Welcome to the new website! I’ve been, to use a MTG phrase, “brewing” this website idea for quite a while now. If you’ve listened to any of my streams or read much of anything that I post on social media, I’ve become fairly disillusioned with social media as the be-all, end-all source of electronic communication. It didn’t used to be such a bottomless pit a few years ago, of course. Since I’m (ahem) older than a lot of my peers in the streaming or MTG community, I can talk old-school Internet with the best of them. For instance, I remember the first time that I was ever able to use the Internet to see pictures. Don’t look at me that way. I already know I’m old. Still, there are so many people that I’ve known and met and come to care deeply about through the use of the tubes and whatever happened to pass for the social media outlet of the day.

But things have changed. The algorithm arrived, and everything swiftly went to hell.

The algorithm, you see, is the code behind the code…the carefully-tuned set of rules and implications that make sure that you see as little as possible unless you can be used and monitized to bend that sliver of thought to someone else’s benefit. For instance, you have to jump through hoops to see exactly what’s on your Twitter feed. Wait, you think you see “the people that you follow”? Oh, you sweet summer child. Bless your heart. Instead, you see exactly what the makers of Twitter want you to see: some of your followed accounts, some ads, some “we think you might like this tweet” which is essentially an ad, and “Trending Topics” (read: things that we think will stir up positive or negative emotions in you and make you click click click). I love capitalism, but at least in previous years people were up-front (or their targets were knowledgeable enough) about what they wanted: you were a target for something. Ads, money, influence, something. Now, the vast, VAST majority of people who use social media are targets that don’t even realize that they’re targets. They’re the deer happily grazing in the field that found this lovely salt block that magically appeared, unaware that they’re currently in the crosshairs of the hunter.

But the hunter doesn’t want to kill you: he wants to train you.

He wants to train you to be docile. He wants to train you to go where he wants you to do and to think that it was actually your idea to go there. He wants to bring other hunters to you and show them your weaknesses and likes. Sometimes he wants you to get angry and engage in things that you wouldn’t know about otherwise, again thinking that it’s all your idea and that you’re making a difference when the only think you’re making is someone else’s bottom line. Even when you know all of these things and try to engage with others and discuss big ideas, sometimes it just doesn’t go that way. Think: when was the last time you had a productive conversation on Twitter where someone was taught or convinced of something that they didn’t already know against their previous will? Right. That usually ends with cursing and blocking.

So this is my tiny way of getting around that. I’m going to be concentrating most of my long-form writing here from this point forward. I want to be able to talk about the things that are in my head, the things that I think could be different or better in the world, and the things that spark my interest. A lot of the time, that’s going to be writing about my streaming and gaming love, Magic: The Gathering. Sometimes it’ll be about philosophy, or technology, or whatever else happens to cross my mind. But it’ll be primarily mine: my unfiltered, unvarnished thoughts and work. You’ll have a chance to interact and let me know what you think, and I’ll cherish every person who desires to come and join the conversation. I’d love if this place became a simpler, kinder, deeper place for the hobby I love and the things that I care about.

Who needs algorithms when you have order? One word, then another, then another. Unfiltered.