Hisham Insights uncovers insights hidden in plain sight—the invisible logic connecting engineering failures, economic decisions, historical turning points, and human behavior.
Authored by Hisham Ibrahim, the site explores four core domains:
- 👥 Human Behavior and Systems — Why we decide, lead, and fail. From cognitive biases to organizational collapse.
- ⚙️ Systems and Innovation — How complex systems are designed, scaled, and destroyed. Engineering thinking applied to everything.
- 📜 History and Critical Analysis — What the past teaches about power, logistics, and unintended consequences.
- 🌱 Sustainability and Future — Solutions that work. Biomimicry, circular economies, and long-term thinking.
The goal? Master the logic behind successful systems—before they fail.
Current Archive: 103 Series & 55 Single Posts
This site groups work under four Primary Main Categories (PMCs). Each series and article is assigned a single PMC and one or more subcategories (themes). Use the Quick Filter below to explore posts across the site by subcategory.
🧠 Human Systems and Behavior
The psychology, sociology, and leadership dynamics that drive our world.
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placeholder Arenas of Influence: Shaping Belief in the Digital Age
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📱 The Digital Persuasion Engine: Dark Patterns, Surveillance, and Behavioral Control
How digital systems manipulate human behavior.
🗣️ The War of Words: The Invisible Logic of Political Language and Automated Influence
The invisible logic of political language and automated influence.
🧠 Human Factory Settings: The Psychology of Conviction and Influence
The chemistry of conviction and the algorithms of influence.
🧊 The Endurance Paradox: Leadership Lessons from Shackleton Successful Failure
Leadership lessons from Shackleton successful failure
🤝 The Empathy Engine: Re-engineering Product Management for the Human Age
Re-engineering product management through empathy and design.
🧠 The Logic of Successful Systems Decisions
Mastering the logic behind successful systems decisions.
💡 Design Lessons from the World's Biggest Flops
Why great products fail—and how to learn from experience failures.
🧠 The Bounded Mind
Structured Decision-Making in Business
🧠 The Architecture of Choice
How the design of choices shapes our behavior and decisions.
⚖️ The Inconvenient Math of Mortality: A Behavioral Bioethics
A Behavioral Bioethics
🧠 The Strategic Mind of the Modern Consumer
Unraveling the psychology behind modern consumer decisions
🧠 The Psychology of Scarcity & Abundance
How scarcity shapes our minds and markets in an age of plenty.
🧠 The Mind of the Maker: Psychology of Engineering Failure
Why things fail isn't just physics. It's psychology.
🚗 The Silent Takeover: Reclaiming Our Digital Roads
The hidden data economy inside your car.
🤔 The Untidy Business of Thinking: An Introduction to Philosophy
Philosophy is not a luxury—it's how humanity recovered from self-awareness.
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placeholder Driver's Mind: The Psychology of Automotive Behavior
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placeholder Economics Envy: The Dual Calculus of Human Motivation
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placeholder Economics Greed: The Dark Side of Human Motivation
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📚 The Cognitive Architecture of Experience
Mapping the psychological, spatial, and linguistic systems that shape every experience we design.
📊 The Architecture of Illusion: A History of the Rational Market Myth
How the illusion of perfect markets shaped modern finance and policy.
🛡️ The Unseen Architecture of Survival
The hidden architecture of human survival in an unpredictable world.
placeholder The Geometry of Power: Shaping Behavior Through Design
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🧠 The Hidden Code of Connection: Social Psychology in Five Acts
Social Psychology in Five Acts
Recent posts in Human Systems and Behavior
⚙️ Systems and Innovation
How we design, build, and evolve complex technical and social systems.
⛪ The Cathedral Code: Engineering the Medieval Skyline
Medieval engineering innovations that built Europe's cathedrals.
⚡ Harvesting the Elements: Pre-Industrial Energy & Extraction
Ancient energy technologies that powered civilizations before steam.
⏳ Planned Obsolescence
How manufacturers deliberately design products to fail—from light bulbs to software.
placeholder The Safety Shield: The Logic of Zero-Failure Systems
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placeholder The Material Mind: The Anatomy of Modern Substance
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🚗 The Structural Limits of Automotive Affordability: A Global Failure Analysis
Why the dream of affordable mobility keeps crashing into reality
🔬 The Tyranny of the Small: Why Precision and Failure Define Modern Engineering
Why Precision and Failure Define Modern Engineering
🛠️ The Instinctive Engineer
Reclaiming human instinct in engineering for an unpredictable world.
🌿 The Unnatural Economy: Reclaiming Nature's 3.8 Billion Year Design Manual
Reclaiming Nature's 3.8 Billion Year Design Manual
⚙️ The Paper Trap
The blueprint of hubris in complex systems.
♻️ The Perpetual Power Loop
A five-part series on circular economy in energy systems.
🚗 Beyond the Tailpipe: Unmasking the EV Revolution
Unmasking the true costs and impacts of the EV revolution.
🧭 The Designer's Compass: Navigating the Sustainable Material Wild West
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🔬 WWII Science & Technology: The Race That Changed Everything
How wartime desperation accelerated scientific breakthroughs.
⚙️ WWI Technology: How the Great War Forced Innovation
How the Great War forced military innovation and institutional learning.
🔪 The First Surgeons: Cutting-Edge Medicine Before Anesthesia
Ancient surgical mastery that pioneered techniques lost for centuries.
🛠️ The Engineering Journey
From concept to product—the systematic design process.
🔬 The Unbroken Code: Ancient Materials That Defy Time
Ancient materials that challenge modern understanding of durability and chemistry.
⚙️ The Gearwork Prophets: Mechanical Minds Before the Machine Age
Ancient mechanical marvels that anticipated modern computing and automation.
🧬 Nature's Engineers
How 3.8 billion years of evolution created solutions modern engineers copy.
💧 The Gravity Engine: Ancient Water Systems That Shaped Civilization
Ancient engineering marvels that mastered water flow and thermal regulation.
🎯 The Abductive Advantage
Design thinking meets strategic positioning.
🏗️ Bio-Architectural Blueprint: Lessons from Termite Mounds
Nature's solar-powered ventilation systems as blueprints for energy-efficient buildings.
💧 Sweetwater Seas Under Siege: The Great Lakes' Ecological Catastrophe
The ecological price of connecting freshwater seas to the world.
🌊 Blue Paradox: Survival Strategies in the Ocean's Vast Wilderness
The extraordinary adaptations and deadly rivalries of ocean life.
📚 The African King: Peugeot 504 and the Anatomy of a Continental Icon
How an ordinary European saloon became the undisputed king of African roads, mastering a trilemma of technical …
📚 The Democratic Machine: When Reliability Becomes Revolution
This series argues that the Beetle and Corolla achieved immortality by mastering the metrics of Reliability and …
📚 The Genius of Constraints: When Scarcity Forges Icons
This series argues that the 500 and the 2CV represent the purest form of the “Genius of Constraints” archetype. Their …
📚 The Unbreakable Tool: Toyota Hilux and the Anatomy of Indifference
This series argues that the Toyota Hilux is the purest real-world expression of the “Unbreakable Tool” archetype. Its …
🚗 The Over-Engineered Icon: The Mercedes-Benz W123 and the Zenith of Durability
A deep dive into the development, testing, and production of the Mercedes-Benz W123, the car that defined automotive …
🚌 The Red Standard: Why the Routemaster Outlasted the Future
Why the Routemaster outlasted the future.
placeholder The Velocity Trap: The Physical Limits of an Accelerating World
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placeholder The Rebuilt Human: Engineering the Biological Machine
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🌿 Bio-Inspired Resilience: Nature's Blueprints for Adaptive Systems
Nature's evolved strategies for surviving and thriving in complex environments.
placeholder The Maintenance Logic: The Engineering of Civilization's Survival
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placeholder The Paradox of the Punch - Mantis Shrimp, Biomechanics, and Bio-Inspired Design
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Recent posts in Systems and Innovation
🏛️ History and Critical Analysis
Examining the past to understand the hidden forces shaping the present.
🌾 The Fertility Engine: Agricultural Systems That Built Empires
Agricultural innovations that fueled the rise of civilizations.
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🧭 Paths Without Maps: Navigation & Infrastructure Before GPS
Ancient systems of navigation and infrastructure that rivaled modern technology.
🐜 Engineered Swarms: The Co-option of Nature's Blueprint for Mass Control
The co-option of nature's blueprint for mass control.
placeholder The Calculus of Command: Honor, Terror, and the Verdict of History
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💧 Arid Ambition: Conquering the American Desert
The impossible dream of greening the desert.
♻️ The Invisible Economy: How Ancient Societies Mastered Circularity
Ancient mastery of circularity that modern economies are rediscovering.
💸 The Unvarnished Ledger: Personal Finance Without the Platitudes
Personal finance without the motivational slogans.
🌐 Beyond the Flat World
Why globalization is actually regionalization.
placeholder The Structural Post-Mortem: When Human Error Meets Technical Failure
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placeholder The Fatal Flaw
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🍽 The Hidden Economics of Food
What your dinner plate reveals about markets, power, and the future of work.
🌾 Reflections on Development
Development that grows from within, not imposed from above.
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placeholder The Calculus of Collapse: When Brilliance Meets an Unyielding World
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placeholder The Poisoned Chalice
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placeholder The Architect of Their Own Demise
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🏭 Capitalism Unmasked
23 myths debunked—the real story of free markets.
🔍 The Secret Life of Ordinary Objects
Why forks have four tines and other hidden histories.
🚛 The Invisible Army
Amateurs study tactics; professionals study logistics
⚔ The Kinetic Chain: A Systems Engineering Audit of Historical Logistics
Amateurs study tactics; professionals study logistics.
🏗️ The Architect of Ruin: Decoding Corporate Extinction
Why yesterday's triumph guarantees tomorrow's failure
🏛️ The Spark of Ages: The Biological Engines of Civilization
The hidden biological toolkit of human civilization.
🧂 The White Gold Standard: A World History of Salt
The rock that built civilizations
⚠️ System's Perfect Victim
When perfect execution becomes perfect failure
🔥 The New Thermal Divide
A four-part series on extreme heat and the thermal divide.
📚 The Engineered Illusion: Style as the Opium of the American Driver
How automotive styling evolved from class marker to mass narcotic, concealing the realities of labor, safety, and social …
📚 The Unbreakable Myth: Land Rover and the Engineering of Adventure
A critical examination of the Land Rover Defender, exploring its origins, its role as a global tool, and its …
📚 The Calculus of Conflict: Why Those Who Decide Rarely Pay
A mathematical model explaining why nations repeatedly make catastrophic decisions to go to war, revealing the …
🇳🇴 The Nordic Exception: Anatomy of a Resource Triumph
Anatomy of Norway's resource success.
placeholder The Hannibalic Paradox: Genius, Grand Strategy, and the Fall of Carthage
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placeholder The Uncredentialed Leader
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placeholder The Tectonic Clock: Catastrophes Shaping Our Future
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Recent posts in History and Critical Analysis
♻️ Sustainability and Future
The challenges and solutions for a viable long-term future.
placeholder The Seven Pillars of Modern Reality
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♻️ The Contested Circle: A Critical Roadmap to the Circular Economy
Critical roadmap to the circular economy.
🌾 Hunger is Man-Made: The Political Economy of Food Scarcity
Abundance exists—but control over resources determines who eats and who starves.
🌍 Development Delusions
Why foreign aid fails—and what might actually work.
⚡ The Arithmetic of Decarburization: A Hard Look at the Energy Revolution
Can renewables actually power modern life? The math says...
🌱 The Arithmetic of Sustainability
Can we actually reach net-zero? The numbers don't lie.
placeholder The Uninsurable Future: Climate Risk and the Collapse of Property Insurance
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