other young adults who share the...

Dear Jo Stevens, I have been a Cardiff resident in your constituency for around a year now, and am writing to you regarding my experiences of train price rises across Wales. I have not travelled by train in perhaps more than a year due to the constantly increasing pr...

Dear Muhammadu Buhari, I am writing to express my concern for the country of Nigeria following recent events and my personal experience in the country over this past year. I reside in London, England, however me and my family are originally Nigerian and have visited the co...

Dear Joe Biden, Our lives are intimately tied to and dependent upon the labour of seafarers. This is because ninety per cent of the world's goods are transported through shipping. However, despite this intimate connection to the lives of almost everyone across the g...

Dear Priti Patel, I am an eighteen-year-old currently studying Politics & International Relations and the proud daughter of two incredibly hardworking and diligent immigrants. I am writing to you about the “crisis” of Immigration that we face both as a Nation and Wo...

Dear Jacob Rees-Mogg, As preparations for the Conservative party conference are underway in my home city of Birmingham, I am writing to you in your position as Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. This is a very salient time for me to write to you, as your party’s co...

Dear Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, [highlight=transparent]Firstly, I want to say thank you for your newsletter. For basketball fans around the world, your achievements, both on and off the court, have achieved a sort of mythical status. So it makes me happy that one of the greatest-of...

Dear Lord Charles Moore, [color=rgb(34, 34, 34)][highlight=transparent]It is an honour to be corresponding about Lady Thatcher with the most distinguished authority and interpreter of her in the world. [/highlight][/color]   [color=rgb(34, 34, 34)][highlight=transparent]Brit...

Dear Biden, Joe biden have big wrong as economically because he distributed billions of dolars in the pandemic . This was bad thing for economic but that was good as social state . All world effected this progress. All stock markets had big acceleration as posi...

Dear Internet, [highlight=transparent]A few weeks ago, I wrote a short letter about the “[/highlight][color=rgb(17, 85, 204)][highlight=transparent][url=https://www.collate.org/closed_letter/dealing-with-our-gelatinous-ignorance/sender]gelatinous ignorance[/url][/h...

Dear George Mumford, [highlight=transparent]I bought my second copy of The Mindful Athlete a few days ago. This time, I plan to give it to a friend as a Christmas gift. You see, this friend of mine is facing a series of setbacks and personal hardships. But I am hopeful t...