Virginia Postrel has a Substack, 5/23

It's becoming the place to be

Virginia Postrel writes,

dynamists who considered themselves liberals (in the left-of-center American sense) might feel politically homeless these days. And I do say in the book that learning, as opposed to stability and control, is the central dynamist value, something that I am even more convinced of today than when I was writing in the late 1990s.

Pointer from Tyler Cowen.

Postrel’s book, The Future and its Enemies, influenced me a lot. She was also one of the first bloggers. And she was the one who pointed out that an obscure writer named Martin Gurri had developed an interesting thesis, leading me to read and review the first version of his book, which eventually got him connected to Stripe Press, Silicon Valley, and more.

I view her decision to start a newsletter here as validation. In fact, my sense is that substack’s growth is accelerating. It’s feeling very big and crowded here.

By the same token, I don’t think of Substack as a “community,” where you can expect to automatically get an audience just for “joining.” It’s up to you to promote your own content. I get the sense that Substack wants its writers to feel a sense of community, but I personally don’t feel it. Maybe if they tried a live conference or something.

I think that what readers can find here is much better than what you find on Twitter. But Twitter is still the outlet of choice for a lot of people who should know better. And that means that a lot of people read Twitter because of FOMO. I never followed anyone on Twitter, and I follow about a couple dozen writers on Substack. I don’t know of anybody who has stopped following Twitter to only read writers on Substack.

I want Substack to bring back the golden age of the blogosphere. Does that make me a dynamist or a stasist?