The Basics Guide

Category: Concepts

  • Failure of Imagination

    Failure of Imagination

    Failure of imagination describes the inability to foresee major risks or opportunities due to cognitive blind spots and conventional thinking, as highlighted by the 9/11 Commission. It applies to events like Pearl Harbor and the 2008 crisis, spanning security, business, and social contexts. Mitigation involves scenario planning, diverse perspectives, and historical learning.

  • Eternal September

    Eternal September

    “Eternal September” describes the ongoing influx of new, inexperienced users disrupting online communities, a trend starting in 1993 with AOL’s access to Usenet. This constant influx challenges the maintenance of original community norms and highlights the effects of widespread internet accessibility.

  • This-or-Better

    This-or-Better

    This-or-Better is a goal-setting principle that emphasizes achieving a desired outcome while being open to the possibility of attaining a superior result. The phrase frames a mindset where the desired outcome is seen as a baseline, and the individual is encouraged to remain adaptable for improvements beyond initial expectations.

  • Human Inversion – When Systems Serve Themselves, Not Us

    Systems built to serve humans often reverse, demanding humans serve them. This structural inversion drives meaningless work, platform decay, and institutional dysfunction. Recognition of this shift is the first step toward restoring balance between individual needs and systemic momentum.

  • Theoretical Evidence

    Theoretical structures, when precise and consistent, reveal unseen aspects of reality not through speculation but through necessity. Such frameworks can serve as evidence, guiding discovery by exposing what must exist for the logic of the theory to hold.

  • Silence, Asymmetry, and the Long Arc of Communication

    Meaningful communication often relies on silence, asymmetry, and timing—creating space for thought, trust, and emergence. Clarity comes not from completeness or immediacy, but from restraint, precision, and allowing meaning to unfold gradually across time and context.

  • Worldview as Cultural Infrastructure

    A person’s worldview shapes perception, action, and culture. Owning and sharing it builds coherence, trust, and influence. Shifting from passive inheritance to active authorship enables clarity and impact. Articulated worldviews become infrastructure—structuring relationships, guiding discourse, and enabling bottom-up cultural transformation.

  • Quantized by Culture

    A stylistic glitch reveals a deeper pattern: AI systems prioritize repetition over intent, echoing what’s most reinforced rather than what’s most accurate. When culture repeats itself often enough, it becomes structure—even when better alternatives are quietly lost.

  • Short Windows, Long Windows, and Why Context Is Everything

    Short Windows, Long Windows, and Why Context Is Everything

    A short window is a moment that appears to carry outsized impact—a perfectly timed phrase, a message dropped at just the right second, a window of attention you can supposedly hack. It tempts people who believe one bold move can alter everything.