Mental models are how we simplify complexity, why we consider some things more relevant than others, and how we reason.

We cannot keep all of the details of the world in our brains, so we use models to simplify the complex into understandable and organizable chunks.

If we’re only looking at the problem one way, we’ve got a blind spot. And blind spots can kill you.

Sharing knowledge, or learning the basics of the other disciplines, would lead to a more well-rounded understanding that would allow for better initial decisions about managing the forest.

If the facts don’t hang together on a latticework of theory, you don’t have them in a usable form. You’ve got to have models in your head. And you’ve got to array your experience both vicarious and direct on this latticework of models.

Building your latticework is a lifelong project. Stick with it, and you’ll find that your ability to understand reality, make consistently good decisions, and help those you love will always be improving.

When you are honest about where your knowledge is lacking you know where you are vulnerable and where you can improve. Understanding your circle of competence improves decision making and outcomes.

What remains are the essentials. If you know the first principles of something, you can build the rest of your knowledge around them to produce something new.

Thought experiments are powerful because they help us learn from our mistakes and avoid future ones. They let us take on the impossible, evaluate the potential consequences of our actions, and re-examine history to make better decisions.

Hanlon’s Razor states that we should not attribute to malice that which is more easily explained by stupidity.

By not generally assuming that bad results are the fault of a bad actor, we look for options instead of missing opportunities.

The explanation most likely to be right is the one that contains the least amount of intent.

an observer cannot truly understand a system of which he himself is a part.

if one individual acts on another, the action will tend to be reciprocated in kind. And of course, human beings act with intense reciprocity

Archimedes, “Give me a lever long enough and I shall move the world.”

humans are complicated in that their incentives can be hidden or intangible. The rule of life is to repeat what works and has been rewarded.

We are “fooled” by random effects when we attribute causality to things that are actually outside of our control. If we don’t course-correct for this fooled-by-randomness effect – our faulty sense of pattern-seeking – we will tend to see things as being more predictable than they are and act accordingly.

a failure in one area can negate great effort in all other areas. As simple multiplication would show, fixing the “zero” often has a much greater effect than does trying to enlarge the other areas.

A trusting system is one that tends to work most efficiently; the rewards of trust are extremely high.

Human beings are much the same and can feel positive and negative emotion towards intangible objects, with the emotion coming from past associations rather than direct effects.

We tend to most easily recall what is salient, important, frequent, and recent. The brain has its own energy-saving and inertial tendencies that we have little control over – the availability heuristic is likely one of them.

Human beings have been appropriately called “the storytelling animal” because of our instinct to construct and seek meaning in narrative.

Even before there were direct incentives to innovate, humans innovated out of curiosity.

the first idea gets in and then the mind shuts. Like many other tendencies, this is probably an energy-saving device. Our tendency to settle on first conclusions leads us to accept many erroneous results and cease asking questions

We take a small number of instances and create a general category, even if we have no statistically sound basis for the conclusion.

nearly all studies of human happiness show that it is related to the state of the person relative to either their past or their peers, not absolute.

In another illustration of our relative sense of well-being, we are careful arbiters of what is fair. Violations of fairness can be considered grounds for reciprocal action, or at least distrust.

What a man wishes, he also believes. Similarly, what we believe is what we choose to see. This is commonly referred to as the confirmation bias.