cdb

name	cdb
description	Most new strategies are actually old strategies from other domains. Find isomorphisms and translate winning strategies.
output	{"format":"prose"}

Cross-Domain Bridge

Input: $ARGUMENTS

---

Overview

Most "new" strategies are actually old strategies from other domains. This procedure systematically finds isomorphisms between domains and translates winning strategies.

Steps

Step 1: Map the Current Domain

1. What domain is the input in?
2. What is the core problem/challenge?
3. What strategies are currently being used?
4. Why are current strategies insufficient?
5. What are the key structural features? (competition type, resource dynamics, feedback loops, timing)

Step 2: Identify Structural Isomorphisms

Look for domains that share structural features, NOT surface similarity:

Structural Feature	Your Domain	Analogous Domains
Resource competition	[description]	ecology, economics, warfare
Network effects	[description]	epidemiology, social media, telecommunications
Diminishing returns	[description]	agriculture, mining, attention
Winner-take-all	[description]	tournaments, platform markets, evolution
Principal-agent	[description]	management, politics, insurance
Information asymmetry	[description]	used car markets, medicine, espionage
Coordination problems	[description]	traffic, standards, team sports
Arms races	[description]	biology, military, cybersecurity
Tragedy of commons	[description]	fishing, pollution, shared infrastructure
Two-sided markets	[description]	dating, hiring, app stores

Step 3: Find Winning Strategies in Analogous Domains

For the top 3 most structurally similar domains:

Domain: [name]

1. What problem did they face? (structurally similar to yours)
2. What strategies were tried?
3. Which strategy won? Why?
4. What made it work? (the mechanism, not the domain details)
5. What were the failure modes?

Step 4: Translate Strategies

For each winning strategy found:

TRANSLATION:
Source domain: [where it worked]
Source strategy: [what they did]
Mechanism: [why it worked — domain-independent]

Your domain: [where you need it]
Translated strategy: [what you would do]
Translation risks: [what might not transfer]
Adaptation needed: [what must change]

Translation quality checks:

• Is the structural similarity genuine or superficial?
• Does the mechanism depend on domain-specific features that don't exist in yours?
• Has anyone tried this translation before? What happened?
• What would the source domain experts say about this translation?

Step 5: Evaluate Translated Strategies

Translated Strategy	Structural Match	Mechanism Intact	Adaptation Cost	Competitive Advantage	Score
[strategy]	H/M/L	H/M/L	H/M/L	H/M/L	[sum]

Competitive advantage assessment:

• Is this translation non-obvious? (If obvious, others have probably tried it)
• Does it require domain expertise that's rare in your field?
• Is it hard to copy once implemented?

Step 6: Report

CROSS-DOMAIN BRIDGE:
Current domain: [your domain]
Core problem: [what needs solving]

Structural matches found:
1. [domain] — shared structure: [what's isomorphic]

Translated strategies:
1. [strategy from domain] → [translated version]
   Mechanism: [why it works]
   Confidence: [H/M/L]
   Risk: [what might not transfer]

Top recommendation: [best translated strategy]
Why: [structural match + mechanism preservation + competitive advantage]

When to Use

• Stuck in a domain with saturated strategies
• Looking for asymmetric advantages
• Need to think differently than competitors
• Want to import battle-tested approaches
• → INVOKE: /cda (cross-domain analogy) for finding analogies
• → INVOKE: /ans (analogous solutions) for solution-focused transfer

Verification

• Current domain mapped structurally (not just surface features)
• Analogous domains identified by structure (not surface similarity)
• Winning strategies found in analogous domains
• Translation preserves mechanism (not just form)
• Translation risks identified
• Competitive advantage assessed