Cunningham's Law
The best way to get a right answer online is to post a wrong one.
"People correct faster than they help."
What is Cunningham's Law? The best way to get a right answer online is to post a wrong one. Sometimes a confidently wrong draft beats a perfect ask.
Internal docs that improve when a wrong draft circulates.
Sometimes a confidently wrong draft beats a perfect ask.
Use 'strawman' drafts to harvest dissent and correction.
Use the model. Pick the move.
The best way to get a right answer online is to post a wrong one. You've just seen this: Internal docs that improve when a wrong draft circulates. Which lever does the model recommend?
Pick a lever. There are no neutral ones — every incentive funds a behavior somewhere.
Pick a reaction to Cunningham's Law
One tap. We'll point you at the most useful next surface based on how this hits.
The full taxonomy entry
Every concept in the Atlas uses the same structure — so Cunningham's Law can be compared, recombined, and cited like an element on a periodic table.
- Business
- Leadership
- Government
- Healthcare
- Education
- Sales
- Marketing
- AI
- Negotiation
- Media
- Public Policy
- Relationships
- Where in our org would Cunningham's Law most often show up unnoticed?
- Which metric, ritual, or contract clause quietly rewards Cunningham's Law?
- If we removed every payoff for Cunningham's Law, what behavior would replace it?
- Who benefits when Cunningham's Law persists — and who pays the cost?
- People defend the status quo using the language of cunningham's law.
- Decisions cluster around the easiest narrative rather than the strongest evidence.
- New data changes the slide deck but not the decision.
- Anyone naming the pattern is treated as the problem.
Every Atlas entry is a node in a knowledge graph. See the related rail below to follow the connections.
See Cunningham's Law through 2 lenses
Each layer of the Incentives OS reframes this concept with its own thinkers, vocabulary, and diagnostic question.
Do you actually know Cunningham's Law?
Three quick questions. Result is saved into your review streak — come back when the term is due to lock it in.
Which best describes Cunningham's Law?
Worked example, counter-example & concept map
On-demand AI analysis grounded in the Lab's research. Cached on your device after first run.
When you encounter Cunningham's Law, your default mode network folds the experience into your ongoing story-of-self — which is why the same fact lands differently depending on who you think you are.
Self-referential thought, mind-wandering, narrative-of-self, mental time travel. Most of your waking thought is this network running scenarios about you, your status, your past, and your future.
See Default Mode in the Brain Atlas →Picked for you, from the Atlas
Ranked by shared learning paths, overlapping chips, and what you've saved.
A group decides on a course of action that nobody actually wants, because everyone assumes others prefer it.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
We attribute our own actions to situations but others' actions to their character.
We favor people who are similar to us or who like us.
Sacrificing for others without expecting a personal reward.
Masking the sponsors of a message to make it appear grassroots.
Send the card, not just the link
A pre-rendered social card with the title, eyebrow, and URL. Copy the link, post it anywhere, or download the SVG for slides.
More definitions to follow
Every term in the Atlas connects to a dozen others. Pick any of these and see where it takes you.
Rebuild your calendar from scratch every quarter rather than inheriting it from the last one.
Using an authority's opinion as evidence, regardless of its merits.
AI bolted onto existing workflows to look forward-leaning.
Environmental factors influence perception and judgment.
Single-loop fixes the action. Double-loop questions the goal or model that produced it.
An act committed to look like it was done by someone else.
Neurons that fire together wire together.
Behavior that benefits genetic relatives at cost to oneself.
We construct a coherent life story; that story shapes future decisions.
The same person ranks A over B in one frame and B over A in another.
Federal focus on technical milestones over commercial outcomes creates 'professional applicants.'
Unlimited anonymous donations flow through 501(c)(4) shells into elections.