The law of triviality is C. Northcote Parkinson's 1957 argument that people within an organization commonly give disproportionate weight to trivial issues.[1] Parkinson provides the example of a fictional committee whose job was to approve the plans for a nuclear power plant spending the majority of its time on discussions about relatively minor but easy-to-grasp issues, such as what materials to use for the staff bicycle shed, while neglecting the proposed design of the plant itself, which is far more important and a far more difficult and complex task.
The Laws of Simplicity / John Maeda
The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.
The Laws of Simplicity
John Maeda's book, The Laws of Simplicity, proposes ten laws for simplifying complex systems in business and life. Think of it as simplicity 101.
How Do Committees Fail To Invent? - Infrequently Noted
Conway's Law is generally discussed in the context of organisations trying to solve a problem. But what if there are defectors? And what if they could prevent all progress without paying a price? This problem is rarely analysed for the simple reason that such an organisation would be deranged. But what if it happened regularly, and even threatened the basis of web standards?
Permissionless innovation: The fuzzy idea that rules our lives
People sometimes ask me, “What is the most important concept in political economy?” The answer is easy, but subtle …
The Unreasonable Sufficiency of Protocols Web
The Unreasonable Sufficiency of Protocols Venkatesh Rao, Tim Beiko, Danny Ryan, Josh Stark, Trent Van Epps, and Bastian Aue 1. Introduction Complex coordination problems have an air of doomed intractability about them. We speak in fatalistic terms of economics being a “dismal” science, of sociological phenomena being dominated by the
Power: A Primer for Perplexed Economists
Let's Assume an Unfettered Marketplace of Ideas! Or Actually, Let's Not.
Unsimple Truths: Science, Complexity, and Policy
Amazon.com: Unsimple Truths: Science, Complexity, and Policy eBook : Mitchell, Sandra D.: Kindle Store
Claims about scientific rigour require rigour
Nature Human Behaviour - Claims about scientific rigour require rigour
Sturgeon's law
Sturgeon's law states, "Ninety percent of everything is crap". The adage was coined by American science fiction author and critic Theodore Sturgeon while defending the merits of the genre. Sturgeon observed that most works in any field were low quality. Therefore, science fiction was not uniquely inferior.
Andreas De Block on Twitter / X
It took Nature three years to publish this rebuttal, which clearly demonstrates the fundamental flaws in the original paper. In the meantime, the paper's conclusions influenced scientific debate and policy decisions. Such delays in correcting flawed research do real damage. https://t.co/QI3Ei3PE70— Andreas De Block (@DeblockBlock) August 13, 2026
Why we committed to a zero-bugs policy - Linear
When we tell people that Linear maintains a zero-bug policy a common response is disbelief. It may sound like a ridiculous approach, but we do it because no other way makes sense.
The Optimization Trap: Why Too Much Efficiency Makes Us Fragile - The Great Simplification
In this episode, Nate is joined by biologist and biophysicist Olivier Hamant to explore why living systems prioritize robustness over performance, and what that means for a civilization built almost entirely in the opposite direction.
#SciComment Nice example of protecting ECRs from critiques that they had no power to avoid...
So I wrote a much longer thing explaining why Minnesota's anti-nudify tech law, while it might be well meaning, is TERRIBLY DRAFTED in a manner that almost guarantees it will be thrown out, giving Elon Musk a win. But also, I don't understand WHY MN legislators wrote such a bad law...
Techdirt
The Worst Person You Know Just Filed A Good First Amendment Lawsuit Against A Very Badly Drafted Nudify App Ban There's been a bunch of news this... techdirt.com/2026/07/30/the-worst-person-y…
"what if engineering a scientific revolution is, at least in part, a problem of organizing humans and coordinating effort?" uniconq.substack.com/p/the-ground-truth-institute h/t @ranganaut.bsky.social
The Ground Truth Institute
uniconq.substack.com
