There are many things that I enjoy in life, one of them being writing this Substack. But like many people, I also enjoy having money (especially when I reach the latter third of the month, where half of my diet consists in rice, due to it being very cheap). For this reason, I am graciously giving you all the opportunity to give me money by enabling paid subscriptions! As I am not posting on a regular schedule as of yet, I won’t be paywalling any posts as of now, as it would be unfair to you to charge you money and then just ghost you. But there are of course plenty of other good reasons to subscribe—by subscribing you will:
Make me eternally happy and grateful
Be sent a loving thought every night before I go to bed
Allow me to vary my diet beyond daal with rice
And most importantly:
I will be donating 20% of everything I earn through this Substack to effective charities—and that’s pretax, baby!1
So subscribing to me will also be a roundabout way of donating to charities (though still probably more effective than donating to your local dog shelter), and will thus help alleviate the curse that Peter Singer has cast on you! The options for subscriptions are $5 a month, or $50 a year. If you are feeling extra generous you can also become a founding member and forever take up real estate in my heart!
So take the Give Me What You Can pledge, and start making a difference today:
More specifically, I will be donating to Giv Effektivt, which is basically the Danish version of GiveWell.
The best and brightest philosophers are the ones most likely to have a very strong, albeit subconscious, intuition that:
1. (Correlation) The best ideas are among the most wrong and harmful.
However, they are also likely very consciously aware that:
2. (Observation) Creating echo chambers increases how wrong and harmful ideas become.
Now, given the interplay of their subconscious and conscious, it is very understandable that they might generate the following semi-conscious reasoning:
3. (From 1, Inferred Causation) The quality of an idea is identical to how wrong and harmful it is
4 (From 2 & 3) I can increase the quality of my ideas by creating an echo chamber
5 (From 4, Implementation) I can create an echo chamber by instituting paid prescriptions)
6 (Summary & Value Judgment) It is a good and wholesome thing for me to institute paid subscriptions
I applaud you if the semi-conscious process that led to you considering paid subscriptions followed the pattern above. It would suggest that you are among the best and brightest philosophers
I wish I had money to give you man, or any money at all for that matter haha :'), also completely broke and can relate to the rice stuff haha. I truly wish non-broke people will show up and help you though! Good luck :)