File 00 — the thesis
The goal iscertainty.Better uncertainty.
A field guide for thinking when you don’t know — and acting anyway. Hold a belief as strongly as the evidence allows. No stronger.
Start here.
Three steps, about ten minutes. Everything else on this site is optional.
The problem
We are bad at uncertainty.
We mistake feeling for evidence, overweight a single signal, ignore base rates, and treat panic like intuition. Every one of these is a sentence the brain writes too fast — and then has to cross out.
- A client goes quiet for three days.The deal is dead probably just busy.
- Zero downloads by noon.Nobody wants this it’s noon.
- One odd symptom.It’s something serious usually it’s nothing.
- One curt text back.They’re done with me they slept badly.
The method
Four moves before you panic.
Not a mantra. A correction routine. Run it the next time a single data point tries to write your whole story.
The full field guide →- 01
Name the belief
What do I actually think is true right now? Say it in one sentence.
- 02
Check the base rate
How often does this kind of thing happen anyway, before I look at today?
- 03
Weigh the evidence
Is this a strong signal, or just loud noise that feels like one?
- 04
Update, don’t collapse
Move your estimate. A little. Not all the way to the worst case.
File 03 — the one tool that matters
The Panic-to-Probability Converter.
Name the fear. Answer four questions about your prior, your sample size, and whether anything actually changed. It crosses out the catastrophe and writes in a calmer reading of the evidence.
Convert a panic →Specimen
My app is dead.
⌃mostly a loud feeling on thin evidence.
Things you can break.
Small instruments that make one idea obvious by letting you push it around. Drag the sliders.
Four things to get better at.
Every essay, scenario and tool is filed under one of these.
- 01ProbabilityBase rates, Bayes, expected value, regression to the mean. The math your gut skips.
- 02PanicCatastrophising, negativity bias, emotional evidence. Why a strong feeling is not a strong proof.
- 03JudgmentDecisions under uncertainty. One bad day is not a trend. Small data drives you mad.
- 04BeliefsUpdating, confirmation bias, motivated reasoning. Keep your convictions on a short leash.
Longer arguments.
The newest four. One idea each, held loosely.
- Everything Looks Like a NailGive a small boy a hammer and everything needs pounding. Give a grown-up one and something quieter happens. They get good with it, which is fine. Then they write it down, which is not. The trouble with the hammer was never in the hands. It is in the logbook.10 min →
- How to Get Richer Than Elon Musk in Thirty MinutesTake $1,000 to a blackjack table, bet all of it, and let it ride. Thirty wins in a row and you are worth more than the richest man alive. The arithmetic is flawless. The odds are one in ten billion, which is not zero, and the casino stops you long before they matter.8 min →
- Seven Hundred Best DaysOpen the feed and seven hundred people are doing better than you. They are not. Every one of them sent the best of thirty days, and you turned up with a Tuesday. Run the arithmetic on that comparison and a top-two-percent life comes out feeling average.10 min →
- The Man Without Qualities Gets the JobNobody can appoint you alone; almost anybody can end you alone. Put a number on that and the usual complaint turns out to be the wrong one. The average did not fall. Both ends went missing — and only one of the two losses can ever appear in a report.12 min →