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Roosevelt’s Man in the Area quote sums this up well. > "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the d
by sxp 6y ago
Roosevelt’s Man in the Area quote sums this up well.
> "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."
It's also a useful metric for deciding who to follow on social media. Is the person showing off their work or are they just commenting on the work of others? If the work/comment ratio drops too low, I stop following them.
- reaperducer 6y agoRoosevelt’s Man in the Area quote sums this up well. Roosevelt said, wrote, and did a lot of important and poignant things. I'm particularly fond of his speech about how we must stop being hyphenated Americans, and be just Americans. (He was railing against how the nation was balkanizing into "Italian-Americans" and "German-Americans" and "Irish-Americans.") Sadly, he wasn't perfect. And modern-day internet revisionists who understand neither history, nor context, and expect perfection are rapidly erasing him, his words, and his deeds from history.
- heavenlyblue 6y ago> Is the person showing off their work or are they just commenting on the work of others? You are being reductionist. Comments don’t have to be negative, they can be positive - I.e just pointing out “new good stuff” and this allows one to discover content faster. The content here is the speed of distribution of new “worthy”. It’s what negative reinforcement vs positive reinforcement is.
- hnick 6y agoNot sure that last bit is correct, negative/positive in a reinforcement/punishment context refers to removing or adding, not a value judgement. So negative reinforcement is taking something bad away to reinforce a behaviour you want to see more of. e.g. umbrella and rain, eating and hunger, etc.
- heavenlyblue 6y agoSo negative reinforcement here is the negative opinion about someone so that they would stop doing something. Taking away their “credibility” so that they would do something else. Positive reinforcement is giving credibility to people who are doing something worthy.
- hnick 6y agoNegative reinforcement is defined by taking away an adverse stimulus. A positive attribute (like credibility) does not count as adverse. Taking something good away is negative punishment. You are removing something they want, to reduce (punish) the behaviour (not reinforce it). Classic case is taking a kid's toys away when he won't behave. Of course, these things are mixed. If receiving bad comments online is hurtful, then that is positive punishment. The removal of credibility is an added sting. Positive reinforcement is correct in that example yes. I've been involved in dog training where some people are really into this, while others twist the concepts to suit them, so getting it right is a bit of a personal peeve.
- heavenlyblue 6y ago
- redisman 6y agoIs there a good book on Theodore Roosevelt anyone can recommend? He seems like the kind of man and leader that has completely disappeared in this century
- throwaway8581 6y agoGreat men with great passions are rarely the ultra-careful, calculating people that are allowed to succeed today. Teddy Roosevelt was smart and brave but also brash and crude. He LIVED, in the way Nietzsche would approve of. People like him would today be shunned/passed-over/cancelled for something they said, some joke they made, some unconventional opinion they dared utter, if they ever got close to power. One major leader captured some of that energy lately, though he lacked Teddy's intelligence and confidence, and his people rejected him for it. We live in a different time. Teddy's traits would be called toxic masculinity.
- redisman 6y agoIt’s very interesting. No one seems to actually like politicians these days. I’m not sure if someone who was truly brave and principled would be shunned by the general population. Elites - of course they would shun any challenger. Trump is not a good comparison as he had none of Teddys positive traits.
- gsu2 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_Theodore_Roosevelt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_Theodore_Roosevelt
- freefal 6y agoThe Rise of Theodore Roosevelt is excellent.
- eyelidlessness 6y agoA People's History of the United States
- confidantlake 6y ago
- lukeasrodgers 6y agoI like this Roosevelt quote, and Brené Brown gets a lot of mileage from it, but it always struck as me as a veering a little too close (for my comfort) to a possible rationalization of why it was okay for me to fuck a bunch of stuff up and maybe stomp over a few cold and timid souls because at least I was doing things. I would say "the credit belongs to the person actually in the arena, who is also able to step outside the arena and consider their failures from an outsider's point of view" but that is obviously not very catchy. Hannah Arendt has a bunch of interesting things to say on the actor/spectator tension, though I am unable to currently find a better reference than https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arendt/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/arendt/.