Umarbek

Heuristics

Quick decision frameworks. Mental shortcuts that work. "When X, do Y" patterns.

• You can ignore any website with the word "truth" in its URL.
• The word "free" in advertising is like "love" in a brothel — technically possible but highly unlikely.
• If something is repeated multiple times without evidence, it is probably a lie.
• If someone is trying to convince you that it's not a pyramid scheme, it's a pyramid scheme.
• If you need "exciting," "revolutionary," or "amazing" to make your point, you don't have a point.
• Only those who know they're bullshitter get offended when called out on it.
• The use of the word 'but' is often a rhetorical scam.
• If you take enough idiots advising each other, some will get rich by accident—then write books about their 'secret.'
• Just like anyone pushing Kiyosaki books is either naive or selling something, people obsessed with IQ scores are usually charlatans.
• "Free speech, but..." is like "I'm not racist, but..." Whatever comes next proves the opposite.
• If a guru is selling courses on getting rich, that's how they got rich.
• If they have to say they're classy, they aren't.
• If you read it in a headline, it's probably oversimplified.
• If you can't find criticism of an idea, you haven't looked hard enough.
• The more certain someone is, the less they know.
• If you think someone is normal, you don't know them very well.
• People who say "I don't care what people think" usually do. Constantly.
• If you tell someone "we should keep in touch," you will not keep in touch.
• If someone gossips to you, they gossip about you.
• People who talk about their honesty usually aren't.
• If they cheat with you, they'll cheat on you.
• If someone says "trust me," don't.
• People reveal themselves when they're tired, drunk, or angry.
• The louder the laugh, the faker the person.
• The more someone emphasizes their credentials, the less they have to offer.
• Work expands to fill the time available for its completion. (Parkinson's Law)
• If your bio is longer than your work, you haven't done enough work.
• If nobody else does what you do, you won't need a resume.
• If a YouTube video can teach your job, you don't have one.
• The job perks are impressive when the job isn't.
• The more you get paid, the harder it is to tell if you're any good.
• If your job is to follow rules exactly, a robot will replace you.
• Flex time means working all the time, flexibly.
• If you can't fire the intern who wrote it, you can't fix the bug. This is true of code and true of governments.
• You can't build a billion-dollar empire like Instagram if you're wasting hours every day using a service like Instagram.
• The best time to look for a job is when you have one.
• If the interview is disorganized, the company is disorganized.
• If they can't tell you what success looks like, you can't succeed.
• If the first question is about salary, they can't afford you.
• A company that monitors bathroom breaks will micromanage everything.
• If the founder is still coding, the company is still good.
• When a company starts calling employees "family," layoffs are coming.
• Morale meetings exist because morale doesn't.
• Every Slack thread longer than ten messages should have been a meeting. Every meeting longer than ten minutes should have been an email.
• If two kinds of work seem equally admirable, choose the less prestigious one.
• Avoid any field whose practitioners say they're "just trying to make a living."
• All systems that can be gamed will be gamed.
• When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. (Goodhart's Law)
• Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. (Murphy's Law)
• 90% of everything is crap. (Sturgeon's Law)
• A complex system that works evolved from a simple system that worked. (Gall's Law)
• The more a metric is used for decision-making, the more it will be corrupted. (Campbell's Law)
• If it can't be wrong, it probably is.
• If you can't explain it simply, you probably don't understand it. Or you're a consultant trying to justify your fees.
• The only valid criticism is the one you don't like.
• If you need a dictionary to read philosophy, the philosopher needs a job.
• If you ask any question at the global level, the answer is "we have no idea."
• The simplest explanation is usually correct. (Occam's Razor)
• Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity. (Hanlon's Razor)
• What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. (Hitchens's Razor)
• The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it. (Brandolini's Law)
• Don't remove a fence until you understand why it was put there. (Chesterton's Fence)
• The quicker you want something, the easier you are to manipulate.
• If you can't decide, the answer is no.
• If you have two equally difficult paths, choose the one more painful in the short term.
• If you need a spreadsheet to decide whether to marry someone, don't marry them.
• If you wouldn't buy it at full price, don't buy it on sale.
• If you're not sure whether to apologize, apologize.
• If you have to ask if you can afford it, you can't.
• The general strategy for real estate is to buy the worst property on the best street.
• If an investment opportunity requires urgency, it's a scam.
• If the CEO is on magazine covers, the stock has peaked.
• If you've been playing poker for half an hour and you still don't know who the patsy is, you're the patsy. (Buffet)
• If more money wouldn't change how you spend your time, you're already rich.
• "Most livable city" means "least affordable for actual living."
• The longer you put off without any progress, the more likely you will never do it.
• If you never fail, you're playing it too safe, which means you're boring.
• If you're not being so persistent that you're worried about being annoying, you're not being persistent enough.
• "Building in public" often means we're desperate for attention.
• If you have, or, worse, need new year resolutions, you must be doing something inherently wrong in your life and, particularly, lacking in self-knowledge. (Taleb)
• The longer something has survived, the longer it's likely to survive. (The Lindy Effect)
• What you don't do matters more than what you do. (Via negativa)
• If you see fraud and don't say fraud, you are a fraud. (Taleb)
• The best way to get what you want is to deserve what you want. (Munger)
• Prestige is especially dangerous to the ambitious. (PG)
• If someone insults you during negotiation, they're scared.
• If you have to threaten, you've already lost.
• If you can cut a word without losing meaning, cut it. (Atlas)
• If a sentence needs a semicolon, it needs to be two sentences.
• If you're using "very," find a stronger word.
• If you have to explain the joke, delete it.
• The longer the email, the less likely it gets read.
• Never use the passive where you can use the active. (Orwell)
• A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, for the same reason a machine should have no unnecessary parts.
• Never say anything in writing that you wouldn't comfortably say in conversation.
• If the product needs influencers to sell it, the product doesn't sell itself.
• If something's worth having at all, it's worth having a good one.
• If your grandmother wouldn't recognize it as food, don't eat it.
• If it comes through a car window, it's not food.
• If you can't pronounce the ingredients, don't buy it.
• If you're hungry an hour after eating, you ate the wrong thing.
• If you need an alarm to wake up, you need more sleep.
• If a book is still in print after 50 years, it's worth reading.
• If you learned it in school and never used it, you didn't need it.

These aren't rules. They're starting points. Break them when context demands it.