25 Comments
User's avatar
Drunk Wisconsin's avatar

We're reaching the bottom of the ideas barrel, man. I'm posting about socks.

Daniel Muñoz's avatar

Even that's a repost. Kieran Setiya already did a sock-post last December.

https://ksetiya.substack.com/p/tractatus-logico-calceatus

Jayson Fritz-Stibbe's avatar

Many people are saying

Seth's avatar

Optimistically, the coefficient of mutual scoopitude (CoMS) might be a leading indicator for an idea's interestingness. Lots of things are true without being particularly interesting, at least at the moment; a positive first derivative of the CoMS suggests an idea is becoming more interesting.

So we can all take solace that our redundant Substack posts are contributing, in their small way, to that great cosmic game of Price Discovery in which we are all but retail investors.

Felice's avatar

I was thinking about (un-)originality recursions when reading, but scoop equilibria are also potentially curious objects....

Felice's avatar

YOU SCOOPED MY USE OF "SMITE" IN MY NEXT PIECE!!! (Yes it is so exotic these days that I take it personally, despite its utterly ancient origins.)

Anyway, this was refreshing and super fun. Here for Substack Summer where the academics are letting loose!

Conner Schultz's avatar

Whitehead ripped Plato off when he said all philosophy is just footnotes to Plato

Allan Olley's avatar

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IZtvQm2YDV

WxXssOK7kp

lzCzO2TnqX

lprwF3QE3Z

vD7Q2ZMAfM

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I'm pretty sure no one has ever posted this set of random ten character alphanumeric strings to Subsstack previously. I am a true original.

No where near as ambitious I admit as other original efforts like the RAND corporation's "A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates", but we have to do what we can.

Active Voice's avatar

I was reduced to complaining about articles that say nothing is new. Seriously. https://www.activevoice.us/p/against-nothing-newism

Daniel Muñoz's avatar

I got scooped—just as predicted

Cryn Johannsen's avatar

I realize everything is derivative, as you're saying, but I can **confidently** say that no one has ever referenced and written about Max Horkheimer, bell hooks, imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, Epstein, Ghislain Maxwell, and Sesame Street in one essay before. LOL.

Darby Saxbe's avatar

If people start posting about fatherhood, I will cut them

Matt Ball's avatar

LOL re: footnote 1.

Plasma Bloggin''s avatar

Can't believe God scooped you over 2000 years early in the book of Ecclesiastes.

Daniel Muñoz's avatar

I was swift, and yet the race was not to me—that’s messed up.

Erica Lucast Stonestreet's avatar

Lol, thanks for this. :) Now I can stop worrying about posting about my pet peeve that people think morality doesn't work without religion, because I can know a priori that someone has already done it. Sweet, maybe I'll just retire!

Hilarius Bookbinder's avatar

Eh, I’ve read this elsewhere.

Daniel Muñoz's avatar

I once read that it was a version of Simpson’s paradox. Each subset of the post is original. And yet…

Hilarius Bookbinder's avatar

Nice.

Kirsten Morry's avatar

Must thank you for all the Joseph Heath posts because his blogging archive is really giving me life in slack moments at the office.

Nicolas Delon's avatar

C.M. But Miller’s Crossing is in that category. I don’t want to embarrass you, but that’s just a very, very fine movie.

J.C. Eh, it’s just a damn rip-off.

C.M. No, I didn’t say it wasn’t a rip-off. I understand it’s a rip-off. I’m just saying it’s good.

From a conversation between Cormac McCarthy and the Coen brothers.

Stephanie Nakhleh's avatar

Damn. I was about to write an original post about AI (it's bad) and capitalism (also bad) and layered into that, how my C-PTSD neurodivergence from childhood trauma doesn't make me jittery and high maintenance but an *empath.* But now you're telling me these ideas have already been written, difficult as that is to believe.

Daniel Muñoz's avatar

Oof, that’s rough.

Maybe try posting about how various things used to be way better than they are now?

Stephanie Nakhleh's avatar

Perfect! When I was a child, I didn't have a cell phone, I got bored sometimes in a good way, and I wrote things by hand. I'll write about that. It's going to blow everyone's mind.

Daniel Muñoz's avatar

Would read