House of cards

The term "house of cards" refers to (riskily) stacking a lot of assumptions on top of each other,
and when it some-when turns out that one of the assumptions at the bottom of the "house of cards"
has been false all along then all the further conclusions come crumbling down.

Immunity against that problem is impossible.
Some measures can be taken though.

First: start with a solid basis

The most basic conclusions presented here on this wiki
(like e.g. the predicted feasibility and high performance of macroscale style machinery at the nanoscale)
are a direct result of LOW LEVEL exploratory engineering
Finding a fatal flaw there is extremely unlikely.
There is as good as none of "risky" stacking of conclusions involved here.

Current day research limitations vaguley giving (mis)leading hints to infeasibility of
macroscale style machinery at the nanoscale does not change that.
See: Effects of current day experimental research limitations

Getting higher and shakier

Building up from there over mid to high level exploratory engineering

• The predictions get increasingly shakier. Errors and fatal errors (effecting only followup predictions above) get more and more likely.
  
• Predictions get more and more exciting and presentable to a general low or non technical audience.

How to avoid a total collapse of absolutely everything (as attempted in this wiki)

The approach here on this wiki for all things that go beyond the basic rock solid predictions of LOW LEVEL exploratory engineering is twofold.

Focus on a broad solid basis

See: Exploratory engineering

Mark the risky predictions further up the cardhouse as such

On this wiki pages that cover topics quite far up the house of cards are marked with the following disclaimer:

Or this one: Warning! you are moving into more speculative areas.

As far as possible make many predictions (build a wide cardhouse – that does not fall like dominoes)

A broad tree of conclusions rather than a deep tree. It's unlikely that fatal flaws will lurk in all the branches.
Well, It's not that the author has much influence on obsessive curiosity anyway.

Related

• Exploratory engineering – as a solid basis
• Castle in the sky