Psychology & Cognitive Science
Goodhart's Law
When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure
Named Laws & EffectsThe encyclopedia
People, books, and breakthrough ideas—connected to the mental models and moves you can use.
Find a mental model
Psychology & Cognitive Science
Goodhart's Law (When a Measure Becomes a Target)
Charles Goodhart's principle that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure
Named Laws & EffectsPsychology & Cognitive Science
Man with a Hammer Syndrome
Charlie Munger's colorful restatement of Maslow's Hammer with a crucial extension: not only does someone with only a hammer see every problem as a nail, but they also become UNABLE to recognize problems that aren't nails…
Named Laws & EffectsPsychology & Cognitive Science
Observer Effect vs Hawthorne Effect
Two distinct but often confused phenomena: The Observer Effect (from physics) is the principle that measuring a system changes it—observation alters the observed
Named Laws & EffectsPsychology & Cognitive Science
Peak Performance Curve (Yerkes-Dodson Law)
The empirical finding that performance follows an inverted-U relationship with arousal: too little arousal produces lethargy and poor performance, optimal arousal produces peak performance, and too much arousal produces…
Named Laws & EffectsPsychology & Cognitive Science
Potemkin Village
The historical (possibly apocryphal) story of Grigory Potemkin building fake villages along the Dnieper River to impress Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea—presenting a façade of prosperity that masked reali…
Named Laws & EffectsPsychology & Cognitive Science
Simultaneous Invention (Multiple Discovery)
The historical pattern where the same invention or discovery is made independently by multiple people at roughly the same time: calculus (Newton and Leibniz), evolution (Darwin and Wallace), telephone (Bell and Gray, sam…
Named Laws & EffectsPsychology & Cognitive Science
Streisand Effect
Attempting to suppress or hide information often amplifies its spread
Named Laws & EffectsPsychology & Cognitive Science
Wright's Law (Learning Curve)
Theodore Wright's empirical observation that the cost of producing something decreases by a consistent percentage every time cumulative production doubles—typically 10-25% cost reduction per doubling
Named Laws & EffectsRisk & Uncertainty
Black Box Warning
The FDA's strongest safety warning on a drug label—a literal black-bordered box indicating serious or life-threatening risks
Risk ManagementRisk & Uncertainty
Fail-Safe
A design principle where system failure defaults to a safe state rather than a dangerous one
Risk ManagementRisk & Uncertainty
Fat Finger Error (Small Mistakes, Huge Consequences)
A small, often physical mistake—a mistyped number, a misplaced decimal, a clicked wrong button—that cascades into massive consequences because the system lacks safeguards proportionate to the consequences
Risk ManagementRisk & Uncertainty
Pre-Mortem Analysis
Gary Klein's technique of imagining that a project has already failed, then working backward to identify the most likely causes
Risk ManagementRisk & Uncertainty
Regime Change (When the Rules of the Game Shift)
The concept that systems periodically undergo fundamental shifts where the underlying rules, relationships, and dynamics change—not just the variables within the existing framework
Risk ManagementRisk & Uncertainty
Risk Layering (Multiple Defenses)
The defense-in-depth principle that no single risk mitigation is reliable enough on its own—effective risk management uses multiple independent layers, each catching what the others miss
Risk ManagementRisk & Uncertainty
Stress Testing
Systematically subjecting a system, plan, or strategy to extreme conditions to identify failure points before they occur in reality
Risk ManagementRisk & Uncertainty
Systemic Risk vs Idiosyncratic Risk
The distinction between risk that affects the entire system (systemic—market crashes, recessions, pandemics) and risk specific to individual components (idiosyncratic—one company's product failure, one person's job loss)
Risk ManagementRisk & Uncertainty
Tail Risk (Extreme Event Risk)
The risk of events that lie far from the center of a probability distribution—rare but extreme outcomes that standard risk models underweight or ignore entirely
Risk ManagementRisk & Uncertainty
Value at Risk (VaR)
A statistical measure estimating the maximum expected loss over a specific time period at a given confidence level
Risk ManagementRisk & Uncertainty
Black Swan
Nassim Taleb's term for rare, unpredictable events with massive impact that are rationalized in hindsight as if they were predictable
Taleb's Risk FrameworkRisk & Uncertainty
Domain Dependence
The failure to apply lessons learned in one domain to structurally identical situations in another domain
Taleb's Risk FrameworkRisk & Uncertainty
Iatrogenics (Harm from Treatment)
Medical harm caused by the treatment itself—when the cure is worse than the disease
Taleb's Risk FrameworkRisk & Uncertainty
Mediocristan vs Extremistan
Taleb's distinction between two fundamentally different types of domains
Taleb's Risk FrameworkRisk & Uncertainty
Minority Rule (Stubborn Minorities)
Taleb's observation that a small, intransigent minority can dictate the behavior of a flexible majority—because the majority will accommodate the minority's preferences at minimal cost, while the minority won't budge
Taleb's Risk FrameworkRisk & Uncertainty
Noise vs Signal
The fundamental challenge of extracting meaningful information (signal) from irrelevant variation (noise)
Taleb's Risk FrameworkRisk & Uncertainty
Silent Evidence
The systematic invisibility of failed outcomes that distorts our understanding of success
Taleb's Risk FrameworkRisk & Uncertainty
Lindy Effect
Taleb's formalization of the principle that the future life expectancy of non-perishable things (ideas, technologies, books, institutions) is proportional to their current age
Taleb's Risk FrameworkRisk & Uncertainty
Turkey Problem (Thanksgiving Turkey)
Taleb's parable illustrating the danger of inferring safety from a track record of safety
Taleb's Risk FrameworkRisk & Uncertainty
Via Negativa – Omission/Removal/Avoidance of Harm
Taleb's risk-specific application of subtraction: in domains of uncertainty, avoiding harm is more reliable than pursuing benefit
Taleb's Risk FrameworkSexuality & Intimacy
Differentiation in Intimacy (Schnarch): Holding Yourself Together
David Schnarch's framework where the capacity for genuine intimacy requires DIFFERENTIATION: the ability to maintain your own identity, values, and emotional equilibrium while in close emotional contact with a partner—es…
Desire & ConnectionSexuality & Intimacy
Responsive vs. Spontaneous Desire (Nagoski)
Emily Nagoski's framework from 'Come As You Are' distinguishing two types of sexual desire: SPONTANEOUS desire (arousal appears seemingly out of nowhere—'I suddenly want sex') and RESPONSIVE desire (arousal emerges IN RE…
Desire & ConnectionSociology & Political Science
Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem
Kenneth Arrow's mathematical proof that no voting system can simultaneously satisfy all fairness criteria for aggregating individual preferences into group decisions when there are three or more options
Political ModelsSociology & Political Science
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
Political ModelsSociology & Political Science
Brandolini's Law (Bullshit Asymmetry)
The energy required to refute nonsense is an order of magnitude greater than the energy required to produce it
Political ModelsSociology & Political Science
Common Knowledge
A game theory concept describing information that everyone knows AND everyone knows that everyone knows (and so on, recursively)
Political ModelsSociology & Political Science
Content Farm
Organizations that produce massive volumes of low-quality content optimized for search engine traffic rather than human value
Political ModelsSociology & Political Science
Duverger’s Law
The political science principle that plurality voting systems (first-past-the-post) tend to produce two-party systems, while proportional representation enables multiparty systems
Political ModelsSociology & Political Science
Filter Bubble
Eli Pariser's concept that algorithmic personalization creates individual information universes where each person sees content that confirms their existing views, preferences, and beliefs—while alternative perspectives b…
Political ModelsSociology & Political Science
Godwin’s Law
The observation that as any online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1
Political ModelsSociology & Political Science
Iron Law of Bureaucracy
Jerry Pournelle's observation that in any bureaucratic organization, people devoted to the bureaucracy itself (its processes, hierarchies, and self-preservation) will always end up in control, displacing people devoted t…
Political ModelsSociology & Political Science
Legibility (James C. Scott)
Scott's insight that states and large organizations must make complex realities 'legible'—simplified and standardized enough to be measured, managed, and controlled from above
Political ModelsSociology & Political Science
Matthew Effect (Rich Get Richer)
Robert Merton's sociological observation (from Matthew 25:29: 'to those who have, more shall be given') that advantage compounds: early success creates conditions for further success, while early disadvantage creates con…
Political ModelsSociology & Political Science
Micropayment
Very small financial transactions (typically under $1) that allow pay-per-use access to content, services, or digital goods
Political ModelsSociology & Political Science
Overton Window
The range of policies or ideas that are considered politically acceptable—'thinkable'—by the mainstream at any given time
Political ModelsSociology & Political Science
Sayre's Law (Academic Politics)
The observation that 'in any dispute, the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake'—people fight hardest about things that matter least
Political ModelsSociology & Political Science
Semmelweis Reflex (Rejecting New Evidence Against Norms)
The automatic tendency to reject new evidence that contradicts established norms, beliefs, or paradigms—named after Ignaz Semmelweis, whose evidence that handwashing prevented maternal fever was rejected by the medical e…
Political ModelsSociology & Political Science
Shirky Principle (Institutions Preserve the Problem They Are Meant to Solve)
Clay Shirky’s observation that institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution
Political ModelsSociology & Political Science
Spamming
Flooding a communication channel with low-quality, unsolicited content to exploit attention at near-zero marginal cost to the sender but significant cost to receivers
Political ModelsPage 20 of 50 · 913–960 of 2,375 models