Comment by creer

Technical aspects to the trade are a different issue, I feel. "Wood moves, design for it" is a technical aspect of woodworking which comes up frequently. You learn about the medium (same for 3D printing, welding, electronics), and make use of that knowledge. The medium is far from the ideal stuff you might have thought - the more knowledgeable worker makes use of that awareness. It's not a question of guiding your effort through chaos but understanding that physics is NOT all chaos. "Wood moves" is not this big mystery - it's just the reality of the medium.

This comes up a lot in investing and economics also. The difference between the naive view and a bit more awareness of how the world works is not some kind of deep conspiracy and "magic recipe" to be discovered. It's just how the world is.