On mechanism-first writing

note

Most writing explains what. This blog tries to explain how — the hidden structure that determines whether a thing works, breaks, or fails to generalize.

#systems #craft

Most writing explains what. Few explain why. Almost none explain how.

The mechanism is the how — the hidden structure that determines whether a thing works, breaks, scales, or fails to generalize. A diagnosis without a mechanism is a label. An explanation without a mechanism is a description. A model without a mechanism is curve-fitting.

This blog is an attempt to find those structures, compress them into something usable, and occasionally build tools that make them inspectable.

The goal for any post: you leave with a better model of something.