Archive
41 concepts. Search, filter, or pick one at random.
- ·Culture
Murphy's Law
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
- ·Systems Theory
Gall's Law
Complex working systems always evolve from simple working systems.
- ·Society
Brandolini's Principle
It takes significantly more energy to refute nonsense than to produce it.
- ·Psychology
The Pygmalion Effect
What others expect of you can directly influence how well you perform.
- ·Society
The Streisand Effect
Trying to hide something on the internet often makes it far more famous.
- ·Language
Nominative Determinism
Could your surname secretly influence the career choice you make in life?
- ·Cognition
The Endowment Effect
Why do we value things more simply because they belong to us?
- ·Software Engineering
Brooks' Law
Adding manpower to a late software project often makes it even later.
- ·System Theory
Goodhart's Law
When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
- ·Technology
Moore's Law
Why do our computers seem to double in power every few years?
- ·Technology
Metcalfe's Law and Network Power
Why is a telephone completely useless if you are the only person in the world who owns one?
- ·Systems Thinking
The Cobra Effect: Unintended Consequences
What happens when a reward for solving a problem actually makes it worse?
- ·Psychology
The Spotlight Effect
Do you feel like everyone notices your smallest mistakes?
- ·Society
Flight Shame
Why are more people feeling guilty about taking the plane for their holidays?
- ·Society
Dunbar's Number: The Limit of Relationships
How many friends can your brain actually manage at once?
- ·Mental Models
Inversion: Thinking Backwards for Better Decisions
Instead of asking how to succeed, ask what would guarantee your failure.
- ·Productivity
The Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule)
What if 80 percent of your results come from just 20 percent of your effort?
- ·Productivity
Parkinson's Law
Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.
- ·Communication
Hanlon's Razor
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by carelessness.
- ·Mental Models
Second-Order Thinking
What actually happens after what you thought would happen has happened?
- ·Cognition
The Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon: Why Do You See It Everywhere?
Have you ever learned a new word and suddenly started hearing it everywhere?
- ·Mental Models
The Lindy Effect: Time's Ultimate Stress Test
The longer something has survived, the longer you can expect it to stick around.
- ·Cognition
Confirmation bias
Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, remember, and interpret information in a way that aligns with what you already believe.
- ·Cognition
The Dunning–Kruger Effect
The less you know about a subject, the easier it is to overestimate your own knowledge.
- ·Cognition
Availability Heuristic
We judge how common something is based on how easily examples come to mind.
- ·Cognition
The Zeigarnik Effect
Unfinished tasks stick in our memory much more strongly than completed ones.
- ·Cognition
Cognitive dissonance
When action and belief don't align, an uncomfortable tension arises – and we'll do almost anything to resolve it.
- ·Language and perception
Pareidolia
The tendency to see faces and patterns in clouds, power outlets, and rust spots.
- ·Language
Sonder
The realization that every passing stranger has an inner life as complex as your own.
- ·Language
Semantic Satiation
Say the same word out loud thirty times – and it suddenly loses its meaning.
- ·Language
Tsundoku
The Japanese word for buying books and letting them pile up unread.
- ·Science
Entropy
In a closed system, disorder tends to increase over time.
- ·Science
The Doppler Effect
Sound and light change frequency depending on whether the source is moving toward or away from you.
- ·Science
The Fermi Paradox
The universe is vast and ancient. Where is everybody?
- ·Science
Emergence
The whole can have properties that none of its parts possess.
- ·Philosophy
Occam's razor
When multiple explanations are possible, the simplest one is usually the best to test first.
- ·Philosophy
The Ship of Theseus
If every plank on a ship is replaced—is it still the same ship?
- ·Philosophy
Stoicism
Some things are within our control, others are not. Living wisely begins with telling them apart.
- ·History
Tulip Mania
In the 1630s, the Dutch paid more for a single tulip bulb than for a house.
- ·Economics
Tragedy of the Commons
When a resource is free for everyone, it risks being depleted for that very reason.
- ·Economics
The Sunk Cost Effect
We stick with something simply because we've already poured time, money, or emotion into it.