Vows To My Readers And Patrons

I promise to work in the highest interest, not my self interest.

I promise never to say anything that I don’t believe is true.

I promise I will always do my best to learn what is true.

I promise I will always speak the truth as I see it, without dishonestly equivocating or mitigating what I have to say.

I promise I will always speak the truth as I see it regardless of whether it will make me unpopular.

I promise I will always speak the truth as I see it regardless of whether it will make me lose patrons.

I promise I will always speak the truth as I see it even if I’m the only person in the world who sees it that way.

I promise not just to speak the truth, but to speak it as loudly as possible and get it heard by as many people as possible.

I promise to do everything I can to make sure my voice remains an effective weapon against the machine, protecting it as best I can from smears, misunderstanding and misrepresentation.

I promise that as long as I am at this gig I will keep all my online content completely free to read.

I promise that as long as I am at this gig I will keep all my online content completely free to re-publish.

I promise I will never accept money to write about a certain topic or write about a subject a certain way.

I promise that my work will remain uninfluenced by my patrons or by a desire to gain more patrons.

I promise my patronage will remain free of incentives or tiered access; everyone has the same access to all my work regardless of whether or not they support me.

I promise that giving me money for the work I do comes with no strings attached in any direction; if you fund my work you do it solely because you want to support what I’m doing, not because you’ll get any material benefits in return.

I promise that if I ever receive a Pulitzer I will livestream myself destroying it.

I promise to always choose courage over silence.

I promise to always keep learning.

I promise to always keep growing as a person.

I promise my views will change.

I promise to remain as dedicated to my inner work as I am to my outer work.

I promise to be truthful not just with you but with myself as well, to the fullest extent that my own degree of consciousness permits.

I promise to be honest and forthcoming about my failures to the fullest extent that my own degree of consciousness at the time permits.

I promise I will always fact check against my cognitive biases, even when I desperately, desperately, desperately want something to be true.

I promise to always dissemble those biases once seen.

I promise to keep honing my craft and striving to ensure that my work is always of a better quality than it was the year before.

I promise to always read and consider feedback from my readers.

I promise that I will do my best to engage people who approach me in good faith as often as I have time to do so.

I promise that I will never become one of those snooty blue-checkmark types who only pays attention to the opinions of the people they want to impress.

I promise that I will always direct my work to the people, never to high-profile individuals who I want to like me.

I promise to punch up and kiss down.

I promise to want for you whatever you want for me.

I promise to always stand on my own and never align my work with any particular faction or clique.

I promise to always do the very best I can with what I have available to me on any given day.

I promise to do everything I can to push toward life and away from death.

I promise to do everything I can to help protect the future of humanity in the most efficacious ways I can think of.

I promise to stick it to the bastards at every opportunity.

I promise to never forgive that which continues, or to forget that which the bastards could do again.

I promise to never stop fighting as long as there’s a fight to be fought.

I promise that as long as you’re in this thing with me, then I’m in this thing with you.

https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/vows-to-my-readers-and-patrons-838562595aa