Today's fallacy is the black-or-white fallacy, also known as a false dichotomy or false dilemma. It's when someone presents only two options as if they're the only choices, when in reality, there are more possibilities. You're either with us or against us. You either succeed or you fail. All or nothing. You're either a winner or a loser*. No in-between.

The problem is, life doesn't work like that. There are shades of gray. Lots of them. And no, not the kind with the handcuffs. I'm talking about nuance.

This fallacy shows up everywhere.

You see this kind of thinking in business. That old-school hustle culture mindset that says, "If you're not working 80 hours a week, you're not serious about success." As if grinding yourself into the ground is the only path forward. Really? What about working smart? What about having the energy to still be sharp and make good decisions? I've met plenty of people who brag about their long hours, but half that time is spent spinning their wheels or fixing problems they created by being too exhausted to think straight. Balance isn't laziness. It's strategy. And burning out doesn't make you a hero, it just makes you replaceable.

Even in software, I've heard clients say, "We either use this feature or we throw the whole system out." That kind of all-or-nothing thinking doesn't hold up in the real world. There's almost always a middle ground. Sometimes the answer is to tweak the feature to better suit their needs. Sometimes it's to build a workaround that accomplishes the same goal in a different way. And sometimes, yeah, it's just a matter of waiting until the next version when the feature gets improved. But throwing away an entire system because one thing isn't perfect? That's not decisive, that's shortsighted. Software evolves. Business needs evolve. The smartest users are the ones who can pivot, adapt, and figure out how to make things work with what they have while keeping an eye on what's coming next.

And yeah, I've seen my students fall into this trap. "If I can't finish this database perfectly, I'm not going to do it at all." That's classic black-or-white thinking. And it leads to inaction, frustration, and a whole lot of wasted time. The idea that it's either flawless or worthless just doesn't hold up. Perfection isn't the goal. Progress is. Every database starts out rough. You build something basic, test it, tweak it, and make it better over time. That's how real development works. You don't need a finished product to have something useful. Even a halfway functional form is better than nothing if it helps you get the job done. Incremental progress beats paralysis every time.

Just last week I had an email from a student who was frustrated because he couldn't get something in his database to work. He posted in the Forums, and the moderators did their best to help him but he was still stuck. He emailed me and said he couldn't figure it out, so he was giving up on the database. I urged him not to give up. A few days later, he figured it out and is now happily continuing on with his project. It's not all or nothing. If you can't figure some specific thing out, put it aside. Sleep on it. Come back to it later or figure out a workaround. As I always say in my videos, there are a million ways to do just about everything in Access.

You see this kind of thinking in politics all the time, especially with authoritarian regimes. "You're either on my side or you're a traitor." The message is always the same: you're either 100% loyal and obedient, or you're the enemy. No dissent. No middle ground. Just binary thinking used to shut down debate and keep people in line. It's a powerful way to manipulate, but it's logically lazy and dangerously misleading. Real life is complicated. People can agree with parts of a policy and disagree with others. You can want security and care about civil liberties. You don't have to pick a side like it's a dodgeball game.

You even see black-or-white thinking in philosophy and religion. There's often a belief that something is either a sin or it's not. Take the commandment Thou shalt not kill. Sounds absolute, right? But what about self-defense? What about protecting innocent lives? Real life isn't always that clean-cut**. It's full of nuance and difficult choices. That rigid kind of moral framework might work in theory, but in practice, it can lead to more confusion than clarity. When people aren't allowed to weigh context, they're forced into false choices that don't reflect how the world actually works.

Some people look at a workout program and think, "Well, this one says I have to work out 6 days a week, and I know I can't commit to that, so I might as well not do it at all." That's black-or-white thinking. Instead of adjusting the plan to fit their real life, they abandon the idea entirely. They think if they can't follow it perfectly, there's no point in trying. It's not about being lazy. It's about being trapped in the idea that anything less than 100 percent is worthless.

You might be thinking this sounds like the what-the-hell effect, and they do get confused a lot, but they're slightly different. Black-or-white thinking happens before the slip-up. It's the reason someone won't start something at all or finish something they've started once it seems too difficult. The what-the-hell effect shows up after a misstep, when someone thinks they've already blown it, so they might as well go completely off the rails. They're both mental traps, but they work in opposite directions.

Avoid falling into the trap of extreme thinking. Most decisions don't come down to just two choices. The universe runs on sliders***, not switches.

And if you want the perfect sci-fi example of this fallacy, look no further than Yoda. "Do or do not. There is no try." Yeah, no. That's classic black-or-white thinking. It's catchy, sure, but it's also terrible advice. Of course there's a try. That's how learning works. That's how growth works. That's how you get better at literally anything. Another reason Star Trek will always beat Star Wars****. Starfleet would've told Luke to build a training simulator, log some flight hours, maybe take a class on telekinetic rock stacking... and then try again.

LLAP/RR

* Sure, sports may have winners and losers. Games may work like that. However life isn't a game.

** Here's a perfect example of how the black-or-white fallacy shows up in moral reasoning. In the original Hebrew, the word used is ratzach, which more accurately translates to murder, meaning unlawful, unjustified, or immoral killing. There are other Hebrew words for killing in war, self-defense, or by accident, and those are treated differently in the text. So the commandment isn't actually saying all killing is wrong, it's saying murder is wrong. That's a big distinction. But if you're reading an English translation and thinking in black-and-white terms, you miss all that nuance. And that's the danger. When you flatten complex ideas into absolutes, you don't just lose accuracy - you lose understanding. The false dichotomy fallacy at its finest.

*** No, not the kind with Rembrandt Brown.

**** Yeah, I said it. Let the hate mail commence. Of course, I kid around, but yes, I do love Star Wars. I love most science fiction. The original trilogy is fantastic. A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back are two of the best movies ever made. Return of the Jedi lost me with the Ewoks, but it was still watchable. Now, the prequel trilogy? Garbage. Just straight-up hot garbage. The sequel trilogy isn't much better. The newer TV series are hit or miss. The Mandalorian is solid (that scene where Luke shows up, one of the best scenes ever put on film). The Book of Boba Fett was kind of a snoozefest. But if we're comparing the whole body of work, Star Trek is far better. To be fair though, they're completely different beasts. Star Wars is science fantasy. Star Trek tries to stay grounded in science. So yeah, it's kind of comparing apples to... slightly more plausible apples. But for my money, I'll take tricorders and warp drives over space wizards and laser swords any day. Just don't make me watch Discovery or Lower Decks.