| 1 |
Falk's First Law: "The whole world is a tradeoff." |
- Example I: No matter what you choose to do, you're choosing to not do something else.
- Example II: [thanks, Win Reis] : "Strategy is not just about what you're going to do. It's also about what you're NOT going to do."
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| 2 |
Falk's Second Law: "Don't trust any generalizations." |
Beware of people who don't get that one...... |
| 3 |
Falk's Third Law: "The Truth" is whatever you believe to be "the truth." |
Toss this one into a discussion some time
and watch it drastically change direction.......
Also...
As the late Senator Moynihan was fond of saying:
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts."
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| 4 | Falk's Fourth Law: "Every Theory [opinion, belief, etc...]
Has an Equal and Opposite Theory [opinion, belief, etc...]. |
---Except for one Very Liberal Guy (aka Art Jackson) who once said that my free-market ideas were "opposite," but not "equal" to theirs.
No elitism there, eh? Nah, not them..... :-)
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| 5 | Falk's Fifth Law: "Enough Pay" is Always Equal to 20% More Than I'm Making Now. |
C'mon, tell me I'm way off on that one? Not!
- Corollary I: "Rich" is 3-5 Times As Much as I Make.
- Corollary II: "Wealthy" is 10+ Times As Much as I Make.
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| 6 |
Falk's Sixth Law: "Don't Steal From the Rich or the Poor"
.... You May Become One of Them Some Day." |
This is a key element of my personal philosophy......... |
| 7 |
Falk's Seventh Law: "Beware of Proofs: What were they trying to prove, and what facts were conveniently left out?" |
Note: this especially applies to Politics, Economics, Religion, etc....
- Skelton's Note: "73% of all statistics are made up on the spot to support a point of view.
- The other 27% are made up later."
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| 8 |
Falk's Eighth Law: "Foreseeable Future" is an Oxymoron!! |
Think about it....
Then think about how often people say it ! |
| 9 |
Falk's Ninth Law: "Don't Attack or Criticize Minorities: Someday, Someone May Attack or Criticize the Minority that You're a Member of." |
....And they may outnumber you in a big way. |
| 10 |
Falk's Tenth Law: "Nobody is really an Altruist." |
They always get a reward out of what they do, even if it's just a "good feeling".
Don't let them mislead you about this !
Nobody does anything for no reason and no reward. |
| 11 |
Falk's Eleventh Law: "Nothing is Free." |
Lose the word from your vocabulary. Somebody pays.
The cost may be included, but it's never zero! Not even the air you breathe.
If you want it cleaner, it's going to cost someone to make it cleaner.
There is always a cost. Think about this every time you see the word "free"!
----And don't forget: "The Government" never really "pays" for anything.
You do. Or your neighbor does. |
| 12 |
Falk's Twelfth Law: "Most laws have 'accomplished' the opposite of their original intent." |
Look around. Prohibition, the War on Poverty, the War on Drugs, HOV Lanes
Testimonies to failure.
We'd do better to buy the drugs from the exporting countries
and give them to addicts.
Crime would drop like a rock, and the overall cost to society would plummet!
Also, don't look for this to happen soon....
Ken M.'s Corollary:
- My problem with unions is the same one that I have with almost every institution in this world: it eventually turns into a bigger problem than the problem it originally grew up to cope with.
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| 13 |
Falk's Thirteenth Law: "Stereotypes don't come out of Nowhere." |
Name a stereotype. It had some roots in the ways people behaved. They might not have even had a choice about how to behave, or that behavior might have been the safest way for them to get through life at the time .... and their behavior became stereotyped. That doesn't mean stereotypes are good, or they should be kept around. It just means that it's stupid to deny that they exist, or have any reason to exist. |
| 14 |
Falk's Fourteenth Law: "Microsoft's latest Operating System will always occupy about 30% of the biggest hard drive in your PC" |
When your PC had a 40 MB hard drive, the OS took up about 12 MB, right?
So, now you have 160 GB, right? 200GB? 500GB?
At least it will help you plan for the future..... [Sorry, Bill G. and Steve B.]
Ken L.'s Corollary:
Software makes computers slower faster than hardware makes computers faster.
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| 15 |
Falk's Fifteenth Law: "The Problem is not Poor Management; the problem is allowing poor management to persist." |
I have never heard of a company which does not suffer from this problem to at least some degree.
I believe that one cure is to institute "360-degree evaluations," where peers and supervisors, as well as subordinates all have an opportunity to provide anonymous (or signed) feedback to anyone they care to provide feedback on. This feedback must be summarized and shown to the individual as well as their supervisory "food chain." Only then can we have hope. 'Til then, business as usual. Good Luck! |
| 16 |
Falk's Sixteenth Law: "If you keep lowering the passing grade, everyone will fail." |
See this example |
| 17 |
Falk's Seventeenth Law: "Problems resulting from misuse of a tool do not necessarily mean that the tool is defective." |
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| 18 |
Falk's Eighteenth Law: "Employee Loyalty is proportional to ( (1 + the local unemployment rate) to the nth power ) , where n is a big number." |
- Corollary I: Upper management can be counted on to take advantage of this when times are bad.
- Corollary II: Upper management will always be surprised at the drop in Employee Loyalty when times turn good.
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| 19 |
Falk's Nineteenth Law: "Freedom Of Religion Equals Freedom From Religion." |
Much as some would like, you can't have it the one way without the other. Have you noticed that the folks who object most strenuously to this one are the very religious...? |
| 20 |
Falk's Twentieth Law: "Creation is easy....... Maintenance sucks....." |
ask God or any programmer, web master, etc......... |
| 21 |
Falk's Twenty-First Law: "Marx said, `Religion is the opiate of the masses'. .... I say that, for too many people today, it's more like crack cocaine. |
For examples and more discussions, see.... "
Hear that, Sadr and bin Laden and your buddies ?
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| 22 |
Falk's Twenty-Second: "There are no Agnostics. Atheists, sure; Agnostics, no."
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Agnostic: " One who believes that there can be no proof of the existence of God but does not deny the possibility that God exists.
Excerpted from American Heritage Talking Dictionary
Copyright © 1997 The Learning Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved."
Sort of like, "seeing is believing?"
Beware! In this day and age, anything can be faked. Watch the movie Forrest Gump, for example. If God, or Jesus, or Whoever, came down and tapped you on the shoulder, how would you be really sure it is was him [or her] ? Nasty risk to take. Now, if you believe there is no Supreme Being, or whatever, and one tries to tap you on the shoulder, you might just change your mind [after asking some pointed questions and being satisfied by the answers,] but the "seeing is believing" part of being an Agnostic? It's too risky. Choose one or the other. Believe or don't. |
| 23 |
Falk's Twenty-Third Law: "Be careful if you think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence....
It may be greener because it's growing over a septic tank." |
or cesspool, or whatever. You get it. |
| 24 |
Falk's Twenty-Fourth Law: "Never go to bed with someone you're not on speaking terms with."
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I pity anyone who disputes the wisdom of that one .....
- Corollary I: If you have to lose sleep, don't do it alone.
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| 25 |
Falk's Twenty-Fifth Law: "Everyone loves to edit; everyone hates to be edited." |
....especially those that need editing most.... |
| 26 |
Falk's Twenty-Sixth Law: They Say "The Squeaky Wheel is the One That Gets the Grease" ?
....No, often, The Squeaky Wheel is The One That Gets Replaced.... |
Been there, had that done to me... |
| 27 |
Falk's Twenty-Seventh Law: "Faith = Any strongly held belief, especially in the absence of proof." |
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| 28 |
Falk's Twenty-Eighth Law: Faith: "No matter what happens, there is always someone ready to tell you that it happened according to his [or her] pet theory. "
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| 29 |
Falk's Twenty-Ninth Law: Faith: "No matter what happens, there is always someone ready to misinterpret what it means."
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| 30 |
Falk's Thirtieth Law: "Don't try to Avoid Problems; They'll Arrive on Their Own Anyway, and with Free Delivery." |
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| 31 |
Falk's Thirty-First Law: "Anything remotely believable or remotely amusing will propagate without limit on the internet...." |
- Corollary I: [independent of its accuracy or truth.]
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| 32 |
Falk's Thirty-Second Law: "Wait for Rev. 3.0" |
Remember Windows, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, etc., etc., etc.... ? |
| 33 |
Falk's Thirty-Third Law: "Science is as much about Questioning Answers as it is about Answering Questions." |
That's one way you can differentiate it from Religion, and especially, Creationism.
Be careful when this line is crossed. |
| 34 |
Falk's Thirty-Fourth Law: "The Only Criterion for putting a Tax on something is that the "something" must be Measurable.
No other reason is necessary." |
You will never find any other explanation that explains so succintly why anything is taxed. If it can be measured, it's a target for some moron in Government to try to tax it. Remember the Boston Tea Party? "Taxation Without Representation"? Now consider the Inheritance Tax. If that's not the ultimate "Taxation Without Representation," what is? a.k.a., "Estate Taxes" |
| 35 |
Falk's Thirty-Fifth Law: "The Law of Psychotherapy:" |
The purpose of therapy is not always to help you get over your problems and learn to live in the world;
often, it's actually to help you live in a world filled with other people and their problems.
For a long time [most of my 13 years in various kinds of psychotherapy,] I thought that the first one was the purpose. Towards the end of my therapy, I realized that the second item was a more accurate description. Progress went much faster after that. |
| 36 |
Falk's Thirty-Sixth Law: "There are at least two sides to most coins." |
Or, "If a coin has one side, then it has at least one other side."
This is best for folks who often say, "On the other hand..." , too. |
| 37 |
Falk's Thirty-Seventh Law: "When you can't be with the one you [ fill in the blank ], [ fill in the blank ] the one you're with…." |
the generic version seemed more appropriate..... |
| 38 |
Falk's Thirty-Eighth Law: "Don't read things into things that shouldn't have things read into them…." |
Yeah, juggle that one around your mind for a while... |
| 39 |
Falk's Thirty-Ninth Law: "When the premise is false, the conclusion is usually false." |
...but it usually makes for amusing emails on the www… |
| 40 |
Falk's Fortieth Law: "It is IMPOSSIBLE to refule an argument from a conspiracy theorist, because they will never believe ANY argument to the contrary." |
Thank you, Vierotchka at Current.com, and of course, JanforGore at Current.com, too! |
