Varia argumenta

Antifragility & risk

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Antifragility & risk #

Notes on convexity, randomness, and living in a world of thick tails — mostly after Taleb.

Convexity, and the two kinds of people #

Antifragility: what does not enrich you makes you poorer — with time, money, friendship, everything. It all comes down to convex versus concave; convex is simply the opposite of concave. Either you are shrewd or you are a dupe — there is no middle. That is why Fat Tony sorted people only into dupes and non-dupes. There is nothing in between.

Maps, models & power laws

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Maps, models & power laws #

Every theory is a map, and every map lies a little. These notes are about that gap — and about why small errors, compounded through a network of models, end in power laws.

Don’t navigate the world with a map #

Maps can be dangerous. They give us false comfort and fool us into taking them for reality, when in fact they are always a reduction and a distortion to some degree: one large object cannot be compressed ten thousand times and still be identical to the original.

The two minds

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The two minds #

We seem to be at least two minds — the fast, animal one that acts, and the slow, cognitive one that explains the action after the fact (as Kahneman wrote). These notes follow that suspicion, sometimes uncomfortably far.

Are we domesticated too? #

Dogs and the other domesticated animals: a dog is a wolf bred too closely, and something a little stunted came out of it. That is how it began, once humans kept wolves as mates in captivity (for sacrifice, perhaps? — René Girard). The same with cattle. And humans — are we domesticated too?

Truth, doubt & Popper

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Truth, doubt & Popper #

We know what is false far better than what is true. So the honest posture is Popper’s: propose bold conjectures and try to refute them. These notes circle that idea — through language, through Gödel, and through the difference between agreeing and merely not disagreeing.

Agree, or disagree? #

If you talk with someone and want to express agreement, you can say either “it is not false” or “it is true.” But saying one or the other does not amount to the same thing.

Technology & society

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Technology & society #

Technology is useful and it is a yoke — both at once. These notes are about the yoke: how our tools soften us, how consumption eats our attention, and how the manipulable are the profitable.

Technology is a yoke #

Technology is a yoke for humanity. Just as the yoke sits on the ox, humans lay that yoke on themselves — a constraint, something that demands labour and holds you back, like a treadmill (kierat). And these tools soften both the body and the mind.

On people & living

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

On people & living #

Notes on other people and on oneself — flattery and servility, books and time, success and fortune, and the slow business of becoming who you meant to be.

Servility is a form of flattery #

All flattery is fatal.

Exaggerated servility — indeed any servility, any shoe-licking subordination — is a form of flattery. It is flattery in disguise, because when someone behaves toward you as a subordinate, it flatters your ego. You might think of it, rather, as a form of deception — for that, morally, is what servility fundamentally is. When a man is deceived, he does not know it at the moment of being deceived; one can speak of deception only after the fact. A group, a nation, may be deceived without ever being aware of the process — for that is the very nature of deception itself. A century or more can pass, so that no one living within the deception ever becomes aware of it, since they will die before the day of revelation comes (an unexpected, black-swan sort of event, this revelation). Think of bloodletting, of lobotomy, of the belief that the earth is flat. But when we are flattered by another’s servility, we know it is fake and suspect — or at least we should — and to be aware of the deception and allow it to happen anyway is a weakness of mind. The one who deceives is always guided by his own interests, unless he is an imbecile.

Contact

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Contact #

Write to me at kamil.szewczyk.p@gmail.com.

I’m glad to hear disagreement — a thought that survives a good objection is worth a little more than one that never met any.