Yes, citing these in an argument will annoy everyone. But what fun!

December 31, 2023 11:53 AM

100 Little Ideas that Explain how the Human World works. "Bizarreness Effect: Crazy things are easier to remember than common things, providing a distorted sense of “normal.” Nonlinearity: Outputs aren’t always proportional to inputs, so the world is a barrage of massive wins and horrible losses that surprise people. Moderating Relationship: The correlation between two variables depends on a third, seemingly unrelated variable. The quality of a marriage may be dependent on a spouse’s work project that’s causing stress. Denomination Effect: One hundred $1 bills feels like less money than one $100 bill. Also explains stock splits – buying 10 shares for $10 each feels cheaper than one share for $100. Woozle Effect: “A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth.” - Daniel Kahneman."

"Fact-Check Scarcity Principle: This article is called 100 Little Ideas but there are fewer than 100 ideas. 99% of readers won’t notice because they’re not checking, and most of those who notice won’t say anything. Don’t believe everything you read."

posted by storybored (35 comments total)

Woozle Effect

Closely related to the Heffalump Hypothesis.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:10 PM on December 31, 2023 [8 favorites]

Sturgeon’s Law: “90% of everything is crap.” The obvious inverse of the Pareto Principle, but hard to accept in practice.

What? Not only is this easy to accept, the law is regressive!
posted by chavenet at 12:31 PM on December 31, 2023

Is this a puzzle where every single listed effect is applied within the document? Or just very poorly researched?
posted by pwnguin at 12:32 PM on December 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”

Hanlon's Razor is so often weaponized that I always reply to this by saying "Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained adequately by malice masquerading as stupidity."
posted by hypnogogue at 12:42 PM on December 31, 2023 [22 favorites]

The article has a whiff of the cult of extreme rationality (e.g., effective altruism) but there's some interesting stuff there about our built-in blindspots. Thanks for posting!
posted by treepour at 12:59 PM on December 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

I counted 93.
posted by All Out of Lulz at 1:27 PM on December 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

What? Not only is this easy to accept, the law is regressive!


Recursive, I meant recursive! (90% of all comments are crap....)
posted by chavenet at 2:12 PM on December 31, 2023 [4 favorites]

What, if you take a look at the 90% of things that are crap you'll find out that only 90% of it is crap? That's great news.
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 2:13 PM on December 31, 2023 [5 favorites]

The five laws of stupidity cut through for me the how the intelligent people cope with us that be stupid-ing.
posted by MonsieurPEB at 2:32 PM on December 31, 2023

Skill Compensation: People who are exceptionally good at one thing tend to be exceptionally poor at another.

See, this is why it made me so crazy that in school we were all expected to be "well rounded" and super good at both English AND math! And I could never well round! I was always a half-deflated basketball!
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:37 PM on December 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

Skill Compensation: People who are exceptionally good at one thing tend to be exceptionally poor at another.

Doesn’t the research (and everyday experience) generally show that people who are exceptionally good at one thing tend to be… above average at other things, at least within the same broad domain (like academics or athletics?) They are probably bad at something, sure, because nobody has time to get good at everything, but is there any reason to think that they are exceptionally bad? Is the criterion for inclusion in this list of principles “hey, it sounds good!?”
posted by atoxyl at 5:49 PM on December 31, 2023 [7 favorites]

Plenty of people are much better at English than math, of course, but the best English students are not usually the worst math students and vice versa.
posted by atoxyl at 5:58 PM on December 31, 2023 [4 favorites]

I think Ben Carson proved in 2015 that one can be a brilliant neurosurgeon and a poor politician.
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:29 PM on December 31, 2023 [6 favorites]

Fascinating. Thanks for sharing!
posted by ellerhodes at 6:51 PM on December 31, 2023

Skill Compensation: People who are exceptionally good at one thing tend to be exceptionally poor at another.

Doesn’t the research (and everyday experience) generally show that people who are exceptionally good at one thing tend to be… above average at other things, at least within the same broad domain (like academics or athletics?) They are probably bad at something, sure, because nobody has time to get good at everything, but is there any reason to think that they are exceptionally bad? Is the criterion for inclusion in this list of principles “hey, it sounds good!?”

Honestly it took me 'til most of the way through this list to realize that some of the items at the top might be meant to be listed as fallacies but not clearly stated that way, and I'm still not sure. "Depressive Realism" is another one I'm unsure about whether it's listed because "this is true" or because "this is something people assume to be true."

That said, I got a kick out of this. I love a list like this, even a potentially flawed one.
posted by Navelgazer at 7:15 PM on December 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

This is satire, right?
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 7:32 PM on December 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

Yeah the skill compensation one is a famous sampling bias whose name I can't remember - to take the standard college example, pretend roughly four groups of people of equal sizes, +/- academic ability and +/- sports ability. The folks with -/- don't get into the college, leaving the other three groups which cumulatively give the (false) impression that jockiness is negatively correlated with nerdiness.
posted by heyforfour at 8:26 PM on December 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

> Hanlon's Razor is so often weaponized that I always reply to this by saying

This is similar to Grey's Law - "Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice"
posted by I-Write-Essays at 11:36 PM on December 31, 2023 [6 favorites]

Denomination Effect: One hundred $1 bills feels like less money than one $100 bill.

I'd disagree, if the $1 bills are brand new and still have the band around them.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 12:21 AM on January 1

Woozle Effect: “A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth.” - Daniel Kahneman

So that's where Goebbels got it from.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 12:23 AM on January 1 [1 favorite]

People who are exceptionally good at one thing tend to be exceptionally poor at another.

In real life: People who are exceptionally good at one thing tend to be completely average at another, but are judged by incompetent educators to be exceptionally poor at the other, because they just assumed they would be exceptionally good at everything. This is especially true if the responsibility of the incompetent educator is to educate the person in the specific thing that they tend to be completely average in.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 12:27 AM on January 1 [4 favorites]

Mod note: [btw, this post has been added to the sidebar and Best Of blog]
posted by taz (staff) at 1:13 AM on January 1 [2 favorites]

Three Men Make a Tiger is the source of one of my favorite scams of history - it takes the concept of the Spanish Prisoner letter, but mails it to several people who know each other and says all of them could get money based on some relationship between them. The recipients then discuss and confirm the relationship and assume that means the money is true too. I wonder if this would still work on the internet, or if it would work more because of the speed of communication to "confirm" the windfall.
posted by AzraelBrown at 5:25 AM on January 1

What, if you take a look at the 90% of things that are crap you'll find out that only 90% of it is crap? That's great news.

Yes. That's the "Blue Dot Effect". Cut the good stuff away and review what is left and we will notice more good stuff.

One of the "Blue Dot" tests was showing people a bunch of faces, some of scary looking people - and having them pick out the threatening expressions. Each subsequent round reduced the number of actually threatening people, and yet, the testees kept finding threating people in the set. Even after there were no threatening people left, the testees STILL kept judging all the faces and calling out a subset as "threatening".
posted by Wetterschneider at 8:39 AM on January 1 [2 favorites]

Skill Compensation: People who are exceptionally good at one thing tend to be exceptionally poor at another.

So why do we have the word 'Polymath'?
posted by The Power Nap at 9:55 AM on January 1 [2 favorites]

Thanks for sharing this, I love lists like this.
posted by rpfields at 10:08 AM on January 1

So why do we have the word 'Polymath'?

Maybe because such people are unusual enough to be notable?
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:13 AM on January 1 [2 favorites]

Maybe because such people are unusual enough to be notable?

Maybe

But I can say from first hand experience that people like to push you into the 'you are the "X" guy' slot.

Think 'T shaped skills' while 'generalist' becomes pejorative.
posted by The Power Nap at 10:55 AM on January 1 [1 favorite]

This was a cool list. I think some of them are certainly more “true in the average case” rather than a logical proof, say, but an interesting list and worth thinking about. I like it.
posted by teece303 at 11:35 AM on January 1

“Polymath” implies not only multiple skills, but exceptional knowledge of them interrelating.

Someone great at both linear algebra and impressionist painting isn’t really a polymath, they’re just very good at two things. Someone who is great at both fluid dynamics and biophysics, on the other hand, may well be one of they integrate those things with novel results.
posted by Molten Berle at 12:59 PM on January 1

So that's where Goebbels got it from

Also perhaps where Lewis Carroll got it from:

 "Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,
   As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
   By a finger entwined in his hair.

"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
   That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
   What I tell you three times is true."

Some seem to be restatements of other entries, but with slightly altered baloney-slicing (examples: Buridan/Fredkin, Backfiring/Boomerang).

The particular statement of Dunning-Kruger used here, always lowers my opinion and expectation of any article it appears in.

Still fun though, and with a few saucily "I feel seen" moments.
posted by BCMagee at 4:55 PM on January 1 [3 favorites]

Skill Compensation: People who are exceptionally good at one thing tend to be exceptionally poor at another.

This might be someone falling for Berkson's Paradox. Two things can appear negatively correlated in a particular observation that are actually positively correlated in general—if there is a certain kind of selection going on.

For instance, if everyone great at both Math and Writing goes to Best College, people who are great at either Math or Writing go to Middle College, and people not great at either one go to Worst College, then at Middle College, aptitude in Math and Writing will be negatively correlated, even if they are positively correlated in the general population.
posted by straight at 9:21 PM on January 1 [5 favorites]

I always enjoy these kinds of lists, even when some of the ideas are inaccurate or not all that helpful. They also make me feel like I'm participating in modern folklore in some way. Each of the "Little Ideas" are presented in a way that makes them feel like spells you can cast when needed (got a tricky project you need to manage? Just cast "Pareto Principle" and watch your project magically get done quicker!).
posted by Doleful Creature at 12:22 PM on January 3 [1 favorite]

The particular statement of Dunning-Kruger used here, always lowers my opinion and expectation of any article it appears in.

I much prefer the version that refers to competence rather than intelligence, because you can have different levels of competence in different fields or skills, and you can learn or forget that competence over time.
posted by KelsonV at 5:56 PM on January 3

What, if you take a look at the 90% of things that are crap you'll find out that only 90% of it is crap? That's great news.

Surely it's the other way around: Remove the 90% that is crap, examine the remaining 10%, and you'll discover that 90% of that is also crap. Anyway, I'd argue that Sturgeon's percentage is outdated and pollyannish: the rise of the Internet has created an explosion of stuff the likes of which hasn't been seen since the invention of the printing press, and the amount of it that is crap is far, far higher than 90%.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:51 AM on January 6