On first principles and the material world
Random thoughts on the therapeutic value of going back to basics
Today I felt like writing about first principles and the material world. I’m not entirely sure why: maybe because I just finished reading a book on raw materials and started another one on why we die and the science of longevity. Maybe because I see so many people dedicating their intellectual energy to activities I’m not sure will survive the technological wave we’re living through. Or maybe because even what I’m doing right now won’t survive it. I don’t know. In any case, I think it’s useful to reinforce a few thoughts on first principles—or at least, what they mean to me.
If you live in the immaterial world, it's deeply therapeutic to confront the tangibility of the material one. My interest in technology is actually a byproduct of my interest in geopolitics—and geopolitics teaches you, or at least it taught me, how to distinguish between base and superstructure, how to separate signal from noise.
My primary curiosity in technology never came from software, or a specific app, or even AI. What has always fascinated me is the overlooked physical dimension of technology: undersea cables, data centers, semiconductors, the underlying infrastructure—far more than the front-end surface we usually interact with. The hidden antechamber rather than the glittering stage.
Nowadays, talking about infrastructure, semiconductors, and such is trendy. But until recently, these were simply taken for granted—things that were just there, whose mechanisms remained mostly unknown to the general public.
One feature of the modern world is the growing percentage of people who live entirely in the immaterial realm, disconnected from the raw materials that actually govern the world we inhabit. In a way, that’s a sign of societal advancement. But it also reveals something deeper: the material world still carries meanings that the immaterial world cannot replicate.
The immaterial world—which we now elevate to “everything”—is, in truth, a derivative of the material one we’ve forgotten. The digital, abstract world works well in fair weather. The material world returns to relevance only when things go wrong—think semiconductor shortages or raw material crises. Hardware can exist without software; software cannot exist without hardware.
That’s why, in a time of profound transformation like the one we’re living through, I believe it's essential to return to first principles. What are first principles? Beyond what ChatGPT or Google might tell you, I think of them as the structure of the world, the base—from which the superstructure (i.e., most of what we experience) emerges. First principles are mechanisms, logics, the hardware of our existence as humans on Earth. In practical terms, returning to first principles, for me, means diving deeper into areas like: energy, raw materials, game theory, probability, demography, geography, evolutionary theory, physics, and biology. I’m sure I’m missing some, but these are the ones I’m personally exploring. And trust me—studying or revisiting these foundations is deeply therapeutic. It brings you closer to the environment around you.
At the end they all serve one main purpose: to better understand the structure of the world. And then, of course, comes the question: What does it really mean to “understand the structure of the world”? The era ahead of us will force a complete redefinition of intelligence and culture.
Intelligence will no longer be about the accumulation of knowledge—it will manifest more through taste. Taste is the new intelligence: the ability to discern, to structure ideas, to organize knowledge logically. This, ultimately, is the reason behind my return to writing—as I mentioned in my previous post.
We need to reorganize our minds, because the logic of yesterday won’t hold tomorrow. And first principles are the best way to begin cleaning up the room—by no longer taking anything for granted, and instead digging deeper into the very things everyone else assumes are obvious.