Substack cometh, and lo it is good. (Pricing)

Unlurk thread

Some people still read blogs. Though not too many Zoomers apparently. Here is a thread if you want to unlurk…seems like the comments are dominated now by about a dozen individuals.

Perhaps some things to say:

– how long you’ve read
– where you live
– what you do
– why you read

72 thoughts on “Unlurk thread

  1. – how long you’ve read: Since the 00’s
    – where you live: Maryland
    – what you do: Retiree and college student
    – why you read: Population genetics, history, politics, personal genomics, Neanderthals, ancient religions, books that RK finds interesting, Rome, silk road, R1b, out-of-Africa, Bronze age, science, Reformation, atheism, Denisovans, Haplogroup J, Muslim world, R1a, popular culture, migrations, China, Ötzi, steppe empires, First Farmers, origins of mankind, South Asia, Sundaland, RK’s comments on almost everything and a lot more that I have forgotten. (I also listen to every episode of The Insight, much of RK on Brown Pundits, and have recently downloaded ABCD Politics.)

  2. I’ve read this blog for about 2 years. Though I have read some of your articles since the late 2000s. I’m in my mid 30’s. I live in South OC CA. I work in IT. I’m fascinated by history, archaeology, genetics, and future political, economic, and cultural development.

  3. Mid-millennial financial crimes litigator in New York City. Reading on and off for about a decade, maybe a little more. Original draw was genetic genealogy, but we share many interests (of each of which Razib almost invariably has the deeper understanding). Politically “progressive,” but the kind that finds critiques from the other side to be instructive, not threatening–that’s putting the positive gloss on it.

  4. – Probably since around 2016? Maybe 2017?

    – Southern Poland

    – Culture stuff in some town hall of some not too important city

    – I’m interested in and value your opinions on new intellectual fads and scientific discoveries

  5. I’m a semi-retired old geezer (nearly 80), who lives in wine country, California. While I taught cultural anthropology and folklore studies at the university, my hobby interests now are ancient history (primarily Near East and China) and human genomics. I find most of the posts and of the comments here to be interesting and I check out every book that gets recommended. I seldom miss a day of reading and frequently check in a couple of times per day to read new comments on interesting posts. My research interests have shifted to medical anthropology and I still manage quite a bit of research and writing. This blog helps to keep my mind active.

  6. 1. I have you on my RSS feed since 2018.

    2. Lagos, Nigeria

    3. NEET.

    4. Book recommendations mostly. Also, you’re a prominent ‘Right-Wing’ guy whose analysis does not reflect Republican Party talking points. You’re a rare beast on the internet, and I’m a collector I guess.

  7. Former Marine and Iraq vet. Now a government fraud investigator. Been reading your stuff for about five years. Genetics and genealogy are hobbies of mine. That’s what drew me to your blog. I like your take on things, refreshingly honest. And I like your book recommendations.

  8. I’ve been reading your blog about 5 years. I find it utterly fascinating.
    I live in Austin and I used to work in the Littlefield building. I remember when you guys moved in, but I didn’t follow your blog until a little later.
    I am recently retired from the software industry.
    I read because the science is so interesting! There are big new discoveries on a weekly basis.

  9. Been reading you for around 5 years now. I live in south east Asia but split a fair bit of time with India which is where I am from. I started reading your challenges to liberal dogma first like SJW motivation on brown pundits and about liberal myths as well as conservative myths on Aryan invasion/ migration/ origins. I haven’t done a genetic analysis myself, I don’t see it adding much value to me, but your “popular writings” on ancient genome analysis/ modern population history is fantastic and always expands my mind. Work in IT and have a side business in retailing locally with my friends, so I do see Chinese and south East Asian people a fair bit and those parts of your writing are particularly interesting

  10. Been following since sometime in the Discover era (late aughts, I think). Have commented fewer than ten times in that period – comments limited to when I think I have something useful and original to say (other than this comment, of course), which is pretty rare. Was one of the premium subscribers while that was A Thing.

    Late Boomer (62) in Orange County, CA (Hi, Prithvi!). EE/system engineer doing specialized RF stuff, some edge machine learning, …

    Interested in the population genetics, evo-devo (which you dabble in from time to time), history, and especially the history/sociology of religion bits (I’m non-militant atheist antipopulist/antiwoke somewhere in the vicinity of median SSC/Ribbonfarm etc. for epistemology, metaethics, etc.)

  11. Discovered you at Discover when I was looking for science blogs and followed you ever since

    Retired high school science teacher with background in economics and law

    Living in Boston suburb

    Interested in everything you write except hot sauce 🙂 In the words of a previous commenter, “The internet would be a dumber place without you, perhaps measurably so.” Began as a civil libertarian, kind of dropped the adjective but always as a hypothesis to be tested, “how realistic is this?”, now trying to see how human psychology and history have gotten us to the present moment, and how we can get out of it.

    Bothered by the right-wingers who think it’s all a big plot (come on, man, that’s fourth generation Marx, and hundredth generation religion: things happen because some (semi-)conscious entity wills it)

    Bothered by the loss of nerve of freedom of speech/anti-discrimination liberals. Few people will honestly say it but too many seem to believe, “censorship and discrimination are bad when done by the wrong people for the wrong reasons but good when done by the right people for the right reasons.”

  12. – I have read the Blog for a few years. I don’t remember how I stumbled on it.
    – Germany
    – Philosopher of Science
    – I’m interested in all the science stuff, e.g., the ancient genomics stuff. It’s very exciting (although I don’t understand everything, of course). I read Reich’s book, because Razib reommended it a lot. Great book, great science. I have also listened to quite a number of the podcasts.
    – The history stuff is also interesting, but I know even less about that.
    – I think I’m politically centrist for European standards, which is moderately left-wing for American standards. I find it amazing how Covid-19 gives libertarians in the U.S. precisely what they want and they don’t see the problem. So, I’m looking forward to more comments by a bright and scientifically very literate mind about politics.

  13. I see I’m not too late. Very well, I mostly read the Brownpundits blog and occasionally lurk here, I’m honestly not very interested in genetics. I’m an Indian physician who is finishing residency in Internal Medicine.

    So if I’m not interested in genetics, why do I read a blog called Gene Expression?

    I became peripherally aware of Razib during the mid-2010s, when I was in medical school. At that time, wokeness was spreading like wildfire (still is, really). It only made my peers even more annoying than before. I mean, medical students are a narrowly-focused bunch at baseline, thinking of nothing besides studying and grades on one hand, liquor and nightlife on the other. Now they added boilerplate takes on BLM and transgenderism to the mix. There wasn’t much political or intellectual curiosity, just woke virtue-signaling. It was very frustrating.

    Then suddenly I see this brown man who also has a background in the sciences, but thinks independently in politics and scholarship, and has read more history than your average graduate student. It was shocking (in a good way), and it was a breath of fresh air. In a world where so many people, even High IQ people, de facto strive to be status-grubbing ant-men, there is nothing as inspiring as a maverick polymath like Razib.

  14. Hey Razib; Fellow BP author Gaurav Lele here;
    I have been lurking on this blog for 3 years since i read David Reich’s Who we are and how we got here and it mentioned you.

    I don’t comment here much – neither did i ever comment on BP till June/July this year.

    I work in Software and have very broad interests from Travel,Wildlife to History politics and sports. i am nowhere are well read as you or some other pundits here – i would like to though. I have started being interested in history, politics only last 6 years though.

  15. I’m late to the unlurk thread, but then that’s why I’m a lurker. I’d say I’ve been reading, on and off, since whenever you showed up on some ScienceBlogs comment thread pretending to be an Islamist. I enjoy informed perspectives of all types, whether or not I agree, and am interested in genetics to the very limited extent that I, as an outsider with limited time/motivation to do deep reading on the subject, am able to understand. Plus, I always admire courage for its own sake, and you, Razib, have always displayed extreme integrity in saying what’s on your mind, damn the torpedoes.

    I’m an RN working on my nurse practitioner. It’s my second career.

    Thanks for turning me on to “The Darkening World” and “The Horse, the Wheel, and Language,” two of my favorite books of all time.

    A sincere question: What’s so perverted about the elites? To me they seem like the same cynical-but-believe-they-are-righteous bunch as … pretty much all places and times. Assuming we don’t believe in children tortured for adrenochrome (and I am NOT implying you believe anything crazy, just that that’s what I’m reminded of), what makes them more fetid than any other group?

  16. – how long you’ve read – since ~2012
    – where you live – Maryland
    – what you do – Aerospace engineering/NASA
    – why you read – I like to read this blog to test my biases and make me think. I consider myself very left of center (I don’t know which label to put on it because I don’t want to be associated with the Democratic party) Plus, you post on a variety of topics so it keeps things interesting.

    Aside from genetics posts, the comment sections are usually pretty boring these days with the same people saying a lot of the same things. Still, I can’t complain since I’m not contributing to it. In particular I see a lot of vitriol in the comments against identify politics, liberals, etc. which, sure, I get that. But there are a lot of us on the left that aren’t caught up in that crap and truly just want to see all Americans helped through healthcare and other safety net programs and believe in the intrinsic value of all humans (something you’d think could be agree upon?) It sucks that the noisy people get to speak for us all (even though I am over here trying to speak up, at least locally!)

    Thanks for keeping me on my toes and giving lots of things to think about.

  17. Aside from genetics posts, the comment sections are usually pretty boring these days with the same people saying a lot of the same things. Still, I can’t complain since I’m not contributing to it. In particular I see a lot of vitriol in the comments against identify politics, liberals, etc. which, sure, I get that. But there are a lot of us on the left that aren’t caught up in that crap and truly just want to see all Americans helped through healthcare and other safety net programs and believe in the intrinsic value of all humans (something you’d think could be agree upon?) It sucks that the noisy people get to speak for us all (even though I am over here trying to speak up, at least locally!)

    moderately conservative republicans could say the same thing.

    but it’s the radicals who dictate.

    biden was nominated due to older black voters in the primaries who find much of wokism inexplicable. but they’ll die. various sorts of gentry liberals are clearly the future

  18. You have been enriching my life since the 00’s. Am semi-retired from a career in research and development spanning several science and engineering disciplines and usually involving lasers and fiber optics for physical measurements. Still have a few irons in the fire. Will be 70 in a couple of months, surprised and impressed I’m not the oldest responder. Live in West Tennessee not far from the Mississippi. I read in part for the genetics and history knowledge/insights you have. Amazing to me how you “grok” religion, and your encyclopedic knowledge of it, eg. sometimes manifested by an offhand comment on Twitter about Syrian Christian prayer styles or giving accounts of Military people who were Sufi’s to counter a common impression of Sufi pacifism. Grew up in small Southern towns, the son of a protestant minister. Attended our Christian college, witnessed and considered the ministry before losing faith in fundamentalism. When you first wrote about your concerns regarding the coronavirus, I realized, because of my respect and confidence in your opinions, that it really was serious.

  19. – how long you’ve read: March 2011

    – where you live: The DC Suburbs

    – what you do: Work for the feds

    – why you read: Because I learn a lot here. I developed an interest in genetics and have convinced many South Asians to test.

  20. – how long you’ve read: A few years

    – where you live: Vancouver BC

    – what you do: Teacher

    – why you read: I’m mostly interested in the history and politics posts. I’ve read some books Razib has recommended, great stuff. It’s refreshing to read from someone who’s actually knowledgeable, rather than someone who just has an axe to grind. Truth > Ideology.

  21. I started to read after the start of The Insight podcast
    I’m a French Canadian from Quebec
    I’m not working at the moment, but I do house plans.
    I like the subjects of ancient civilizations, DNA, politics and even hot sauce, so it feels like this blog is written for me.

  22. – how long you’ve read – since ~2002/3
    – where you live – California
    – what you do – Software Engineer
    – why you read – This blog has been one of the few places I’ve found that explores ideas where the only agenda being pushed is to discover the truth, and that isn’t afraid to shy away from examining unpopular ideas.

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