Principles

  1. Anti-persuasive: These are not intended to be popular articles. I am not trying to persuade or convince anyone to do anything. The purpose here is to more fully develop ideas/theories/questions. I am convinced that there is something qualitatively different from jotting down bullet points to myself in my notes app and synthesizing notes for an audience. The size of the audience should be irrelevant.

  2. Bias towards questions. In most cases, I won't be taking a clear position or side of the argument. I will intentionally explore the holes / shakiest assumptions / unsolved variables. This tendency to focus on the "bottom line" conclusion is a failure of the education system, and particularly all of my English classes.

  3. Over-share. This is from BCG (my future employer / identity-definer). I'll get a lot out there, knowing most of it is bullshit. But hopefully, the one or two useful ideas will be fully fleshed out.

  4. Sit with uncertainty. I will not bias towards ideas or debates I can clearly explain or solve. I've noticed recently that guys especially struggle with this. Recently, I sat with a group of 5+ girls and observed a deep conversation without contributing. I was surprised by the long pauses where people ponder unanswerable questions. This is how, ideally, these posts should be consumed. With a lot of pauses. Swim against the current! Blogging platforms do not profit from this form of digestion.

  5. Challenge assumptions. I will ask myself "Is this a hot take?" The intent is not to be provocative or "get the people going", it's to push conventional theories, explore edge cases, etc.

  6. Honest / no regard for political palatability. Disagreement is preferred. See: Secrets by Peter Thiel.

  7. Always trying to get more precise/specific. No "isms" here.

  8. Thinking in terms of graphs / distributions! I hope to follow in the tradition of Byrne Hobart, Taleb, and DFW.

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