Additions to God's Spies

New features and enhancements coming to the site, plus a note about why we watch the unfolding story

“Were we created, our species, to grow this large? Or did we build for ourselves our own better mousetrap, using our nature to do it? God only knows, and we are just his spies.”
—Yours truly, below

I’m writing to let God’s Spies readers know about several coming changes.

Enhancements

Thanks to the new Substack tagging feature — posts can now be tagged based on subject — I’ll be adding tag lists to the top menu row. I want to allow easy navigation to subjects of interest. At some point, every important or well-read post will have at least one tag.

A ‘Climate’ tag item will be the first to appear, climate being the most important story of our species since the time of our self-subjugation to hierarchical rule. (Why “self-subjugation”? I’ll be writing about that in the The Dawn of Everything series.)

Regular readers have noticed changes to the color scheme. I’m still experimenting — stay tuned. If you see a color scheme go by that you particularly liked, please let me know. I’ll give it a second look.

I’m going to keep the underutilized ‘Chat’ menu item available. This community has grown quite a bit in the last few months. I’ll make sure there’s a Chat thread for each new post. If readers want to chew over an issue and comment on each other’s remarks, it will be there for your use.

Substack has started a Referral program. Click the ‘Leaderboard’ menu item for information on rewards. I’m delighted with every referral you make, whether paying or not. There have been a number of referrals prior to the Substack program’s rollout. Please continue to recommend God’s Spies, with my thanks.

Rewards for paying members

I’m also going to implement something I mentioned a while ago — rewards for paying members. A surprising number of members now pay to support this site, surprising given that all content has been free. I’m incredibly touched and pleased. Thank you!

I mentioned earlier that we’d be considering how to reward that level of support. One of those ways was previously mentioned; another is new.

The ‘Dawn of Everything’ series

I have not forgotten my promise to continue the “Dawn of Everything” series. The first two posts are available by clicking this link:

Those posts are free. If you’re interested, the first is here:

Reflections on Graeber and Wengrow’s ‘Dawn of Everything’

Subsequent series additions will be available to paying members. These will not replace the (mostly) weekly posts available to all.

Weekly Links post

I also want to add a Weekly Links feature. There is so much material to share — the world is rich in dark deeds — that I end up with more stories queued up than I can deal with, certainly not at length.

So I’m going to publish these links with briefer comments ­— again, in addition to the site’s regular material. The Links posts will slso be available to paying members, with my thanks for their support.

The Twitter Files posts, a confession

When the Twitter Files first appeared, I followed them carefully, posting in batches on what I considered their importance. For example, here:

Twitter and the CIA (Twitter Files 8–10)

It started to become difficult to find a one-stop shopping source for all of them, a list of links all the links, so in January I created this aggregator post:

My intention was to keep it current, and I said as much. The confession: After the 16th Twitter Files was released, I failed to maintain the post.

There are several reason for that — the rapidity of their release, the controversy over their content and their author, which seemed crazy to me, my schedule at the time. It didn’t help that the list that the Files’ primary writer, Matt Taibbi, kept at his own site seemed misnumbered.

But these are all excuses that don’t excuse, and I owe it to all of you to keep my word. In the coming weeks, I’ll be fixing that post, bringing it up to date. Afterward, I’ll make sure it stays current. My apologies.

A closing note

The world still seems crazy to me, a world gone mad. I see the lines hardening — no problem there — but they’re hardening in what to me seems exactly the wrong place. I still see the world, not as '“left” versus “right,” whatever that means these days, but as “rich versus all the rest.” The left-right paradigm seems to harbor some truths, but it lacks so much subtlety as to harbor lies, and lies as dangerous as the truths it tells. More about that going forward.

But finally, thanks! I looked at the growth of the site over the past twelve months, and got quite a shock.

There’s a place in the thoughtful world for people like us. Watchers of events. Souls willing take on the “mystery of things.” To talk of gilded DC butterflies, “who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out,” with an air of outrage, but also amusement at the tragically human comedy.

If all ends badly — and it seems like it will — at least, from some distance, the tale might also amuse. Were we created, our species, to grow this large? Or did we build for ourselves our own better mousetrap, using our nature to do it? God only knows, and we are just his spies.