Mental Model
Botnet
A network of compromised computers or accounts controlled by a single operator without the owners' knowledge, used for coordinated action: spam, DDoS attacks, or manipulating online discourse
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Cognitive Move
Bottleneck
Ask whether this entity sets the ceiling on how much work the whole system can push through. Not whether it is busy or important, but whether everything else waits on it, so speeding it up speeds up everything.
Mental Model
Bottleneck Analysis
The practice of identifying the single constraint that limits the throughput of an entire system—from Eliyahu Goldratt's Theory of Constraints
Cognitive Move
Bottleneck Walk
Follow the work until you find where waiting piles up and completions stop rising.
Mental Model
Bottlenecks
The performance of any system is constrained by its narrowest point—the bottleneck
Cognitive Move
Boundary / transfer
Find out where the finding works, where it fails, and where it stops being safe to apply.
Cognitive Move
Boundary case
Find the ambiguous instance sitting right at the edge, the one you could argue either way, then rule it in or out. That decision draws the line where the term stops applying, which clear positive and negative cases never do.
Cognitive Move
boundary metaphor
A separator with a way through it. Wall, gate, fence, door, membrane, filter. You pour a membership rule or a blocking constraint into it: this side and that side, and the one opening that lets things across. It is the sharpest class for showing that something is not hard but closed. What it adds for free is singleness and solidity. A wall picture says there is one gate, and that the rest of the barrier is not negotiable.
Mental Model
Boundary Setting Script
A four-step verbal protocol for establishing and enforcing personal boundaries, drawing on assertiveness training and DBT interpersonal effectiveness skills
Cognitive Move
Boundary Sweep
When a seemingly self-contained system keeps surprising you, add one upstream layer, one downstream layer, one adjacent actor, and one externality, then prune what changes nothing.
Mental Model
Boundary Violation Escalation
The pattern where small boundary violations, when tolerated, create a permission structure for progressively larger violations
Mental Model
Bounded Rationality
Herbert Simon's foundational insight that human decision-makers are NOT the rational optimizers assumed by classical economics—they operate under three constraints that bound their rationality: limited information (you c…
Cognitive Move
box plot
Five numbers per group drawn as one shape: the box holds the middle half of the cases, the line inside it is the median, and the whiskers reach the extremes. Because each group collapses to one narrow shape, you can stand several side by side and compare their spreads, not only their middles. It hides the shape inside the box, including a second hump.
Mental Model
Boyd's OODA Loop Extended (Tempo and Orientation Dominance)
John Boyd's full OODA framework goes beyond the simplified Observe-Orient-Decide-Act cycle
Mental Model
Brainstorming Rules Protocol (IDEO Method)
A structured brainstorming protocol based on IDEO's design thinking practice, with specific rules that make the difference between productive ideation and the unfocused sessions most teams experience
Cognitive Move
Brake
Turn down how hard you react per unit of swing. You still respond to every signal, just weakly and slowly, so a single bad reading cannot whip the system. Nothing is stored and no limit is set; only the reaction strength changes.
Cognitive Move
Brake, Reserve, or Cap
When things are unstable, decide whether you need less gain, more stored buffer, or a bounded response.
Mental Model
Brandolini's Law (Bullshit Asymmetry)
The energy required to refute nonsense is an order of magnitude greater than the energy required to produce it
Cognitive Move
BREAK
Choose this when the loop itself should stop turning. You are not improving or redirecting it, you are cutting, containing, or weakening it. Find the smallest safe set of links to sever, and check whether backup pathways would just carry the loop anyway.
Cognitive Move
Break One Arrow
Perturb one link while holding everything else steady so you learn which edge actually matters.
Mental Model
Break Points
Thresholds in a system where gradual changes in inputs produce sudden, qualitative changes in outputs—phase transitions, tipping points, and critical thresholds
Mental Model
Bribery
Bribery involves offering, giving, requesting, or accepting a benefit to improperly influence an entrusted decision, with exact legal elements depending on the jurisdiction and conduct
Mental Model
Bridge vs. Bond Social Capital
Robert Putnam's distinction between bridging and bonding social capital describes two fundamentally different types of social connection
Cognitive Move
Bridges
Look for the single person or link that is the only path between two otherwise separate groups. Cut it and the groups stop reaching each other. Unlike a hub, which sits busy inside one cluster, a bridge carries all traffic across a gap.