Binary Thinking
Noun · Hacker Culture
Definitions
The habit of treating situations as if there are only two opposing outcomes or categories when reality is more nuanced. In tech culture binary thinking often shows up in debates that collapse tradeoffs into false either-or arguments.
In plain English: Thinking in oversimplified either-or terms.
Example: "The meeting got stuck in binary thinking, as if the only options were total automation or total manual work with nothing in between."