Why I Do Not Share Advice Online

I enjoy understanding and analyzing issues in-depth, both for the security industry and more broadly. I do some individual stock picking in my free time, mostly as a relatively low-stakes way to perform research on different companies and I enjoy the research process.

I have decided that I want to start taking my blog in a more opinion-oriented direction. After a multi-year spell of trying to write content, and never really getting into it, I have found that I enjoy writing security analysis pieces. While I call it opinion, most of my posts start out as simply analysis, and evolve as I become more familiar with the issues. I am constantly reevaluating my positions, and I recognize that every circumstance is unique. I have, with posts that I have published and not published, led to a different conclusion than I thought I would end up when I started writing.

I am nothing more than a college student who likes understanding the world, and wants to document my understandings for other people to see.

With this in mind, nothing that I say on my blog or to a group should be taken as advice. I will usually talk about my own experience and world view, but will never directly recommend that someone do something, unless I am very familiar with who my audience will be.

There are two kinds of advice online: advice that is too specific to be valuable to every reader, and advice that is too general to be valuable to any reader.

There are two kinds of advice online: advice that is too specific to be valuable to every reader, and advice that is too general to be valuable to any reader. Even if I can make approximations of what a typical audience for a post or website might be, I cannot guarantee it.

When I give advice, I stand behind my belief that it is the right option for the audience's situation. I am abundantly clear in my disclaimers, attached to every piece of content I publish (linked at the bottom of my blog, on the first slide of my presentations, and available at beave.rs/disclaimer) that I "make no representation about the content and suitability of this information for any purpose."

Disclaimer
Statements on my blog reflect my personal opinions and do not represent the views or policies of my employer.

Since I cannot establish an audience with certainty for my blog, I find it difficult to offer specific advice on my blog. I will always try to phrase it as talking about personal experience or personal hypotheticals, but I may not be 100% perfect with that objective. If anything comes across like it may be advice, please do not treat it as such. Anything I publish online should be treated as a discussion of personal experience or opinion, and nothing more.

The purpose of writing this post, and my phrasing throughout my posts, is to protect the integrity of advice when I actually do offer it (to an individual or a small group). So, if you enjoy my writings, feel free to consider it as a data point of a larger decision, but please make decisions on your own. You know much more about yourself than I do.

Thank you for visiting my site, and I hope you stick around!