Why start a blog in 2015

Starting a blog in 2004 was cool. Starting one in 2015 is anachronistic. But I found no other place to write more than 140 characters, use a versioning system and retain full ownership and control over form and content.

I intend to use this space to write down the contents of some of my talks, but mostly to expand on conversations I have with friends. In writing, one quickly finds the gaps in reasoning – and one must fill them or admit the weakness of an argument.

By making these thoughts public, I hope to force myself into exploring more comprehensively some of my favorite conversation topics, such as journalism, media, surveillance, nationalism, European history and agency. All posts will be edited ; I intend to use the history of commits to see how my own understanding of a problem changes through time.

Except for journalism-related topics, for which I enjoy an interesting viewpoint as a teacher and practitioner, I do not pretend to be an expert in any field. Most of what I write is probably unworthy of attention. My goal is not to convince, teach or show-off. On the contrary, it is mostly selfish: I want this blog to help me better understand some topics and the occasional reader to point the flaws in my arguments.