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The Second Decision
Most mistakes happen not in the choice, but in the hour we fail to return to it.
Earlier
- №15
4 MINRhetoric Without Anger
Aristotle named three sources of persuasion. The modern argument uses a fourth — and loses.
2026-04-29 - №14
4 MINThe Other Kind of Rigor
Mathematics and philosophy share the word 'proof' — and mean different things.
2026-04-22 - №13
4 MINThe Shape of Attention
Attention is not a number of minutes. It is the shape the mind gives to what it sees.
2026-04-15 - №12
4 MINWhat the Machine Cannot Decide
AI is good at predicting. A decision is a different operation. The two are often confused.
2026-04-08 - №11
4 MINThe Cost of Clarity
Clarity costs more than precision. Which is why academic prose has so little of it.
2026-04-01 - №10
4 MINThe Discipline of Assent
Epictetus taught that freedom begins where we stop automatically assenting to impressions.
2026-03-25 - №09
4 MINWhat the Mean Measures
Aristotle and Gauss agree on one thing: the mean is not the point. The modern KPI does not know this.
2026-03-18 - №08
4 MINA Debt to the Future Self
Seneca wrote on the brevity of life. Modern economics reduced the same thought to a discount rate.
2026-03-11 - №07
4 MINSocrates and the Technical Debt
Maieutics is the audit of assumptions. Technical debt is the assumptions that never went through audit.
2026-03-04 - №06
5 MINAristotle's Mean for AI
Between hallucination and refusal lies what Aristotle would have called the virtue of the model.
2026-02-25 - №05
4 MINSilence as a Rhetorical Move
Cicero could be silent in a way that made the audience lean forward. Modern negotiators have almost forgotten how.
2026-02-18 - №04
5 MINDebt and Promise
Roman fides bound money to honour. Modern ESG commitments try to restore that link.
2026-02-11 - №03
4 MINThe Pythagorean Silence Before Speech
The Pythagorean novice was silent for five years before earning the right to speak. The modern async mode is a faint copy of the same discipline.
2026-02-04 - №02
5 MINCrisis and Amor Fati
Marcus Aurelius wrote in war camps. Nietzsche, 1700 years later, called it amor fati. Taleb called it antifragility.
2026-01-28 - №01
5 MINThe Geometry of Argument
Euclid built proof as a chain. A good pitch is built the same way — and fails where the chain breaks.
2026-01-21