mental models 20
- Hanlon's razor is a safeguard against labelling behaviour as malicious when incompetence is the more common cause.
- A thought experiment serves to encourage speculation and logical thinking and to change paradigms.
Shane Parrish
Founder of Farnam Street (fs.blog) and host of The Knowledge Project podcast. Writes and curates on decision-making, mental models and rational thinking.
Shane Parrish did not write this page.
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What Shane Parrish says most about
agency 5
- Over the long run, the average person who keeps putting themselves in a good position beats the genius who is in a poor one, and what looks like talent is often good positioning.
- Even when a problem is not one's fault it is one's responsibility, and there is always some action in the moment that improves tomorrow's position.
behavioural science 5
- Inability or neglect is far more likely than malice to be the cause of a problem someone causes.
- Genuine malice exists, but in most interactions stupidity is a far more common explanation than malevolence.
humility 5
- Trying to prove how right one is leads to ignoring the evidence to the contrary.
- The desire to feel right overpowers the desire to be right, because the ego pushes toward feeling right at the expense of being right.
discipline 4
- Willpower eventually loses, so safeguards are needed to change behaviour.
- Rules decided in advance by a person's best self, such as "I don't eat dessert", can take the place of willpower when the situation arrives.
ambition 2
- More time is better spent avoiding obvious stupidity than trying to be brilliant, because avoiding stupidity is easier than seeking brilliance.
- It can be argued that a narrow area of competence need not hurt, since rigid devotion to it allows focus.
creativity 2
- A thought experiment serves to encourage speculation and logical thinking and to change paradigms.
- Philosophers use imagined scenarios not to reach a "correct" answer but to spark new ideas.
empathy 2
- Assuming stupidity rather than malice changes the response: empathy and clarity instead of defensiveness.
- The default should be to assume no malice and forgive, but where malice is confirmed, to be ruthless.
energy 2
- The bigger and more challenging an action is, the more activation energy it takes.
- Although activation energy is a scientific concept, it can serve as a practical mental model.
simplicity 2
- Occam's razor holds that the simplest explanation is preferable to a more complex one, because simple theories are easier to verify and simple solutions easier to execute.
- A conclusion cannot rest on its simplicity alone; it must be backed by empirical evidence.