Welcome to Better Strangers!

Hey, there is a much higher quality publication coming your way!

Hey everyone! I wanted to take a minute to welcome you to the new and improved version of Better Strangers. I’ve been on hiatus from writing new articles for about a month¹ as I’ve done some strategic rebranding work to make this into less of a personal blog and more of a focused publication. So: allow me to reintroduce the publication!

About Better Strangers

TL;DR: Better Strangers is a publication that faces a bleak world with hope, curiosity, and imagination. We are here to help you build a better self and better communities during trying times.

Oscar Wilde wrote: 

"A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out, and, seeing a better country, sets sail. Progress is the realisation of Utopias."

Humanity appears to have forgotten this in recent decades, and instead has fallen into the trap of only envisioning dystopian futures, ones of climate collapse, nuclear apocalypse, and total extinction. If these are the only countries we can see, then they are the only ones we can sail towards.

Better Strangers is a publication that chooses to believe that humanity still has its best days in front of it. It doesn't do this by denying the difficult present, or by putting its faith in Messianic billionaires who promise to build utopias on other planets even as they destroy our own. Instead, we at Better Strangers look at the present with clear eyes, and understand that to build a better world, we need to be able to imagine it first. 

To this end, Better Strangers looks at historical movements that successfully affected change, at philosophies and ideas for coping with the modern moment, and at realistic utopian visions of the future.

Our orientation is broadly left wing and spiritually agnostic — we love engaging with weird, even trippy ideas, but we’re not interested in worldviews that say some people are better than others, or that run counter to established science.

What we publish

Every four weeks², we have a different theme. The first month, our focus is “Revolution,” because we’re going in HARD. We’ve got three broad weekly columns:

• Book Rex — These Monday columns mostly discuss books. They’re designed to distill a book’s main ideas for a reader who might not have enough time to get through them herself. Over the four week period, they’re divided up thusly:

  • Utopias or Dystopias — Exploring ideas about what a better (or worse) future could look like.

  • Philosophy — Doing a deep dive into theories, ideas, and mindsets for chaotic times.

  • History & Practice — A look into historic figures and movements, and how studying them can help us better understand our current moment.

  • Pop Culture — A dive into movies, music, and TV shows that engage with the big ideas.

• Weekly Column — This Wednesday column falls into one of four categories:

  • Interview — We talk to someone interesting about our theme.

  • In the News — We discuss how our big ideas apply to something in the news.

  • How-To — We discuss something you can do in the real world to apply the ideas we’re talking about.

  • Short Fiction — Once a month, we publish short fiction. For the time being, this column is exclusive for paid subscribers.

• Weekly Round-up — The weekly round-up is for people who don’t want to get three emails a week: we share all of the articles published that week, plus other articles, videos, or resources on the internet that fit the theme. This used to be the Jimble-Jamble, but we’re retiring that, as that was kind of a grab bag and this is a bit more focused.

As a note — the two columns are both available in audio form, either at the top of each article, or on your favorite podcasting platform.

Support us!

The best way to support Better Strangers is to become a paid subscriber. While most of the content remains available to all, paid subscribers get access to exclusive short fiction, to archived articles, and to a portion of our regular articles up to a month in advance of free subscribers. Check out subscription options at the button below:

If you can’t afford a full paid subscription of $5 a month, we are happy to work with you! If you sign up to our Patreon for as low as $1 a month, you can get full paid access. Just pay what you can. If you do have some extra money, you can give gift subscriptions!

Outside becoming a paid subscriber, the best thing you can do is like, comment, and share our work on whatever platform you’re active on. Also please feel free to forward our emails!

We’ve also got a Venmo page, if you just wanna send tips, donations, or thank you’s!

Give me feedback and work with me!

I try to respond to every comment and email from a B.S. subscriber (so long as it’s respectful), so I would love to hear what you want more and less of! I would also love to get tips on stuff I should discuss on this page or look into. If you want to keep it anonymous, I have put together a survey on Google Forms. I’d love to hear from you.

I also occasionally use Substack’s Chat feature, and am taking running feedback at this chat:

I am currently unable to pay contributors, so I am not accepting submissions. I will however happily collaborate with people whose projects run in tandem to mine. We can promote each other’s stuff and share each other’s audiences. Please feel free to reach out to me over email or the Substack app!

1. Free subscribers may not have noticed, as the previous month’s articles were released from behind the paywall.

2. I tried to make it monthly, but it meant the amount of content would be different based on how long the months were, and then I realized: 52 weeks is divisible by 13. WHY ARE THERE 12 MONTHS AND NOT 13? It’s so much cleaner!