About A Working Model

A Working Model is a continuing attempt to understand how the world works, challenge what I think I know, and build a worldview that becomes more useful over time.

I am writing primarily for myself. That does not mean other readers are unimportant. It means I want to investigate the questions I would keep returning to without an audience, commercial incentive, or need for approval. I want to write what I would want to read.

The subjects will range widely: artificial intelligence, privacy, work, education, leadership, public policy, history, genealogy, technology, and the ordinary decisions through which a life takes shape. The connective tissue is a method. Define the problem. Examine the evidence. Question the prevailing explanation. Look for missing denominators, incentives, time horizons, and second-order effects. Then ask what changes if the better explanation is true.

I think of these essays as dynamic position papers. Publication records my current best understanding; it does not freeze it. When better evidence, experience, or reasoning changes the model, I will revise the single canonical article and explain the substantive changes. The archive should show not only what I think, but how and why that thinking evolved.

I also have a personal reason for doing this. Genealogy becomes much richer when an ancestor leaves behind more than names, dates, and locations. I want future generations to know how I experienced the world, what I questioned, where I was wrong, what changed my mind, and what I tried to make useful.

I have misremembered enough things to distrust memory as a fixed record. Writing closer to the moment gives me a better historical record than confident recollection years later. It preserves stories, judgments, doubts, and changes of mind that might otherwise disappear.

This is part of what I mean when I say that my goal is contentment, not comfort. Comfort is ease and freedom from friction. For me, contentment comes partly from continuing to engage with the world and try to understand it. I am building my life on unsatisfied curiosity.

I write in collaboration with artificial intelligence, using it as a research, analytical, and editorial partner. It helps me investigate claims, correct memory, identify counterarguments, organize evidence, and improve the writing. The judgments, conclusions, and responsibility for everything published here remain mine.

A Working Model is free. There is no commercial objective, and I am not trying to occupy the largest possible market. If the work becomes useful to other people, so much the better. Subscribing simply means receiving new essays and meaningful revisions by email.

Comments are closed. Thoughtful private responses are welcome at dave@aworkingmodel.com.

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