Goals and Aspirations
With the Substack Critical Consent by Robert Urbaschek I strive to make sense of complicated yet important issues. The name refers to how, for meaningful consent to be given by citizens or people in general, one first needs to know all the facts. Only when someone is able to look at an issue with a critical eye, reasonably questioning official narratives, not believing claims with no evidence or merit, can meaningful—and thus critical—consent be given.
You will find no ‘niche’ here, but a wide variety of topics that are important for you to know about. Think about the difficult issues that our society must find a way to address, like environmental breakdown, increasingly authoritarian governments, and freedom of speech online. Also think about scientific discovery, and amazing histories and facts you never knew about. Think about a lot of things. Because that is the goal, to make you think. And no, I won’t be telling you what to think, or try to convince you of ‘my truth’. I want you to form your own opinion, based on as close to the truth as we can get. That does not mean I will be completely ‘neutral’, as the mainstream media often pretends to be, which I believe is impossible. Of course what I think and believe is going to colour my writing. However, you can trust me to always provide you with the facts and sources that I base my writing on, so you can check it out for yourself and make up your own mind.
I think access to honest and factual information is crucial if we want to meet the vast challenges of our time, so I want to keep most of my content freely accessible to all subscribers. Paid subscribers get extra perks and bonus content, and help sustain this newsletter so that it remains accessible to everyone. You can read more about the differences between paid and free subscriptions in the next section.
As my reader, I want you to understand why I’m doing this and why I know that what I write about has value, so I will tell you why I write in the first place. Why I have always been writing. I write because I want to reach people. I want to share as much as I can about the all the wonderful things on this Earth. I want to inform you about the problems facing our society. Problems that need fixing. Above all, I want to inspire everyone to do their best every day to make our planet even better, for ourselves, for each other, and for the generations to come. Together, let us try and reach as many people as we can, to make our society more informed, equitable, and filled with love for one another.
Get a nice introduction to my work with this video in which I look back on everything I posted in in 2023:
VIDEO: Looking Back On 2023
Content schedule
Once a month:
An in-depth article about the topic that I decide to tackle that month. I am also looking into ways to add to these posts, for instance with video content, voiceovers or summaries at the beginning. You have let me know that you prefer to receive these in the weekend, so that is when you can expect these, usually in the first week of the month.
On the last or first Wednesday of the month: Monthly Musing. I share my thoughts, struggles, and bits from my personal life with paid subscribers. This is also a place where I talk about changes that I’m contemplating for the newsletter, giving paid subscribers a chance to be involved in that process.
Either:A creative post. This can be an essay, thoughts, poem, or something else entirely. Experimentation is the name of the game here. I am not sure whether I will have enough inspiration to come up with one of these once a month, but we’ll find out together!
A passage from or a text related to my novel. These posts will be accessible to subscribers only. I will occasionally share some details about the story, without spoilers. The goal here is to facilitate discussion, get your feedback, and/or share part of my writing process with you. Instead of the comment section, I will be using Substack’s Chat feature to facilitate this discussion. Hopefully, this will allow us to exchange ideas.
Other types of posts:
Collaborative content. I am currently working on some interesting collaborative projects with other Substack writers. Those will be published as soon as they are done, hopefully also leading to several longer term collaborations. If one of these becomes a regular post or recurring series, I will incorporate them into my monthly planning.
Surprises. Writing is a dynamic process. Sometimes you just have an interesting idea and decide to do something with it.
Lastly,
I am also considering recording voiceovers for some of these posts, let me know if that is something that you would listen to.
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Tips, ideas, questions, or suggestions for collaboration? You can get in touch by sending an email to criticalconsent.substack@pm.me.
If you enjoy this newsletter, please share it with others. It helps more people find my work.
Paid Subscriptions Versus Free Subscriptions
Since I believe that access to information should be universal, no matter how much money you have, I want to keep as much of my content as accessible as possible. On the other hand, this work also needs to be financially sustainable in the long term. As a paid subscriber, that means that your contribution is going to fund my work and ensure that this newsletter can reach and inform more people.
Besides that warm fuzzy feeling you will get from knowing your contribution helps other people enjoy this newsletter, you will also be getting some perks. As my paid subscriber, I want to make you part of the writing process of the fiction novel that I’m writing. I’m still in the process of figuring out how I want to share parts of my novel with my subscribers, but there is something about sharing and discussing my most intimate and personal writing with my most dedicated subscribers that really speaks to me. You will be gaining access to bonus content on some of my other posts. What this means will differ on a post-to-post basis, but it could be extra sources, analyses, or information that did not make it into the final post. Or it could be a personal note, in which I share some extra insights or experiences. I usually have way more to share than fits inside a single post, so this is an excellent way to offer you more without offering free subscribers less. Lastly, you will get a monthly update, aptly named ‘Monthly Musing’, on what is going on in my life. This could be thoughts, insights, struggles, or whatever else I want to share with you. I want these posts to become part of a broader discussion in which we can exchange our thoughts in a more personal way, so that is why I am offering this as a service to paid subscribers.
In short, this is what your paid subscription gets you:
Helping to support my journalism and this newsletter
Full access to posts about my novel
Access to bonus content on posts
Receive monthly updates on what is going on in my life and join the discussion
As our community grows, the newsletter can start expanding and offering more compelling, high-quality content. I think access to honest and factual information is crucial if we want to meet the vast challenges of our time. Together, let us try and reach as many people as we can, to make our society more informed, equitable, and filled with love for one another. Everyone wins!
You can subscribe for a paid subscription by clicking this button:
You will be informed of any upcoming changes to subscriptions and I will communicate, as transparently as possible, the thoughts and reasoning behind them.
What other publications are saying about this newsletter:
- “I recommend this Substack for the analytical and nuanced dive into complex questions stemming from current events.”ShieldMe- “For those who want to form their own opinions, Robert offers an insightful and thought-provoking exploration of vital issues. From environmental change and AI to mindfulness and poetry, his Substack speaks loudly about the problems we face as a society.”
- "Nuanced political takes within well researched and written articles. Worth the time to check out.” - “Even though I don't always comment on Robert's posts, I always enjoy them. They are incisive, intellectually challenging and well-written.”Editorial/Ethical Policies
I always strive to write truthfully and ethically. That means that each post shall be properly sourced where necessary, and that its content will be as factual and as accurate as possible. My posts are written in my own personal style, and alternates between journalism, research, and opinion pieces. That means that what I think and believe is going to colour my writing, as it does for everyone. I do not hide behind some vague notion of ‘objectivity’ to provide a platform to immoral, untruthful, or unscientific viewpoints. You can trust me to always provide you with the facts and sources that I base my writing on, so you can check it out for yourself and make up your own mind. If you notice a mistake or incorrect information, please leave a comment and I will address it as well as I can.
History and Looking Forward
This project has always been experimental by design, which lets me try out different formats, content, and topics, to see what works. That also means that I am always open to new ideas, which you are free to share with me by sending a message to criticalconsent.substack@pm.me
I started out with my own website in September 2019, where I posted several long articles, in which I explored topics like the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (now ratified by fifty countries and therefore international law) and the history of global nuclear weapon policy, and how continuing fossil fuel subsidies undermine the goals set by nations in the Paris Agreement. However, at that time I also began studying to become an English teacher, which began to require quite a bit of time once I started an internship at a Dutch secondary school. The content therefore shifted towards explaining and deconstructing topics like palm oil and climate change. By the end of the year, I decided to put the website on hiatus until I could figure out a way forward. During the site’s second year I also began offering Dutch content, created a Facebook page, with the ultimate goal of facilitating more interaction with my audience. However, only once I moved all the content to Substack, did things like user interaction and reaching a larger audience on a steady basis become more feasible. This is where I started to consider this writing as something that I could do on a more regular and permanent basis, due to important realisations in my own life as well as this platform’s wonderful community.
Who knows what the future might bring, but I am excited and motivated to find out. Join me on my journey of learning and growing as person, and let us explore and learn from the topics and issues of our time. Always feel free to contact me with questions, comments, or ideas.
~Robert Urbaschek
