Physics & Philosophy | https://xitter.cf/t.co/TmkaWqz6hH
Joined April 2023
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I try to be a man of my word, and after a year of looking for good places, building this is the best compromise I could find. It's not ideal, but right now I can't support myself doing this, so it's a short term relief.
However I now have a place to publish my work again, which has had a consistent output for 4+ years. And despite the numbers or having my writing deleted off other sites, I will continue for as long as I can.
The first (new) project has already been released, although it was supposed to come out last December - a 17,000+ word dialogue. I think there are too many essays in general, and we need something different, so the first part has been uploaded but the rest will follow soon.
None of this is a big deal. It's not a book, business project, or scientific result; nor are my ideas and writing for everyone, but I intend to publish more in the years ahead and the support helps a lot.
I'll share the link in a comment to avoid the usual blocks.
If a writer has 100+ articles but nothing has been well received, they generally choose one of two options. Either they go the commercial route, changing what they write to the tune of the audience. Or they keep writing from within, because they have something to say which comes from a source they cannot explain. Most times it's obvious who is going to take what path.
There are elements to the human voice which let us trust a person more than if we've only engaged with them via text. A conversation with an author can build a relationship in a way that reading their book cannot. This is why posting is not enough and why podcasts tend to work.
For someone who's in the arts, sciences, or scholarship of some kind, there is no "business". The business is them. They can't abandon their work because it's a bad idea or doesn't accumulate customers. If they did, they would have to abandon themselves.
STEM people have just as poor judgement in the humanities as the humanities people have poor technical ability in science. But the former are usually worse because they venture opinions more often and with more confidence when it would have been better if they said nothing.
Maintaining long term relationships in a group is very difficult. If regular interactions are no longer needed, which takes a lot of work, it fizzles apart. And this happens for everything - colleagues, friends, classmates, online. So it's good to appreciate when you have it.
Today we have to hold back our political views from a powerful liberal regime in the same way the early scientists had to avoid the Church. Which is interesting because, if I'm not mistaken, the decades before the reign of terror had more political freedom than what we see now.
I always liked how both Plutarch and Schopenhauer, two completely different people, still agreed that the philosophic mind cannot help but concern itself with every subject matter. And I would add that it's noticeable how this trait is not as common in other disciplines.
This might be "wasteful" but at least it's not an investment going into another business or another tech project expecting some return. It's genuine philanthropy.
Ken Griffin, a Harvard Alumnus, just gave $3 billion to Carnegie Mellon University.
Carnegie Mellon says the gift is the result of two years of talks with Griffin.
Here’s Griffin talking about Harvard a little over two years ago, in January 2024:
He asks if Harvard will return to educating young people to be leaders or remain “lost in the wilderness” of DEI, and says, “I’m not interested in supporting the institution.”
He had just given $300 million to Harvard in 2023.