Do I need LinkedIn?
I really do not like LinkedIn. I don't like how performative it is, how it's owned by Microsoft, and how absolutely infested with AI slop it's become. However, "everyone's on it" and I like being connected to people.
…Substrate
A living collection of notes, ideas, and reflections from Doug Belshaw.
Building a world instead of an audience
I guess this is what I'm trying to do with Substrate - a digital garden ecosystem:
instead of “building an audience,” build a world. build a digital garden-ecosystem, that exists — first and primarily — for itself. a world that doesn’t need likes, traffic, subscribers, or clicks — in order to validate its existence.
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Using AI to write about the dangers of AI
We shouldn't unquestioningly believe "AI detectors" but nor should we be so naive to think that anyone's immune form the temptation of using AI to write very long documents.
It’s possible that AI was used to write parts of Pope Leo XIV’s latest encyclical about AI’s impact on humanity. An analysis by Linch Zhang posted on the forum LessWrong found certain paragraphs of Magnifica Humanitas to be between 40 percent and 100 percent written by AI, according to the popular AI detector Pangram.
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Reflections on 'Myths We Live By: Metaphor as a Tool for Empowering Change'
I attended a workshop on May 1st, 2026 with Annalise Lewis of Manifesto which was so good I followed-up with her for some 1:1 coaching. What follows are my notes from that initial workshop, which I scribbled down in a notebook.
…Reports in the age of AI
I'm currently working on a report for a client. The purpose of the report isn't really to do anything else but provide an audit trail; it won't be read by many people, nor does it contain anything I haven't already shared in other documents along the way.
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