Written by Matthew Archer.

First, a warm welcome to all the new ISF readers! Just one day after our Relaunch Week (which saw us gain 160 subscribers), Substack made ISF a featured publication! Hundreds of you have signed up since Monday. I put together a celebratory Twitter thread, recommending some of my favourite articles and podcasts we’ve published so far. (By the way I forgot to shout out one of my favourite podcasts — it’s about why Jonathan Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory is wrong.)

Essay Competition

We launched the inaugural ISF Essay Competition last week. To register your entry, I asked you to send a one-line answer to the following question: What is your most controversial opinion? We’ve had lots of hilarious entries so far. I now relish every email ping, hoping it’s another searingly hot take.

Key Info For Entrants:

The deadline for your one-line email is this Sunday (30th Oct) at midnight UK time.
Send the one-line answer to IdeasSleepFuriously@protonmail.com with the subject heading “Essay Entry”.
Essay instructions will be sent out to all entrants on Monday Oct 31st.
Our prize money will be $500 for 1st place and $100 for 2nd.
The essay deadline is Nov 30th midnight UK time.
Our judges will be announced after all submissions are in. However, I can tell you that they are highly qualified to be judging controversial essays 😉
We will publish any top essays regardless of whether they place first or second!

Livestream announcement

On Sunday November 6th at 2pm US Central Time I shall have the pleasure of hosting a conversation between the essayist and academic in exile Bo Winegard & the bioethicist (and co-host of the ISF podcast) Jonathan Anomaly.

Paid supporters of ISF have the chance to submit questions in advance using the comment section below.

The main topic will be “Human Nature & Political Philosophy”, the title of a joint essay Bo and Jonny penned for Quillette last year. However, we shall go where the conversation takes us! The livestream will be released as an ISF podcast episode after the event.

Podcast on Sunday

Finally, on Sunday paid supporters will have access to the first episode of the ISF podcast to be co-hosted with the philosopher Jonathan Anomaly. We spoke with Prof Eric Kaufmann about his fascinating reports for the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology. They can be read below:

Born This Way? The Rise of LGBT as a Social and Political Identity

Diverse and Divided: A Political Demography of American Elite Students

Help us grow something special!

If you’d like to help support and grow ISF, become a supporter today from only $5 per month and get:

Exclusive articles
You will get to hear my sweet dulcet tones as I narrate every article we upload. Worth the price of admission alone.
Livestreams with myself, Jonny Anomaly, and other guests
Submit questions to guests & gain access to the 3 special questions we ask guests.
Early access to podcasts & your name in the credits

You can also become a Patron (where we have more benefits on offer).

Ideas Sleep Furiously

Updates: Essay competition, livestream, a…