On brevity

I can count on two hands the non-fiction books I’ve read that I didn’t think could or should be shorter. Nassim Taleb is overrepresented as an author in this group.

Most books should have been long form articles, most long form articles should have been short form articles, and most short form articles should have been tweets. And most tweets of course should never have been tweeted.

A world in which that were the case would be one in which we could absorb radically more information in similar reading times. Brevity is extremely valuable.

In 1941, Winston Churchill sent this instruction to the First Lord of the admiralty:

“Pray state this day, on one side of a sheet of paper, how the Royal Navy is being adapted to meet the conditions of modern warfare.”