Philosophy · Beliefs · How I Think

What I
Believe

A living document of first principles — how I try to think about knowledge, action, society, and the good life. Updated as I change my mind.

01◈Core Pillars
🔬
Empiricism
Update beliefs when evidence changes. Pride should not protect wrong ideas.
🌱
Solarpunk
Technology and nature can coexist. The future should be built, not waited for.
📚
Polymathy
Depth in many domains, not mastery of one. Connections between fields are where insight lives.
🤝
Commons
Knowledge and infrastructure should belong to everyone. Enclosure is a form of violence.
✍
Writing as Thinking
You do not understand something until you can write it clearly. Writing is not recording thought — it is having thought.
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying... Specialization is for insects."
— Robert A. Heinlein · The primary reason this site exists
02◉What I Actually Believe
I.
Breadth is not the enemy of depth
The conventional wisdom — pick one thing and master it — is efficient, but it is not how understanding actually works. The most interesting insights come from people who understand multiple domains and can apply the logic of one to the problems of another. A mathematician who reads history sees patterns that a pure historian misses.
II.
The future is not inevitable — it is built
Most people treat the future as something that happens to them. I think it is something made through deliberate action, design, and imagination. The solarpunk movement understands this: a better world does not arrive by default. It requires people who choose to build it, now, with the materials available.
III.
Knowledge should be free and open
Paywalling research, books, and tools creates an unequal distribution of understanding. A person's ability to learn should not be limited by where they were born or how much money their family has. This is both a moral position and a practical one — distributed knowledge makes better collective decisions.
IV.
Analog tools are not nostalgic — they are cognitive
Paper and pen force a kind of attention that screens do not. Writing by hand slows thought down enough to actually examine it. The four-notebook system is not rejection of technology — it is choosing the right tool for the cognitive task. Sometimes the right tool is a pencil.
V.
Add your own beliefs here
This page is yours. Write what you actually think — not what sounds impressive, but what you genuinely believe right now. You can always update it as you change your mind. That is the point.