Three is two, two is one, one is none.
Ask HN: What is your favorite motto?
391–400 of 472 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite motto?
#392Earlier quoted context omitted.
I disagree so much with this popular motto that I have difficulty putting it into words. It reeks of egoism. Please, please replace it with: "If you are the smartest person in the room, teach until you no longer are."
Nah. Teaching doesn't make people smarter. Challenging yourself does. There's a fundamental divide between those that think the best of us are only here to help the less fortunate. And those that think, the best of us should be out there expanding the frontiers. Especially since the 'less fortunate' sometimes can be that way by laziness.
There is a fundamental divide, but it's not the one you draw. The fundamental divide is between those that view life as a solo race and those that think of it is a group endeavor.
Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite motto?
#393"Why do it right when you can do it twice?" I use it sarcastically when people want to hack things together so I don't think it counts as a motto.
> "Why do it right when you can do it twice?"
Elsewhere in this discussion I observed that it is a good tradeoff if "doing it right" takes three times as long, or if after doing it right you're still going to have to do it over because you anticipated the wrong problems.
Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite motto?
#394https://linguaholic.com/topic/1987-famous-greek-quotations/ «Πάν μέτρον άριστον» Everything in moderation. Can’t say I manage to get by following it.
A more modern extension: Everything in moderation, especially moderation.
> A more modern extension: Everything in moderation, especially moderation.
Yeah, too much moderation causes an excess deficiency, that's really bad.
Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite motto?
#395From Patrick Collison's advice page (https://patrickcollison.com/advice):
"More broadly, nobody is going to teach you to think for yourself. A large fraction of what people around you believe is mistaken. Internalize this and practice coming up with your own worldview. The correlation between it and those around you shouldn't be too strong unless you think you were especially lucky in your initial conditions."
Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite motto?
#396"A sucker is born every minute" - Nixon during his famous China visit.
> "A sucker is born every minute" - Nixon during his famous China visit.
Huh. I'd always heard that attributed to P. T. Barnum.
Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite motto?
#397I like to live by:
"Why own it if you are afraid to take it apart?"
Tempered a bit by:
"Don't take it apart if you can't put it back together."
Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite motto?
#398Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nah. Teaching doesn't make people smarter. Challenging yourself does. There's a fundamental divide between those that think the best of us are only here to help the less fortunate. And those that think, the best of us should be out there expanding the frontiers. Especially since the 'less fortunate' sometimes can be that way by laziness.
There is a fundamental divide, but it's not the one you draw. The fundamental divide is between those that view life as a solo race and those that think of it is a group endeavor.
And more that those of course. So its not all ego; its a different outlook. We're not all born teachers.
Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite motto?
#399I don't remember where I got this, but this has been my working philosophy for the past couple years:
> Make it work, then make it better.
Re: Ask HN: What is your favorite motto?
#400Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are doubting whether to get married, then apparently, both options are roughly equal. Hence the difference between either decision is small, not in outcome but in expected 'desirability'. Hence the decision 'doesn't matter much' insofar as there are no real wrong choices, just a slightly more right one.
> ... apparently, both options are roughly equal. But that's the thing, they aren't really roughly equal in any meaningful way. I think Anscombe's quartet [0] is a good illustration of the issue, only in this case there are very many dimensions involved, with huge uncertainty in each, leading to vastly different risk profiles for the different alternatives. > ... no real wrong choices ... This is a matter of philosop…
> This is a matter of philosophy of course, but more objectively, there are many many people actively regretting their choices.
I think this is a part of the power of the quote. It essentially says, don't judge your decisions with hindsight. And remember that having made the other choice could equally well have turned out bad as far as you knew back then.