Paid Subscription Drive

A highlight of some epic posts that you're missing out on!

On most days, I spend at least two hours writing this blog. In total, I make from it about $16,000 a year—quite a good amount, but obviously not enough to live off. Now, that’s fine right now, as I’m still in school, but there’s some chance that in the long term, I’d like to blog full time. In order to do that, I’d need to get more of you paying me money. So, here’s where I’ll try to get you to do that.

As I see it, there are a few reasons to pay me.

First is that, as the economists tell us, writing is likely to be underproduced in a free market. Every paid subscriber values my writing at more than $7 a month (well, some might be paying for altruistic reasons, but we can assume that’s a small percentage of people). However, my free subscribers presumably value reading my writing at least some amount. Therefore, we should expect the amount of money I’m making from substack to be considerably less than the value that my articles provide to readers. My articles give rise to positive externalities—because most readers don’t pay me, when I write an article, it provides a benefit to readers from which I don’t make any money.

Second, I write about important things. My writing about shrimp welfare prevented probably around 600 million shrimp from enduring a painful death (well, they still will die, but at least it won’t be painful). Lots of people have told me that they went vegan or donated more to effective charities because of my articles, including one of my biggest critics. Thus, if you think that I do important work, I’d greatly appreciate if you paid me to do more of it!

Third, if you become a paid subscriber, you’ll get access to a lot of juicy articles. Many of my essays are paywalled, so you’re missing out on many essays. These include:

How I Write So Many Articles: I write about 1,500 words a day. Here, I give advice on how to write a lot and well.

Nate Silver Derangement Syndrome: in this one I talk about the utterly deranged criticisms people constantly make of Nate Silver.

The Time A Debate Judge Docked Me Based On Utilitarianism Being All Lives Matter Logic: in this one I tell an absolutely absurd and hilarious story from debate, the details of which are almost beyond belief.

Advice For The Romanceless: For my first many years of life, I was romanceless. In this article, I give advice to others that are romanceless about how to find love!

How To Get Big On Substack: In total, I have about 4,500 substack readers, and I get on net about 13 new subscribers per day. Here, I give advice about how to have a prominent substack blog.

Against Critical Theory: Pretty much what it sounds like. I argue that critical theory is not good, and that it’s not productive that we have a giant research field churning out claims like:

Having elaborated on settler moves to innocence, we give a synopsis of the imbrication of settler colonialism with transnationalist, abolitionist, and critical pedagogy movements - efforts that are often thought of as exempt from Indigenous decolonizing analyses - as a synthesis of how decolonization as material, not metaphor, unsettles the innocence of these movements.

Deep Theism: Here I reflect on what one should think about the horrors brought about by a perfect and loving God.

Concrete Ways To Make Interesting Friends: I have a very large number of incredibly smart and interesting friends. Some of my closest friends are also among the smartest people I’ve ever met. This isn’t by chance—there are some easy way to make smart and interesting friends that I talk about in this essay.

The Good "The Good It Promises And The Harm It Does" Promises And The Harm It Does: In this one, I completely go off on the absolutely terrible book “The Good It Promises And The Harm It Does.” I had to paywall this one because of the extent of the polemicism.

What Can Analytic Philosophy Teach Us?: In this one, I explain why I disagree with Dan Williams about how good analytic philosophy is.

On Being Bad At Math: I’m bad at math! In this article, I talk about that, and why you shouldn’t think that being bad at math makes you automatically stupid.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. You can also see the details of my internet beef with Walt Bismarck, my views on feminism and HBD, and much, much more! And this isn’t even mentioning my many upcoming paywalled articles.

So, if you find the stuff I write valuable—or even just entertaining—I’d encourage you to give the 7 dollars a month it takes to read my paywalled articles (if you’re really generous, you can also become a founding member!). For around the cost of a single meal, you can get access to a wealth of epic articles, and incentivize me to write more articles! No worries if you don’t though—in any case, thanks for reading my blog. Blogging is my main hobby and one of my favorite things to do; I appreciate you all being along for the ride!