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Who am I and what do I do?
I’m Joseph Bronski. This Substack is meant to serve as a central hub for all of my writings. I have three different newsletters: one corresponding to my book An Empirical Introduction to Youth, one corresponding to my upcoming book and research project on social power, and one for everything else.
What makes this Substack unique?
I am a believer in a strong, healthy, and balanced intellectual diet. Like with food, many people will sell candy and chips and do quite well for themselves, producing massive social externalities in the process. I don’t believe in this; I pride myself on producing some of the most rigorous intellectual content on the internet. In fact, it’s fair to think of me as an independent academic researcher, taking advantage of the fact that, very recently, collecting data and accessing academic knowledge has become very cheap and easy. Sites like Prolific make it a breeze to perform social studies for a little bit of money. Nearly all journal articles and books are now available on the internet. Ten or twenty years ago, what I do was impossible. It would involve paying a lot of money for physical books and journal articles, and having official funding and approval for psychological studies. In other words, I have “alpha”, as they say in the finance world.
Why should I support you?
You can sign up for a paid subscription to this Substack if you want to support me. You may want to this for a number of reasons. First, what I do takes a lot of time. In fact, I could do it as a full time job. I would like to do it as a full time job. And I believe it is more important than any other job I could do, outside of academia. If I could make just $20,000/yr from people who also see value in what I do, I could safely pursue independent research as a full time job.
Second, some of what I do takes money. Studies, though cheap, often cost $100 or more dollars. Sometimes I have to buy books or research articles because they are not available for free. Also, when writing a book (eventually exousiology will become a book), I need money for an editor and a graphic designer.
Finally, there’s a lot of money floating around in the first world, and my target audience is likely to be affluent due to intelligence. They often pay more money for Netflix, alcohol, or superchats on entertainment livestreams. I have been working on exousiology for over a year at high intensity, while balancing a burgeoning IRL academic career. It’s a big opportunity cost for my bank account, and I do it because I believe in the fruits of the labor — I think it’s evident that this sort of knowledge needs to be created, and if I don’t do it, nobody will, at least in this generation. For less money than a Netflix subscription, you can support this vision. Think of it as a donation to charity. I began writing my youth book 4 years ago and have never solicited donations — until now. I was in high school and didn’t need any money for the book.
What kind of content is there?
I’ve had issues with building an audience due to the intensity of my content. I really prefer to write academic journal articles. But I also think a wider audience deserves to benefit from my work. My current strategy is therefore to tailor public posts to a wide audience, while paywalling technical and data heavy posts. Because I think it is important that anyone can access these technical articles, I will be uploading them for free in LaTeX pdf format to my website a month or so after releasing them on Substack.
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When I start earning money I'll subscribe. Very interested in the work you're doing.
You have my interest.