Most things can be beaten with enough time and resources. When life & work demand more of both, failure becomes predictable. The problem isn't you. It's the impossible curriculum the world demands: be limitless, stay responsive, and don't drop the ball. When things don't go to plan, you get the usual explanation-discipline, busyness, the market. But those are labels, not causes. Good People Dumb Systems is a neurostrategy field guide to what a day costs a human brain-and what starts to happen when the bill comes due. Good people slip when conditions stop fitting human limits-across nervous systems, work systems, and world systems. The same patterns repeat because the constraints repeat: attention narrows, judgment gets expensive, coordination degrades, and "reasonable" demands compound into predictable error. You don't need seventeen more hacks. You need a map. This book shows you the mechanics underneath the day: what gets priced in, what gets pushed out, and why systems reliably produce the outcomes they make easiest. For anyone building, leading, operating, or coordinating work in the real world. Once you see the hidden tax, you can't unsee it.