I really like this concept. It currently feels to me like a mixture between a fact post and an essay.
From the fact-post post:
You explicitly do not look for opinion, even expert opinion. You avoid news, and you’re wary of think-tank white papers. You’re looking for raw information. You are taking a sola scriptura approach, for better and for worse.
And then you start letting the data show you things.
You see things that are surprising or odd, and you note that.
You see facts that seem to be inconsistent with each other, and you look into the data sources and methodology until you clear up the mystery.
You orient towards the random, the unfamiliar, the things that are totally unfamiliar to your experience. One of the major exports of Germany is valves? When was the last time I even thought about valves? Why valves, what do you use valves in? OK, show me a list of all the different kinds of machine parts, by percent of total exports.
From Paul Graham’s essay post:
Figure out what? You don’t know yet. And so you can’t begin with a thesis, because you don’t have one, and may never have one. An essay doesn’t begin with a statement, but with a question. In a real essay, you don’t take a position and defend it. You notice a door that’s ajar, and you open it and walk in to see what’s inside.
If all you want to do is figure things out, why do you need to write anything, though? Why not just sit and think? Well, there precisely is Montaigne’s great discovery. Expressing ideas helps to form them. Indeed, helps is far too weak a word. Most of what ends up in my essays I only thought of when I sat down to write them. That’s why I write them.
I really like this concept. It currently feels to me like a mixture between a fact post and an essay.
From the fact-post post:
From Paul Graham’s essay post: