Open Thread 157

Plus: more logistics!

This is the weekly visible open thread. Odd-numbered open threads will be no-politics, even-numbered threads will be politics-allowed. This one is odd-numbered, so be careful. Otherwise, post about anything else you want. Also:

1. Thanks to everyone who expressed concerns about aspects of the comment system. Substack says they're interested in helping. I've made the first comment to this thread a list of comment-related concerns Substack already knows about. If you have another one not on the list, post it as a reply to that comment thread. If you see one you like, heart it (even though removing hearts is one of the things on my list). That way we'll get a list of everyone's concerns in order of concernedness, and I can send it to the Substack team.

2. Thanks for your generous support. I am overwhelmed by the amount involved, which it's probably against some kind of etiquette to say but which you can find good speculation about here. I welcome your subscriptions, but I want to make sure you're not worrying that I'm going to starve in the rain or something; please only subscribe if you can definitely afford it.

3. Some people are predicting that now that the blog is back up NYT might still publish their article about me. I guess I have no right to object anymore. Balaji Srinivasan's rule about hit pieces is to get out in front of them and reveal any negative information they're going to use before they do. Right now the negative information I know they've collected is an incident in college where I was writing a humor thing in a college paper, tried to write a column mocking racists, did it so badly that people thought I was asserting the racism, then did a bad job apologizing afterwards. Someone else says they might use some old comments of mine to suggest I support eugenics. I support it in the sense of improving people's genetics and genetic outcomes - long-term through genetic engineering, medium-term through having things like the Nobel sperm bank (but less badly done) available for people who want them, and short-term through voluntary community-based efforts like Dor Yeshorim. I don't support any form of eugenics more coercive or racist than that. I think these are the main pieces of negative information on me they're pursuing, so I look forward to seeing them treat everything else I've done fairly and in-context.

4. Stop trying to sign up for my psychiatry practice. It says in three different places there that it's only currently open to patients who are transferring from my previous practice. If you keep trying to sign up for it, I will have to take the signup form down, in a way that inconveniences those patients.