# Joel Adejola

> My work asks how we know what we know, and how to build instruments that help people, and now machines, know better. I was born, raised and schooled in Nigeria.

This is Joel Adejola's site: essays and notes on how we know, with machines and on the football pitch, alongside investigations, poems and letters. Every page has a clean Markdown copy, linked below; asking for a page with `Accept: text/markdown` returns it too.

Use: You may index, quote, summarise and train on the writing here. Please attribute it to Joel Adejola, with a link to the page.

## About
- [About Joel Adejola](https://adejola.com/about/index.md): who he is, what he does now and did before, and how to write to him
- [Fashion](https://adejola.com/fashion): photographs of his runway and editorial modelling work

## Selected
- [A Catharsis: Interrogating the African Leadership Academy](https://adejola.com/writing/a-catharsis-interrogating-the-african-leadership-academy/index.md): Investigations, 2023-03-15
- [Where am I From?](https://adejola.com/writing/where-am-i-from/index.md): Poems & letters, 2025-08-25
- [Non-Trivial Scouting Cues](https://adejola.com/writing/non-trivial-scouting/index.md): Sport, 2024-04-20
- [How I Stopped Producing Good Mathematics](https://adejola.com/writing/good-mathematics/index.md): Essays, 2024-09-25
- [One Reason Why Nigerian Students Have Lost Hope](https://adejola.com/writing/nigerian-students/index.md): Essays, 2025-04-01

## How we know
- [The Case for Studying Philosophy](https://adejola.com/writing/studying-philosophy/index.md): Notes, 2026-09-21
- [Epistemic Certainty in Sports](https://adejola.com/writing/certainty/index.md): Sport, 2025-07-12
- [Kant on Analytic vs. Synthetic Propositions](https://adejola.com/writing/kant-analytic/index.md): Essays, 2025-05-01
- [How Do We Talk About Work?](https://adejola.com/writing/how-do-we-talk-about-work/index.md): Essays, 2025-02-23
- [Justified True Belief](https://adejola.com/writing/justified-true-belief/index.md): Sport, 2025-01-19
- [Epistemic Injustice](https://adejola.com/writing/epistemic-injustice/index.md): Essays, 2024-12-01

## Artificial intelligence
- [The Future Has Not Arrived Everywhere](https://adejola.com/writing/uneven-futures/index.md): Essays, 2026-09-20
- [Why the Agent-Model of Artificial Intelligence Will Not Scale](https://adejola.com/writing/why-the-agent-model-of-artificial-intelligence-will-not-scale/index.md): Essays, 2026-08-11
- [Augmentation over Productivity](https://adejola.com/writing/augmentation/index.md): Notes, 2026-08-10
- [The Arbitrage Window](https://adejola.com/writing/the-arbitrage-window/index.md): Essays, 2026-04-29

## Football: Scouting
- [What Happens When You Get the Smartest People in the World Thinking About Sports?](https://adejola.com/writing/smartest-people/index.md): Sport, 2025-10-31
- [Why Focusing on Strengths Leads to Better Scouting Outcomes](https://adejola.com/writing/identify-strengths/index.md): Sport, 2024-06-22
- [Reflection as a Scouting Optimizer](https://adejola.com/writing/reflection/index.md): Sport, 2024-06-03
- [Outlets: Football's Pressure Valves](https://adejola.com/writing/outlets/index.md): Sport, 2024-06-01
- [What Should We Expect from Head Coaches?](https://adejola.com/writing/head-coach-expectations/index.md): Sport, 2024-05-27
- [What Can Scouts Learn from Crawling Plants?](https://adejola.com/writing/crawling-plants/index.md): Sport, 2024-05-22
- [Avoiding the Description Trap when Scouting (or Analyzing)](https://adejola.com/writing/description-trap/index.md): Sport, 2024-05-18
- [More Non-Trivial Scouting Cues](https://adejola.com/writing/more-non-trivial-scouting/index.md): Sport, 2024-05-14
- [Non-Trivial Scouting Cues](https://adejola.com/writing/non-trivial-scouting/index.md): Sport, 2024-04-20
- [What Can we Learn From Synergies?](https://adejola.com/writing/synergies/index.md): Sport, 2024-04-17
- [Archiving as a Scouting Tool](https://adejola.com/writing/archiving/index.md): Sport, 2024-04-08
- [Beyond the Playbook: The Role of Anti-Strategy in Competition](https://adejola.com/writing/anti-strategy/index.md): Sport, 2024-04-08
- [Reverse-Engineering: How Players and Teams Poke Football's Margins](https://adejola.com/writing/reverse-engineering/index.md): Sport, 2024-01-09
- [Player Development Curriculums Need Digital Sieves](https://adejola.com/writing/sieve/index.md): Sport, 2024-01-03

## Football: Projections
- [Álvaro Fernández Carreras](https://adejola.com/writing/alvaro-fernandez/index.md): Sport, 2025-11-03
- [Sékou Koné](https://adejola.com/writing/sekou-kone/index.md): Sport, 2024-08-31
- [Dominic Solanke](https://adejola.com/writing/profiling-solanke/index.md): Sport, 2024-08-30
- [João Neves](https://adejola.com/writing/joao-neves/index.md): Sport, 2024-06-04
- [Anel Ahmedhodžić](https://adejola.com/writing/anel-ahmedhodzic/index.md): Sport, 2024-05-19
- [Amad Diallo](https://adejola.com/writing/amad/index.md): Sport, 2024-01-03
- [Maxi Oyedele](https://adejola.com/writing/maxi-oyedele/index.md): Sport, 2023-06-11
- [Alex Iwobi, into midfield](https://adejola.com/writing/iwobi/index.md): Sport, 2022-10-09

## Football: Precision Play
- [Why Mechanics Matter](https://adejola.com/writing/mechanics/index.md): Sport, 2024-10-07
- [Classifying Running Capacity](https://adejola.com/writing/running-capacity/index.md): Sport, 2024-09-28
- [The Stiff Arm](https://adejola.com/writing/stiff-arm/index.md): Sport, 2024-06-08
- [Features of a Great Sho(o)t(er)](https://adejola.com/writing/a-good-shot/index.md): Sport, 2024-05-23
- [Aerials and the ‘Aerial Duel’ Stat](https://adejola.com/writing/aerial-duel/index.md): Sport, 2024-01-06
- [Fit from Tackling Mechanics](https://adejola.com/writing/tackling/index.md): Sport, 2024-01-05
- [Assessing and Fine-Tuning Dribbling](https://adejola.com/writing/dribbling/index.md): Sport, 2024-01-01

## Football: Match analysis
- [Two Things Harry Kane Does Better than Most Strikers](https://adejola.com/writing/harry-kane/index.md): Sport, 2025-10-31
- [10 Reasons You Got McTominay so Wrong](https://adejola.com/writing/mctominay-is-good/index.md): Sport, 2025-06-05
- [Liverpool, Goals from Opposition Corners, and Arne Slot](https://adejola.com/writing/opposition-corners/index.md): Sport, 2024-08-26
- [A Case for Lisandro Martinez at Left-Back](https://adejola.com/writing/lisandro-left-back/index.md): Sport, 2024-06-14
- [On Motivation, Arsenal's Arteta – not Arteta's Arsenal – and Throw-ins.](https://adejola.com/writing/arsenals-arteta/index.md): Sport, 2024-04-10
- [The Tweaks Behind Manchester United's Resurgence](https://adejola.com/writing/united-resurgence/index.md): Sport, 2022-09-03
- [On 2nd-Balls & United's Case for Casemiro](https://adejola.com/writing/2nd-balls/index.md): Sport, 2022-08-27

## Attention
- [How to Make Driving Feel Like an Adventure](https://adejola.com/writing/how-to-make-driving-feel-like-an-adventure/index.md): Essays, 2026-02-12
- [A Black Cat Gave Me My Attention](https://adejola.com/writing/a-black-cat-gave-me-my-attention/index.md): Essays, 2026-01-25
- [I Have ADHD. That's Not the Thesis.](https://adejola.com/writing/adhd/index.md): Essays, 2025-12-04
- [Playing Games I Can Win](https://adejola.com/writing/playing-games-i-can-win/index.md): Essays, 2025-06-01
- [Lessons from Biking on Campus](https://adejola.com/writing/biking/index.md): Essays, 2024-10-01

## Education
- [One Reason Why Nigerian Students Have Lost Hope](https://adejola.com/writing/nigerian-students/index.md): Essays, 2025-04-01
- [I Keep Finding Reasons Why History Is Important](https://adejola.com/writing/reasons-for-history/index.md): Essays, 2025-03-23
- [How I Stopped Producing Good Mathematics](https://adejola.com/writing/good-mathematics/index.md): Essays, 2024-09-25
- [Phones — A College Epidemic](https://adejola.com/writing/phones-a-college-epidemic/index.md): Essays, 2024-08-01

## Nigeria
- [INEC Voter Registration: Suppression and Disenfranchisement](https://adejola.com/writing/inec-voter-registration/index.md): Investigations, 2024-06-07
- [A Catharsis: Interrogating the African Leadership Academy](https://adejola.com/writing/a-catharsis-interrogating-the-african-leadership-academy/index.md): Investigations, 2023-03-15
- [Investigation: Nigeria's Missing Fire Trucks](https://adejola.com/writing/fire-trucks/index.md): Investigations, 2023-02-11

## Poems and letters
- [Eight and Still Alone](https://adejola.com/writing/eight-and-still-alone/index.md): Poems & letters, 2025-11-28
- [I Cried in Minnesota](https://adejola.com/writing/i-cried-in-minnesota/index.md): Poems & letters, 2025-08-25
- [Where am I From?](https://adejola.com/writing/where-am-i-from/index.md): Poems & letters, 2025-08-25
- [Drizzled Stranger](https://adejola.com/writing/drizzled-stranger/index.md): Poems & letters, 2025-08-21
- [My Last Lover](https://adejola.com/writing/my-last-lover/index.md): Poems & letters, 2025-08-13
- [I Do Not Know](https://adejola.com/writing/i-do-not-know/index.md): Poems & letters, 2025-06-25

## Personal
- [Writing again](https://adejola.com/writing/writing-again/index.md): Notes, 2026-09-15
- [Coming to Terms with Burnout](https://adejola.com/writing/burnout/index.md): Essays, 2025-11-05
- [Lessons I Learnt from My Engineering Internship](https://adejola.com/writing/lessons-i-learnt-from-my-engineering-internship/index.md): Essays, 2025-11-04
- [Transitions](https://adejola.com/writing/transitions/index.md): Essays, 2025-01-20
- [What I Wrote in 2024](https://adejola.com/writing/2024-essays/index.md): Essays, 2025-01-02

## Optional
- [Everything in one file](https://adejola.com/llms-full.txt): every piece in full, newest first
- [Feed](https://adejola.com/feed.xml): Atom, newest first, with full text
- [Search index](https://adejola.com/search.json): every piece's plain text, as JSON