# An Absolute Claim Signals an Unexamined Failure Mode ## Claim When a source describes a fix as "impossible to break" or "unbreakable," that wording itself is evidence the speaker enumerated one failure mode and stopped, not evidence the fix has none. <!-- atomicity: 1 idea ✓ --> ## Scope & conditions - Applies to practitioner demonstrations and vendor claims about robustness, durability, or security, not to formally proven guarantees (e.g., a mathematical proof of correctness) where "impossible" has a defined scope. - Does not mean the underlying fix is bad — a technique can genuinely close the failure mode it was built for and still have others; the heuristic is about the rhetoric, not a verdict on the mechanism. - The prompt is diagnostic, not dismissive: on hearing an absolute claim, the correct move is to go looking for the unlisted break paths, not to reject the claim outright. ## Evidence A screencast demonstrating durable Obsidian links calls the result "unbreakable" and "impossible to break" after solving exactly one failure mode (file rename). Three further break paths go unmentioned by the source: the vault name is itself embedded in the generated URI, so renaming the vault breaks every link built this way; deleting the target block or editing its ID breaks the link; and a duplicate block ID elsewhere in the vault makes resolution ambiguous, with no stated behavior for what happens when the uniqueness requirement the source itself names is violated. ## Links - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Stable Identifiers Decouple Links From File Location]] — evidence-for: the same source's genuine technical improvement (identifier over path) is real and worth adopting; this note is about calibrating the accompanying claim of totality, not refuting the mechanism. - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Vendor Usage Anecdotes Need Verification Before Adoption Decisions]] — extends: both notes are about discounting a claimant's own framing of their result and checking the unstated boundary instead. - [[3. Resources/MOCs/Personal Knowledge Management MOC]] — applies-in: useful before adopting any "solved" claim about a note-taking or linking workflow. ## Tests / falsifiers - For any given absolute claim, can you name a concrete input or state change that breaks it within five minutes of thinking? If yes, the heuristic holds for that case. If a genuine search turns up nothing, the claim may be one of the rare cases where "impossible" is warranted. - Track whether sources that hedge their claims ("survives X and Y") actually enumerate more failure modes on inspection than sources making absolute claims — if hedged and absolute claims turn out equally complete on inspection, the heuristic is weaker than proposed here. ## Maintenance - Last tended: 2026-08-16 - Next review: 2026-11-16 ## Source - [Obsidian Links Break. Mine Don’t.](3.%20Resources/Readwise/Articles/Obsidian%20Links%20Break.%20Mine%20Don’t..md) — the "impossible to break" claim and its three unmentioned failure modes. - [[3. Resources/Literature Notes/Obsidian Links Break. Mine Don't. — Block-ID Permalinks via Advanced URI]] — Literature Note with full claim atoms.