This is the weekly visible open thread. Post about anything you want, ask random questions, whatever. ACX has an unofficial subreddit, Discord, and bulletin board, and in-person meetups around the world. 95% of content is free, but for the remaining 5% you can subscribe here. Also:

1: There’s some scam where an account pretending to be me is replying to comments here and then immediately deleting the replies; people are getting “replied to your comment” emails that suggest calling a number in South Carolina. I will never respond to your comments urging you to call a phone number in South Carolina. Substack is aware of the problem and says they’ve taken care of it - but if it keeps happening, let me know.

2: RIP Kontextmaschine: polymath, mainstay of Rationalist Tumblr, and valued member of the Portland ACX community. His chosen medium (Tumblr) makes it hard to navigate his output, so these are more “posts of his I could easily find” than “best posts” - if someone wants to put in the work to collate the latter, I’ll link that too. But here’s KM on the humanities, on race, on relationships, on censorship, on Disney, on cable TV, on anti-Semitism, on Cascadia, and on the life he might have lived; if you can navigate Tumblr you might be able to find more here. He was such a colorful character all along that it was hard to notice his increasing bizarreness (he attributed his sudden bisexuality and inability to feel anxiety to “long COVID”, but speculation is he died of a brain tumor). Thanks to Barry for trying to help him. There was no one else exactly like him, and I regret that he will never achieve his destiny of marrying Taylor Swift and becoming respective Emperor and Empress of Idealized Timeless America.

3: New additions to Meetups Everywhere: Bratislava, Istanbul, Frankfurt, Vienna, Curitiba - check the post for details. Meetups this week in Munich, Vienna, Cologne, Grass Valley, DC, New Orleans, St. Louis, Portland, Seattle, Buenos Aires, Columbus, Jakarta, Budapest, Toronto - along with many smaller cities that won’t fit here - so again, check the post if you’re interested.

4: I know I need to start thinking about closing up the Impact Certificate Mini-Grants and the Book Review Contest; expect more on this in the next few weeks and thanks for your patience.