Best practices are not about maximizing greatness, they are about minimizing failure, for the largest number of people, across the widest range of situations.
- They are a form of institutionalized safetyism, disguised as excellence.
- They are mediocrity, sold as wisdom.
- They optimize for not being blamed, not for being outstanding.
- They are mimetically best, not ontologically best.
- They are designed to minimize failure, not maximize greatness.
- They are fit for the average, not for the exceptional.
- They succeed through survivability, not through superiority.
- They are good for creating minimum viable competence, not maximum creative mastery.
- They represent past optimizations, not future innovations.
- They favor conformity over insight.
- They reward obedience over creativity.
- They encourage simulated thinking over thinking.
- They emerge from historical success, but often persist beyond their relevance.
- They appeal to fear (of failure, blame, uncertainty) more than to ambition.
- They compress complexity into simple heuristics, sacrificing adaptability.
- They offload personal judgment onto external norms.