This article is written by a human in exactly 30 minutes of time. You should write them too.
Here are the ground rules:
- No spellcheck
- No AI
- Ship after 30 minutes - no matter the state.
Human-driven content is becoming a rarity
Humans are writing less and less. Our mistakes and our identity is (slowly?) disappearing. I probably write fairly well given my background - yet I’d venture to suggest that this is perhaps soemtimes also a disadvantage. “Good Writing” in the traditional sense, is often easily executed by AI - so we need to embrace our flaws and imperfections and get on with it. The world needs more Bukowskis and infinitely-less Corpo-slop Greylings.
Only genuine humans or charlatans use ‘I’ in longer-form introspective writing.
Start with ‘I’.
It takes some balls to use say ‘I’ when AI wrote it. AI being both literally and figuratively short for the Artificial ‘I’ is perhaps an interesting coincedence, but the point remains the same.
Genuine humans will use I and mean it and be truthful that they have written it. Charlatans - to take a confrontational stance - will use I and perhaps mean it, but not be truthful they have written it. Everyone can tell.
‘I’ carries genuine special value; it is our seal, our personal crest upon the work we share with the world. The controversial Autopen is perhaps the nearest example of the intrinsic reaction to writing or acts that are not our own but claimed to be - valid arugments exist on both sides - but there does remain a general dislike for ghostwriters and those who claim to have done something when they have not.
Using ‘I’ exists as a point of friction - perhaps even my academic-informed writing background leads me to use it less than I should, at least in this introspective context. This friction is here to encourage YOU to write about what YOU think. Start with the letter I.
But I am bad at writing!
Yes - great. You can get better. Or you can remain at your level and keep producing work AI could never manage. Typos are a high-point - seeing one in the wild actually serves as a ‘shinig bacon’ of human intent captured in a moment of haste or rush - a particularly human problem.
“Bad writing” has inverted. The cost signals to do with this are utterly out of alignment with the entirity of human history. An anecdote. During the emergence of the typewriter, companies spent vast expense to submit all memos, notes and letters to the typing pool - a group of workers responsible for clacking executive hand-written documents into a standard format for the company. This would often take 2-3 turns. One misread word from an executives pen required the entire document to be re-typed. Despite the absurd efficiency loss of doing this, it was a practice done all over high-end corporate world at the time. Doing this meant you were serious - or at least successful enough that you could afford to operate despite this complex chain of inefficiency.
Next time you go to an independent restuarant if you’re fortunate enough to be able to do so, look for one with a menu not written by AI. You’ll find it’s either terrible or the owner truly cares in a way that cannot be replicated by the soulless or visionless.
What should I write about?
Something that matters enough you’d tell a friend and believe they’d get some benefit from hearing you about it. Or just a great story. Stories are the first cultural unit of humanity - we should keep sharing them - beit truth, fiction or belief.
I am struggling to figure out what to call these things, but there’s a format in here. Also this title is too long - but that makes it interesting.
What should we call these? Perhaps Karpathy can help.
His term, ‘Vibe Coding’ has unfortunately entered the corpus of global language; now indelibly struck upon the record - regardless of the complete lack of nuance of the term.
Whatever you and I are doing here, dear reader and hopefully future writer - we need to decide on a name for it - perhaps a good idea for your first… whatever this is that we’re writing?
Where do I post this up.
Use a clanker to figure it out.
What’s the point of all of this?
To create a format - this meta-commentary of everything going on here is half a note to myself while I sit here eating a scone (Robots do not understand the visceral pleasure of biting into a perfectly crumbly saturday morning delight - nor would they be distracted on from the task at hand by it).
Perhaps the meandering writing might be somewhat self-indulgent - good! The meandering is where the magic happens. Without the meandering (look! I repeated it again! Such bad writing but done on purpose!) is there even a journey to follow for the reader?
How can I succeed in this?
You are asking the wrong question.
You really are asking the wrong question.
Success is completing the writing AND POSTING IT. You are now inflicting human agency and thought onto the world that is sorely lacking it these days. Make your beautiful mistakes and share them with the world.
The 30-minute time-bound really keeps things nice and punchy - taking time to edit things down to a clear point after writing for a bit will go a long way in ensuring readership actually engages with the content.
A conclusion?
TURN OFF YOUR SPELLCHECK AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU ACTUALLY PUT PEN TO PAPER, VOICE TO RECORDER OR FINGER TO KEYBOARD.
Time’s up - gotta ship.