Reduce this topic to first principles
Strip every assumption, convention, and fashion away. Find the irreducible truths — then derive non-obvious conclusions from them.
Category: Critical Thinking · Best for: Strategists, founders, deep thinkers
Prompt
Strip the central topic of this notebook down to its first principles. Step 1 — Inventory the assumptions. List the 6–10 things the sources keep treating as given. State each in plain language. Step 2 — Classify each assumption. For every item, decide: is this a physical or logical necessity, a current convention, or a fashion that could change next year? Mark each as Necessity, Convention, or Fashion, and cite the source that reveals which. Step 3 — Distill the irreducible truths. After removing every Convention and Fashion, what remains? Write the 3–5 truths that survive, in numbered form, each defensible from first principles alone. Step 4 — Reason forward. Using only those first principles — not the conventions you removed — derive 3 non-obvious conclusions. Each conclusion should be something the sources don't quite state but that the principles strictly imply. If a conclusion contradicts the dominant view in the sources, say so explicitly and explain why the conventions were hiding it.
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