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Occam’s Razor and Hanlon’s Razor: Start With the Simplest Story
Your bike tire is flat: nail, or a sneaky stranger in the night? The nail needs one ordinary thing to be true. That habit — fewest guesses first — is Occam’s Razor, and its sibling Hanlon’s Razor applies it to people: a forgotten seat at lunch is almost never a plot.
The Lindy Effect: Old Things Outlive New Things
Broadway actors in the 1960s noticed plays that survived a hundred performances usually survived a hundred more. That deli-counter rule — the Lindy effect — says the older a non-perishable thing is, the longer it will probably last. Here is how to use it, and where it breaks.
Regression to the Mean: Why the Best Get Worse and the Worst Get Better
Flight instructors in the 1960s Israeli Air Force had years of evidence that praise ruined landings and screaming fixed them. They were right about the pattern and wrong about the cause — and the same mistake is waiting in medicine, money, hiring and your best week of the year.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Why You Can't Think Straight When You're Hungry
Your needs take turns, and the emptiest one grabs your attention whether you like it or not. The five levels explained from scratch — plus the twist that the famous pyramid everyone uses was drawn by someone else entirely, and says something Maslow never believed.
Loss Aversion: Why Losing $100 Hurts More Than Winning $100 Feels Good
A fair coin-flip bet that almost nobody takes, and the wiring behind it — the same bias behind free trials, overpriced insurance, and stocks people can’t bring themselves to sell.
Game Theory 101: The Strategic Models Worth Knowing
Ten strategic ideas worth knowing — the Prisoner's Dilemma, Nash Equilibrium, and more — with interactive widgets so you can play through each concept yourself, not just read about it.
Pocket Laws 101: The Mental Models Worth Carrying Around
Fourteen mental models worth keeping in your pocket — Murphy's Law, Jevons Paradox, Goodhart's Law, the Dunning-Kruger Effect, and more — the kind of ideas that explain a bad meeting, a blown deadline, or your own bad decision right as it's happening.