Big channel announcement: 

Tentatively on next Wednesday, December 3rd, Linch Substack Chats are back! I will be having a Substack Chat (livestream) with Ozy Brennan! They’re a philosopher, published novelist and quite popular Substacker!

Their most popular post, thingofthings.substack.…, has been regularly cited by many people I know, and has been quite influential in the local discourse.

We’ll be chatting at 5pm ET/2pm PT. Unclear how long but we’ll aim for 90-120 minutes!

Below are some questions I’m interested in asking. My guess is that I’d only pick 3 clusters and riff on the rest.

Charity in speech and action

1. In both your fiction and nonfiction, I think you’re often good at inhabiting the minds and viewpoints of other people, better than even many other bloggers I respect, like Scott Alexander. What do you think you do differently that allows you to be so charitable?

2. I often lament the inability of many internet people to understand other viewpoints. Sometimes I’m snarky about it. (e.g. why do internet people fail at basic theory of mind?) Do you have advice on how other people can be more charitable, either in general or me/my subscribers in particular?

3. What’s one group of people or philosophical positions that you think my subscribers are unusually uncharitable towards? How can they be more charitable?

4. Let’s talk about charity in the other sense. Yesterday was en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G…, this week is Giving Week, and in general many charities receive the bulk of their donations in this month. Where are you donating to/where are you thinking of donating to? Why?

5. Your writing is often cross-cause within effective altruism (EA) How do you make decisions on which causes to give to?

6. [specific arguments about cause area or charity disagreements if relevant]

Substack and philosophy

1. You are one of the most popular philosophy Substack bloggers, substack.com/leaderboar…, ahead of fan favorites like Bentham’s Bulldog, Daniel Greco, Michael Huemer, and Daniel Munoz. and (though behind Pamela Anderson and “Stoic Wisdom”). It’s probably not an exaggeration to say you’re one of the top 10 most popular substack bloggers who actually write philosophy, in an analytic/academic sense. This despite having no academic experience in philosophy! What’s that like?

2. Do you read academic books and papers in philosophy? Why or why not?

3. Your most recommended post, thingofthings.substack.…, is regularly cited by bloggers and other people I know all the time [short recap]. Can you give us some backstory on how you’ve decided to write the post?

4. What’s the reception been like to thingofthings.substack.… on your end? Have you found it to be very helpful?

5. What’s one philosophical position you have that you expect to be surprising or uncommon among my audience?

On Writing

1. One of inchpin.substack.com/i/… in writing is trying to figure out simplicity and register in how to write to my target audience. You've written extensively on both fairly analytical topics and deep dives and more personal/cultural pieces. How do you decide what register to write in for a given topic?

2. Your reviews and critiques often find angles that other reviewers miss (eg your analysis of Those Who Walk Away from Omelas which basically sounds right to me). As my substack viewers know, I of course aspire to do the same thing in my own writing. What's your own process for reading something and then deciding what's actually interesting or underappreciated about it?

3. I probably absorbed some of this through reading you and our interactions at Inkhaven, but are there particularly good advice you have for aspiring bloggers and writers?

4. Do you have any fiction books in the works? What are some ideas that you find easier to explore in fiction than nonfiction?

Wild animal welfare

1. What's the basic case for wild animal welfare, most underrated argument for caring about wild animal welfare, and what's the most overrated one?

2. Where do you come down on the net happiness and suffering of animals in nature?

3. What’s your position on bees?

4. Are there any interventions you feel reasonably confident would be good if implemented at scale?

More personal/relationshippy stuff

1. I think I met you in 2016 when I was ~23 and you were ~25? [personal anecdote] At the time I felt like while I had strong opinions and some raw cognition, my personality and worldviews was still developing, but you already had complex and well-thought-out positions, not to mention was experienced and worldly. Does this match your self-image as well? If so, what are some formative moments in your intellectual history?

2. You've been one of the more thoughtful public writers on polyamory for years now. What do you think the mainstream discourse still gets most wrong about it? I’m perhaps most interested in separate questions for “mainstream poly people” and “mainstream internet people in general”

3. How has your thinking on relationships changed since you started writing about it originally?

Recommendations

1. You have many, many, many book reviews and book recommendations on your blog. If forced to choose, what are top 3 books?

2. Who are some underrated substackers our livestream viewers should consider subscribing to?

What questions do you think I should emphasize? De-emphasize? Specific questions I missed? Feel free to ask me in the comments, and hope to see you there!