InstaPatrick is a repository of my (Patrick Crozier’s) thoughts.  It springs from a couple of my frustrations about blogging. 

The first is the way you constantly have to repeat yourself.  It seems such a waste of effort.  What, I say to myself, if you could just say it the once and then link to it every time you need it?  Even better, what if you could update it in the light of new thoughts and ideas? 

The second frustration is with the lack of depth.  I want to persuade people to become libertarians.  Now, that is a difficult task at the best of times.  People do not ditch their beliefs easily.  But if you do want them to change their views you have to be able to answer their questions and overcome their objections.  That’s not really possible given the length of the average blog posting.  What if, I say to myself, I could write down what I believe and why I believe it in the sort of detail needed to be persuasive?

And then, I say, what if I could combine the two into one?  That is the purpose of the InstaPatrick.

Before we go any further, a few bits of admin:

Updatability.  Pages here are updatable.  That is one of the reasons (at the time of writing) they have no dates.  I intend that the best pages are updated many, many times.  The downside to updatability is that as a page gets updated the older version disappears and can no longer be referenced.  As it happens my current content management software does create versions but does not make them publicly available.  MediaWiki does make previous versions publicly available but had its own range of problems.  One day this will doubtless change but for now we’re just going to have to lump it.

Gaps.  This is a vast project and I accept at the outset that it will never be finished.  There will never be the time to get all my thoughts down and there will always be some questions that I cannot answer.  So, there will always be gaps.  I imagine that will be frustrating for the reader but I think it better to admit that there are gaps than pretend that there aren’t.  As the author it is useful to write down questions even if I don’t at the time have answers if only as an aide memoire.  And if some smarty-pants fellow libertarians out there should step into the breach… well, I won’t be saying “no”.  Credit will, of course, be given.

The Wiki.  This is not my first go at this sort of thing the first (actually, probably fourth) can be found here.  While it had its uses I eventually came to the conclusion that Wiki technology isn’t really a good enough fit.  It’s a close decision but Expression Engine allows comments and my own templates and thus wins the day.  At the time of writing I am slowly converting pages from the Wiki to pages here.  Hopefully, all the links will work but, inevitably, some won’t.

Copyright.  There ain’t none.  Copy at will but please give credit.

The Usual Caveats.  All arguments are subject to the usual caveats.

I am British.  Which means that I see the world from a British perspective and use British terms and sometimes British shorthand.  Hopefully, this won’t be too confusing to my foreign readers but my apologies if it is.

So, with all that under our belt it’s time to start.  And where better than with What I believe.

Permalink • Admin • Last Updated: 14 November 2006

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