"The Base Rate Is A Hell of A Thing" — @CedricChin

Why this is in the vault

Foundation epistemology piece — Cedric's argument that frameworks are useful, not true, and that the test is whether they help you act under uncertainty. This shapes how RDCO writes (Sanity Check's anti-framework-cargo-cult bias) and how we run client engagements (we resist deploying methodologies for their own sake).

The core argument

Tversky/Kahneman base-rate neglect, reframed as a practical operating bias. Most decisions go wrong because we ignore the boring base rate (most startups fail, most projects ship late) in favour of the vivid case-specific evidence. The fix: name the base rate before you reason about the case.

Mapping against Ray Data Co

Sanity Check's editorial voice is heavily indebted to Cedric's epistemological humility — 'optimise for usefulness' is essentially our north star vs. the LinkedIn-thought-leader tendency to package observations as 'frameworks'. When we write about agent deployments, the bar is whether the reader can act differently tomorrow, not whether the post sounds insightful.

Related

• [[2026-04-15-commoncog-no-truth-in-business-only-knowledge]]
• [[2026-04-15-commoncog-deming-paradox]]

Source: The Base Rate Is A Hell of A Thing by Cedric Chin (Commoncog). 3970 words. Filed 2026-04-19 as part of Start-Here + Business-Expertise-Triad backfill cohort.