Why this site?
I wanted a space that steps back from the hurried culture of major platforms and have more control. Concerns about design and intent have followed social media from the very start, and the film The Social Network offered a rare peek at those major tensions that still resonates today. A small personal site like this provides a quieter home for postings and allows ideas to form without pressure from ads or algorithms. I keep a LinkedIn profile for professional contact, yet writing grows more naturally in a setting like this.
Update: 13 Sept 26
The debate over platform design has not gone away. Mark Zuckerberg's recent manifesto argues for a more personal and empowering future for technology, but the response inside and outside Meta shows how unsettled the underlying questions remain. The disagreement matters because the original reason for building this site was precisely to have more control over the conditions in which ideas are published. A personal site cannot escape every platform dependency, but it can reduce the influence of feeds, advertising incentives, and algorithmic distribution. The links below trace that continuing argument.
Facebook sign-in page, 2019. Public domain.
Note on blogging: 13 Sept 26
More than a year later, the experiment has developed in ways I did not anticipate. The use of AI has transformed the blog's publishing process and made a near daily pace possible. Claude and ChatGPT help research topics and locate primary sources, organize ideas, test structure, draft and revise prose, check factual claims against cited sources, score drafts against my house rules, and identify candidate images and their licensing. Longer pieces often develop across several sessions, with written handovers carrying the argument, sources, and unresolved questions forward. I describe the process in detail in How I Use AI to Write This Blog.
Over time, the process has become an experiment within the experiment. A serious argument is underway about whether AI assisted writing extends an author's capabilities or simply produces polished slop. The controversy surrounding an AI drafted Wall Street Journal opinion piece in August 2026 brought that question into unusually public view. I would rather conduct the experiment openly than pretend it is not happening. The growing archive therefore asks a broader question: can a person with an argument, working with these tools almost every day, produce writing that remains recognizably his own?
My answer depends on where authorship resides. I choose the subjects, decide the arguments, supply the experiences and observations, challenge the drafts, verify the sources and image licensing, and take responsibility for every published word. AI does substantial work between an idea and publication, but the judgment remains mine. The method is disclosed. The archive is public. Readers can judge the result.
Further Reading