On Substack

Is substack the solution? I'm thinking something like a redone blog with emails isn't the answer. Actually, I'm thinking that we need to have even more "think on your own time" than what blogs or other forms of creation allow for. I'm thinking of how Baldwin said that he liked writing with a pen because it created a different kind of thinking. Certainly, just throwing things out there is an internet strength, but maybe it shouldn't be just that id multiplier? Maybe you should really have to go slow?

"I'm not sure this is the solution, though it does seem better than SM (well what isn't?) and it does seem to fund individuals better. Still, is it better $ spent than an LRB sub? I doubt it. Yet something like substack (and what medium was for a short while) could be quite the place for info and insight, much like, lets say, an LRB sub (or NYRB etc etc). One issue is there's no way to bundle things (turning it into a mag and so is it much different?), no real way to discover (will we fall back on old tricks? SEO etc?) something worth discovering and, finally, I'm not sure it solves the issue that even blogs tend to have (that we should be having a discussion not try to score points or pontificate). I'm still thinking of how to discuss things with friends I know are good faith actors (let alone many strangers whose intentions I don't know). This boils down to allowing view to evolve, to define terms before the discussion even starts, to have a way to find fact and confirm them. It would make for a very live "text" that people can work on. I don't think wikipedia is it, but it might be something like it. One way to know we're on the right track is if you can have a group of your students come (solely online) to some agreement over an online forum on a controversial topic. IOW I think there are other solutions out there not yet discovered. "

 

Thoughts?

 Edit: Also thinking about AlJazeera starting a right wing channel? Well here are some thoughtful words on it:

A solid response, and AJN does give some good stories. The comments, of course, are more or less typical western-chauvinist ones that point to Qatar (fair, but the west as its own issues it needs to deal with before pointing fingers and, also, AJN had and has great news on the west's bs, but not, of course, on Qatar's bs) and its crimes. But, like I said above. No discussion. Just a mud flinging session. I will have something to say on, say, Qatar and the migrant workers dying there, vs the many more dead on Europe's shores (by policy, I should say) and the current European sentiment that the Qatari actions are beyond the pale. Not saying that only the sinless can work to make the world better, but that this isn't how you do it.

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