Some of these laws are better known as principles, effects, or razors, but for the sake of simplicity, I call them all laws.
Now let's dive in!
You've heard of Moore's and Murphy's Law.
But did you know there are dozens of other laws that can help you better navigate life, business, relationships?
Here are 20+ powerful laws you should know:
Some of these laws are better known as principles, effects, or razors, but for the sake of simplicity, I call them all laws.
Now let's dive in!
• We overestimate technology in the short run and underestimate it in the long run.
Never forget how fast tech moves.
The first cellphone was a foot tall and could only make calls.
An iPhone today fits in your pocket and can do everything a laptop can do.
• If something cannot be settled by experiment then it is not worthy of debate.
Don't waste your time arguing if Jordan was better than LeBron or any other similar hypothetical situation that can't be tested.
There are a million better ways to spend your time.
• Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Be prepared for people to change once they get a new position.
When someone becomes powerful, you'll find out their true colors and discover if they're actually a good person or were just pretending.
• The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.
As Mark Twain said, "It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled."
That's why the world is filled with false information.
• Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word 'no.'
If publishers were confident that the answer was yes, they would say so.
But they aren't so they present it as a question to avoid accountability for the article.
• Every element in a story must be necessary and irrelevant elements should be removed.
If an author mentions a gun in Act 1, it better be used later, or else it was pointless for the author to include it.
Remove any unnecessary details from your stories.
• Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget.
Projects will take longer than planned and likely cost more than estimated.
Be prepared for that.
Plan ahead and keep a cushion for additional expenses.
• The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is to post the wrong answer.
People on the internet love being right more and showing others how smart they are.
So if you want an answer, post the wrong one and people will correct you in no time.
• People can maintain ~150 stable social relationships.
Since you can't have a close relationship with everyone, you need carefully select who you spend your time with.
Invest energy and effort into the friends that make you a better person.
• People with low ability at a task overestimate their own ability.
In other words, beginner's luck is real.
If you're successful in a domain early on, stay humble and realize luck may have played a large role in your life.
• When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
When you obsess over one goal, it will often backfire in ways you couldn't have predicted.
Ex: News sites' goal of more clicks led to more click-bait articles.
• Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Most people aren't evil, they're just humans who made a dumb mistake.
Give people the benefit of the doubt before accusing them of being a terrible person.
• Technology is neither good nor bad.
You can waste countless hours scrolling social media.
Or, you can also make millions of dollars by creating content on social media.
The same goes for any other piece of tech. Use tech in a way that benefits you.
• The life expectancy of something is proportional to its current age.
If a book has been around for 80 years, it will probably be around for another 80 and is worth reading.
The same goes for movies, music, and blog articles.
Consume more old content.
• To understand what another person is saying you must assume that it is true and try to imagine what it could be true of.
Before you can counter an argument, you must first understand it.
See the other person's POV first and only after should you evaluate it.
• Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
The more important a project is, the more contingency plans you should have in place.
Expect the best-case scenario but always prepare for the worst-case scenario.
• Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.
Give yourself 5 days to complete a project and it'll take 5 days.
Give yourself 5 hours and it'll take 5 hours.
So, set shorter deadlines to avoid procrastinating on any given project.
• 80% of the results come from 20% of the inputs.
Identify the 20% of the work that gives you 80% of the results.
Focus and prioritize that key 20%.
Eliminate or outsource the remaining 80%.
• Safety measures are offset by increased risk-taking.
Often times the more safe someone feels, the more risks they're okay with taking.
Don't do that.
Wear safety equipment and avoid doing anything with a ridiculously high chance of danger.
• Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
If you read or hear something out of this world, don't believe it right away.
Ask them to provide evidence or proof to back up their claim.
Do your research even if the person is a so-called expert.
• Any attempt to censor information has the unintended consequence of publicizing it more widely.
If your company screwed up royally, don't try to hide it–people will find out.
Instead, accept responsibility and create a plan to fix the situation.
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