i used “what were you trying to say here” a lot when i was teaching writing — it is shockingly effective at aiming people towards producing actually effective prose.
Humanities has some of the value of travel, challenging preconceptions, and some of the value of great conversation with someone exceptionally bright. That no one reads or has a traditional liberal arts education these days is not terribly indicative of its value, which i think is both easy to under and over state.
Related, I'm planning on doing a writing workshop with Jonathan Mann in New York a few weeks, people can ping me if interested (it'll be on the obnyc mailing list if you're there).
I'll use LLMs to locate sources. My last published post quoted a 1933 essay whose author paraphrased "the Kabbalah". I gave the full quote to GPT-5 Thinking, asking it where this idea likely originated. It responded with a very specific location in one Babylonian tractate. I assumed the response was a hallucination until I looked up the tractate myself and confirmed. Back to my essay, I just cited the tractate directly.
Of all the Substacks in the land that I’ve tried, yours is the one I’d likely retain.
It’s sufficiently nutritious and worth spending an occasionally morning with.
Also I can hear you writing it as I read. :)
I also don’t use AI in writing at all — we acquired Pixelberry (the maker of Choices: Stories You Play) at my last company with the desire to reinvent their processes top-to-bottom with AI tools.
If you’re writing more trope-y stories then well designed tools can accelerate your path meaningfully and well.
The best performing and most-loved Choices books were the ones that a human labored over most.
Years back, I remember having a chat with someone at Lyft about their perspectives on self-driving cars — that they were interested in having them available for surge windows, especially — and I wonder if AI-based entertainment and writing will fill a similar purpose.
Best to fill key gaps, but not as primary focus for things that required that human hand.
Regarding Asimov and Clarke not studying humanities, the question you should ask is whether they had liberal arts education. If Asimov did physics major in the US, he likely had a liberal arts education which would have helped him think through some of those futuristic questions. The purpose of liberal arts education is to give the student a wide exposure to writings on these questions from a range of disciplines.
> I quote this because ‘study the humanities’ is a natural thing to say to someone looking to write or think about the future, and yet I agree that when I look at the list of people whose thinking about the future has influenced me, I notice essentially none of them have studied the humanities.
I note the same, but I do really worry this is a "me" (or "us") problem.
The rat way of trying to understand almost all things from first principles has obvious value, but equally obvious cost. So much rediscovery. So much summary wisdom that could be net positive unsought and unused.
Where are the great translators and antiquarians of the softer sciences? The equivalent of level 4 up at level 2?
This is not a rhetorical question. I know it invites some overly obvious recommendations ("hey have you heard of Scott Alexander?") but I will bet answers have value.
This has been my experience of interacting with (and 'being') a 'rationalist' – SOMEONE inevitably can reference some of the prior work and help translate the existing 'literature' and I think that frequently, if very modestly, inspires some others to explore it too.
But most of the value isn't 'everyone' engaging with the literature, but of some (but several) people helpfully translating and summarizing the key insights – versus 'just read A'.
Asimov wasn't credentialed in the humanities but he very definitely studied them extensively and it shows in his work, from The Annotated Byron to the Foundation series to Asimov's Guide to the Bible. Likewise with Bradbury.
Appreciate the "wrote the report" view on "just say what you mean." Often you can't say what you mean until you write the thing. An effective but expensive technique for leveraging this benefit is to (a) write the thing, then (b) wait >24 hours and *rewrite* it from scratch without looking at the original draft. The second draft will usually be much better, but this approach is so vastly wasteful (and often the first draft is "good enough") that I rarely use it.
I'll throw my hat in this ring as well. The odd snippets of content about Magic are always a delight, and I feel like reading them has made me a better player, versus not really getting much out of ChannelFireball or whatever. Too often other pros these days seem to be caught in the trap of self-recommending boosterism, and that leads to ill-advised advice where cards hyped as The Next Big Thing tend to be panned by the market (and meta) once the dust settles. Whereas you being detached by virtue of no longer actively playing or getting paid for doing such content leads to a more even-keeled first-principles analysis. Plus the freedom of just being able to state plainly that It's A Bad Card/Game Design Choice, Sir.
What's the cost to start another Substack blog? Almost all of your writing is very 'dense' (and LONG), but I still enjoy reading (or skimming) your gaming takes and I'd like to continue to do so if there's some way you can compartmentalize it easily/cheaply.
Stephenson's "Why I Am a Bad Correspondent" was written in the 1990s, so it's quite possible he's making more money than that now! (But also, writing books pays terribly, so I wouldn't be super surprised if it's still true.)
i used “what were you trying to say here” a lot when i was teaching writing — it is shockingly effective at aiming people towards producing actually effective prose.
Humanities has some of the value of travel, challenging preconceptions, and some of the value of great conversation with someone exceptionally bright. That no one reads or has a traditional liberal arts education these days is not terribly indicative of its value, which i think is both easy to under and over state.
Podcast episode on this post:
https://open.substack.com/pub/dwatvpodcast/p/on-writing-2
"Although soon AI can perhaps do it for him?"
I like how this is ambiguous - could refer either to answering emails or to writing books 😐
Do you consider yourself a successful writer? I only take advice from unsuccessful writers.
All this assumes you are writing to make an impact. Some of us do it for fun!
Related, I'm planning on doing a writing workshop with Jonathan Mann in New York a few weeks, people can ping me if interested (it'll be on the obnyc mailing list if you're there).
I’ve always been curious about your approach ; very interesting, thanks for sharing.
I'll use LLMs to locate sources. My last published post quoted a 1933 essay whose author paraphrased "the Kabbalah". I gave the full quote to GPT-5 Thinking, asking it where this idea likely originated. It responded with a very specific location in one Babylonian tractate. I assumed the response was a hallucination until I looked up the tractate myself and confirmed. Back to my essay, I just cited the tractate directly.
Of all the Substacks in the land that I’ve tried, yours is the one I’d likely retain.
It’s sufficiently nutritious and worth spending an occasionally morning with.
Also I can hear you writing it as I read. :)
I also don’t use AI in writing at all — we acquired Pixelberry (the maker of Choices: Stories You Play) at my last company with the desire to reinvent their processes top-to-bottom with AI tools.
If you’re writing more trope-y stories then well designed tools can accelerate your path meaningfully and well.
The best performing and most-loved Choices books were the ones that a human labored over most.
Years back, I remember having a chat with someone at Lyft about their perspectives on self-driving cars — that they were interested in having them available for surge windows, especially — and I wonder if AI-based entertainment and writing will fill a similar purpose.
Best to fill key gaps, but not as primary focus for things that required that human hand.
Anyway, keep going please. :)
Regarding Asimov and Clarke not studying humanities, the question you should ask is whether they had liberal arts education. If Asimov did physics major in the US, he likely had a liberal arts education which would have helped him think through some of those futuristic questions. The purpose of liberal arts education is to give the student a wide exposure to writings on these questions from a range of disciplines.
> I quote this because ‘study the humanities’ is a natural thing to say to someone looking to write or think about the future, and yet I agree that when I look at the list of people whose thinking about the future has influenced me, I notice essentially none of them have studied the humanities.
I note the same, but I do really worry this is a "me" (or "us") problem.
The rat way of trying to understand almost all things from first principles has obvious value, but equally obvious cost. So much rediscovery. So much summary wisdom that could be net positive unsought and unused.
Where are the great translators and antiquarians of the softer sciences? The equivalent of level 4 up at level 2?
This is not a rhetorical question. I know it invites some overly obvious recommendations ("hey have you heard of Scott Alexander?") but I will bet answers have value.
This has been my experience of interacting with (and 'being') a 'rationalist' – SOMEONE inevitably can reference some of the prior work and help translate the existing 'literature' and I think that frequently, if very modestly, inspires some others to explore it too.
But most of the value isn't 'everyone' engaging with the literature, but of some (but several) people helpfully translating and summarizing the key insights – versus 'just read A'.
Asimov wasn't credentialed in the humanities but he very definitely studied them extensively and it shows in his work, from The Annotated Byron to the Foundation series to Asimov's Guide to the Bible. Likewise with Bradbury.
Appreciate the "wrote the report" view on "just say what you mean." Often you can't say what you mean until you write the thing. An effective but expensive technique for leveraging this benefit is to (a) write the thing, then (b) wait >24 hours and *rewrite* it from scratch without looking at the original draft. The second draft will usually be much better, but this approach is so vastly wasteful (and often the first draft is "good enough") that I rarely use it.
Consider whether starting a separate blog for gaming would work, if you're actually sad about not doing/sharing that writing. I'd love to read.
Yes, came here to say the same thing. Substack makes it very easy to have separate blogs.
Another signal boost that I would subscribe to a gaming only zvi blog
Yes I would maybe even be more interested in reading Zvi his gaming takes
I'll throw my hat in this ring as well. The odd snippets of content about Magic are always a delight, and I feel like reading them has made me a better player, versus not really getting much out of ChannelFireball or whatever. Too often other pros these days seem to be caught in the trap of self-recommending boosterism, and that leads to ill-advised advice where cards hyped as The Next Big Thing tend to be panned by the market (and meta) once the dust settles. Whereas you being detached by virtue of no longer actively playing or getting paid for doing such content leads to a more even-keeled first-principles analysis. Plus the freedom of just being able to state plainly that It's A Bad Card/Game Design Choice, Sir.
What's the cost to start another Substack blog? Almost all of your writing is very 'dense' (and LONG), but I still enjoy reading (or skimming) your gaming takes and I'd like to continue to do so if there's some way you can compartmentalize it easily/cheaply.
I want to be a Level 1, I think I'm a Level 2, though I'm happy to accept that I'm probably just a Level 3 - though in reality I'm a Level 4.
Stephenson's "Why I Am a Bad Correspondent" was written in the 1990s, so it's quite possible he's making more money than that now! (But also, writing books pays terribly, so I wouldn't be super surprised if it's still true.)