Well, hello there.

This post has been moved over from my old Substack.

You may have seen me around if you’re a certain sort of person.

I’m a viewpoint author at The Hub, where I’m pretty sure my value-add is being so damned weird. You can find me there presenting (among other things) arguments about state capacity (it’s high, dammit), for a belief in peace, and against collective aspiration. Between having a baby in 2022 and the plague months of this past winter I’ve been quiet-ish, but there’s a lot cooking in my head and I’m eager to get it out more regularly.

My one previous foray into Substack was an article for The UnPopulist, where I urged libertarians to temper their support for the Freedom Convoy. It is among the reasons some consider me purged me from the libertarian movement.

A feature of my charmed life is that I get to spend an unseemly amount of time geeking out about the writing of the Scottish philosopher* Adam Smith, helping to make it more interesting and accessible. I think his disdain for romantic love has been greatly exaggerated (disclosure: my wedding vows kicked off with an Adam Smith quote) and I got to (with a pal) tweet through Wealth of Nations in the thick of the pandemic. I’m also fond of a few recent pieces on knowledge and power.

One of the best things I’ve ever written was my case for believing F.A. Hayek when he says he’s not a conservative. (Here’s why.)

Finally, I’m a co-founder of The Institute for Liberal Studies, an educational organization devoted to promoting conversations about classical liberalism (like Adam Smith, not Jordan Peterson) and the foundations of a free society. We started it when we were basically babies, and back then I wanted to convince everyone I was right. But now we’re all old, and what we hope we can accomplish is improving more folks’ understanding of different strains of thought and points of view. If you’re a student (or were recently) and that sounds cool to you, you’d probably love Freedom Week and should apply (by 15 April).

It’s my belief in the importance of understanding each other that inspires the name of this ‘stack. We need more rhetorical tools for seeking understanding without expecting consensus. So I’ll tell you my weird thoughts, and you tell me why I’m wrong. We’ll probably still disagree, but hopefully we’ll better understand each other.

See you in the Notes.

*In my last random bar conversation I told someone that I write about Adam Smith for a living and he looked confused and said, “The athlete?” It’s useful to be reminded who’s the weird one.