One of the most important skills I’ve ever learned in my life is actually quite simple: knowing when to leave. This can take many forms: leaving a job, party, relationship, whatever, but I’ve never felt any sort of lasting regret for following my gut’s signal to take the exit. Indeed, I can think of multiple occasions where staying at something, against my better judgement, has landed me in situations that I do have lasting regret over (I’ll spare the details, they’re not relevant here).
I wrote about 6 months ago about packing up to log off twitter and accepting the tides of digital empires, but in the last ~2 weeks it’s become abundantly clear to me: it is time to go. The reasons are myriad, be it the fact the place is a ghost town now, the absolute rank hatred (incl. anti-semitism, anti-islam, anti-LGBT, anti-women, etc), the rampant bullshit (e.g. passing Arma3 videos off as actual war footage), but ultimately they all boil down to the same single idea: the place simply isn’t worth my time anymore.
On the one hand, that kinda does suck. Twitter was one of the most useful tools I’ve ever had, and I’ve met a lot of smart people, friends [both real and internet], clients, etc. thru the site – but that was then. As I’ve been making rumbles (increasingly-often!) about logging off the site, many people – frankly, I’m quite shocked by the number – have asked me how to keep in touch: do I have other social media (not really), do I have a discord (not really), etc. Getting told that people are interested in what I have to say is, frankly, a bit weird for me.
I’m not trying to toot my own horn here, just the sheer volume of people that are interested in my opinions on a wide variety of things has absolutely floored me. I mean, as one of the last normal users on twitter standing, my impressions up >400% in just the last ~month. I get cold emails from reporters and business people now. Someone I met in real life said they’d read my website before meeting me in person. This is very strange to me, but something I’m leaning into.
Furthermore, I still have the Compulsion to Post. I want to write about things that are happening, ideas that I have, etc. This is partly just for my own sake; it’s how I process and think through a lot of stuff. So when people on twitter have asked me, “do you have a substack?” (an email subscription & blogging platform, for those unaware), it gave me quite a bit of pause. A substack would solve a lot of my personal needs for/from The Internet right now: to write and think through my ideas, to keep in touch with internet friends, etc. This website only fills one of those niches (it doesn’t blast out my content whenever I hit the publish button, for example).
As a matter of fact, this is something I’ve been thinking about for over a year now. I’ve decided to take the plunge now because I’ve had some changes in my life, both personal and professional, some good and some bad (the ratio of which is known but to God), that has given me some more time to both think about becoming a writer (is that what I’m doing here? I can’t think of a better way to describe it) and to actually do the work necessary. Therefore, I have a substack now, and a list of draft posts (some of which have been languishing in the notes app for a long, long time); welcome to Unforeseen Consequences. Those of you familiar with early 00s video games will probably recognize the origin of that line, and it’s something I’ve kept in mind for years now (it’s been at the bottom of every website I’ve ever had, including this one).
I’ll give you an idea of what I’m gonna be writing about: the US & China relationship [surprise!], macroeconomics & politics (again, US & China), security (digital, physical, geopolitical), tech, policy, and whatever else happens to come across my feed. I’m also going to try and be a lot shorter than my past attempts (e.g. – it wasn’t great). I’m also gonna try and write newsletters about things happening, in addition to longer essays. Posts will be mirrored at both substack and at this website, at least for the time being. I hope you’ll join me and read my work.
Finally, as I’ve stated many, many times before: my content is For The People and I will never charge for it. That said, I always do appreciate tips if you enjoy my work & writings (the webserver bill does not pay itself), and to that end, I’ve started up a patreon. If you’re interested in a one-off donation, my tip jar page has several options for you. I’m still adjusting these to see what is the right level to charge – feedback is welcome there.
One last thing: my inbox is always open to receive feedback, ideas, hatemail, comments, etc. Drop me a line at robertmarchini1993 [atsign] the google email service whenever you want.