About me
Hello, my name is Adrien Chauvet. I am a 36-year-old Frenchman living in Bourges, France.
I created my personal website to keep all my creations in one place.
In Bourges, my weeks currently consist of these fun activities:
2 sessions of strength training and cardio
2 group yoga sessions
Daily walks
Studying Nassim Taleb's books
Social activities with locals or my parents
Finding a fun activity to earn money
Social networks
Facebook: I use it to look up local events and access Messenger.
Twitter: I stay away from it. Too much noise and not enough signal.
Reddit: I use a non-anonymous account so that my writings can be assumed.
LessWrong: An online forum and community dedicated to improving human reasoning and decision-making.
My family tree
My contributions to the world's knowledge
Political involvement
I am a member of the centrist party "Le Mouvement Démocrate". I was briefly appointed spokesperson for this political party in the Cher department in 2022.
I have been involved in several elections:
The municipal campaign of Michel Veunac in Biarritz in 2014. He was elected.
The regional campaign in Burgundy in 2015 with my cousin, Vincent Chauvet, to support the candidacy of Christophe Grudler. He was not elected.
The municipal campaign of Pascal Blanc in Bourges in 2020. He was not re-elected.
The Bourges support committee for the presidential re-election of Emmanuel Macron in 2022. He was the least bad candidate and was re-elected. Because of too many of his terrible decisions and statements, I no longer support him.
Except during elections, I stay away from politics because journalism has driven politicians away from fundamental debates to superficial polemics. Perhaps courage has become rare in politics, and politicians are now more concerned with protecting their careers than actually improving things.
Nevertheless I act daily by being vegan, minimalist, and donating to the Give Well Top Charities Fund.
Music I listen to
Petites Planètes: Vincent Moon recorded religious rituals, sacred music and local folklore in many places around the world.
Readings
These books are listed more or less in the chronological order in which I read them. The titles of the books are written in the language in which I read them.
La Trilogie Des Fourmis, Bernard Werber
Les Thanatonautes, Bernard Werber
L'encyclopédie Du Savoir Relatif Et Absolu, Bernard Werber
L'invasion De La Sicile Par Les Ours, Dino Buzzati
W, Georges Perec
Le Mariage De Figaro, Beaumarchais
Stupeur Et Tremblements, Amélie Nothomb
Le Seigneur Des Anneaux, J.R.R. Tolkien
Devenez Sorciers, Devenez Savants, Georges Charpak
Soyez Savants, Devenez Prophètes, Georges Charpak
L'éducation Sentimentale, Gustave Flaubert
Germinal, Emile Zola
La Condition Humaine, André Malraux
How Google Works, Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg
Anthologie De La Poésie Française, Georges Pompidou (partly read)
L’Alchémiste, Paulo Coelho
Introduction À La Pensée Complexe, Edgard Morin
Méditations, Marcus Aurelius
Un livre de Henri Bergson lu en 2019 à Ribiers.
Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari
Lettre À Ménécée, Epicure
Antigone, Sophocle
Voyage Au Bout De La Nuit, Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Des Souris Et Des Hommes, John Steinbeck
Siddhartha, Herman Hesse
Le Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
The Children Of Húrin, J.R.R. Tolkien
How I Made $2 Million In The Stock Market, Nicolas Darvas
Comment Je Vois Le Monde, Albert Einstein
Le Guide Du Voyageur Galactique, Douglas Adams
Le Joueur D'échecs, Stefan Zweig
C'est Beau Une Ville La Nuit, Richard Bohringer
The Almanack Of Naval Ravikant: A Guide To Wealth And Happiness, Naval Ravikant
Guerre, Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Incerto (the french edition), Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I'm currently studying it.
Not to mention countless magazines, comics, manga, news (I wasted my time), scientific papers, blogs, quotes, forum posts, tweets and educational videos.
Next on my list
Rationality: From AI to Zombies, Eliezer Yudkowsky
The Fabric Of Reality, David Deutsch
The Beginning of Infinity, David Deutsch
Letters to Lucilius, Seneca
Books recommended by my cousin Philippe Chauvet that I haven't read yet
Le Joueur (Dostoïevski), Le Cheval / Albert (Tolstoï), Le Menteur (H. James), The Road (Cormac McCarthy), La Femme D'un Autre, Le Mari Sous Le Lit (Dostoïevski), La Route Des Flandres (C. Simon).
My coding horrors
GitHub: When I tried to become a developer one last time.
I also developed several small personal websites using HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, JQuery and Bootstrap. They're no longer online. I created:
A website about surfing
My personal website, several times.
TUMT (The Ultimate Movies Timeline): an attempt to classify chronological events depicted in movies, coded with Vincent Jacquenet Li.
My brother's website for one of his musical projects: Chevalien.
I also helped a psychologist in Anglet, France to create her professional website with Wordpress: Estelle Malvy.
I'm really excited about no-code tools. They allow anyone to create beautiful simple websites without learning to code, like this one I created using Google Sites. And now, there are many ways to hire developers from all over the world to create a complex website or a software or an app.
Family, friends, and cool websites
Veuves: My brother's main musical project.
Chevalien: My brother's oldest musical project.
Daodao: One of my childhood friends, a photographer who lives in Ploubazlanec, France.
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A collection of writings by Naval Ravikant, a bookworm, entrepreneur and investor based in Silicon Valley.
Our World In Data: If you want to know the real state of the world today, this is the place to go, not the journalists.
Awesome Nassim Taleb: A curated list of all the content produced by Nassim Taleb.
Excursions
A lot of people can't afford to travel. I am grateful to have visited so many places.
International trips
Norway, 1996: A month-long trip with my family and friends in a camper van from France via Germany and Denmark.
Latvia, 2007: A school trip around the country.
London, England, 2008: A two weeks trip with Geoffrey Lalanne.
Pamplona and Bardenas Reales, Spain, 2012: A few days in the north of the country with Baptiste Gourdin and Vincent Jacquenet Li.
Chongqing, China, 2013: A three weeks trip to attend the wedding of Vincent Jacquenet Li and Sisi Jacquenet Li and to discover the city.
Skiing in France
Somewhere in Jura Mountains, 1990: I broke my skull falling off a bunk bed.
Habère-Poche: With my family.
Morillon: Two secondary school trips.
Modane: Swimming training and ski with the CNMG.
Mont-Dore: With my family except my sister.
Fondettes, 2010: With a few of my classmates from the university.
La Pierre-Saint-Martin: With Sisi Jacquenet Li, Baptiste Gourdin and Vincent Jacquenet Li.
Artouste, 2013: With Vincent Jacquenet Li. We slept in his Citroën ZX break and enjoyed a lot of powder snow.
Surf trip
San Vincente De La Barquera, Spain, 2012: with the Anglet Surf Club.
Health
1989: I broke my skull falling off a bunk bed. No after-effects.
2005: First depressive episode.
2007: A falling rock cut an artery of my right little finger in the Mercantour National Park. I was helicoptered to Monaco.
A few months later, I broke my right fifth metacarpal neck after drinking a concentrated mixture of coffee and black tea with Vincent Jacquenet in Béziers.
2010: We hit a deer while riding an acquaintance's motorcycle. I had 13 skin grafts and post-traumatic shock for several years.
Long-term condition: Depressive temperament with some bipolar episodes. Mild autism. I receive disability allowance until August 2024.
Anyway, since August 2022, I've never been happier in my adult life. I'm doing everything I can to make it last.