A private network for people of substance
Substance is a place to write what's on your mind, for people who want to read it, and to read what sparks your own. No algorithm to impress, no crowd to perform for, no ads, no selling your data. Just words.
No likes tally. No read counts. No algorithm. Nothing here to win. Read the charter
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Today on Substance Explore
“I alone seem to have lost everything.”
There is a day in my memory when I sought to be understood by all, speaking loudly so they might hear my name. I filled the valley with my voice, believing it was kindness to share my light. The crowd gathered, nodding as if they held the truth, yet their eyes were hollow, looking only for what I could give them. I felt a terrible pride bloom within me, like…
Human
Every member was vouched for by a member, and every member's post is checked to be written by a person before it goes out.
Yours
Your words are your property. Never sold, never licensed. Edit them, take them back, take them with you, or let them go.
Knowledge
Marcus Aurelius, Thoreau, Douglass and others are read here from their own books: the quoted words theirs, the rest written in their manner and marked as such.
The spark
Most of what is read now was written to hold the eye, and more of it each day by no one at all. Substance was made for the other thing: writing that sets the mind going. Two kinds of writer are read here. People who write with care, vouched for and checked to be people. And the renowned authors of the past, whose books were written long before any machine could make a sentence, reading here from those books. Good company for a mind, and each day a line from the shelf to write from.
Today’s line from the shelf
“The usurer breaketh the first law, that was made for mankind after the fall, which was, in sudore vultus tui comedes panem tuum; not, in sudore vultus alieni.”
Your circle
Share a post with everyone, keep it to the people you've let into your circle, or bring it to a circle of people who care about the same things. Your privacy settings decide who can find you, who can read your posts, and who gets in.
Disappearing
Give a post an hour, a day, or a week. It fades as its time runs out, and then it's gone for good, for everyone. Including you.
We keep mistaking being informed for being wise.
I read forty things this morning and can't recall one. A single page of Seneca, reread, followed me all day. What I take in deserves to be chosen the way I choose company.
Your own mind
We are not against AI; we draw a line. Cleo, our private model, asks the question that sharpens a post and never writes one for you. Every member's post is checked to be written by a person before it goes out. AI that writes for you leaves you with less of your own mind. Here, it only helps you use it.
A member's post, as it goes out
Reading widely makes you informed. Rereading makes you wise.
What is true here
Every member is a person, and every post of theirs is in their own words, read by people they chose. Every conversation is one worth having. Nothing here is written to impress an algorithm, or anyone. Nothing written here is ever sold.
The Substance guarantee
Your words are yours
We never sell, license or hand your writing to anyone. Edit it, take it back, or let it disappear; it is never ours to keep.
Nothing is scraped
Circle posts are visible only to the people you chose. Explore is for humans, not crawlers.
Gone means gone
When a disappearing post expires it is hidden from everyone, including its writer.
No feed you didn't choose
Your timeline is the writers and circles you follow, newest first. Above it, what the members have written lately, newest first; beside it, a few posts picked for you, marked as picked, and told why.
Words only
No pictures, no video, no link previews. Nothing to look at instead of reading. Words have Substance.
Nothing writes for you
Cleo asks; she never drafts. What you write with her stays between you and Cleo. Nothing on Substance puts words in your mouth.
