About this project

I love multidisciplinary perspectives. My writings explore the intersection between tech, philosophy, finance, history, culture, productivity, and life—as well as a better medium for writing.

For starters:

• Check my Notes—atomic insights (most of them still being rewritten).
• Check my People—summaries and quotes from my favorite thinkers.

I take these notes to clear my head. Although future self is enough of an audience, I’m making these notes public because forwardable insights can lead to network effects—I’m trying to find like-minded people on the internet.

Occasionally I share my micro insights on X.

The numbering at the beginning of each note (e.g., 7-1a) is a manually implemented Zettelkasten system. It’s how I keep track of each note in my mental palace, but you can disregard them.

---

Why all these ‘atomic’ notes instead of blog posts?

• Because there is nothing absolute and necessary in the connections I make between ideas
• Because meaning is often in relation with other things
• Because connecting ideas is a way to create knowledge
• However, there is no minimum idea

---

Some good starting points if you are interested in any of these fields^:

• Philosophy (epistemology)
  • “What counts cannot be counted” – Einstein
  • No theory can exhaust reality
  • You have to solve problems, including the problem of what problems to solve
• History
  • ’One-of-those’ >>> ‘one-off’
  • History repeats and reverses
  • “A group of people who doesn’t know who they are and where they came from won’t make it to the moon or Mars” – Balaji
• Tech
  • You don’t really have to decide. You can let the tech decide.
  • Tech and the problem-situation is reflexive.
• Evolution
  • 3.8 billion years. Life and evolution’s superpower is its time horizon.
  • Humans influence everything. Explanation of ‘other life-forms’ and their evolution must evoke the influence of human existence.
  • Evolution doesn’t care about you. Its sample is beyond any human lifetime, let alone your experiences.
• Information
  • Perfect replication is impossible.
  • Information is in the difference. No difference, no information.
• Semiotics
  • Symbols are universal. Being arbitrary and contingent means it can represent anything, and do everything.
  • Infinite semiosis: there is no beginning or end to symbols because it is recursive.
• Negotiation
  • Look at the whole of conversations, including how things are being said as well as what’s not being said (e.g., taboos)
• Culture
  • Culture is an implicit theory for its members. It dictates what to look at and how they reason about the world.
  • The question is what’s the brain in, not what’s in the brain
  • Be the outsider, but not too outside. Stay at the edge.
• Media
  • You are what you think and you think what you see, and you see what you think
  • ”It is the medium itself that is the message, not the content” – Marshall McLuhan
• Language
  • Language can’t exhaust mind
  • Cultures precede languages
• Productivity
  • Constraints in the form of consistent style leave space for creativity and progress
  • You can replace the ‘self-discipline’ with the 4 laws of habit formation: make it visible; make it attractive; make it easy; make it satisfying
• Life
  • Use the Fun Criterion
  • Love bad news. Always question to falsify your idea and theory. How fast you can invalidate matters as much as how fast you can build them.
• Investing
  • Investment is expression and you need methods and techniques (i.e., knowledge)
  • Money is our time and energy in an abstracted form
• Blockchain
  • Users become owners with tokens
  • When you own something, you have an incentive to invest in it
  • The software can control the hardware
• Longevity
  • You have to realign the incentives of capitalist entities you are outsourcing your health, or you have to take care of yourself

^It’s important to use categories, but the reality doesn’t have categories. ‘Academic subjects’ are social constructs. Always prioritize solving your own problems.