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Dan Li, Ph.D.

@dan-li-o

In academia, merit doesn’t pay — visibility does. I help scholars become visible. | danlio.studio | Also, my Erdős number is 5. personal site: https://dan-li-o.github.io

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29.09.2025
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Latest posts by Dan Li, Ph.D. @dan-li-o

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19 | I Hope My Children Will Be Mediocre It either takes a village to raise a child or a full-time stay-at-home mom. From Dan Li, Ph.D. | Nothing But 30.

open.substack.com/pub/nothingb...

17.02.2026 02:39 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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18 | Only a Mother Knows On Standpoint, Care, and the Limits of Understanding

We often assume that intimacy guarantees understanding—that sharing a roof, a bed, a life should make perspectives converge. What a fantasy.

open.substack.com/pub/nothingb...

27.01.2026 04:31 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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18 | Only a Mother Knows On Standpoint, Care, and the Limits of Understanding

The first night home from the hospital, I moved slowly toward the toilet, my vulva aching with every step. As I bent my knees, urine surged out without warning, splashing over the seat and pooling across the tile. I froze, and then slowly sat on the toilet seat.
open.substack.com/pub/nothingb...

23.01.2026 03:18 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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18 | Only a Mother Knows On Standpoint, Care, and the Limits of Understanding

We need mothers in workplaces, because--new essay--Only a Mother Knows: on standpoint, care, and limits of knowledge and understanding.

nothingbut30.substack.com/p/18-only-a-...

22.01.2026 11:05 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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18 | Only a Mother Knows On Standpoint, Care, and the Limits of Understanding

nothingbut30.substack.com/p/18-only-a-...

22.01.2026 04:14 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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a man in a suit and tie is holding a cup of coffee and says `` pfft '' . ALT: a man in a suit and tie is holding a cup of coffee and says `` pfft '' .

Daughter: Everybody loves everybody in this family!
Ryan: I'll teach you how to write that in predicate logic when you turn 7.
Me: For all x... Do?
Ryan: We don't use the do operator here.
Me: Except for between Dad and Mom?
Ryan:

06.01.2026 00:53 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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17 | Not a Very Good Mom From a professor to a "not very good" stay-at-home mom

When your child says you're not a very good mom.

open.substack.com/pub/nothingb...

05.01.2026 03:50 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Motherhood.

05.01.2026 00:10 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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17 | Not a Very Good Mom From a professor to a "not very good" stay-at-home mom

Each choice I made to give up my own opportunities so that we can keep together as a family was obvious at the time, but inch by inch, they took away my career, identity, and the worst of all: confidence.
open.substack.com/pub/nothingb...

02.01.2026 02:21 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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17 | Not a Very Good Mom From a professor to a "not very good" stay-at-home mom

When my toddler said I'm not a very good mom...
open.substack.com/pub/nothingb...

01.01.2026 23:14 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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10 | Because We Grew Up From sounding indifferent to being indifferent

open.substack.com/pub/nothingb...

20.12.2025 15:04 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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8 | Overflow The unspoken langauge of love

open.substack.com/pub/nothingb...

18.12.2025 13:15 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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6 | "Why Do You Like Working So Much?” A question that echoes across generations — and one I’m still learning to answer.

open.substack.com/pub/nothingb...

17.12.2025 12:58 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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4 | Mother Tongue When language shifts faster than love can follow

open.substack.com/pub/nothingb...

15.12.2025 13:23 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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2 | Birthday Cakes The cakes change across time and space, but the love stays.

open.substack.com/pub/nothingb...

14.12.2025 23:25 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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1 | The First Sky Between a rooftop in China and a shuttle in Indiana.

open.substack.com/pub/nothingb...

13.12.2025 15:04 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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3 | Steam Buns When education was nourishment, not business.

open.substack.com/pub/nothingb...

11.12.2025 13:15 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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5 | Space When love leaves no room untouched

open.substack.com/pub/nothingb...

10.12.2025 12:58 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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7 | “If You Tell Me What A Good Writer I am, It Might Give You A Boner.” On laughter, love, and the fragile space between confidence and self-doubt

open.substack.com/pub/nothingb...

08.12.2025 13:23 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
14 | An Affair in the Elevator Reason can only take you so far
07.12.2025 23:25 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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16 | 2003, a Year of Insignificance And I discovered that I can sit still for very long like a real writer

nothingbut30.substack.com/p/16-2003-a-...

05.12.2025 18:01 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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16 | 2003, a Year of Insignificance And I discovered that I can sit still for very long like a real writer

"Some schools educated students; mine manufactured them."

open.substack.com/pub/nothingb...

05.12.2025 18:00 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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5 | Space When love leaves no room untouched

"Motherhood feels like a slow disappearance—of sleep, solitude, even air. But in that disappearing, something else expands: the number of hearts beating because of you."

open.substack.com/pub/nothingb...

30.11.2025 23:25 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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13 | The Myth of Meritocracy Accepting that meritocracy doesn't exist will set you free

"Meritocracy is an illusion, a myth, a mechanism to trick us working-class apes into working harder for those who can tell good stories."

open.substack.com/pub/nothingb...

29.11.2025 15:04 👍 1 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
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When Does One Become a New Yorker? Are New Yorkers simply cold-blooded jerks?

"It takes something special to make New York subway say 'Don’t be someone’s subway story.'"
nothingbut30.substack.com/p/15-when-do...

27.11.2025 13:20 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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9 | The Work That Doesn’t Work On the fine line between self-employment and unemployment

“When you’re employed, you don’t care about the tangible returns of the work you do. You get paid. That’s all you need to know.”

open.substack.com/pub/nothingb...

27.11.2025 13:15 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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12 | Is Frugality a Scar? My unsettled relationship with money

"... he lost most of his teeth—toothache after toothache—because it pained him even more to pay to visit a dentist."

open.substack.com/pub/nothingb...

26.11.2025 12:58 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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open.substack.com/pub/nothingb...

24.11.2025 13:28 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

It's hard to make a difference when people Google you and only find Bluesky posts.

24.11.2025 13:23 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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10 | Because We Grew Up From sounding indifferent to being indifferent

"Jane texted me out of the blue a few days ago.
your due date’s close right how’s it going I’m good thanks how are you how’s the kiddo we’re good she just started kindergarten that’s good"

open.substack.com/pub/nothingb...

23.11.2025 23:25 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0