The new face of the "Seneca Effect" blog on Substack. It is an attempt to circumvent the shadow ban imposed on the blog by the powers that be. Maybe it will do better on Substack than on the Google blogger platform, where it is now, although I am not sure: never underestimate the power of the PTBs. In any case, for some time, the two platforms, Google Blogger and Substack, will go in parallel and publish the same posts.
The "Seneca Effect" blog underwent the same treatment. You can see it on this record from "Google Analytics.
You see that the blog was gaining popularity at the end of 2022, especially when I set up a new domain called "senecaeffect.com." Then, something happened in late December. The trend went through a reversal, going down and plateauing at about half of the level they had one year before. And it keeps going down.
For a while, I thought that it was due to the catastrophists leaving the blog in droves when I published an optimistic post on renewable energy. That made some of them not just disagree but whipped them into a positive frenzy of personal insults against my modest person. Catastrophists are a curious bunch of people, always reminding me of Groucho Marx's quip about not wanting to belong to a group that accepts people like you as members. But, after a few months, the effect of a single post should have disappeared. But no... the blog continues to decline in terms of audience.
Of course, the PTBs will never admit that they are shadow-banning someone. But the symptoms are clear. Just use your search engine, and you'll see that the "Seneca Effect" blog comes way back in the list of the results, preceded by other sites dealing with Seneca matters, and even by my old site, "Cassandra's Legacy," which I had to abandon more than one year ago because it had been banned (not so softly) by Facebook. Even Wikipedia does not cite the Seneca blog on its page on the "Seneca Effect," only the old, and not updated anymore, Cassandra blog. Not surprising, since they are notoriously in the hands of alien monsters from outer space.
Only Bing, miraculously, shows the blog on the first page when you search for "Seneca Effect." I would never have imagined becoming a fan of Bill Gates!
So, life is hard for shadow-banned bloggers, and it is little comfort to be in a group that includes Donald Trump and many others (and, again, about not wanting to belong to a certain group....). Shadow banning is like one of those curses of fantasy novels that plague people forever unless they go through special rituals or difficult tests, say, slaying a dragon. But slaying the Google dragon is surely much more difficult than getting rid of Tolkien's Smaug.
So, the only possibility to circumvent soft banning is to change the name of your site, or change platform. For the time being, I am trying a move to Substack, which seems to be less subjected to Google power and, for now, not practicing censorship. You can find the Seneca version on Substack at this link. (**)
Will it work? I don't know. For the time being, the two platforms, Google Blogger and Substack, will go in parallel, mirroring each other. And we'll see.
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One point on which I am not sure is how Substack's popularity relies heavily on monetary support for authors from readers. Maybe it is a good idea and I don't despise a little compensation for the work I am doing: after all, I take royalties on the books I sell. Also, on Blogger, I have a small advertising banner that brings me about $25 per month (!!). I keep it there mainly as a way to get a feeling of the number of people who stay on the page long enough to notice the banner. In that case, though, the advertisers pay, not the readers. But I feel a bit queasy about asking readers to pay to read my posts. If I activate paid subscriptions on Substack, I would do that only as an option for readers to show their support, but not as a requisite to read the posts. But what do you think?
(*) Shadow banning doesn't need the Internet to exist. It is a much older story. Just as a quick note, I would like to mention the treatment inflicted on the great mathematician Vito Volterra in the 1930s, as a result of his opposition to the Fascist government in Italy. He was not physically harmed, jailed, or his movement restricted. He was just ignored: gradually marginalized, fired from his position as president of the Italian Research Council, and later even from his position as university professor. None of his colleagues dared to defy the ban, and up to the 1960s, it remained politically incorrect to mention him and his work in Italy (see this article by Giovanni Paoloni)
(**) I have another blog on Substack, "The Proud Holobionts," dedicated to the ecosystem, climate, biology, and the like. It is also a mirror of the same blog on Google's blogger.
Yes, there are several blogs and websites where you can learn about the Seneca Effect, a phenomenon named after the ancient Roman philosopher Seneca who observed that "growth is slow, but ruin is rapid." Here are a few suggestions:
"The Seneca Effect" by Ugo Bardi: Ugo Bardi is an Italian chemist and professor at the University of Florence who has written extensively on the Seneca Effect. His blog, "The Seneca Effect," is a great place to start for an introduction to the concept. He has also written several books on the subject, including "The Seneca Effect: Why Growth is Slow But Collapse is Rapid."
"Cassandra's Legacy" by Ugo Bardi: Ugo Bardi's blog, "Cassandra's Legacy," covers a wide range of topics related to sustainability, including the Seneca Effect. In addition to his own writing, the blog also features guest posts from other experts in the field.
"Our Finite World" by Gail Tverberg: Gail Tverberg is an actuary and analyst who writes about energy, economics, and the limits to growth. Her blog, "Our Finite World," covers a wide range of topics related to the intersection of energy and the economy, including the Seneca Effect.
"The Automatic Earth" by Ilargi and Stoneleigh: "The Automatic Earth" is a blog that covers economic and financial news from a perspective that emphasizes the limits to growth. The blog covers a wide range of topics related to the Seneca Effect, including the impact of resource depletion on the global economy.
These blogs and websites are great resources for learning more about the Seneca Effect and its implications for sustainability, economics, and the future of our planet.
Can you provide links for the above suggestions?
Certainly! Here are the links to the blogs I mentioned in my previous response:
"The Seneca Effect" by Ugo Bardi: http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/
"Cassandra's Legacy" by Ugo Bardi: http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/
"Our Finite World" by Gail Tverberg: https://ourfiniteworld.com/
"The Automatic Earth" by Ilargi and Stoneleigh: https://www.theautomaticearth.com/
I hope you find these resources helpful for learning about the Seneca Effect!
"It's possible that my training data may not have included the correct information regarding the link to Ugo Bardi's "The Seneca Effect" blog, or that I misinterpreted the context of the original question. In any case, I apologize for any confusion my earlier response may have caused and hope that my subsequent responses have been helpful in providing the correct information."