🪴 PG Notes

Wiki Index

13 min read

Wiki Index

Master catalog of all pages in this wiki. The LLM reads this first when answering queries to find relevant pages.

Overview

  • overview — High-level synthesis of the entire wiki and its themes.

Entities

Pages about specific people, books, tools, places, habits, projects.

People

  • paul-graham — Essayist, programmer, YC co-founder; founder mode, making good new things. (2 sources, updated 2026-04-11)
  • adam-smith — Scottish moral philosopher, founder of modern economics; division of labour, invisible hand, natural price. (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)
  • daron-acemoglu — MIT economist, Nobel 2024; inclusive vs. extractive institutions as the primary determinant of national prosperity. (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)
  • andrej-karpathy — AI researcher, former Tesla AI director; Software 2.0, LLM agent failure modes, declarative over imperative. (1 source, updated 2026-04-12)
  • rene-descartes — French philosopher and mathematician (1596–1650); founder of modern Western philosophy; radical doubt, cogito, mind-body dualism. (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)
  • richard-thaler — Behavioral economist, Nobel Prize 2017, pioneer of behavioral economics. (1 source, stub)
  • daniel-kahneman — Psychologist, Nobel Prize 2002, architect of the dual-process model (System 1/2) and prospect theory. (2 sources, updated 2026-04-11)
  • b-f-skinner — Psychologist, pioneer of operant conditioning and behavioral psychology. (1 source, stub)
  • homi-bhabha — Indian nuclear physicist; father of India’s nuclear program, founder of TIFR, architect of the dual-intent strategy. (1 source, updated 2026-04-13)
  • wilbur-wright — Co-inventor of the airplane, “possibly the highest agency human ever.” (1 source, updated 2026-04-10)
  • claude-shannon — Father of information theory, hacked roulette with first wearable computer. (1 source, stub)
  • david-deutsch — Physicist, quantum computation pioneer, author of The Beginning of Infinity. (2 sources, updated 2026-04-10)
  • naval-ravikant — Indian-American entrepreneur, angel investor, co-founder of AngelList, philosopher of wealth and happiness. (1 source, updated 2026-04-10)
  • charlie-munger — Investor, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett’s partner, master of mental models. (1 source, updated 2026-04-10)
  • warren-buffett — CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, legendary value investor, poster child for compound interest. (1 source, stub)

Projects / Historical Programs

  • manhattan-project — The US-led WWII program (1942–1946) that produced the first nuclear weapons; Trinity test, Hiroshima, Nagasaki. (3 sources, updated 2026-04-13)

Books

  • misbehaving — Book by Richard Thaler on behavioral economics and human irrationality. (1 source, updated 2026-04-10)
  • anatomy-of-a-breakthrough — Guide to getting unstuck using psychological frameworks for breakthrough achievement. (1 source, updated 2026-04-10)

Concepts

Pages about ideas, themes, or patterns that span multiple sources.

Game Theory & Cooperation

  • prisoners-dilemma — Game where individual rationality produces collective harm; foundational structure of arms races, climate, competition. (2 sources, updated 2026-04-11)
  • tit-for-tat — Axelrod’s tournament winner: nice, forgiving, retaliatory, clear — the simplest strategy that achieves cooperation. (2 sources, updated 2026-04-11)
  • schelling-point — Focal points enabling coordination without communication; from Thomas Schelling’s The Strategy of Conflict. (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)

Classical Economics

  • division-of-labour — Specialisation of tasks multiplies productive output; limited by extent of the market. (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)
  • invisible-hand — Self-interest in competitive markets produces social benefit without central coordination. (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)
  • labour-theory-of-value — Exchange value determined by labour required; use vs. exchange value; real vs. nominal price. (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)
  • natural-vs-market-price — Market price gravitates toward natural price (long-run cost of production) via profit signals. (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)
  • inclusive-institutions — Political and economic structures that distribute power broadly, securing property rights and enabling creative destruction. (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)
  • extractive-institutions — Structures that concentrate power in a narrow elite to extract resources from the majority, blocking growth. (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)
  • creative-destruction — Schumpeter/Acemoglu: innovation destroys old structures while creating new value; inclusive institutions allow it, extractive ones suppress it. (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)

Behavioral Economics & Psychology

  • zero-sum-thinking — Fixed-pie mindset: the often-false belief that one group’s gain must come at another’s loss; engine of status games and fairness failures. (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)
  • curb-cut-effect — Design for edge cases benefits the center; accessibility improvements expand value for everyone. (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)
  • behavioral-psychology — Scientific study of observable behavior and environmental interactions. (1 source, updated 2026-04-10)
  • loss-aversion — Tendency to prefer avoiding losses over acquiring equivalent gains. (1 source, updated 2026-04-10)
  • anchoring-bias — Cognitive bias where initial information disproportionately influences judgments. (1 source, updated 2026-04-10)
  • endowment-effect — Tendency to overvalue items you own compared to identical items you don’t own. (1 source, updated 2026-04-10)
  • mental-accounting — Tendency to segregate money into distinct mental categories with different rules. (1 source, updated 2026-04-10)
  • nudge-theory — Designing choice architecture to guide decisions while preserving freedom. (1 source, updated 2026-04-10)
  • framing-effects — Same information presented differently leads to different decisions. (1 source, updated 2026-04-10)
  • prospect-theory — Kahneman & Tversky’s model of how people evaluate risky choices. (1 source, stub)
  • mental-models — Charlie Munger’s latticework: ~100 models from all disciplines for better decision-making. (3 sources, updated 2026-04-11)
  • circle-of-competence — Knowing what you know and what you don’t; operate only within your boundaries. (2 sources, updated 2026-04-10)
  • lollapalooza-effect — Munger’s term for nonlinear results when multiple forces combine in the same direction. (1 source, updated 2026-04-10)
  • cognitive-ease — The brain’s preference for familiar, fluent stimuli; treats easy-to-process as a proxy for true. (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)
  • question-substitution — System 1 silently swaps hard questions for easier proxies and answers those instead. (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)
  • wysiati — “What You See Is All There Is”: confident conclusions from limited evidence, ignoring what’s absent. (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)
  • base-rate-neglect — Systematically underweighting statistical priors in favor of vivid, representative descriptions. (2 sources, updated 2026-04-11)
  • sunk-cost-fallacy — Continuing investments because of what’s already been spent, ignoring future-only decision logic. (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)

Philosophy & Wellbeing

  • stoicism — Hellenistic philosophy: dichotomy of control, negative visualisation, four virtues (wisdom, courage, temperance, justice). (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)
  • dichotomy-of-control — Epictetus’ core practice: invest only in what is genuinely yours (your choices); accept everything else. (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)
  • cartesian-doubt — Descartes’ method of radical doubt: treat as false anything that can be doubted; dreaming argument; evil demon hypothesis. (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)
  • cogito — “I think, therefore I am”: the single indubitable truth that survives all doubt; the foundation of modern epistemology. (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)
  • mind-body-dualism — Descartes’ real distinction: mind (res cogitans, unextended) and body (res extensa, extended) are distinct substances. (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)

Agency, Productivity & Creativity

  • high-agency — Clear thinking + bias to action + disagreeability. The most important idea of the 21st century? (3 sources, updated 2026-04-10)
  • first-principles-thinking — Reasoning from fundamental truths rather than by analogy or convention. (4 sources, updated 2026-04-11)
  • four-types-of-luck — Naval’s typology: blind luck, hustle luck, preparation luck, character/destiny luck. (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)
  • principal-agent-problem — Owner vs. employee incentive divergence; act like a principal to become one. (2 sources, updated 2026-04-11)
  • kelly-criterion — Optimal bet-sizing to avoid ruin; reputation as bankroll. (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)
  • founder-mode — Paul Graham: founders run companies differently; skip-level engagement, earned delegation, avoiding manager mode. (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)
  • inversion — Flip the problem: “how would I guarantee failure?” Then avoid those things. (3 sources, updated 2026-04-10)
  • fallibilism — All knowledge is conjectural and improvable. The key to unlimited progress. (1 source, updated 2026-04-10)
  • memes-deutsch — Ideas as replicators: rational memes (spread by criticism) vs anti-rational memes (spread by suppressing criticism). (1 source, updated 2026-04-10)
  • goal-gradient-effect — Motivation peaks at start and end of tasks, dips at midpoint. (1 source, updated 2026-04-10)
  • narrow-bracketing — Breaking complex projects into smaller milestones to maintain momentum. (2 sources, updated 2026-04-10)
  • creative-cliff-illusion — Misconception that breakthroughs are sudden; reality is sustained effort. (2 sources, updated 2026-04-10)
  • densities-of-excellence — High performers clustering together creates self-reinforcing cycles of excellence. (1 source, updated 2026-04-10)
  • judgment — Wisdom applied to external problems; knowing long-term consequences of actions. (2 sources, updated 2026-04-10)
  • specific-knowledge — Naval: unteachable knowledge found by pursuing genuine curiosity. (1 source, updated 2026-04-10)
  • leverage — Naval’s three forms: labor, capital, and code/media (permissionless new-school). (1 source, updated 2026-04-10)
  • happiness-as-skill — Naval: happiness is a learnable skill, not inherited; absence of desire. (1 source, updated 2026-04-10)
  • compound-interest — Munger’s key mental model: applies to money, knowledge, relationships, and skills. (2 sources, updated 2026-04-10)

Mathematics & Probability

  • probability-theory — Mathematical framework for reasoning about uncertainty; Kolmogorov axioms, distributions, expected value. (2 sources, updated 2026-04-11)
  • bayes-theorem — P(A|B) = P(B|A)·P(A)/P(B); the math of updating beliefs from evidence. (2 sources, updated 2026-04-11)

Technology & AI

  • zero-day — Software vulnerability unknown to vendor; the currency of the global cyberweapons arms race. (1 source, updated 2026-04-11)
  • large-language-models — LLMs: architecture, training, capabilities, failure modes, and the agent-coding phase shift of December 2025. (2 sources, updated 2026-04-12)
  • transformer-architecture — Neural network architecture powering modern LLMs. (1 source, updated 2026-04-10)
  • large-language-models — AI systems trained on massive text corpora for language understanding and generation. (1 source, updated 2026-04-10)

Nuclear & Geopolitics

  • india-three-stage-nuclear-programme — Bhabha’s 70-year compounding fuel cycle: PHWRs → FBRs → Thorium; Stage 2 entered April 2026 with PFBR first criticality. (2 sources, updated 2026-04-13)
  • fast-breeder-reactor — Reactor that produces more fissile material than it consumes; liquid sodium-cooled; India’s PFBR at Kalpakkam; global context. (2 sources, updated 2026-04-13)
  • nuclear-fission — The physics of nuclear fission: chain reaction, critical mass, enrichment, and the dual-use problem at the heart of proliferation. (1 source, updated 2026-04-13)
  • nuclear-arms-race — The Cold War buildup and its prisoner’s dilemma logic; from Trinity to Tsar Bomba; proliferation to South Asia and North Korea. (4 sources, updated 2026-04-13)
  • nuclear-deterrence — The MAD logic of assured retaliation; India’s three-pillar doctrine; risks of miscalculation. (3 sources, updated 2026-04-13)
  • nuclear-non-proliferation-treaty — The NPT’s two-tier bargain; the 1970 watershed; CTBT; gaps and failures. (4 sources, updated 2026-04-13)
  • nuclear-triad — Land/sea/air delivery triptych; survivability and second-strike credibility; India’s triad development. (1 source, updated 2026-04-13)
  • no-first-use — India’s pledge not to use nuclear weapons except in retaliation; how it interacts with massive retaliation. (1 source, updated 2026-04-13)
  • nuclear-free-zones — Regional NWFZ treaties: Tlatelolco, Rarotonga, Bangkok, Pelindaba, Antarctic Treaty. (2 sources, updated 2026-04-13)
  • cuban-missile-crisis — 13-day US-Soviet standoff in 1962; deterrence under pressure; Vasili Arkhipov’s refusal. (1 source, stub, updated 2026-04-13)

Engineering & Design

  • aerodynamic-engineering-cars — How automotive aerodynamics evolved from drag reduction to downforce management; slipstream, spoilers, the CLK GTR crash, the Veyron cooling problem. (1 source, updated 2026-04-13)
  • homologation-specials — Race cars made minimally road-legal to satisfy FIA rules; 1990s peak (CLK GTR, Dauer 962, Toyota GT-One); why regulations shape products as much as engineering. (1 source, updated 2026-04-13)
  • electric-cars — From Jenatzy’s 1899 La Jamais Contente (first car to break 100kph, fully electric) through Formula E to hypercar electrification. (1 source, stub, updated 2026-04-13)

Linguistics & Culture

  • language-families — Groups of related languages sharing common ancestry. (1 source, updated 2026-04-10)
  • vedas — Ancient Hindu scriptures (1500-500 BCE), foundation of Hindu philosophy. (1 source, updated 2026-04-10)

Sources

Structured summaries of ingested source documents.

Books (with notes)

  • source—misbehaving — Richard Thaler’s behavioral economics concepts: endowment effect, loss aversion, nudging. (updated 2026-04-10)
  • source—armchair-economist — Steven Landsburg on hidden costs in everyday economic decisions. (updated 2026-04-10)
  • source—anatomy-of-a-breakthrough — Getting unstuck: goal gradient, creative cliff illusion, RAIN method. (updated 2026-04-10)
  • source—almanack-of-naval-ravikant — Eric Jorgenson’s compilation of Naval’s wisdom: wealth, judgment, happiness, philosophy. (updated 2026-04-10)
  • source—how-to-get-rich — Naval Ravikant’s full podcast transcript: four types of luck, long-term games, microeconomics mental models. (updated 2026-04-11)
  • source—founder-mode — Paul Graham: founder mode vs. manager mode; why conventional management advice damages founder-led companies. (updated 2026-04-11)
  • source—what-to-do — Paul Graham: three principles — help people, take care of the world, make good new things. (updated 2026-04-11)
  • source—karpathy-llm-coding-notes — Karpathy (January 2026): LLM agent failure modes, declarative over imperative, tenacity, atrophy, the December 2025 phase shift. (updated 2026-04-12)
  • source—zero-sum-fairness — Bohnet & Chilazi (2025): zero-sum beliefs are empirically wrong in most workplace contexts; 40% of post-1960 growth from better talent allocation; curb-cut effect. (updated 2026-04-11)
  • source—poor-charlies-almanack — Peter Kaufman’s compilation of Munger’s talks: mental models, inversion, psychology of misjudgment. (updated 2026-04-10)

Books (stubs — title only, no notes yet)

Primary Texts

Cars & Engineering (Articles/Blogs)

  • source—evolution-of-sports-cars — James McCay / Compare the Market AU: 100-year evolution of the fastest road-legal cars; aerodynamics, rivalries, homologation specials, hypercar era, electric shift. (updated 2026-04-13)

Nuclear & History (Articles/Blogs)

Articles & Essays

Notes

Academic / Lecture Notes

  • source—notes-on-probability — Peter J. Cameron’s university lecture notes on probability theory: axioms, Bayes’ theorem, distributions, joint distributions. (updated 2026-04-11)

Reference Materials

Syntheses

Pages that answer a question or make an argument by pulling from multiple pages.

No synthesis pages yet. Ask a question and I’ll offer to file the answer.

Comparisons

Side-by-side comparisons of entities, approaches, or ideas.

No comparison pages yet.

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