I used to think people were rational.

Then I found FBI files on Hanns Scharff's "weaponized kindness" technique.

He extracted secrets from 480 Allied pilots without breaking a sweat.

Learn his mind-boggling techniques (they're the ultimate lesson in human nature):
Picture this: 1943, Nazi Germany.

A captured American fighter pilot expects torture.

Instead, his interrogator offers homemade apple strudel and asks about his hometown.

The pilot relaxes. Fatal mistake.

Meet Hanns Scharff - the man who weaponized kindness.

Mental models are rules of thumb that simplify decisions.

Elon Musk is a big believer in Mental Models.

Not only Musk, but also Charlie Munger, Jeff Bezos, and Steve Jobs.

I've collected 7 of the most powerful mental models from history's greatest thinkers: 🧵 1/ The Bloom-Bilal Rule:

When bored and lacking ideas, keep walking until the day becomes interesting. (via @sahilbloom + @bzaidi)

The most important skill to master for 2026:

Learning How to Learn.

Here's a 60-second system to learn and remember anything 10x faster (from a Nobel Prize-winning physicist)

The Feynman Technique: 🧵 This framework is from the Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Richard Feynman.

Known as "The Great Explainer," Feynman could break down quantum mechanics for non-scientists.

His secret? He didn't just memorize—he TRULY understood.

Rich people collect fancy watches.

I collect useful mental models—timeless rules of thumb that simplify decisions.

12 most powerful (and dangerous) mental models I've found:

1. The Power of Walking 1. The Power of Walking

When bored and lacking ideas, keep walking until the day becomes interesting. (via @sahilbloom + @bzaidi)

Yesterday, 3M people found my weird obsession with cognitive biases.

A "cognitive bias" is a systematic error in thinking that destroys decision-making.

7 more of the most powerful (and dangerous) cognitive biases I've found: 🧵

1. Confirmation Bias: 1. Confirmation Bias:

We search for information that supports our beliefs and reject anything that contradicts them.

If you hate a specific politician, you only read news that makes them look bad.

You don't want the truth; you want to be right.

I'm obsessed with cognitive biases.

A "cognitive bias" is a systematic error in thinking that destroys decision-making.

11 most powerful (and dangerous) cognitive biases I've found: 🧵

1. Survivorship Bias: 1. Survivorship Bias:

We focus on the winners and ignore the losers.

We study the college dropout billionaires but ignore the thousands of dropouts who failed.

Success leaves clues, but failure teaches lessons.

A "cognitive bias" is a systematic error in thinking that destroys decision-making.

11 most powerful (and dangerous) cognitive biases I've found: 🧵

1. Parkinson's Law: 1. Parkinson's Law

Work expands to fill the time given.

When we have more time, we tend to procrastinate and become inefficient.

A good reminder to track your task duration and energy level.

In 1905, a female scientist discovered the XX XY Chromosomes.

But a man stole her work and won all the acclaim.

She died in forgotten obscurity at just 50.

Here's how Nettie Stevens' discovery was stolen in daylight... 🧵
Born in 1861 in Cavendish, Vermont, Nettie Stevens broke all the rules for women...

Most women get married at 22.
Nettie chose education.

She worked 14 years as a teacher and librarian, saving every dollar.

At 35, she finally had enough to attend Westfield State Normal School...

In 1238, Granada's engineers pulled off the biggest feat in medieval history:

They built a self-sustaining water system 200 meters up a mountain.

No pumps. No electricity. No downtime. But what they created next nearly destroyed physics forever.

Here's the full story: 🧵 While other medieval cities fell to Christian armies during the Reconquista, Granada remained unconquered for over 250 years.

The secret?

The Alhambra Palace - a fortress of such genius engineering that even modern NASA scientists study its systems.

A "cognitive bias" is a systematic error in thinking that destroys decision-making.

11 most powerful (and dangerous) cognitive biases I've found:

1. Parkinson's Law: 1. Parkinson's Law

Work expands to fill the time given.

When we have more time, we tend to procrastinate and become inefficient.

A good reminder to track your task duration and energy level.

In the 1940s, Australia built a town on the deadliest dust in history:

They built a mine on newly discovered “blue gold.”

But what they created turned Wittenoom into the most toxic ghost town on Earth.

Welcome to Australia's Secret Chernobyl: 🧵 Wittenoom, Western Australia.

In the 1940s it looked like opportunity—a mining town built on “blue gold.”

Men came for work, families built homes.

What they didn’t know: the very air was laced with fibers that would one day kill them.

70 years ago, a woman discovered nuclear fission.

But her male colleague stole her work and won the Nobel Prize.

She fled Nazi Germany empty handed and died without a word.

Here's how the biggest theft in science buried Lise Meitner's name in history: 🧵
Born in Vienna in 1878, Lise Meitner fought to enter a field that actively excluded women.

Universities across Europe severely limited female students, especially in physics...

Everyone talks about the same geniuses:

Einstein, Tesla and Hawking...

But this forgotten man was the Da Vinci of his mathematics and was highly admired by Einstein, Hawking, and Feynman.

Sadly, his legacy was a true heartbreaking tragedy... (thread)
Born in 1887, India.

Srinivasa Ramanujan grew up poor but brilliant

By 13, he was asking questions no teacher could answer

He claimed the goddess Namagiri revealed formulas to him in dreams

But his obsession with math wrecked everything else

Failed exams, family without food

In 1969, this jet broke every rule of aviation.

• Faster than a rifle bullet.
• More luxurious than a palace.
• Everyone called it the future of traveling.

But disaster was written in its design from day one...

Here's the untold story of Concorde: 🧵
On July 13, 1985, Phil Collins did something impossible.

He performed at Live Aid in London at 3:50 PM.

Then hopped on Concorde.

And was drumming in Philadelphia by 7:38 PM.

This is what Mach 2 could do.

He was Japan's first and only Black samurai.

Outranking lifelong retainers, this 6'2" African warrior served the nation's most powerful warlord.

His story was hidden for 400 years.

The story of Yasuke will shatter everything you know about samurai: 🧵
In 1579, a towering African man arrived in Japan with Italian Jesuits.

6'2" in a land where men averaged 5'3".

Skin "like charcoal" in a nation that had never seen a Black person.

He was about to shatter every rule of feudal Japan.

In 1965, Vietnamese engineers pulled off the biggest feat in engineering history:

They built a 250 km underground city that withstands the US's army, B52 planes, and Mark 77 bombs.

But what they created next nearly destroyed physics forever.

Here's the full story: 🧵 The Cu Chi tunnels weren't just holes in the ground.

They were an underground city: hospitals, kitchens, weapons factories, living quarters.

Some sections went 3 stories deep...

Napoleon discovered how to win wars before they start.

Every military academy still teaches this 200-year-old strategy:

West Point. Sandhurst. Saint-Cyr.

They all study his plabook.

Here's the principle that changed warfare forever: 🧵 Napoleon wasn't born a conqueror.

He was a nobody from Corsica who spoke French with an accent.

But he discovered something other generals missed:

Wars aren't won on battlefields.

They're won before the first shot is fired.

Historians buried this story for centuries.

In 1518, an entire city lost control of their bodies...

The cause? Something far more mysterious than any disease.

Welcome to the Dancing Plague and its 500-year-old mystery: 🧵 It started with one woman: Frau Troffea.

On a hot July day in Strasbourg, she stepped into the street and began to dance.

No music. No celebration. Just frantic, uncontrollable movement.

She danced for six straight days.

In 1980, when 6 Americans were trapped in Iran the CIA had a crazy idea:

Send in a CIA agent posing as a Hollywood producer to create a Star Wars ripoff called "Argo."

I swear this has to be the wildest rescue operation in espionage history: 🧵
November 4, 1979: Iranian revolutionaries storm the U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

66 Americans are taken hostage.

But 6 diplomats slip out a back door during the chaos.

They're now fugitives in a city gone mad with anti-American rage.

This is 1983.

Soviet radars detected 5 US nuclear missiles heading to Moscow.

Humanity was SECONDS from extinction.

All Soviet protocols demanded immediate retaliation.

But then Stanislav Petrov noticed something strange: 🧵
September 26, 1983.

Past midnight.

Filling in for a sick colleague at Serpukhov-15 - the USSR's nuclear command bunker.

Lt. Colonel Stanislav Petrov wasn't even supposed to be there.

But then the unthinkable happened...

I used to think people were rational.

Then I found FBI files on Hanns Scharff's "weaponized kindness" technique.

He extracted secrets from 480 Allied pilots without breaking a sweat.

Learn his mind-boggling techniques (it's the ultimate lesson in human nature):
Picture this: 1943, Nazi Germany.

A captured American fighter pilot expects torture.

Instead, his interrogator offers homemade apple strudel and asks about his hometown.

The pilot relaxes. Fatal mistake.

Meet Hanns Scharff - the man who weaponized kindness.