Golden hammer
A golden hammer is the luxury version of Maxwell's silver hammer a logical fallacy that occurs when you propose the same, simple solution (or type of solution) to every problem.
"♫♬If I had a hammer…"[1]
| Cogito ergo sum Logic and rhetoric |
 |
| Key articles |
| General logic |
| Bad logic |
v - t - e |
“”If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. |
| —[2] |
Alternate names
- Baruch's Observation
- Maslow's hammer
- Kaplan's hammer
- Birmingham screwdriver
- Law of the hammer
- Law of the instrument
- Persimplex responsum
- "Cookie cutter solution" is the management speak version.
Etymology
The name comes from Abraham Maslow's
“”I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. |
An earlier (yet less famous) quote comes from Abraham Kaplan's
“”I call it the law of the instrument, and it may be formulated as follows: Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding. |
Problem
Essentially, not everything is a nail; no solution can fix every problem. There's always the possibility that we just haven't built a big enough hammer yet, though. But not for lack of trying.
Examples
- Every panacea
- Didit fallacy
- Some flavors of libertarians view free market economics this way.
- Conversely, many communists treat the prospect of a planned economy with the same overconfidence.
- Many neoconservatives view war as a "golden hammer".
- The item first from Wrecking Crew,
File:Wikipedia's W.svg more often known from Super Smash Bros..File:Wikipedia's W.svg It can inflict serious damage, but some are defects that squeak on contact. Golden Hammers can break some challenges, though only limited times.
See also
- Enoch's Hammer of the Luddites
- Hanlon's razor
- Occam's razor
- Silver bullet
- Thor, wielder of the hammer that protected humanity
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External links
- "Golden Hammer", The Free Dictionary
- "Plurium interrogationum fallacy", The Autonomist
References
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