Language: English

It’s considered very impolite, at least, to tell someone that they are stupid.

On the other hand, if someone does something unethical, it’s rather OK to call them out.

How should you handle this?

Hanlon’s razor is an adage, or rule of thumb, that states: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”^[1] It is a philosophical razor that suggests a way of eliminating unlikely explanations for human behavior. It is purportedly named after one Robert J. Hanlon,^[2] who submitted the statement to Murphy’s Law Book Two: More Reasons Why Things Go Wrong! (1980).^[1]

Hanlon’s razor – Wikipedia

Try to see people doing stupid things, not immoral things.

You will tend to forgive them more easily.

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Famous painters worked on their paintings for years.

I like to do the same with various personal projects.

I don’t want to have the perfect website at any given time.

I constantly tweak & improve a website, sometimes for years.

Same procedure, different paintings.

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In a recent conference, Danion Vasile said that at some point he used to pray God to give him cancer (prostate cancer, to be precise), as someone else before him had. (a Saint, if I remember correctly) Talking to the priest to whom he confesses, the priest told him that’s not a good idea.

I think a better way of suffering is doing the right thing. It can be at times soooo booooring. But doing the right thing is of much better value to me than simply suffering.

For example, reading books can be difficult. Volunteering is not easy. Listening without interrupting is not simple. And so on.

If you have cancer, yes you suffer a lot, but what’s your merit? You only suffer, that’s it.

Reading books might not be cool, but it’s the important thing to do.

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I hear people saying “AI will take our jobs, what to do?”.

I think there are two perspectives:

• For the regular person, they will likely need to become better at what to do.
• On a global level, there should be some solutions at scale (for example, minimum guaranteed income).

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The problem with the Gen Z (a new generation) I think is very simple – they annoy other generations by being worry-free.

I might be wrong, though, but I like to think of this to be true.

• Anxiety in Teens is Rising: What’s Going On? – HealthyChildren.org;
• Studies Show Normal Children Today Report More Anxiety than Child Psychiatric Patients in the 1950’s;
• Anxiety and Social Media Use | Psychology Today;
• Depression in girls linked to higher use of social media | Society | The Guardian;
• Anxiety on rise among the young in social media age | Society | The Guardian.

At least this is what they seem to be – happy and worry-less.

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I write a public blog. I have a presence online. Of course, I care about other people’s opinion on me and my activity online.

But, as much as I can, I try to keep a clear path.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that I use bad words, or try to be aggressive, in an attempt to be true to myself.

But I try to focus on what’s right, not on what’s expected of me.

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Sometimes, I take part to events when participants are supposed to come on time.

Most of the time, one or more people arrive late.

The organizer generally decides to wait for everybody to arrive, only then the event starts.

What happens the next time? Everyone is late, nobody arrives on time anymore.

In my opinoin, if an event starts at 8:30 AM, then it should actually start at that time.

Those who want to take part to the beginning of the event will arrive at 8:25 AM.

For those for whom the sleeping part is more important, it’s OK if they don’t catch the full event.

Think of it this way – who would you want to please? 10 people who arrive at 8:30 AM or ealier, or one or two people who are 10 minute late?

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