Mental models and frameworks for seeing through the rigging
Understanding power requires clear thinking. These resources provide mental models, frameworks, and techniques for spotting manipulation, following incentives, and seeing systems clearly.
The gold standard for learning mental models. Start with their mental models guide covering inversion, first principles thinking, circle of competence, and second-order thinking.
Key concepts: Inversion (what could cause failure?), Map vs. Territory (models aren't reality), Margin of Safety
Nobel laureate's comprehensive guide to cognitive biases and how our minds make decisions. Essential for understanding how politicians manipulate voters and why perverse incentives work.
Key concepts: System 1 vs System 2 thinking, Anchoring, Availability Bias, Loss Aversion
Tools for understanding the world through data. Interactive visualizations that reveal how our intuitions about global trends are often wrong. Rosling's book Factfulness teaches pattern recognition in data.
Key concepts: The Gap Instinct, Negativity Instinct, Straight Line Instinct
A note-taking system for connecting ideas across domains. Essential for seeing patterns in how power operates across different contexts—political, economic, social.
Core principle: Ideas gain power through connection, not isolation
Visual thinking tool for exploring relationships between concepts. Particularly useful for tracking money flows, identifying conflicts of interest, and mapping influence networks.
Tool: Start with politician's name in center, branch to donors, committees, votes, stock trades
A deep dive into how complex systems emerge from simple rules. Understanding strange loops and self-reference helps explain how political systems become self-perpetuating even when they're rigged.
Key insight: Systems can be self-referential in ways that make them resistant to change from within
Not all interventions in a system are equal. Some changes create cascading effects. Understanding where to push is more important than how hard to push.
Applied to politics: Changing campaign finance rules is higher leverage than individual candidate choices
Never ask a barber if you need a haircut. When someone's paycheck depends on a certain outcome, expect their thinking to align with that outcome. Look for who benefits financially from any political decision.
Humans feel obligated to return favors. When a politician receives campaign donations or benefits from an industry, reciprocation tendency creates unconscious bias toward that industry—even without explicit quid pro quo.
Instead of asking "How can we fix the system?", ask "What would make the system even worse?" This reveals the core problems. To reduce political conflicts of interest, invert: What maximizes conflicts of interest? Unlimited donations, stock trading, revolving door to lobbying.
Simple but powerful. When political outcomes seem inexplicable, trace the money. Campaign donations, stock portfolios, post-office employment—money flows explain voting patterns better than speeches.
We're developing guides and essays on applying these mental models to political analysis. Get notified when new resources are available.