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Adam Mastroianni's avatar

Congrats, Erik! I just hit that "upgrade" button. Your essays are part of what inspired me to start a Substack in the first place, and many of what I now consider best practices (cadence, aesthetic) I learned from you. I'm proud to support you.

There are two reasons in particular I'm excited you're taking this leap. First, academia melts people's brains, and we need more people thinking outside of it. The ceiling for even the greatest scientists is pretty low inside academia because they'll spend most of their time getting grants and figuring out how to get papers into journals. And many great scientists won't succeed because success requires near-Machiavellian levels of careerism and will to power. I want to see what smart people like you do when they're free of those structural constraints.

And second, I find something very wholesome about the mini-Medici patronage model of Substack. Most of us have very little power over anything beyond our immediate spheres, and most of the money we spend is basically extracted from us by force. I don't *want* to support my landlord, but I must, because the apartment next door is even worse. But supporting someone on Substack is different: this person does more of what I think is good because I choose to give them a couple bucks. In a just society, I think all commerce would feel more like that.

Anyway, I wish you the very best. I think you'll have massive success, and it will be a huge inspiration to other writers like me.

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Dawson Eliasen's avatar

Congratulations Erik.

This will be the first Substack publication I buy a paid subscription for. Partly because it’s extremely aligned with my interests, but mostly because I think it’s *worth* paying for.

I’m excited about this genre too, and you have been a true inspiration to me. For what it’s worth I think you are doing an excellent job at creating valuable essays and sharing important, thought provoking ideas.

My question for you is: what do you think about the outlook on the science of consciousness? I see this as THE problem of our era, and a true tragedy if there are not sufficient incentives for the relatively small number of scientists actually interested in working on it.

(Also, just so you know: in real life, I am a data scientist / consultant. Feel free to hit me up about doing some data analysis for TIP -- I think that would be extremely fun ;))

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