I Found the Best Writer on the Internet

I began reading Experimental History, a terrific Substack written by Harvard PhD in Psychology Adam Mastroianni a few days ago, and it’s fundamentally shaken the way I view our obligation to you all, our readers, and to the world as individuals who so choose to take words from their brain, place them on a piece of virtual paper, and use an ultra-loud megaphone to amplify our voice.

Adam writes articles that are, in a word, fascinating. They are better than well-written, and rigorously researched and cited. There isn’t a single comma with AI fingerprints on it (we’re going to spend some more time talking about AI in writing soon). It is human thinking and human argumentation at its purest. It made me wonder whether we, at Passing the Torch, would ever be able to achieve such purity in our respective lane.

We write about business, and we write about stocks. We write about politics, and we write about culture. We are in high school. These things are all true, but none of them permit us to be less deliberate and thoughtful with our words. Reading Adam displayed to me the tremendous power of a few well-written sentences in changing someone’s view on the world—not just a stock, or a politician—the whole enchilada. We aren’t going to try and change your life every morning, but we sure as hell aren’t going to settle as a daily newscast. We think about the things we say, so that we can save you a little time and point you in the right direction of what you should be thinking about too.

In business media, and in media businesses, ROI per word looms over you. We write about stocks, and so our paid subscribers may be doing calculations about what the value is per stock pitch. How much time are we saving them? How much money are we making them? We’d like you to measure us by another barometer; are we making you think?

It seems that you can only ever find writing that is (a) a quick skim of the foam on top of a story or topic, or (b) an overly wordy, likely AI-aided, four-hundred page report going way too deep on a view that ends up having a consensus-view anyhow. We as writers, and you as readers, should always be seeking out the in between. The human writing that manages to take you deeper into something than you’ve ever ventured before, and allows for you to consider new questions, without costing you days of your life.

At dinner tables I’ll often hear someone say, “Did you see so-and-so happened in the news this week?” and others will reply, “Oh, yes. I saw that.” Or maybe they’ll add some flair, to really prove that they did in fact see it, for all the doubters who think they are lying: “Yes, I read about that in the Times.” And then that’s it. The conversation stops. Can someone please explain to me what the hell the purpose of that conversation was? Ok, yes, we at this table are affirming that we are living in the same timeline, wherein we experience the same global events and consume the same headlines. Isn’t that…obvious? Why did we waste time talking about that? Unless you have an opinion, or at least an analysis, or at least plan on rephrasing what you read about so that those who didn’t see it now know, why are we bringing it up? We want to write things that give you more than just saying you “saw” it. When you read what we write, you know it well enough to talk about it for an hour.

Whenever you start thinking about things, both big and small, you are producing value that will benefit you financially regardless of your field, and you’re also producing existential value. Thinking about what makes true art great, or why humans are naturally rebellious creatures, will make you a few bucks down the road, it can just be tricky to pinpoint exactly when and how.

Reading important things, and thinking important ideas, is one of the best things you can do with your time. I don’t think much of anyone would disagree with that, on face value, and yet increasingly nobody lives by it. “I’m so busy,” people often say, “I just don’t have the time anymore.” What could be more important? And no, reading doesn’t mean taking hours out of your day, dropping everything, and leafing through Crime & Punishment, or something of that sort. It just means looking at words, whether it be a screen or a page, and considering what the author may have intended when placing them there, in that order. This can be done while folding laundry, or as one rides the MTA bus, or in between meetings. Reading makes one worldly and wise; to be worldly and wise makes one wealthy and fulfilled.

I’m fully aware that it’s a tough sell to claim a Substack, which is plated like an average old email, is anywhere near the same caliber as sitting down and reading a copy of War and Peace by the fire. Alas, the world binds our hands in certain ways; if you only have time to read at the desk at work, when you want it to appear like you are working, or if you wish to read on the train to work, then Substack allows for this reading to be simple and easy. Convenient for the body, and challenging for the mind.

Our mandate has always been, and still is, to provide fascinating and rigorous research on Gen Z trends shaping the future so that our readers can remain ahead in their respective careers. That doesn’t mean we will not whittle ideas and trends down to the bone, examining not only growth lines but also psychological undercurrents and human predispositions. When we study something like the relationship between young people and AVs, we commit to examining also the relationship between man and machine, and how this may inform things around the corner.

Now, all these cerebrality may be troublesome to our go-getter audience who just want to see our stock picks. I’m going to explain to you why you should care about this philosophy…just hear me out.

Ok, here’s a headline: young people are drinking less alcohol than before.

What a dumb investor does is sell alcohol stocks.

What an even dumber investor does is buy alcohol stocks and tells the data, “nuh uh.”

A smart investor looks at that headline and thinks, “why might this be the case?” A few things are likely causing it: people are “going out” less as society becomes consumed by the digiverse. Our virtual identities take place of our real ones, and our avatars cannot drink alcohol on our behalf (yet). Maybe, people are more health conscious and sentiment has generally become disapproving of alcohol. Why? Potentially because tobacco has left a scar on the general rebelliousness and hedonistic habits of the American consumer. And I’m sure price is a variable, because broke people are broker than ever, and young people often drink the most and happen to be broke.

Ok. But do young people, for some particular reason, hate the idea of drinking alcohol? Does it make their bodies feel worse than normal? Has it become socially taboo at a broad scale? I think not. If you sign up for a paid subscription (there is a link at the end of this article) you can get access to our upcoming report on an alcohol company that we think will actually perform well, because it dodges all of our identified fundamental causes, and it is being priced by the stupid idiots of the “sell all alcohol stocks” class. We’re going to go further into depth about these questions I just raised.

Now, answer me this, very quickly: has this article left you thinking about anything at all? Is your brain machine churning and are the cognitive wheels turning? If so, and if you can afford it, you should purchase a paid subscription to support our thought-provoking work for years to come:

I highly recommend you all go read the work of Experimental History, starting with this terrific article about good art:

Thank you for reading folks, and as always, stay curious!

—J&E