Ideas worth modelling.
Longer reads that put the library to work: where the models come from, when they break, and how to use them on real decisions.
The prisoner's dilemma: why cooperation is hard, and how it happens anyway
In a one-shot prisoner's dilemma, betrayal always pays. Yet people, firms and even microbes cooperate. Here are the five mechanisms that make it possible, and how to design for them.
How things spread: broadcast, contagion and the Bass model
Products, rumours and viruses spread by the same few mechanisms. Learn to read an adoption curve, see what each shape says about growth, and find the levers that move it.
Normal or power law? How to tell which world your data lives in
Bell curves and long tails demand completely different decisions. Here is where each comes from, why mixing them up is expensive, and a five-step test for your own data.
Why one model is never enough: the case for many-model thinking
Every model leaves something out. Combining several different ones is how you get answers that are less wrong, and the diversity prediction theorem shows exactly why.