The Iron Law of Liberalism states that any market reform, any government initiative intended to reduce red tape and promote market forces will have the ultimate effect of increasing the total number of regulations, the total amount of paperwork, and the total number of bureaucrats the government employs.

— David Graeber, The Utopia of Rules

The disadvantage of believing that all programming languages are equivalent is that it’s not true. But the advantage is that it makes your life a lot simpler.

— Paul Graham, Hackers & Painters

Rationality is not for winning debates, it is for deciding which side to join.

— Eliezer Yudkowsky, How to Actually Change Your Mind

…overabstraction is the number one enemy of meaning and understanding.

— Gerald M. Weinberg, Fiona Charles, Keats Kirsch, Dani Weinberg, and Earl Everett, Weinberg on Writing

While the instruction “Do not criticize” is often cited as the important instruction in brainstorming, this appears to be a counterproductive strategy. Our findings show that debate and criticism do not inhibit ideas but, rather, stimulate them relative to every other condition … There’s this Pollyannaish notion that the most important thing to do when working together is stay positive and get along, to not hurt anyone’s feelings. Well, that’s just wrong. Maybe debate is going to be less pleasant, but it will always be more productive. True creativity requires some trade-offs.

— Jim Whitehurst and Gary Hamel, The Open Organization