Mental models

This is quite useful from Mental Models: The Best Way to Make Intelligent Decisions (113 Models Explained) from Farnam Street. I use many/most of these mental models with great frequency and think that using them in conjunction almost always warrants the time and effort involved.

Read the original article for the many details but the following list provides a flavor of the breadth of mental models being discussed.

1. Inversion

2. Falsification / Confirmation Bias

3. Circle of Competence

4. The Principle of Parsimony (Occam’s Razor)

5. Hanlon's Razor

6. Second-Order Thinking

7. The Map Is Not the Territory

8. Thought Experiments

9. Mr. Market

10. Probabilistic Thinking (See also: Numeracy/Bayesian Updating)

11. Default Status

12. Permutations and Combinations

13. Algebraic Equivalence

14. Randomness

15. Stochastic Processes (Poisson, Markov, Random Walk)

16. Compounding

17. Multiplying by Zero

18. Churn

19. Law of Large Numbers

20. Bell Curve/Normal Distribution

21. Power Laws

22. Fat-Tailed Processes (Extremistan)

23. Bayesian Updating

24. Regression to the Mean

25. Order of Magnitude

26. Scale

27. Law of Diminishing Returns

28. Pareto Principle

29. Feedback Loops (and Homeostasis)

30. Chaos Dynamics (Sensitivity to Initial Conditions)

31. Preferential Attachment (Cumulative Advantage)

32. Emergence

33. Irreducibility

34. Tragedy of the Commons

35. Gresham’s Law

36. Algorithms

37. Fragility – Robustness – Antifragility

38. Backup Systems/Redundancy

39. Margin of Safety

40. Criticality

41. Network Effects

42. Black Swan

43. Via Negativa – Omission/Removal/Avoidance of Harm

44. The Lindy Effect

45. Renormalization Group

46. Spring-loading

47. Complex Adaptive Systems

48. Laws of Thermodynamics

49. Reciprocity

50. Velocity

51. Relativity

52. Activation Energy

53. Catalysts

54. Leverage

55. Inertia

56. Alloying

57. Incentives

58. Cooperation (Including Symbiosis)

59. Tendency to Minimize Energy Output (Mental & Physical)

60. Adaptation

61. Evolution by Natural Selection

62. The Red Queen Effect (Co-evolutionary Arms Race)

63. Replication

64. Hierarchical and Other Organizing Instincts

65. Self-Preservation Instincts

66. Simple Physiological Reward-Seeking

67. Exaptation

68. Extinction

69. Ecosystems

70. Niches

71. Dunbar’s Number

72. Trust

73. Bias from Incentives

74. Pavlovian Mere Association

75. Tendency to Feel Envy & Jealousy

76. Tendency to Distort Due to Liking/Loving or Disliking/Hating

77. Denial

78. Availability Heuristic

79. Representativeness Heuristic

80. Failure to Account for Base Rates

81. Tendency to Stereotype

82. Failure to See False Conjunctions

83. Social Proof (Safety in Numbers)

84. Narrative Instinct

85. Curiosity Instinct

86. Language Instinct

87. First-Conclusion Bias

88. Tendency to Overgeneralize from Small Samples

89. Relative Satisfaction/Misery Tendencies

90. Commitment & Consistency Bias

91. Hindsight Bias

92. Sensitivity to Fairness

93. Tendency to Overestimate Consistency of Behavior (Fundamental Attribution Error)

94. Influence of Authority

95. Influence of Stress (Including Breaking Points)

96. Survivorship Bias

97. Tendency to Want to Do Something (Fight/Flight, Intervention, Demonstration of Value, etc.)

98. Opportunity Costs

99. Creative Destruction

100. Comparative Advantage

101. Specialization (Pin Factory)

102. Seizing the Middle

103. Trademarks, Patents, and Copyrights

104. Double-Entry Bookkeeping

105. Utility (Marginal, Diminishing, Increasing)

106. Bottlenecks

107. Prisoner’s Dilemma

108. Bribery

109. Arbitrage

110. Supply and Demand

111. Scarcity

112. Seeing the Front

113. Asymmetric Warfare

114. Two-Front War

115. Counterinsurgency

116. Mutually Assured Destruction