Epistemic Rec Team
Why write a blog with no readers? Originally the answer to this question was memory failure, boredom and a dash of spite. I conceived of the blog as a way to archive my intellectual progress, to help consolidate and remember what I was thinking and when. It was the summer of 2020 and COVID, so I had the time and I wanted to prove an asshole wrong - an asshole who correctly pointed out that I hadn't added anything substantive to online conversation surrounding RPGs.
I'm still doubtful about contributing meaningfully to any sort of gaming or rationalist discourse (I would need readers and content first). Also, there are moments when I can feel the resounding irrelevance of ruminating over ideas too esoteric and already chewed. Funny thing is most of the time I enjoy writing here.
Recently I read Scott Alexander's post entitled Epistemic Minor Leagues and realized I'm just doing the same thing as everyone else and probably have the same worries. That post was a response to another article by Adrian Hon about how augmented reality games (ARGs) are similar to QAnon.
Hon's idea was that like AR games, people are driven by a need for discovery and find both ARGs and conspiracy theories intensely rewarding because it allows them the thrill of teasing out truths from snarled knots of information. Alexander builds on this and claims that people like to participate in communities of discovery and that QAnon and ARGs are only one means to seek truths and connections. Blogs, journalism, online communities, even political commentary are all methods, too.
I would argue that sports message boards, video games1 and even barroom debate can provide people with a chance to show off their hard-earned insights. I hope I'm not reducing things too much to say that the idea of intellectual inquiry (and showing off the findings) is a basic human desire and runs the gamut from the highest reaches of human knowledge to the lowest scrabbling for truth. It's like the English Football League System.
This helped me recognize a couple of other reasons I write this blog. One is the concept of intellectual exercise. I think that reading good books and thinking and writing about them, learning common terminology and attempting to put my ideas into words, all of these things feel good in the way exercise feels good. Perhaps it is all social signaling but perhaps it helps. Another reason for writing here connects to the fundamental human need to be recognized, to shout 'I exist!' into the void. It doesn't matter much if anyone responds because the sound of my own voice is a personal reminder.
- Video game: Return of the Obra Dinn, worth a look.
Hi Andrew, I just found your blog. Interesting post - I would say just persist with your blog. My approach is that for my blog I am the primary audience. I write stuff that I want to see on blogs (in my case stuff for use in RPGs), and if like-minded people like that, that's an added bonus.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the encouragement, John. I pretty much agree with your idea of writing for yourself. Yours is the first comment this blog has ever received, so it will be remembered.
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