---
title: Writing manifesto
slug: manifesto
date: 2025-09-12
---

# Writing manifesto

I try to be intentional about how I spend my time. The time I spend writing should be no exception. To make sure I stay aligned with my writing aims, I've put together this manifesto.

Effectively, I consider this manifesto the **brand guidelines** of my personal essays. I will hold myself accountable to the _Do's_ and _Don'ts_ I write up in this document as best as I can. In turn, I hope I ultimately achieve all my _Aims_.

## Aims

These are the main outcomes I hope to achieve by publishing essays online.

- Become better at expressing my thoughts.
- Find signal in all the roughness of my natural thinking—largely by resisting the temptation of using AI to perfect my writing.
- Positively influence the creation and adoption of new technologies, in line with society's best interests—largely by sharing nascent predictions and pragmatic suggestions.

## Do's

To help me achieve my aims in a consistent manner, I want to put guardrails on how I approach every essay.

- Paint an honest and ideally optimistic view of the future of technology.
- Think both high level and low level. High level thought paints an optimistic view of the future, while low level thought proposes one bridge to get there.
- Be curious.
- Attempt to answer the low level questions. No one holds the answer to every question and I'm no exception. I just view it like this: if everyone shared their imperfect attempts at a realistic path to an optimistic future, then we have more ideas to combine and choose from.
- Force myself to research topics I otherwise wouldn't.
- Write in my own style. Where college essays generally encourage homogeneity and verbosity, I am aiming for clarity of thought.
- Tree shake before publishing. Cut out all details that add zero or negative value to the essay.
- Read essays aloud before publishing. Rephrase anything that doesn't sound natural or that I just wouldn't say in conversation.

## Don'ts

In brand guidelines, it is just as important to enumerate what _not_ to do. I want to exercise the same constraint on my essays.

- Don't edit the words or paragraph structure to sound smart. Only ever edit the essay to make a point more parsimonious.
- Don't conform to the writing style of others. Focus first and foremost on getting my thoughts onto the page.
- Don't try to impress readers with profound sounding ideas. I believe there is a sizeable time lag in how long it takes a reader to register some really profound insights. In any case, the goal isn't instant validation—the best ideas may simply be obvious in hindsight.
- Don't spend more than a few days of active writing time on each essay. The more time I have to formulate my words, the more perfectionist I'll get, and the more I'll try to perfect even the thoughts going into an essay.
- Don't filter what I share, as long as I can't foresee the ideas causing _actual_ hurt to others. I might make predictions that diverge drastically from the status quo, so at most I might share an uncomfortable truth.
- Don't blindly extrapolate from past essays out of convenience or an assumed necessity to double down on past viewpoints. I _should_ change my opinions when the data changes—it would be irresponsible to perpetuate a belief when an underlying assumption is challenged. Of course, if the data hasn't changed, then I can shamelessly refer to the conclusions of a past essay.
- Don't write about what I think others want to hear. I should write about whatever thoughts I naturally have, in whatever distribution I have them. Luckily, I've found it impossible to motivate myself on an essay topic by asking friends for inspiration. At best, I've been able to ask friends which essay I should write first from a shortlist of topics I'm already interested in.
- Don't restrict myself to any one topic like 'frontend development'. As long as I've thought deeply about a topic, I am likely to have some unique perspective that is worth sharing.

## Inspiration

I'm a strong believer in credit where credit is due. Here are my three main reasons for publishing essays online.

- Paul Graham.
- My friends who started writing a few years ago, who have proven that there is really only upside in online publishing. It turns out that all the potential downsides are purely hypothetical. [^1]
- My friends who still have some unfounded embarrassment in sharing their work on the internet, whether it's opinion pieces or creative writing. I hope my essays encourage you to start publishing too.

## Notes


[^1]: Thanks Diego, Yusuf, and Ben.