Blogging can just be stating the obvious
blog.jim-nielsen.com
Blogging can just be stating the obvious
1–10 of 138 posts
Re: Blogging can just be stating the obvious
#2Finally someone’s saying it! Also I love how meta this is.
Re: Blogging can just be stating the obvious
#3AI can do a good job of this. Summarize content and then searching the internet to see if anyone has commented a summary like that before.
But I suspect such a blog would not be popular.
Re: Blogging can just be stating the obvious
#4A couple other versions of this that have always stood out to me:
1) There's always a new cohort of people that don't know the things you know. You assume since you know it, everyone does. But kids coming up, or whoever, aren't you. They don't know this stuff yet. You can easily be the first time they've heard "make something people want" and where that comes from. The Curse of Knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge
2) There's always another tone/anecdote/verse that makes whatever idea more palatable to someone out there. They might not like the PG version, or the Wired version or the Daring Fireball version, whatever. There's probably some version of you in this lesson that someone out there vibes better with.
Re: Blogging can just be stating the obvious
#5AI can do a good job of this. Summarize content and then searching the internet to see if anyone has commented a summary like that before. But I suspect such a blog would not be popular.
Rather, let the AI search the web for an idea. If the idea hasn't been published widely in the last 3-4 years, it's a safe topic for a blog post today :)
(Next level: unleash the AI to find such under-posted topics, check them against your list of interests, and offer to you for inspiration.)
Re: Blogging can just be stating the obvious
#6> So it must be that a key ingredient to blogging is simple: have a willingness to state something that seems obvious to you but nobody else is saying it. Or if someone else is saying it, just link to them and say, “Yes!!! This!!!”
As a young mathematician in grade school, I had boundless enthusiasm to prove and present basic theorems in number theory and geometry. Now, as a PhD mathematician who has since pivoted into other fields, when I'm considering new mathematical content, I feel only the stymying influence of a million invisible eyes all around me asking, "Don't you think this been done before, better, by others? Do you really want to waste your and your readers' time with your DIY reinvention? Are you not just noise competing with other noise, drowning out the valuable signals in your domain for your own personal gain?"
All this to say, on a statistical level, it is fair to say no one ever has any original thoughts, and the ones most capable of elucidating existing ideas can be the ones least motivated to do so.
If every blog, op-ed, and social media post in the world were stripped of all informatic redundancy, what would the compression ratio be? Among these resources in particular, I just see the same old arguments and observations trotted out in varying tonal registers.
Re: Blogging can just be stating the obvious
#7I avoid substack because of this. It's totally fine to email people about new posts, but at least let me read your post first. Make me interested. I'll follow you not because one good post (maybe if it's really good) but because several good ones. If your post is good I'll go look at others before leaving. If it looks good, then, and ONLY then will I subscribe.
But I can tell you there's a strong correlation between why you're writing a post and why I'll subscribe. If you're trying to hustle I don't give a shit. You're most likely another pseudo intellectual chasing whatever is hot. What I, personally, want is the experts. I want to see that depth of knowledge. I want to see how you think. I want to read a blog post where I get to know you, not some facade. Not everything needs to be a hustle. Find your niche and your niche will stick with you. If you try to write to everybody you'll end up writing to nobody. Concentrate on making me want to subscribe, not pestering me into it. You're not a used car salesman
Re: Blogging can just be stating the obvious
#8I avoid substack because of this. It's totally fine to email people about new posts, but at least let me read your post first. Make me interested. I'll follow you not because one good post (maybe if it's really good) but because several good ones. If your post is good I'll go look at others before leaving. If it looks good, then, and ONLY then will I subscribe. But I can tell you there's a strong correlation between…
As if you need another reason to avoid substack, they host Nazi content.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/feb/07/revealed-how-s...
Re: Blogging can just be stating the obvious
#9I was never a prolific blogger. I do write a LOT internally at work and I write very long messages in group chats.
With the advent of LLMs, I've felt even less need to publish publicly. It's as if an LLM can either produce something higher-quality and more tailored to the reader's context in a shorter period of time. Or the topic I write would be so niche that it should just be in a group chat.
Re: Blogging can just be stating the obvious
#10I have a simple blog if anyone is interested: https://landenlove.com/