Beware What Sounds Insightful

Naming something feels like understanding it. This is dangerous.

The Rumpelstiltskin Effect

In medicine, patients often feel relief simply from receiving a diagnosis label—even when the label doesn’t explain the cause or lead to treatment. The name itself provides comfort.

Content creators exploit this same mechanism. They invent catchy labels for obvious ideas, and we feel smarter for learning the term. But we haven’t learned anything—we’ve just learned what to call something we already knew.

The Tool-Shaped Objects Example

Will Manidis’s “Tool-Shaped Objects” essay went viral (40M+ views). The core idea: some things look like tools but don’t actually help you get work done.

Is this insightful? Not really. It’s repackaging existing concepts:

• Security theater
• Bullshit jobs
• Goodhart’s Law
• Cargo cult behavior

But “tool-shaped objects” SOUNDS profound. The exotic story (Japanese hand plane from 1711), the sophisticated packaging, the “aha moment” of recognition—“Oh, that’s what my Notion workspace is!”

The irony: An essay critiquing content consumed for the feeling of insight was itself consumed for the feeling of insight.

Why We Fall For This

Murray Davis’s framework (1970s): Content feels “interesting” when it overturns weakly held assumptions while confirming strongly held ones. This creates pleasurable surprise without threatening your worldview.

The Berkeley study (2019): Information acts on the brain’s dopamine system the same way as food. We’re wired to seek the “aha moment” as a reward.

The hijack: Modern content is optimized to trigger aha moments through:

• Novel terminology for familiar truths
• Exotic stories from unfamiliar domains
• Sophisticated language that sounds smart
• Manufactured surprise around obvious ideas

The Social Media Speed Trap

Scrolling at social media speed, we encounter dozens of these mini-insights daily. Each one triggers a small dopamine hit—“Oh, I learned something!”—but nothing actually changes.

We’re collecting names, not understanding. Knowing what to call “tool-shaped objects” doesn’t help you avoid them. Only struggling with the actual problem does.

When Names Are Useful

Sometimes new terminology helps. “Vibe coding” is a good handle for a real phenomenon. But the term only becomes useful AFTER you’ve struggled with the concept it describes.

The name is a bookmark, not the knowledge itself.

What To Watch For

I keep a collection of phrases that sound profound but mean almost nothing—coined specifically to sound insightful rather than be useful.

The warning signs:

• Repackaging obvious truths with exotic labels
• Historical stories from unfamiliar periods (establishing expertise)
• Made-up terminology that could be said more simply
• Content that makes you feel smart without changing your behavior

The 10:10:10 Rule

Before saving a note: How will I feel about this in 10 minutes? 10 months? 10 years?

If the answer is “I’ll forget the catchy name but the underlying idea won’t change anything,” skip it.

Related

• Collecting Is Not the Same as Knowing - Why accumulation isn’t understanding
• Using Compass Questions to Connect New Notes - Forces you past naming into thinking