Vol. I · 2026 · Updated Weekly
A Dictionary
In 1850, Gustave Flaubert began compiling a dictionary of the phrases, opinions, and convictions that his contemporaries held not because they had reasoned their way to them, but because everyone else held them too. He never finished it.
This is its continuation. New entries every week.
Never in one's own, which are convictions.
Being aware of the situation. Name your fund this. See: Aschenbrenner, Leopold.
Everyone has one; yours is a perspective.
What one produces instead of something.
Trust them until they disagree with you.
Personal: undeniable. Economic: complicated.
What one is making. Cannot be measured but must be maximized.
More important than the destination. Begin immediately.
The economy in which one works.
What facts become once they are on your side.
Everything.
What others have that explains everything; what one has that explains nothing.
Ask them instead of answering.
Has not had a new thought since the book.
Always comfortable to say.
Be. On camera.
Gets stronger under stress. Taleb has been stress-testing this theory on Twitter for fifteen years.
Asks every guest about love; the answer is always the next guest.
Wrong spelling of mimetic. See Mimetic.
Everything is, so nothing is. See Memetic.
The economy one participates in while explaining why one refuses to participate in it.
Preface all mentions with "I don't agree with everything he says."
Deplore it daily, participate constantly, and announce your exhaustion with both.
The heterodox thinker has an audience of two million and a live event in the fall.
Announce you are reasoning from them before repeating what your podcast said.
Distinguished from the other kind.
Works in ideas. Would never work for money.
— Musa al-Gharbi
Formerly: alert to injustice. Now: a term used exclusively by those who oppose it, to describe those who no longer use it.
What one feels before the collective turns on you.
— Zohran Kwame Mamdani