Why?

Why I'm starting a Substack

I have a lot of writing outlets—in fact, I’m behind most of the time on writing I’ve committed to doing. So why do I need another one?

I’m starting this purely for myself. I need an outlet to write (blog?) about topics other than those I write about as President of the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI), where I write about taxes, tech, regulation, energy, and other hard policy stuff. I’m happy if you read that too.

But I need an outlet for other things. I also do not at all assume that anyone is interested in reading what I write here. So the plan is to never charge subscriptions, never really promote content, etc. It will always be wide open. This site will probably never be of interest to most people because the topics are going to all over the place. Utterly unrelated to anything.

Probably only my mother will be interested in reading this, and I’m sure she will be disappointed by some of it.

I can see topics ranging from my thoughts on Christian theology, music, landscaping (mostly trees), vintage Bang & Olufsen audio equipment, streaming shows I’m watching, technology, and maybe even sharing links to other things I’ve written elsewhere. It’s going to simply be a collection of stuff I want to express and record for myself and for anyone who cares.

Now that I’ve talked you out of reading it, it’s possible that some may find some of this interesting. I do have an entire lifetime of studying, reading, observing, thinking, and screwing up. I will try to maintain some kind of topical keyword index so if you’re interested in only one of my interests, you can get there without sorting through all the other crap.

On the off chance that you read and like or want to respond to something on here, I would of course love to hear about it, but I don’t argue. I’m too old to argue, and having a really smart son taught me years ago that arguing is a waste of time. If you just want to argue, I couldn’t give a wet slap. You’re either interested in hearing my thoughts, or you aren’t.

Other than that, let’s have at it.