As I turn back towards re-launching interviews over the next few weeks, I just wanted to state a few things regarding this Substack in light of its continual growth in popularity and participation (thank you all!), especially for those of you who are new here.
Policy on Comments
The policy here is very, very arbitrary. We’ve been lucky enough thus far to maintain a high standard of discussion in the comments section. All I ask is that you keep it clean and show respect to one another as has been the case thus far. I’m not going to tolerate posts that don’t belong here and that reflect posting in venues such as 4chan or various partisan discussion forums. Nor am I going to ever elaborate and get specific on this policy to allow people to try and lawyer it. I trust that you guys will understand.
Content/Topics/Subjects
Like everyone who writes, I have a few specific interests that will tend to dominate my writing. However, I have no desire to chase the news cycle because 1) things will get boringly repetitive and 2) it leads to burnout. I want to avoid a situation where “Nic just talks about the same thing over and over and over again”.
Suggest Interview Subjects
Use the comments section here to suggest notable people to interview. They have to be public individuals and not anonymous. The best people for interviews are those that have a sense of humour, especially about themselves, and that have a bit of edge to them, since that allows me a wide angle of approach. I have lined up several individuals for interviews already.
Personal Note
I am more committed than ever to this Substack as the amount of support that I have received thus far has exceeded my expectations. You are only encouraging my bad behaviour. Many of you choose to send me emails to ask me questions or send feedback. I welcome these, even if some of them simply tell me to go f*ck myself ;) Many notable people in mainstream media quietly lend me their support and encouragment in the background. These people will stay unidentified until I can figure out the best way to extort them for my own benefit.
I will be all over the place for the next two months as I am playing chauffeur for my parents, but I will keep pumping out content (Weekend Reviews, Interviews, Articles) throughout.
The photo above was taken last Saturday just outside of the northern wall of Diocletian’s Palace. It shows a tour group from Spain receiving a history lesson regarding the palace and its surroundings.
Personally I think you should make an exception to the public figures only rule and interview everyone’s favorite bureaucrat. But if we’re sticking to the regulations then Michael Anton would be interesting.
Two suggestions:
1. Pieces on how the good life is/has been viewed across different cultures and periods of time. It seems the question of what the good life is or could be has faded in importance. Instead we focus on partisan bickering and technocratic quibbling, which gets awful tedious.
2. Periodic subscriber AMA sessions.