Feed It Back

In which I probe your brains

I.

I’m curious about you. Yes, about each of you.

And I want to learn from you.

So today, I’m giving you the proverbial microphone.

The Substack dashboard can tell me a few things - over half of you are from the US (dominated by CA and NY), for example - but that’s pretty impersonal, isn’t it? Also, I want Thinking Ahead to be a virtual place you enjoy visiting if you’re looking for a weird idea or two. While I remain the helmsman of this place, I am always open to feedback.

Hence this post. Why?

• There’s been a tiny uptick in subscribers in the past few weeks. Hi, new people, welcome to Wonderland. I’m curious to hear what you think and what you are interested in.

• Substack has a poll feature. I think this is a good idea to get some feedback and perhaps I don’t use it enough.

• My writing here is beginning to crystallize around two broad topics (of course there are posts that don’t belong in either category):

  • Psychology and minds: trying to figure out what it’s like to be human, why we feel things the way we sometimes do, and the occasional side quest to non-human minds.

  • Technology and science meet society: speculative thoughts on what the future might look like, lately (obviously) with a focus on AI, but I’ve got several other ideas brewing.

• I’m also thinking about the newsletter in general. What works, what doesn’t, and so on.

Anyway, on to you.

II.

As far as I can tell, these polls are anonymous, so be as brutally honest as you want to be. I’m going to leave them open for three days and if I missed anything, comments are welcome.

Okay, a brief break, otherwise you might burn out from the polling. The next (and don’t worry, final) three are not about this newsletter, but they’re more general. Ready? Here we go.

You made it! Thanks for letting me probe your brain. I know time is a valuable, non-renewable resource, so I appreciate you sharing some of it with me.

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