Show HN: Transferrable reasoning primitives extracted from 34 domains
dvdarkin Sunday, January 04, 2026
I've created a knowledgebase of reasoning tools from multiple domains. The goal was to find and extract the thinking primitives that transcend original applied domains and can be used in a variety of situations both in daily life and professional work.
Bayesian statistics, system dynamics, mechanism design, game theory and 28 others. Each tool extracted has the same structure: what it is, the key move, where it transfers, how it fails. Some historical context and literature references for further reading are included as well.
The metadata contains extraction prompt that you can use to distill the thinking primitives from your domain of choice.
Summary
The article discusses the development of 'reasoning tools', which are software applications designed to assist humans in making rational and well-informed decisions. It covers the potential benefits of such tools and the challenges involved in their creation.
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