Mental model · Where thinking goes wrong
The neat story
The neat story: Building a coherent explanation after the fact that makes an unpredictable event look inevitable.
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Building a coherent explanation after the fact that makes an unpredictable event look inevitable.
Try it now
Take something that happened in your industry that people now explain confidently. Ask who predicted it beforehand, in writing.
What to do with the answer
Hold the explanation loosely, and be suspicious of any lesson drawn from a story that only exists in hindsight.
Where it misleads
Some events genuinely were predictable and some explanations are right. The tell is whether anyone said so in advance.
The module it belongs to
- Critical Thinking — Evaluate claims and evidence
The book behind it
- The black swan — Its big ideas, in our own words.