Essays

The fascinating discipline of solutions that only reveal themselves at the snap

philosophy

art

business

Strategic latency and the surprise factor

Norman Simon Rodriguez

Poverty is a by-product of societal desorder at scale

economics

policy

Poverty is largely a coordination problem

Norman Simon Rodriguez

My current vibe coding workflow

business

productivity

AI

At last something that works for me

Norman Simon Rodriguez

The CEO-researcher vs the micromanager

business

Know thy company inside out

Norman Simon Rodriguez

Ideologies solve themselves, not the real world

philosophy

Political plug-and-play hype

Norman Simon Rodriguez

A letter to my hungry students

education

Hold your horses, young grasshoppers

Norman Simon Rodriguez

How Big Things Get Done, by Dan Gardner and Bent Flyvbjerg

business

book reviews

productivity

On why overthinking is actually a good thing

Norman Simon Rodriguez

Initiation à la mathématique d’aujourd’hui, by Irving Adler

mathematics

book reviews

A review of the book that got me into mathematical thinking.

Norman Simon Rodriguez

Does poetry really have to be vague?

arts

AI

Contemporary taste, not poetic necessity, keeps narrowing how poems are allowed to be.

Norman Simon Rodriguez

Generalists are actually specialists

productivity

A true generalist specialises in bulding bridges between fields.

Norman Simon Rodriguez

Deduction is a special case of induction

epistemology

Deductive arguments are edge cases of probabilistic claims.

Norman Simon Rodriguez

The Tyranny of Metrics, by Jerry Z. Muller

book reviews

business

productivity

Measuring stuff often gets in the way of doing the right stuff (or of doing any stuff at all!)

Norman Simon Rodriguez

Atlas Brevior

epistemology

How science can only turn the world into code, not explain it.

Norman Simon Rodriguez

Vibe coding, agentic hype, and why I’m still doing most of the thinking

AI

Caveat emptor.

Norman Simon Rodriguez

When messiness is its own kind of order

productivity

A brief look at how personal logic can shape systems that work, even when they don’t look organised.

Norman Simon Rodriguez

AI, cheating, and the future shape of education

education

Teaching for the world students will enter, not the one we remember.

Norman Simon Rodriguez

When mathematics stops being fundamental

mathematics

epistemology

Mathematics works for us because we’re built to see a tiny slice of the universe.

Norman Simon Rodriguez

Productive procrastination

productivity

Procrastination that speaks, not stalls.

Norman Simon Rodriguez

Polymathic DPhils: A case for rethinking doctoral training

education

Reimagining higher education by training minds built for crossing boundaries.

Norman Simon Rodriguez

Nature has a hidden side

epistemology

Somewhere in the dark, nature is doing something we’d never predict.

Norman Simon Rodriguez

The problem with the usual defence of the Humanities

philosophy

Humanities degrees don’t automatically make you wise, ethical or employable.

Norman Simon Rodriguez

What will creative writers do once AI slop stops being slop?

arts

AI

AI will fake the human touch so well that humans may no longer be needed to provide it.

Norman Simon Rodriguez

Judges are the best social workers

policy

economics

Or on leveraging the justice system to help people out of poverty

Norman Simon Rodriguez

Health is countercultural

policy

And therefore illness is culturally-driven.

Norman Simon Rodriguez

Most companies miss the AI turn

business

AI

Recalibrating a company for an AI-shaped industry is closer to rocket science than plug-and-play innovation.

Norman Simon Rodriguez

Science works better when it’s taught as a story

education

When you see how science was built, its ideas stop feeling strange and start feeling obvious.

Norman Simon Rodriguez

Why ‘speaking from day one’ gets language learning backwards

education

You can’t speak what you haven’t yet learned to hear.

Norman Simon Rodriguez

The pursuit of wealth and the enjoyment of life

philosophy

economics

We traded prosperity for wealth. It’s costing us the planet.

Norman Simon Rodriguez

Dialogue and coherence as elements of a modern work ethic

philosophy

economics

Work isn’t just about profit or power—it’s dialogue, responsibility, and ethics, as Switzerland’s home-based model shows.

Norman Simon Rodriguez