Stats
Actions
Tags
Help us improve
Share bugs, ideas, or general feedback.
From skills-for-humanity
Routes to the right historical reasoning tool based on your situation — cycle detection, failure analysis, lesson extraction, or precedent analysis.
npx claudepluginhub human-avatar/skills-for-humanityHow this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/skills-for-humanity:historicalThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
Applies historical reasoning to current situations. Diagnoses what kind of historical analysis is needed and applies the right tool.
Finds structurally similar historical precedents for a current decision, distinguishing genuine patterns from superficial analogies.
Performs Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH) to evaluate multiple hypotheses against evidence via disconfirmation-focused matrix, diagnosticity, sensitivity analysis, and falsification milestones.
Anchors predictions in historical base rates by identifying reference classes of similar past events before case-specific analysis. Useful for startup success, project timelines, or testing 'this time is different' claims.
Share bugs, ideas, or general feedback.
Applies historical reasoning to current situations. Diagnoses what kind of historical analysis is needed and applies the right tool.
| You need to... | Tool |
|---|---|
| Identify what recurring cycle this is and where you are in it | cycle-detection |
| Find recurring failure modes from similar past situations | failure-analysis |
| Extract the transferable principle from a specific historical case | lesson-extraction |
| Find genuinely similar historical situations to inform a decision | precedent-analysis |
After diagnosing which tool fits, use the AskUserQuestion tool to confirm direction. Construct the question dynamically to include your diagnosis:
Proceed based on their selection.
Identifies what recurring cycle this is and where in it you currently are.
Most situations are instances of known cycles: hype cycles, market cycles, innovation S-curves, boom-bust patterns, political pendulum swings. Name the cycle candidates. Test each: does the current situation match the structural characteristics of that cycle? If so: what phase are you in (early, peak, correction, trough, recovery)? What does the cycle predict comes next?
Output: Cycle identification with evidence, current phase assessment, and what the cycle predicts comes next.
Extracts recurring failure modes from similar past situations.
Most failures have happened before in recognizable patterns. Identify 3-5 historical situations that are structurally similar to the current one. For each: what went wrong? Was the failure caused by overconfidence, resource depletion, misreading the environment, internal conflict, timing, or something else? Look for the failure mode that appears across multiple cases — that's the one most worth preparing for.
Output: Historical failure case inventory, recurring failure modes ranked by frequency and severity, and the specific early warning signs to watch for.
Extracts the transferable principle from a specific historical case.
Historical cases carry both contingent details (specific to their time and place) and transferable principles (valid across contexts). The challenge is separating them. Take the case and ask: what actually caused the outcome — the surface events or the underlying dynamics? If you removed all the period-specific details, what structural principle remains? Test that principle against at least one other historical case.
Output: The contingent surface details set aside. The underlying structural principle. Cross-case validation. How the principle applies to the current situation.
Finds and applies genuinely similar historical situations.
Distinguish true precedents from superficial analogies. A true precedent shares the underlying causal structure, not just surface similarity. Find 2-3 candidate precedents. For each: what makes it genuinely similar? What makes it different in ways that matter? What did decision-makers do, and what happened? What would they have done differently in hindsight?
Output: Precedent inventory with genuine vs. superficial similarity assessment, decision-outcome analysis for each, and the lessons that most directly apply.