I. Contagion Heuristic

Consider the following experiment. You’re asked to take a sip from a glass of juice/water. So far, so refreshing. But now the researcher asks you:

I have here in this container some sterilized cockroaches. We bought some cockroaches from a laboratory supply company [show box and label]. The roaches were raised in a clean environment. But just to be certain, we sterilized the roach again in an autoclave, which heats everything so hot that no germs can survive. I’m going to dip this cockroach into the juice/water, like this. Now, would you take a sip of the juice/water?

Probably not, and the reason is the Contagion Heuristic working in your brain. It follows the Law of Contagion and goes something like this:

Once two things come into contact, they are believed to transfer some essence to each other — even after the contact is over.

Despite being told that the roach is sterilised and the juice is perfectly safe, the mind treats the contact as permanently tainting it. The reaction is driven by disgust, not by beliefs about actual physical danger. Logical reassurance doesn’t remove the feeling. The same mental rule easily extends beyond food to people and ideas.

II. Moral Contagion

Moral Contagion is the intuitive feeling that once two people or things have been in contact, some kind of invisible connection sticks around. It’s not about biology or germs. It’s a gut-level sense that something has picked up an “essence” from what it touched. This idea shows up a lot in everyday judgments, especially when we’re dealing with things we find morally questionable.

Research in moral psychology suggests that we treat moral and ideological views a bit like pathogens. Ideas can start to feel “tainted” just because of where they came from or who they’re associated with. So instead of evaluating a statement on its own merits, people often react to its perceived origin.

You’d probably feel uneasy wearing a sweater owned by a criminal or engaging with ideas associated with people you despise the most. In each case, the mind treats contact as transferring an invisible moral or symbolic contamination, not just a physical one.

III. Contagion of Virtue

Good behaviour can be contagious, too. Just like a yawn or a laugh spreads through a group, acts of kindness, cooperation or generosity can ripple through social networks. When someone does something virtuous, it can subtly influence friends, family and strangers to act in the same way.

This is called the Contagion of Virtue. It’s the idea that moral qualities, not just moods, can spread from person to person. Seeing someone help, share or stand up for what’s right can trigger a similar response in others.

The exciting part is that virtue doesn’t stay confined to one person. Every small act of goodness has the potential to multiply, inspiring a chain reaction of positive behaviour. So go ahead! Shake hands with your enemies and offer them a refreshing glass of your finest juice/water.

Source: The Social Contagion of Virtue

🐘

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Chris
themindcollection.com

I. Is-a-Has-a-Error

In complex systems, a common thinking mistake is the Is-a-Has-a Error. “Is-a” defines what something fundamentally is (a dog is an animal), while “has-a” describes something it merely contains or uses (a dog has a collar). That distinction sounds trivial. But when designers blur it, systems can end up assigning authority to the wrong component.

Take aviation. An aircraft has an autopilot, but it is not an autopilot. The autopilot is just one optional control system. When software is designed as if the aircraft is basically an autopilot system, control logic flips. Automation may still be treated as authoritative even when it’s disengaged, while manual pilot inputs are partially ignored.

Occasionally, you may even want to remind yourself that you are not your job. You merely have one, meaning it’s one part of your life and not your entire identity.

II. Reification

Reification is what happens when we start treating an abstract idea like it’s a concrete thing you could point to or put on a table. Our brains naturally like to think in terms of “things”, so we often turn processes or relationships into objects without noticing. It’s a shortcut that makes complex reality easier to talk about.

An everyday example is when someone says, “Stress is attacking me lately.” Stress isn’t actually a physical force doing something. It’s a word for a pattern of bodily and psychological responses. But talking about it like an external thing with its own agency makes it feel more tangible and easier to communicate.

Once you notice the habit of Reification, you start seeing it everywhere…

III. Ultimate Attribution Error

The Ultimate Attribution Error is your mind’s built-in PR team working overtime. [See what I did there?] We attribute negative actions of out-group members to their character while attributing their positive actions to situational factors (and vice versa for our-group members).

Let’s say someone on your side does something good. Your brain immediately writes a glowing character reference: “See? Bob is smart, kind and competent. Bob’s a legend.” But when the same person messes up, the story changes instantly: “That’s just because of all the stress that’s been attacking Bob lately.”

However, if someone we dislike does something admirable, we suddenly become master minimisers: “Well, Ben was just lucky,” or “Anyone could’ve done that”. But when Ben screws up? That was no accident. Now it’s treated as a window into his deep, flawed soul. One mistake becomes proof of “what Ben’s really like”.

What makes this error especially sneaky is how natural it seems. It doesn’t feel like Confirmation Bias, it feels like common sense. In reality, you’re running two completely different explanation systems at the same time. A generous, context-sensitive one for “us”. And a harsh, personality-based one for “them”. So don’t let your internal PR team go rogue. It’s supposed to serve you, not take over. 🐘

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Chris
themindcollection.com

I. Strategic Ignorance

Sometimes it’s better not to know. Or to play dumb. It’s not about being uninformed by accident. It’s Strategic Ignorance, choosing to stay clueless about something to avoid stress, responsibility or distractions so you can stay focused on what matters to you.

In its performative form, it shows up as the Columbo Method, named after the TV detective Columbo. His shtick was to act awkward and clueless around suspects. Once they lowered their guard, he would ask a seemingly naive but precise Gretchen Question that pushed them to reveal too much.

In its clumsy form, Strategic Ignorance is easy to spot. Even when faced with clear evidence, someone keeps pretending not to understand or denies awareness. Instead of protecting them, this usually backfires. They lose credibility because the ignorance no longer looks strategic, just dishonest.

What they need is…

II. Plausible Deniability

Plausible Deniability is the ability to say “I didn’t know” and have it sound believable. It usually works because there’s no clear evidence that you did know, even if you were involved somehow. Unlike simple ignorance, this is often prearranged. People keep a certain distance from information so they can deny responsibility later if needed.

You’ll often see this in politics (of all places). A politician might avoid being directly informed about questionable decisions, so if things go wrong, they can honestly claim they weren’t aware. The key is that the denial has to be plausible. There needs to be just enough separation between the person and the action to make the claim believable.

In small doses, it can be a practical way to manage risk. But overused, it erodes trust. Plus, what does it say about a leader if he or she doesn’t know what’s going on under his or her leadership? If people sense that someone is trying not to know, the whole thing starts to fall apart. It no longer sounds plausible, just convenient.

III. Sanity Through Ignorance

Ignorance can also be clarity and even sanity, as British rascal extraordinaire Alan Watts explains:

We also speak of attention as noticing. To notice is to select, to regard some bits of perception, or some features of the world, as more noteworthy, more significant, than others. To these we attend, and the rest we ignore — for which reason conscious attention is at the same time ignore-ance (i.e., ignorance) despite the fact that it gives us a vividly clear picture of whatever we choose to notice.

—Alan Watts

🐘

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Chris
themindcollection.com

I. Fortune Cookie Fallacy

A pleasant surprise is waiting for you.

The Fortune Cookie Fallacy is when a statement feels very personal and insightful, but is actually so vague that it could apply to anyone. Such as the line above. It sounds specific, so your brain automatically connects it to your own life and fills in the details. You could be lost on a hike, starving to death in a cave somewhere in the mountains. But hey, that last ray of sunshine before you go to sleep. What a pleasant surprise!

This ties directly to the Barnum (or Forer) Effect, which is a psychological tendency where people rate general, broad personality descriptions as highly accurate for themselves. In a famous experiment, people were given the exact same personality profile. Most thought it was uniquely tailored to them. The trick works because the statements are mostly positive, flexible and hard to disprove.

It reminded me of the Narrative Fallacy and an unpleasant surprise that’s supposedly awaiting a dog…

II. Scheinriese

The Scheinriese (“apparent giant”) is an idea from Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver, a German children’s novel by Michael Ende. The supposed giant is a figure who looks terrifyingly huge from far away. But the closer you get, the smaller and more ordinary he becomes. His size is an illusion created by distance, not reality.

It’s a metaphor, of course, but for what? The Scheinriese represents problems, fears or authority figures that appear overwhelming when they are abstract or distant. As long as you observe them from afar. Perhaps through rumour or vivid imagination. Direct engagement collapses the illusion and reveals a manageable reality.

Have you ever applied for a new job, wondering if you could live up to the professionalism and competence at your new workplace? Once you’re in the company, you realise most of your colleagues just put on their pants the same way as you. And some even backwards. You start to see that the Scheinriese isn’t defeated by force or insight, only by approaching him. Distance amplifies fear, proximity reduces it.

III. Placebo Buttons

Sometimes the feeling of control is more satisfying than actual control.

That’s why we have Placebo Buttons. Placebo Buttons are those satisfying little controls that look like they do something important. But actually don’t. A classic example is the “close door” button in many elevators. You press it with determination, expecting instant results, when in reality it’s often disconnected or overridden by automatic timing.

They exist because humans don’t like feeling powerless, especially when waiting. People seem to feel calmer and less frustrated when they think they can influence a system. So instead of removing the button entirely (which would annoy people more), designers sometimes leave it there as a psychological pressure valve.

In a way, Placebo Buttons are like the physical cousin of the fortune cookie. They don’t change reality, but they change how you feel about it. You press, you wait, you feel proactive. And the door still closes at its own convenience.

Now, remember the pleasant surprise awaiting you? Here are some buttons that actually do something. 🐘

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Chris
themindcollection.com

I. Time Inconsistency

The problem with unexpected guests is that they arrive unexpectedly. And then you realise you have nothing to offer them. The Horror! So you go to the supermarket to buy a box of chocolate to store away for the occasion. That’s the plan. And it falls apart as soon as you get home. The reason is time-inconsistent decision-making.

Time Inconsistency is when a plan that feels like the best choice today no longer feels like the best choice as soon as it’s set in motion. Your preferences shift over time. You might sincerely intend to do one thing for the future, but when the future becomes the present, you end up wanting something different. Usually, something more immediately rewarding. Like wolfing down that box of chocolate yourself.

Nothing external has changed, except your priorities. It’s why introducing…say… pervasive surveillance laws with the justification that they would only be used against criminals is a Slippery Slope.

Source: Prof. Dr. Christian Rieck, The tricks of politicians (with Strategem 16)

II. Thought-Terminating Clichés

This is Berlin.

…is my favourite example of a Thought-Terminating Cliché. Chronic filth and graffiti in public places? This is Berlin. Normalised rudeness and hostility? This is Berlin. Sidewalks doubling as dog toilets? This is Berlin, mate.

The underlying message is to encourage you to stop complaining and “get all the way off my back” about this. In other words, to normalise things that would be unacceptable elsewhere.

In general, the purpose of Thought-Terminating Clichés is to shut down critical thinking by offering a socially acceptable phrase that ends discussion without resolving the underlying issue. But what can you do? It is what it is.

III. Interpretative Dominance

It doesn’t matter if you’re right; what matters is who gets to interpret reality their way. This is the essence of Interpretative Dominance (or as the Germans call it: Soziale Deutungshoheit).

In society, certain people or groups get to define how events, behaviours or situations are interpreted. It’s not just about who says something first. It’s about whose version of reality becomes accepted as the “official” or dominant one. Think of it as a kind of influence over what counts as “the truth” in social discussions.

Say you’ve gotten into an argument at work. You may have objectively just criticised your colleague. But now the office engages in a game called Russell Conjugation. You say you “criticised”, your colleague says you “insulted”, HR says you “denigrated”. It doesn’t matter if you’re right; what matters is whose version will become the generally accepted reality.

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be permanent. If enough people challenge the dominant interpretation and offer a compelling alternative, the social narrative can shift. 🐘

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Chris
themindcollection.com

I. Halo Effect

Alan: intelligent — industrious — impulsive — critical — stubborn — envious

Ben: envious — stubborn — critical — impulsive — industrious — intelligent

Who would you consider more likable? Alan or Ben? As this example by famous psychologist Solomon Asch demonstrates, our judgments often depend on the traits we initially associate with someone.

This is due to the Halo Effect, which causes our initial impression to shape how all other traits are perceived. Daniel Kahneman, the author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, refers to it as exaggerated emotional coherence. An initial positive opinion about one characteristic may lead us to also judge the same person positively in a different area:

The stubborness of an intelligent person is seen as likely to be justified and may actually evoke respect, but intelligence in an envious and stubborn person makes him more dangerous.

—Daniel Kahneman

That’s why Alan seems so easy to get along with. Not like that envious prick Ben, who has all the same traits, just in reverse.

II. Horn Effect

Ben is also judged by his colleagues through a Horn Effect lens, because negative impressions do the same in the opposite direction. A single notable negative trait can taint our opinion about someone entirely. One visible failure, let’s say Ben making negative remarks about Peter’s promotion, is treated as diagnostic of his character.

An awkward first interaction causes someone to be judged as unintelligent, unreliable or unpleasant in general. Subsequent neutral or positive behaviour is discounted or reinterpreted to fit the negative frame.

The Horn Effect is especially devastating in hierarchical systems. Once a negative label is attached, scrutiny increases, errors are remembered and successes are minimised. Ben’s trapped in a self-reinforcing loop that is difficult to escape.

III. Contrast Effect

Ben’s perceived character can also be influenced by the Contrast Effect. This occurs when our judgment of someone is shaped by comparing them to others, rather than by their traits alone. Ben might seem worse or better depending on who we evaluate him against.

For example, if Ben is introduced immediately after a highly competent and friendly colleague, his envious or critical traits may appear even more pronounced. Conversely, if he follows someone rude or careless, the same behaviour may seem less negative, or even relatively acceptable. Truth be told, that never happens to poor Ben.

The contrast effect highlights that our impressions are not formed in isolation. Perception depends on context. Ben’s reputation can shift dramatically simply based on who else is present at the time. 🐘

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Chris
themindcollection.com

P.S.: Ben has since landed a high-paying job at a behavioural research lab specialising in bias and decision-making. He’s admired by everyone and lives a quiet life with his wife and three kids on a vineyard in Southern France.

I. Belief Perseverance

Early in the flight, your pilot is convinced that a minor instrument anomaly is harmless. As the flight continues, readings that appear normal are taken as confirmation. Any warnings are explained away as glitches or turbulence. Even when several indicators begin to diverge, the initial assumption stays the same: “It’ll be fine.”

This is Belief Perseverance. Once a conclusion is formed, incoming information is interpreted in ways that preserve it. Data that aligns with the belief is weighted heavily. Data that conflicts with it is discounted, reclassified or ignored. The belief becomes the reference point against which evidence is judged.

But how was this initial conviction formed to begin with? According to Social Psychologist Jonathan Haidt, it’s mostly just a feeling. The good news is your plane landed safely because aviation procedures are designed to catch and correct such flawed thinking.

II. Misapplied Trial and Error

Don’t give up already! You haven’t even tried!

In many contexts, that’s an understandable reaction to someone refusing to use the Trial & Error Heuristic as a problem-solving strategy. I guess that’s why it drives me up the wall when people misapply it. Misapplied Trial and Error happens when someone insists on “learning by doing” in a situation where the outcome is already predictable.

Why treat a multi-million dollar flight deck like a broken vending machine when pushing random buttons during an aircraft emergency will likely get you crashed faster than doing nothing at all? What’s the point of trying to back up into a 5-foot parking space when you already know your 6-foot truck won’t fit?

Trial & Error is valuable unless the result is foreseeable, or the consequences of failure are irreversible or too severe.

III. Finding the Edge

That doesn’t keep us from arguing a lost cause while others try to reason us out of it. Philosopher Alan Watts had a way of explaining why argument fails against conviction.

People can’t be talked out of illusions. If a person believes that the earth is flat, you can’t talk him out of that, he knows that it’s flat. He’ll go down to the window and see that its obvious, it looks flat. So the only way to convince him that it isn’t is to say, “Well let’s go and find the edge”.

—Alan Watts

Conviction does not tend to collapse under argument, only under experience that reaches the belief’s own boundary conditions. Sometimes you just have to squeeze your 6-foot truck into that 5-foot parking space to come back to sanity. 🐘

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themindcollection.com

I. Fire-Fighting Loop

Many teams know the Fire-Fighting Loop all too well. It’s that pattern where you’re constantly jumping from one mini-disaster to the next. You slap on a quick fix just to keep things running. But since nothing gets repaired properly, the same issues pop up again and again. Crisis. Patch. Repeat.

This tends to happen when understaffing meets tight deadlines and dysfunctional processes. Quick fixes feel heroic in the moment, but they quietly guarantee the next fire emerging sooner than later. Before you know it, the whole team is living in permanent fire-fighting mode.

To escape the loop, you have to slow down just enough to fix the real causes instead of only putting out fires. A bit of structure, some root-cause thinking and a culture that doesn’t reward constant chaos go a long way. The alternative is to stay in the loop and risk burnout. Not of the fires, but of your team.

II. Temporal Optimism Bias

Imagine being trapped in a team in constant crisis mode. It’s wearing you down. And all your boss does is make cheap fire-fighting puns to cheer you up. This just fans the flames of your discontent and adds fuel to your burning dissatisfaction. You still have hope, though.

It’s only a few more weeks. I can endure this. It will get better.

Perhaps after the next meeting, things will really improve. Or once that current project is finished. At least after your upcoming vacation, it’ll all be fine. Or…you’re experiencing Temporal Optimism Bias.

This happens when we believe that the tough or chaotic situation we’re in will magically ease up soon. It makes the present feel temporary, even when there’s no real evidence that things will improve.

This optimism isn’t stupid. It’s a coping mechanism that can get us through a rough patch. But it can also keep us stuck far longer than we wanted. It’s oddly comforting but also dangerously misleading. Like telling yourself the fire alarm is probably just a test while the room slowly fills with smoke.

III. Zugzwang

Zugzwang. It’s when you have no good moves. But you still have to move.

—Michael Chabon

Zugzwang is a German term meaning “compulsion to move”. In the game of chess, it happens when a player is forced to make a move. But no matter what they do, each option leaves them in a worse position because every possible action works against them.

This applies to everyday life whenever you’re forced to make a bad decision. A manager might have to allocate limited resources, knowing that whichever team they underfund, productivity will drop. Sometimes inaction would be ideal, but life rarely allows a “pass”. So what can you do? Either choose the least damaging option or bend reality in your favour. 🐘

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Chris
themindcollection.com

I. Masked-Man Fallacy

It took me a while to wrap my head around the Masked-Man Fallacy, so bear with me here. Consider the following paradox:

[S]uppose that you see a man but don’t recognize him as your father because he’s wearing a mask — perhaps it’s Hallowe’en. So, you don’t know who the masked man is, but you do know who your father is, yet your father and the masked man are one and the same. Therefore, you both know and don’t know who your father is, which is paradoxical. The solution to the paradox is to realize that the argument just given is fallacious.

—Fallacy Files, The Masked Man Fallacy

Put differently, the Masked-Man Fallacy happens when someone treats a person under one description (your father) as if they must be identical to that same person under another description (the man with the mask). Even though the two descriptions convey different information.

Why is that so? Because knowledge and beliefs are also about appearances and descriptions, not just facts. Ignoring this leads people to draw false conclusions about identity, even though there is no real contradiction.

II. Ambiguity

Ambiguity as a logical fallacy happens when someone uses a word or phrase with more than one meaning and quietly switches between those meanings to mislead. The argument sounds reasonable at first, but it works only because the audience understands the term one way while the speaker later relies on another. This is especially common in advertising, where vague language makes claims seem stronger than they really are.

Take any product that features the phrase “recommended by doctors”. Most people hear this as “widely endorsed by the medical profession after careful testing.” In reality, it might just mean that two doctors in Canberra were sent free samples, didn’t hate it (and the paycheck), and gave a thumbs-up on WhatsApp. Suddenly, the word “recommended” does a lot of heavy lifting. And the claim shrinks. A lot.

III. False Inference

In his dying moments, Elliott Marsdon (Alan Rickman) is in disbelief. He only forced Matthew Quigley (Tom Selleck) to a duel because he thought the sharpshooter wasn’t good with revolvers. Quigley, though, is not only a quick drawer but also a stickler for logic and the finer details of linguistics. Hence, his iconic line from the Western Quigley Down Under (1990):

I said, I never had much use for one. Never said I didn’t know how to use it.

Marsdon conflated preference with competence. Quigley’s favouring of his Sharps rifle didn’t mean he wasn’t as fast and accurate with a revolver. Elliott’s arrogance made him commit a False Inference.

The logical error happens when someone reaches a conclusion that doesn’t logically follow from the available information. Because we rely on assumptions or incomplete evidence, we fill in gaps without realising it. These errors are common in everyday communication and can easily lead to misunderstandings, unfair judgments and lost duels. 🐘

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themindcollection.com

I. Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

The last two times I washed my car, it rained the next day. I guess I control the weather now.

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc — Latin for after this, therefore because of this — is a common logical fallacy that confuses temporal sequence with causation. It’s the chronological version of the Causation Trap, the infamous principle that correlation does not imply causation.

Just because one event happened after another doesn’t mean the first event has caused the second. It’s tempting to draw such connections where none exist, especially when the timing feels too perfect to be a coincidence. But without real evidence of a causal link, we’re mistaking pattern for proof.

II. Poisoning the Well

Poisoning the Well is a form of propaganda that involves discrediting an opponent’s argument before it’s even presented. This is done by disseminating negative information or making negative assumptions about an opposing viewpoint. As a result, the opposition gets discredited since the tactic creates a bias in the audience before they have a chance to hear the other side.

When the source (or well) of information is corrupted, distrust in the actual message is almost guaranteed. A related phenomenon is the Contagion Heuristic. This mental shortcut leads us to avoid people or objects that were in touch with someone or something we consider contaminated. How comfortable would you be wearing a T-shirt that belonged to the person you despise the most? The same applies if we think of personal beliefs as valuable possessions.

👉 Taken from my article with 10 Propaganda Techniques: How to Manipulate the Masses

III. Typical Mind Fallacy

I love writing these weekly newsletters on critical thinking. I can’t imagine anyone finding them boring. These little nuggets of insight excite me, so I assume it’s the same for everyone. I mean, it seems obvious that 3 Ideas in 2 Minutes is invaluable brain food. I’m genuinely puzzled why half the literate world hasn’t subscribed yet.

Send help, because I’ve fallen victim to the Typical Mind Fallacy (with a hint of self-importance). It’s a cognitive error where someone assumes that their own mental states, perceptions or thought processes are representative of everyone else’s. In other words, people project their own understanding, feelings, preferences or judgments onto others, assuming these experiences are universal.

However, the fallacy isn’t necessarily about being wrong. It’s about mistaking your own experience for a standard. Related concepts include the Curse of Knowledge and Purple Belt Living. 🐘

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I. Cognitive Dissonance Reduction

Unfollows and unsubscribes are to social media users and newsletter writers as falling leaves are to autumn. It’s a natural part of the season. For me, most unsubscribes happen quietly and without a trace. But there are a few exceptions, and they follow a fascinating pattern. Whenever someone unsubscribes AND tells me why in an email, the reason has always been the same.

They don’t cancel because I misquoted someone. Not because they disagreed, in substance, with something I wrote. Not because my occasional humour was unbearably annoying and distracting. They all seem disappointed, even outraged, because of a person I quoted. The context can be political, but often is not.

The underlying reason might be Cognitive Dissonance Reduction. If we like a publication but now see a quote from someone we strongly dislike, there’s an internal conflict. The easiest way to resolve this discomfort is to stop the exposure. Unfollowing or unsubscribing restores consistency between our attitudes and actions.

II. Association Bias

You’re quoting Bob? Really?

If we dig a little deeper, we encounter Association Bias. Merely featuring someone’s words creates an implicit association between the writer and this terrible person whose words shall not be uttered, no matter the context. (Damn you, Bob!)

The mechanism is called evaluative conditioning. People’s attitudes toward one thing (the quoted person) influence their attitude toward another (the writer and their content).

Even if Bob’s message was non-political and benign. Even if your stance was neutral. Even if you featured ideas that contradicted each other or otherwise made the reader think. If someone dislikes the quoted person, their negative evaluation can “contaminate” the publication through association.

III. Signal Interpretation

A particularly noteworthy unsubscribe happened explicitly because I quoted BJJ coach John Danaher on Success Strategies. By the reader’s own admission, Danaher had “great ideas”; however, he was a “terribly flawed human being”.

Debatable (the second part), but fair enough. For some reason, though, the reader had firmly placed me in John Danaher’s camp. As if I had just outed myself as the official spokesman for Cobra Kai to a Miyagi-Do disciple.

So our mind can go even one step further beyond mere association. In the age of highly polarised discourse and gym drama, readers often treat references as signals of allegiance and support. Quoting somebody becomes not just a textual act, but a symbolic one.

Put differently, people respond less to the content of a quote and more to the social meaning they assign to the act of quoting; the perceived signal of loyalty behind the choice. And sometimes, only sometimes, or a little bit often, I catch myself feeling the exact same way about a writer or YouTuber I’m subscribed to. 🐘

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I. Intimidation Triad

How can an authority enforce obedience?

…asks Professor of Game Theory Christian Rieck in his Methods of Intimidation talk. Due to limited resources, it’s usually impractical to punish every pesky little disobedient underling who doesn’t play by your new arbitrary rule. So Rieck distinguishes three mechanisms of coercive control. I call it the Intimidation Triad.

1. Random intimidation: People are selected and punished at random. This creates unpredictable fear through uncertainty in everyone else. The downside: If a dictator’s resources are scarce, they probably won’t be able to intimidate enough people. The probability of being punished for the average person is simply too low.

2. Selective intimidation: People’s behaviour is reviewed in a predefined order, such as by way of an alphabetical list. You know when it’s going to be your turn, so you don’t misbehave. This creates a sense that everyone has a much higher probability of being punished and is therefore more effective.

3. Pearl Harbour Effect: Selectively making powerful, highly-publicised examples of disobedient individuals. Turning a punishment into a nationwide spectacle creates an eerie feeling: “Oh boy, this could happen to me.” It’s more of a bluff, though, as the resources to punish everyone are still not there. But it works. Until it doesn’t. The disproportionate punishment can create a backlash because people have had enough.

According to Rieck, attempts to use such methods to intimidate citizens in a democracy must be opposed early on:

Once the system has entered a state of oppression, it is the end of democracy because it is irreversible.

II. Gessler’s Hat

There’s a fourth method of intimidation I hinted at above. And it doesn’t quite fit the triad. You know the famous Swiss legend of William Tell shooting an apple off his son’s head. But can you tell how Tell got there? He failed to bow to Gessler’s Hat.

According to the legend of William Tell, a local Austrian official named Albrecht Gessler set up his hat on a pole in the town square. He ordered all locals to bow to it as a symbol of obedience to Austrian rule. Refusing to bow was seen as insubordination. When strong-willed Will walked by and refused to bow, he was arrested and eventually forced to shoot the infamous apple off his son’s head to go free.

Gessler’s Hat became a symbol of arbitrary authority and forced compliance. It also serves as a warning of how those in power sometimes test submission through meaningless acts of obedience.

III. Cognitive Dissonance Trap

The Cognitive Dissonance Trap is an intuitive term for how mental dissonance can entangle us in a web of twisted rationalisation. Because once we comply with a degrading demand, it doesn’t feel pretty.

I know it was ridiculous and humiliating to greet the hat. But I did it anyway.

To reconcile the two contradicting sentiments, we often rationalise it as acceptable to reduce psychological discomfort:

We all did it. Besides, I only did it once. And hey, it was good bowing practice.

Sadly, this makes future obedience easier. So next time an authority asks something ridiculous, watch out for your brain trapping itself.

Oh, I almost forgot: Tell hit the apple, was imprisoned anyway, but later escaped. So if you do challenge power, you’d better have exceptional skill. 🐘

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Chris
themindcollection.com

I. Objective Liability

It was a cold, dark winter night, and the clocks were striking something around two. I was in the army. And while I was sound asleep in my bunk bed, two soldiers tasked to patrol the barracks decided to go rogue. They entered a warehouse, took a couple of brand-new computers, and stuffed them into the trunks of their cars. It didn’t take long for someone to notice the missing hardware. Suspicion quickly fell on the two soldiers, who promptly confessed to the crime.

It was then that the police asked them a pivotal question: “When you went into the warehouse, did you leave your rifles outside, or did you take them with you?” The former would’ve been negligence, an unthinkable dereliction of guard duty. So, of course, they had their service rifles with them at all times. The problem was that they were now liable for armed theft, which carried a sentence of up to 10 years (as opposed to the possibility of a mere fine for theft).

That’s Objective Liability, a person being held legally responsible based on the external facts of their actions, regardless of their intentions. As far as I know, the soldiers didn’t intend to threaten anyone with the rifles, nor to use them in the theft. But their intentions were irrelevant. What mattered was the factual circumstance that they pinched a couple of computers while carrying loaded, select-fire HK G3 battle rifles.

II. Eggshell Skull Theory

Take your victims as you find them.

Similar to Objective Liability, that’s the principle behind the Eggshell Skull Theory. It holds that wrongdoers are fully liable for the consequences of their actions. Even if the harm is unexpectedly severe due to the victim’s pre-existing vulnerability.

As a defendant, you cannot argue that the injury was worse than what an average person would’ve suffered. You can’t escape liability merely because the victim was unusually susceptible.

The name originates from a famous illustration used in early English law cases. Imagine a victim with a skull as thin and fragile as an eggshell. Even a light blow, which would hardly hurt an average person, could cause catastrophic injury. Like giving Grandma a warm hug, not realising her ribs are held together by more willpower than calcium.

Tough luck. You have to take your victims as you find them, not as you think they ought to be.

III. Principle of Objectivity

Many debates boil down to “is” versus “ought”. The Principle of Objectivity states that scientific knowledge must describe reality as it is, independent of the observer’s perspective, preferences or values. Put differently, science should be value-neutral and focus on what “is”, not what “ought to be”. The ultimate goal is truth independent of human bias.

A physicist’s political views shouldn’t affect how they interpret experimental data. A doctor’s personal opinions shouldn’t influence how they diagnose or treat a patient. A judge’s personal beliefs shouldn’t affect how they interpret laws or evaluate evidence. Reality has a way of catching up, and the world rarely bends to how we wish it were.🐘

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Chris
themindcollection.com

I. Cryptomnesia

Society is like a fire. The wise warm themselves at a proper distance. The fools rush in, get burned and then curse the flame.

That’s an original Chris Meyer adage. Probably. I guess. Well, the more I think about it, it’s a classic case of Cryptomnesia. Cryptomnesia is the false sense of originality that results from forgetting the true source of an idea.

When inspiration disguises itself as invention, you might believe a thought is freshly minted in your own imagination. In fact, it’s a borrowed fragment resurfacing from the depths of your memory. The brain retrieves the idea but misplaces its source, fooling you into claiming authorship.

It’s a reminder that our mental repository is vast and full of echoes from things we’ve read, heard or written. Long ago, or just last week, in my own newsletter about Schopenhauer’s Camp Fire.

II. Google Effect

Why should I learn this, I can easily look it up online?

…is a line I often hear from students. That’s because the way our memory works seems to have changed in the internet age. In a 2011 study by Sparrow et al., researchers coined the Google Effect, the tendency to forget information that we can easily find online.

Our brains rely on the Internet for memory in much the same way they rely on the memory of a friend, family member or co-worker. We remember less through knowing information itself than by knowing where the information can be found.

It looks like this Digital Amnesia also extends to personal information, such as phone numbers of close friends. And really, why should I memorise dozens of up to 11-digit phone numbers if I have them saved on a phone I stare at all the time anyway?

Until we find ourselves debating a bullshit artist and realise: When you already know facts, your brain can combine and analyse them instantly. And constantly checking your phone to look up your favourite ideas from The Mind Collection Newsletter isn’t practical either.

III. Memory Holing

When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building.

—George Orwell, 1984

In Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, the memory hole is a chute used to destroy documents and records to erase facts so they effectively never existed. Today, Memory Holing is more of a metaphorical act of information suppression. It’s the black hole where inconvenient facts, truths, documents or posts vanish.

Like an undo button for history. Except someone you don’t like is holding that power, deciding what counts as remembered. They can change the perception of events and rewrite history, protect reputations and control narratives.

So if this newsletter ever gets memory-holed, I need you to defy the Google Effect and remember every little manipulation tactic I’ve written about. 🐘

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Chris
themindcollection.com

I. False Self

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.

If life is a stage, some of us spend it perfecting the roles everyone else wrote for us. Psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott called this performance the False Self. It’s a carefully crafted mask we wear to keep others comfortable.

• From an early age, we learn to please people and present ourselves in a way that everyone approves of. Except us, maybe.

• When the False Self takes over, life looks orderly on the outside but feels hollow within.

• Rather than being meant as deceit, it serves as a shield for the vulnerable True Self against rejection or intrusion.

Winnicott’s treatment? Let the True Self breathe again. Be spontaneous, even imperfectly so. Allow those messy, authentic impulses to coexist with the social masks we must still wear.

II. Unhappy Consciousness

It was German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel who came up with the similar idea of the Unhappy Consciousness. It describes a state of inner division where a person becomes aware of the split between their individual self and the larger social order. This tension creates a constant back and forth between pride in individuality and guilt over alienation.

Psychologically, the Unhappy Consciousness lives in conflict. Conformity feels false, yet rebellion feels isolating. It embodies the modern sense of estrangement. Being too aware to fully believe, but too human to detach completely. The result is a restless, self-questioning existence that can drive both despair and the search for genuine freedom.

III. Schopenhauer’s Camp Fire

The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer also described the state when you’re easily annoyed by society. But being alone gets you down as well. He suggested you learn to keep a bit of solitude with you, even in company.

Don’t say everything you think, don’t take others too seriously, and don’t expect much from them. If you can stay indifferent about their opinions, you’ll move among people without really being frustrated by them. He beautifully summarises his thoughts with an analogy I’d like to call Schopenhauer’s Camp Fire:

Society is in this respect like a fire — the wise man warming himself at a proper distance from it; not coming too close, like the fool, who, on getting scorched, runs away and shivers in solitude, loud in his complaint that the fire burns.

—Arthur Schopenhauer

🐘

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Chris
themindcollection.com

P.S.: I’m bringing back donations. If you’d like to support my work, you can make a voluntary donation here 👉 paypal.me/CMeyerAu

No goods, services, or access are provided in exchange. ;)

I. Herostratic Fame

Herostratus was a Greek man who, in 356 BCE, set fire to the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. His sole motive was to make his name famous. Outraged by his crime, the authorities executed him and tried to erase his name from history. But the story survived.

Herostratus achieved his alleged goal of one day being quoted by obscure Australian bloggers for all the wrong reasons. Because today, Herostratic Fame describes someone seeking notoriety through destructive or infamous deeds rather than meaningful achievements. And as writer Gurwinder Bhogal points out:

Now we have ‘nuisance influencers’ who stream themselves committing crimes and harassing people purely for clout.

II. Ordinary-Extraordinary Strategy

Just as those who seek Herostratic Fame aim to shock the world into remembering them, true strategists wield surprise to seize the advantage. As Robert Greene explains with the Ordinary-Extraordinary Strategy:

People expect your behavior to conform to known patterns and conventions. Your task as a strategist is to upset their expectations. Surprise them and chaos and unpredictability — which they try desperately to keep at bay — enter their world, and in the ensuing mental disturbance, their defenses are down and they are vulnerable.

First, do something ordinary and conventional to fix their image of you, then hit them with the extraordinary. The terror is greater for being so sudden. Never rely on an unorthodox strategy that worked before — it is conventional the second time around. Sometimes the ordinary is extraordinary because it is unexpected.

—Robert Greene, The 33 Strategies of War

III. Whiskey Smash

The Whiskey Smash is a crisp, refreshing cocktail that balances the warmth of whiskey with bright citrus and fresh mint. To make one, muddle half a lemon, cut into wedges, with 4–6 mint leaves and 1 teaspoon of simple syrup. Just enough to release the juices and essential oils. Add 2 oz (60 ml) of whiskey (I prefer the Balvenie DoubleWood) and a handful of ice. Shake briefly to chill and combine the flavours.

Now strain the mixture into a rocks glass filled with ice. Garnish with a sprig of mint and a lemon wheel for aroma and visual appeal. With its sweet, citrusy and herbal notes, the Whiskey Smash is easy to enjoy, versatile and perfect for warm afternoons. I very much enjoy it. But I’ve found it most difficult to find a bartender who knows how to make one. 🐘

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Chris
themindcollection.com

I. Spray & Pray Sales Technique

The Spray & Pray Sales Technique is a marketing approach that tries to get quality through quantity. The idea is to contact as many potential buyers as possible with minimal targeting or personalisation, hoping that sheer volume will produce a few successful leads.

It can generate some leads through volume alone, but it’s inefficient and often wastes time on unqualified prospects. It may boost reach, yet rarely delivers lasting or meaningful results in the form of lasting customer relationships or sustainable growth. Unless there’s a considerable amount of answered prayers involved.

Apparently, it can work with impulse-buy products such as snacks or promotional goods. But personally, I’m not inclined to respond to Bob, the generic outreach bro, who knows neither my name nor that of my website, but is confident he can double my non-existent online course sales within a year.

II. Pottery Principle

So quantity cannot produce quality? Well, it can. Case in point is the Pottery Principle, an anecdote from the book Art & Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland.

A ceramics instructor split his class into two groups. One was graded on how much work they produced, the other on making a single perfect piece. The quantity group would be judged by the total weight of their pots, while the quality group needed only one flawless example for top marks. The results were telling:

[T]he works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work — and learning from their mistakes — the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

—David Bayles & Ted Orland, Art & Fear

III. 10,000 Hours Theory

Just put in 10,000 hours of work into anything and you’ll be a master.

Well, no. The 10,000 Hours Theory is as widely quoted as it is misunderstood. It comes from psychologist K. Anders Ericsson’s research on how people develop expertise. His studies of musicians and other high performers found that the best had accumulated about 10,000 hours of deliberate practice.

The concept was later popularised by Canadian journalist Malcolm Gladwell, but the popular version oversimplified what Ericsson actually discovered. Ericsson never claimed that 10,000 hours automatically produce mastery. What matters is how those hours are spent. Deliberate practice means operating at the edge of your ability, correcting errors through feedback and maintaining sustained concentration.

Making lacklustre attempts at repeating a skill and putting in time doesn’t count. What drives improvement is quantity combined with intensity. You need enough volume of practice to build experience, but the practice must also be high-quality to actually refine the skill. 🐘

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Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. See you again in 2026! 🎄🎊

Chris
themindcollection.com

I. Burying

Burying is a political sleight of hand where lawmakers hide controversial measures inside long, complicated or harmless-sounding bills. Instead of openly debating an unpopular clause, they tuck it into a massive document few people have patience to read. The goal is to make the poison pill look like candy.

One common trick is giving the bill an overly elaborate or misleading title. Imagine there was the so-called BRIGHT Act, or Building Responsible Information Growth and Harmonised Thought Act. Sounds noble yet dull enough to slip through unnoticed, doesn’t it? Hidden in page 738, however, might be a quiet little clause placing your favourite critical thinking newsletter under government control and mandating paid subscriptions for re-education purposes.

Burying isn’t limited to politics. It’s a pretty universal tactic for hiding something unpleasant. Companies slip hidden fees into fine print, marketers bury unhealthy ingredients behind feel-good labels and people soften bad news by tucking it into long conversations. The strategy is always the same: Distract, overload and let the inconvenient truth slide by unnoticed. But we did notice.

II. Feigned Retreat

We won! The bill has been withdrawn. The BRIGHT Act is dead. We can all go back to reading whatever we want. Or can we?

Feigned Retreat is a stratagem or scheme designed to be victorious in battle — or politics. The government’s attempt to slip the bill in under the radar didn’t work. However, the people in charge only pretended to withdraw. In reality, government-mandated newsletter subscriptions will soon be back on the table under a different name.

The underlying strategy here is to feign defeat, disappear from attention, then re-emerge under a new guise that emphasises benefits to distract from controversial elements. Repeat if necessary.

On an entirely different note, would you support USCOREA, or the Ultimate Small Creator Opportunity and Resource Expansion Act? I would. Small creators are notoriously lacking opportunities and resources. About time that the government comes to our rescue. I see no harm in that.

Inspired by: Prof. Dr. Christian Rieck, The tricks of politicians

III. Checkmate Principle

Feigned Retreat and Burying give a glimpse into political strategising that might be best captured by the Checkmate Principle. Like in a game of chess, what if you’re destined to be defeated because your opponent is always two steps ahead of you?

Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.

―Sun Tzu, The Art of War

🐘

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Chris
themindcollection.com

I. Normalisation of Deviance

Normalisation of Deviance happens when behaviours once seen as risky or deviant gradually become accepted as normal. I recently learned about this in the context of aviation disasters. Picture a private pilot who slowly becomes comfortable bending safety rules.

At first, the pilot strictly avoids alcohol before flying. One day after lunch, he has half a beer several hours before takeoff and notices no apparent effect. The flight goes fine. But over time, this becomes a habit. One beer. Maybe two. Always justified by, “I’ve done it before and nothing happened.” Eventually, this behaviour feels “normal” and harmless, even though it violates regulations and erodes safety margins.

Repeated success while breaking a rule made the unsafe behaviour feel acceptable. Until one day, the underlying risk suddenly manifests in the form of fast-approaching terrain.

II. Gambler’s Fallacy of Crime

I’ve flipped a coin two times in a row and it was all heads. There must be a high chance that tails comes next.

This thinking illustrates the Gambler’s Fallacy, the mistaken belief that past outcomes influence future independent events. In reality, each coin toss is a separate event. The probability of heads or tails remains the same every time, regardless of what happened before. This supposed “balance” of random sequences only exists in our heads.

It also applies to criminals in the shape of the Gambler’s Fallacy of Crime:

I got caught the last two times. So unless I’m extremely unlucky I should get away with being a drunken pilot without a licence this time around.

Nah, mate, each event is independent. Just because you got caught before doesn’t make it any less likely this time. Luck doesn’t even out. Past outcomes do not change future probabilities.

III. Routine Activity Approach

The Routine Activity Approach is a theory in criminology developed by Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson in 1979.

It explains criminal events not by offenders’ personal traits or social background. But by the circumstances that make crime possible: Crime occurs when three elements come together: a motivated offender, a suitable target and the absence of a capable guardian. Without any one of these elements, a crime is unlikely to take place.

Imagine a busy public park where visitors regularly park their cars along poorly lit streets or in unattended lots. A motivated offender passing through the area as part of their own daily routine — perhaps walking home or hanging around nearby — may notice an unlocked or unattended vehicle. If there is no capable guardian present, this everyday convergence of activities can result in car theft.

So crime isn’t just about “bad people”. It’s also about everyday situations we all create. That also means that small changes in our routines or awareness can reduce our chances of becoming a victim. 🐘

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Chris
themindcollection.com

I. Falkland’s Law

When there is no need to make a decision, don’t make a decision.

Every decision carries a cost. Time, mental energy or potential consequences. Acting too soon or unnecessarily can create problems or commit you to needless complexity.

Falkland’s Law encourages patience and observation. By waiting until a decision is genuinely required, you often gain more information, see clearer options and can choose more wisely. It’s a way to avoid unnecessary stress and reduce the risk of errors.

The law is named after the 1982 Falklands War, when the Argentine government made a rushed decision to reclaim the Falkland Islands from the United Kingdom. The engagement ultimately backfired, resulting in a major loss for Argentina.

Falkland’s Law also complements the concept of Stopping Decisions. It reminds us not to overcommit or undercommit effort before or until a decision is necessary.

II. Naval’s Compass

Naval’s Compass is an extension of Naval Ravikant’s decision-making heuristic, “If you can’t decide, the answer is no.”

If two equally difficult paths, choose the one more painful in the short term (pain avoidance is creating an illusion of equality).

—Naval

When two paths seem equally hard, the one that hurts more now is usually the one that pays off later. Because comfort creates a false sense of balance that hides future costs behind present ease.

III. Siege of Zhao

Besieging Wei to rescue Zhao is a stratagem rooted in the warfare principles promoted by Sun Tzu in The Art of War.

During China’s Warring States period, the State of Wei besieged the State of Zhao. Zhao asked the State of Qi for help. But instead of attacking Wei’s forces directly (where they were strong and concentrated), Qi attacked Wei’s capital. Wei’s army had to abandon the siege of Zhao to rush back to defend their homeland. Qi’s smaller army defeated them during the retreat. Zhao was saved without ever engaging the besieging army head-on.

The principle here is incentive-based decision manipulation: attack indirectly to divert the enemy. Instead of confronting strength with strength, hit a vital or lightly defended interest elsewhere so the opponent is forced into a dilemma. 🐘

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Chris
themindcollection.com