Nothing you post on Substack is original

An irrefutable proof.

We’ve all had that experience: you’re reading a post from a beloved author, enjoying the familiar cadence of ideas, then, all of a sudden, it hits you—everything’s a bit too familiar. Then, all of another sudden, it forcefully strikes you—you’ve already read this post before.

Increasingly, this keeps happening more often.

Yes, there were some original posts in the past. Who could forget The vegetables on VeggieTales are not Christian? Men Only Want One Thing? The Monks in the Casino? In My Zombie Era? Is Mike Wazowski Jewish or Polish? When I Worked in Big Tech and Everyone Fucking Hated Me?

Granted. But did you know that, in numerous documented cases, two or more Substack posts have been written about the same topic?

In my research, I was able to uncover multiple posts about being cancelled, multiple posts about the writing style of Continental philosophers, multiple posts about AI, multiple posts about feminism. There were even—I kid you not—multiple posts about how to become successful on Substack.

I know. But this actually happened—for real. I’m sorry.¹

This discovery was particularly distressing for me, since I love writing original pieces in precedent-shattering paradigms that no reader has ever experienced before, such as “reply to Joe Heath,” “elaboration on Joe Heath,” “further elaboration on Joe Heath,” and “AI.”

But then, all of a sudden, it violently smote me—this can’t be a coincidence. And that’s how I stumbled on the following deductively sound argument, possibly lifted from The Simpsons, for the conclusion that all Substack posts in the future will be reposts.

Think about it. Everybody wants to be the first to post about a hot new topic. So let’s say you’re planning to post something next week on a topic never before seen on Substack (like “AI”). All of a sudden, the entire Substack community has an overwhelming incentive to scoop you. You see, if they can just time their post one day, or even one minute, before yours, then they get all the credit, and you’re left with nothing. You are a zero-status non-author, forced to subsist on scraps of likes eked out by restacking superior content. If that doesn’t put a fire in your belly, frankly I don’t know what will. So you now have an overwhelming incentive to scoop their scooping of you. But wait: they know this. So now they have an overwhelming incentive to scoop your preemptive meta-scooping.

But wait: you know this. So now you have an overwhelming incentive to pre-scoop their anticipatory scooping of the scoop before it can be re-pre-scooped.

At this point in the argument, I’ll admit I closed my eyes and started daydreaming about Continental feminist philosophers of AI who got cancelled for becoming successful on Substack.

Some readers may have noticed similarities between the above argument and the so-called “efficient markets” hypothesis, Hotelling’s model of spatial competition, and Schelling’s “The Reciprocal Fear of Surprise Attack.” That’s because they scooped me. I am ripping them off. You, I—we—are doomed to be rip-offs, who rip off other rip-offs. There is no getting around it, so we had better just accept it.

You might be thinking, “That sucks! Maybe I should write a post about this”—too late. I already did. You should have ripped me off sooner, like Schelling did, probably because he knew it was only a matter of time before I’d scoop him.

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What happens if we take this logic to the limit? Simple: every post is a rip off of a rip off. There can be no primordial post. Posting on Substack could only ever have been backwards-infinite, and our fate must forever be one of eternal recurrence—which means now we’re ripping off Nietzsche. And Joel David Hamkins, probably. And M.C. Escher, whose drawings even ripped off themselves.

M.C. Escher, “Relativity”

The silver lining is that there’s no longer any pressue to post high-effort content that no one’s ever done before. Nothing you ever post will be new, which is why nobody would ever bother trying to scoop you.

Hold on…if that’s right…and my calculations are correct…carry the zero…all of a sudden…that means nothing is stopping you from posting something original!

But wait: they know this.

At this point, the author was arrested for scooping classified Substack platform secrets. In lieu of flowers, his lawyers and family request that you “Like” this post and, all of a sudden, “Share” it with your friends and associates.

1. Hard to believe, but Scott Alexander has ripped off his own “Open Thread” over 400 times.