Inversion
Ask what would guarantee failure, then avoid those things
Instead of asking how to succeed at something, you ask what would reliably wreck it. Then you stay away from those things. Carl Jacobi's instruction to invert, always invert is the usual source, and Charlie Munger made it well known by asking what would guarantee a miserable life. The case for working backward is about risk. Adding an intervention carries a real chance of causing harm; removing an obvious mistake rarely does. It suits problems where the ways to fail are easier to name than the conditions for success.
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- Shane ParrishRecommends
Writer · Farnam Street and The Knowledge Project
Thinking a problem backward is less likely to cause harm than adding another intervention, he argues, which is why he calls it the avoiding stupidity filter. He traces the idea to Jacobi by way of Munger.
Source: fs.blog: inversion and the power of avoiding stupidity
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