On the discipline of scholarship itself—reading, writing, sourcing, and the difference between the two.
My guest this week is Professor Alistair Noble, President of Nan Tien Institute, a small independent higher education provider near Wollongong grounded in Buddhist values.
My guest this week is Professor Alistair Noble, President of Nan Tien Institute, a small independent higher education provider near Wollongong grounded in Buddhist values.
In an age of cheap text and AI-generated plausibility, leaders are not misled by too little information but by too much of the wrong kind. In this piece I explore why attention has become a governance risk—and why learning what to ignore now matters as much as what to know.
The em-dash has fallen under suspicion—treated as a tell-tale sign of artificial writing rather than what it has always been: a mark of care, rhythm, and thought in motion. It should return to good standing so we can recover linguistic standards we seem oddly eager to abandon.
Every platform is as much a philosophy as a technology. Version 5.0 of this platform marks my return to Ghost and the creation of two new communities—The Commons, where ideas are shared, and The Inner Circle, where they're refined and tested.
Clicks are dying, and with them provenance, nuance, and the economics of ideas. AI summaries reward skim over substance. We need friction, attribution, and long-form thinking—treating summaries as aperitifs, not meals—so leaders decide from sources, not headlines.
In an age of information overload, mastering the art of not reading is vital. Schopenhauer warns against indiscriminate consumption, urging deep engagement with quality works to cultivate sharper thinking, intellectual discipline, and true independence of mind.
Clear writing builds trust and credibility. Avoid jargon, clutter, and dependence on AI; focus on structure, clarity, and authentic voice. Weak writing drives weak decisions, making strong communication essential for effective leadership and sound business judgment.
Modernists may disagree, but if challenged by these dangerous revolutionaries, refer them to the below and the glorious roots of our language.
So long as we keep our heads while all around are loosing theirs, never dwelling too long on exaggerated threats, we are in a position to muddle through.
I can well picture 'Hitch', cigarette languidly hanging from the corner of his mouth, hand clasped around a whisky glass, tossing the book toward the wastepaper bin, and then leaning back in his chair. Content in the knowledge he had repaid the reading in the only way fit.
I wonder if there is an alternative reading in which they did not make a conscious decision to be 'evil'?
I have a thesis of which I am proud, and a marriage to my beautiful wife Halaina—who has been a constant source of love, joy, and support as I laboured in the archives.
Time again at a premium, I mused on my latest quest for minimalism. In doing so I realised that I was creating as many problems as I was solving.
From time to time, I contemplate how I publish. Mostly because I like 'the elegance of a refined workflow'.
While access to information is now relatively more widespread than in the past, the modern paywall can often prove to be as much of a hurdle to access as the price of manuscripts was in yesteryear.
