One that comes to mind for me: “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is not always true. Maybe even only half the time! Are there any phrases you tend to hear and shake your head at?
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“You miss every shot you don’t take!” or similar. It’s useless, makes no sense, and is disrespectful to yourself and others.
Which is why I love saying it to pricks at work.
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This one is only true after a certain point which depends on the cost of living where you live. Money absolutely buys happiness up to a point.
It’s true, happiness can’t be bought. However, what money can buy is the removal of certain obstacles to that happiness.
money can’t buy happiness, but it can create the environment and conditions in which you can more easily become happy.
I agree to some extent. I would say money is exchanged time, you earn it by using your time and use it to have more time. You can trade your time (money) for things you dislike to do or will help you to faster achieve what you actually want to do so you can use your time on things you like which makes you happy. But there are things you can’t trade with money and you have to actually use your own time instead of your earned time.
It fundamentally can’t. Humanity has seen plenty of miserable rich folks to know the innate truth of that.
Over here in Brazil, I guess because we’re a third world country that is more accustomed to poverty than the anglosphere/yurop, we have a variant of this phrase:
“Money can’t buy you happiness – But the lack of it will take your happiness away”
It’s true that you can be extremely rich and still fucking depressed.
But if you can’t afford rent, and/or are working by day to pay for a small meal at night, and/or are getting sick and just tanking it because actual care is outside your paygrade – You are guaranteed to be miserable.
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“History repeats itself” or “history doesn’t repeat itself, but rhymes”. If that were the case then it would be pretty easy to predict the future.
The reality is humans have evolved to try to find patterns in a given system. It’s what made us really good hunters and excellent tool builders.
“At the end of the day…”
Day never ends for some folks.
I mean… You only have 24 hours in a day. Once it’s over, well… it’s a new day.
Yeah but at the end of the day it is what it is.
So it goes.
Que sera, sera.
life is beautiful.
no, it’s not. it’s an ugly, parasitic process that accelerates resource consumption merely for its own pointless existence. the heat death of the universe will come all that faster only because of the presence of life.
and, for sure, humankind is the pinnacle of this selfish and greedy outcome of biological evolution.
That’s fair.
Perhaps, but it seems life is but an insignificant speck of energy waste in the universe
“Beauty” is a concept invented by the human brain, not some intrinsic truth. So the statement can be true, although it very often is not.
And to what would not having life accomplish? What is the point of not having life? How is there beauty in the lack of life when only things that have life even have a concept of beauty? Your viewpoint requires you to believe in some type of inherent value that doesn’t exist.
How is there beauty in the lack of life
i never said that there’s beauty in the lack of life. i said that there’s no beauty in life.
these are two very different statements.
Life is not beatiful, but what we make of it can be
Beautiful.
Life is beautiful. That it even managed to exist, let alone evolve is fascinating, wonderous, fantastical. That certain species mucked things up isn’t life’s fault.
I’m sure I’ll get guff for this but, “common sense”. Throughout my youth, when people told me something was common sense, I usually thought they were wrong.
I’ve found I like interpretating phrase “common sense” akin to this scene, from blazing saddles.
I rip into people who say “common sense”. It’s often used by people who aren’t good communicators.
I hate the phrase in political contexts.
“We need common sense (insert) laws!”
In other words, you either agree with me or lack common sense.
That was exactly how adults used the phrase a lot for me as a kid, which made me never use it myself, ever.
Common sense is usually one of two things
One: your self preservation instincts
Two: ability to understand social clues and responding accordingly
The problem is that common sense isn’t all that common. In Denmark we say “healthy sense” instead.
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“it is what it is”
If it weren’t what it is, well, it wouldn’t be anything at all, would it?
some people I work with got to saying “1000%” when asked “would it be possible to…?”. Are you gonna give them 10 of everything they ask for??
Person learns what exaggeration is, more at 11
I know you’re being sarcastic but you’re also wrong. They aren’t being sarcastic in this instance, They’re telling the clients “My answer is the biggest Yes imaginable”. They aren’t being rude to the clients face. maybe you’re thinking of “hyperbolic”?
I prefer using higher precision when responding like this. I will often say something like: “137.825%”. Mostly, I do this because it makes the other person feel awkward, and I do it because I constantly feel awkward, and so I just want other people to feel a tiny portion of what it’s like being me.
“Happy Friday!”
You can fuck right off with your happy Friday. Office people, sheesh.
Sounds like somebody’s got a case of the Mondays
No. No, man. Shit, no, man. I believe you’d get your ass kicked sayin’ something like that, man.
“Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
God I hate that quote. I can’t tell the difference between a spruce and a pine, but that doesn’t make them indistinguishable, just means I don’t know what the fuck I’m looking at. Magic and tech are definitively distinct. Our monkey brains might mistake one for the other, but like the spruce and pine, that does NOT make them indistinguishable.
Edit - Bruh what’s with the downvotes?? We’re here to express an unpopular opinion, cut me some slack!
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I think you got a couple downvotes because you took the quote far too literally. The person who said it did not believe in magic and was not trying to compare a nonexistent supernatural force to hyper advanced technology. If you look up the quote I’m sure you’ll find some essays about what Arthur was getting at.
For a very simple example, suppose an alien showed up and had antigravity tech built into their clothing or even as a cybernetic implant, that let them hover around in the air with no discernible means of propulsion. The average modern human would probably look at that and think “fuckin magic…” because you literally can’t understand or recognize what is going on or how it works.
Or another example using ‘time travel’ instead of aliens. Imagine putting a medieval peasant in the back seat of a fighter jet taking off from an aircraft carrier, or in a VR helmet to experience a virtual trip around the galaxy, zooming around planets and stars. In both cases there are unfathomable things right in front of their eyes everywhere they look. They would have no fucking clue what was going on in either case. To you and me those are normal, understandable things. To the medieval peasant, it’s magic.
Well yeah, but that’s why I dislike the quote. It doesn’t say what it means. Every example of what it intends to convey kinda falls back to the spruce vs pine thing to the uneducated eye. It doesn’t matter if I understand how the alien antigravity socks work -if they’re tech, they’re tech. Hell, I don’t understand how the cell phone I’m posting from works. It could literally be filled with tiny wizards who are actively casting a spell to send my thoughts to Lemmy - I dunno, and I can’t verify. I’m reasonably confident that’s not the case: despite all the functions this device is capable of that do indeed feel magical, that doesn’t make it magical.
It doesn’t matter if I understand how the alien antigravity socks work -if they’re tech, they’re tech.
- If you are a reasonable person (and not dreaming or insane), you can tell them apart quite easily: if it’s actually there, it’s tech.
- If you are a superstitious person (or dreaming or insane), you can tell them apart quite easily: if it’s actually there, it’s magic.
See? That’s what I like about the quote. It points to the fact that the difference is in the eye of the beholder.
The quote doesn’t say it is magic though, actually. It just says, that from our perspective, it’s indistinguishable from magic.
It does not say from our perspective, it just says they’re indistinguishable. Which is incorrect.
from our perspective is implied in every sentence ever.
And no, you can’t expect phrases to “say what they mean”----that would just require them to include more phrases, etc…
“Sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.”
“everything has pros and cons”
I usually give the CGP Grey’s legendary answer: “…but it’s hardly ever the case that all the pros and all the cons all PERFECTLY balance each other out, right?”
“If you run into assholes all day you’re the asshole”
Because bullying is not a thing amirite
I prefer the version. “If you smell shit, check the floor. If you constantly smell shit, check your shoes.”
It’s a reminder that a 1 off problem is likely external to you. If the problem seems to follow you around, it’s likely attached to you.
It doesn’t deny that the problem could still be external, but not to externalise things unless you are sure you’re not causing it.
I dont think it applies if everyone you know is actually an asshole.
The takeaway from the phrase is just to check yourself and your attitude. Make sure you aren’t the one being difficult before you confirm that all these other people are shit heads.
Juat about self-awareness.
Yep. I’ve worked with people who call everyone on their team idiots/lazy, oblivious that they are in fact, the toxic asshole.
"No pain, no gain. "
As someone who’s been running for over 30 years and working ou for 20, if there is pain, there is injury. When there is injury, you take a break and regress. People may say that muscle pain or stiff muscles are a sign of a good workout, not an injury. However, even with those your risk of injury is much higher, and you’ll eventually hurt yourself. “No pain” should be one of the outcomes of smart exercise, not an admonishment for not working hard enough.
“Religion is a personal choice.”
Rarely is that true.
