Principle: Be explicit about the obvious as well as the non-obvious; the intuitive as well as the counter-intuitive

There’s no such thing as common sense, so you can’t leave it to people to figure out what you think is/isn’t sensible. It’s especially difficult for them when they are presented with counter-intuitive viewpoints that challenge their beliefs—how will they have any idea which other beliefs they should hold vs challenge?

Somewhat circularly, I came to this view while reading back a list of principles (like this one) I had been collecting. I found that each time I went through the list I internalised them a little more. After a while they became familiar enough to me that I started to say to myself “well, d’uh!”

The reflection of course is: They weren’t always so obvious, even to me.