Varia argumenta #

Various arguments. These are my own notebooks — thoughts I kept while reading and thinking, now published as they were written. They are conjectures, not conclusions: some may be false, some I have already changed my mind about, and all of them are attempts rather than answers.

I have gathered them here by theme so they can be read a little at a time. Start wherever you like.

The themes #

• Antifragility & risk — convexity, black swans, the turkey, and skin in the game.
• Maps, models & power laws — why the map is never the territory, and why the world runs on power laws.
• The two minds — the animal that decides and the mind that explains it afterwards.
• Truth, doubt & Popper — conjecture and refutation, the limits of language, and how little we can know.
• Technology & society — technology as a yoke, consumption, and manipulation.
• On people & living — servility, books, time, and how to live well.

Written over several years. Where a thought was first set down in French or Polish, it has been translated into English here, so this is the single, complete edition.