The New Game

Ask DaaS

I concluded My Media Update with a “housekeeping item”. I wrote:

Yesterday, I scrapped my “editorial calendars”. I now intend to publish on DaaS only in response to reader questions and provocations. Leave a comment below and I’ll respond in my next post.

In addition to DaaS, this new editorial policy applies to M2D and BS"D, but it does not apply to MISM or EoT. In this post, I'll explain the new game that begins with the publication of this post and the old game now visible in the rear-view mirror.

The Old Game

In the old game, I published posts based on my best sense of what matters beyond my Audience of One — or, what matters to the Audience of at Least One Other. The old game required a lot of guessing, and it consumed a lot of energy. In hindsight, the game was fun, but it doesn't make sense to simply keep guessing. The old game is over. I no longer respond to “Frequently Unasked Questions (FUQs)”, not on DaaS.

The New Game

In the new game, I publish posts in response to comments from readers. Instead of guessing what my readers want to read, I invite them to tell me in their own words.

I've already published much of I what wanted to publish about What Is Worthy of Question? Sometimes, I organize my posts under three universal themes:

Naming the Problem

1. What's the Problem? Introduction to My First Book

2. Second-Order Ignorance: Learning to See the Problem

3. The Elephant's War: Our Nuclear Moment

4. Zarathustra's Prologue: The Experience of Anagnorisis

5. Fascism as Culture: The Origins and History of "Cute Monsters"

6. Toxic Memes: Breaking the Spell

Naming the Cure

1. Becoming Fully Human: An Introduction to Dialogue as a Service (DaaS)

2. Kosher Media: The Anti-Kleptocracy

3. The End of Pretense: Beyond the Divided Self

4. Practice What You Preach: Know Before Whom You Stand

5. Reading Time: Growing out of obsolete theories of irresistible illusions

Naming the Price

1. The Value of Dialogue: The Unifying Force in Human Relations

2. Let's Meet in the 'Garden': Forms of Post-Ideological Dialogue

3. While Standing On One Foot: An Economic Manifesto

4. Book Me: Subscription Options

Across my five Substacks, I've now published more than 160 posts, and I welcome reader comments inspired by what I've already “stacked”. However, what I've written and published should not constrain the range of questions and comments. I only offer the links above because I recall a sentence I used to hear often in my corporate days: “It helps to have something to react to.”

In fact, ‘Ask Me Anything’ would be an appropriate name for this game, but I call my game ‘Ask DaaS’. Here, readers decide when to start the game and what subject to choose, and the game begins when readers leave comments.

If I receive no comments, I might publish nothing — or worse, I might publish something about nothing.

Either way, I'm excited about this new chapter in the development of my Substack portfolio. Instead of clinging to the illusions of control sustained by “editorial calendars”, I'm increasingly moved to practice what I preach. As a result, I can now assure my subscribers that the next email they see from me will address a question that matters not only to me, but also to at least one other human being.

Before We Begin

In many types of games, the rules are not — and cannot be — spelled out exhaustively. For this game, I don't feel the need to add anything to the rules I covered in Fine Print:

Let's Play!

To get started, you can post a question or comment about anything. In case this helps, here’s what most interests me about you, my abstract reader:

1. If you could only read three books over the next year, which books would you choose and why?

2. Where do you find fruitful dialogue?

3. If you read Start a Substack!, and you haven't started a Substack, what's holding you back?