File 03 — Tools
Calculators you can just play with.
Small interactive instruments for the moment a feeling tries to pass itself off as a fact. Drag the sliders. The point is to feel it, not to be told.
Start here
Panic-to-Probability Converter
Turn a 2 a.m. fear into a number.
Name the fear, answer four questions about your prior, your sample size, and whether anything actually changed. It crosses out the catastrophe and rewrites it as a calmer reading of the evidence.
open panic-to-probability converter →Then one from each pillar.
The four things this whole site is about, one instrument each.
Every instrument.
Each one makes a single idea obvious by letting you break it.
22 tools
- 01The Chain of ArgumentSeven links you're each 90% sure of add up to a coin flip.Beliefsopen →
- 02The TurkeyEvery year the trend holds, the forecast gets more certain. Ask the turkey how that ends.Judgmentopen →
- 03The CemeteryA thousand people, the same bet, and the few that luck made famous.Judgmentopen →
- 04The Jevons MachineThe price collapses. The bill grows. Jevons called it in 1865.Judgmentopen →
- 05Panic-to-Probability ConverterTurn a 2 a.m. fear into a number.Panicopen →
- 06Your Risk, in MicromortsWhere the danger actually is.Probabilityopen →
- 07Dread vs. DataThe things you fear vs. the things that get you.Panicopen →
- 08The Carcinogen, to ScaleSame hazard group as plutonium. Nowhere near the same risk.Probabilityopen →
- 09How Common Is It, Really?Recognize what's actually frequent — and what just feels it.Probabilityopen →
- 10The Guru GapPut the promise next to the best who ever lived.Judgmentopen →
- 11What's Actually Behind It?Answer six questions. See the shape, not the sales pitch.Beliefsopen →
- 12The Certainty RadiusHow far do the consequences of your uncertainty travel?Beliefsopen →
- 13The Pyramid Runs Out of PeopleWhy “everyone just brings a few” eats the planet.Probabilityopen →
- 14The Average Is a LiarA bet you win on paper and lose in life.Probabilityopen →
- 15The Monte Carlo FanTen thousand futures from one set of odds — and the gap between the average and yours.Probabilityopen →
- 16The Fog Behind the NumberYour point estimate was never a point.Probabilityopen →
- 17The Coincidence MachineTwo lines that move together, for no reason at all.Probabilityopen →
- 18The Base-Rate MachineWhy a positive test usually isn't.Probabilityopen →
- 19Signal vs. NoiseOne bad day, drawn out.Judgmentopen →
- 20The Belief UpdaterMove your mind the right amount.Beliefsopen →
- 21Stereotype vs. Base RateLibrarian or farmer? Let the base rate vote.Probabilityopen →
- 22The Calibration GameAre you as sure as you think?Beliefsopen →