Florentin Smarandache 1990
IF ANYTHING CAN GO WRONG, PASS IT ON TO
SOMEONE ELSE!
= Florentin’s Laws =
• When your team wins, it is thanks to you. If the team looses, it is
because of others.
• Even good things have negative side effects. Moreover, negative
things have positive side effects.
• Don’t play by others’ rules. Build your own rules that allow you to
win. If you still don’t win, prove the game is useless.
• If he’s better than you, deny him. If he’s worse than you, praise
him.
• If you can't beat them, beat others.
• If bad actions are in your favor, make them look good. If good
actions disadvantage you, undermine them.
• As a commander, don’t appoint as second in line one who is
smarter than you are.
• If things go from bad to worse, they don’t belong to you.
• If it matters against you, make as it doesn’t matter.
• If it's not worth doing, let others do it.
• Oh, God, protect me from my friends, because from my enemies I
protect myself!
• Interpret the worst things positively, and the good things
negatively.
• Failure is good - it brings you experience. Success can make you
lazy and arrogant.
F. Smarandache
IF ANYTHING CAN GO WRONG,PASS IT ON
TO SOMEONE ELSE!
= Florentin’s Laws =
Editor: V. Christianto
XI QUAN
1990
Contents
Preface: If anything can go wrong, pass it on tosomeone else!
ADVENTURES and VARIATIONs IN MURPHY’s LAW: 2
What and Why Florentin’s law: 4
Florentin’s Laws: To hell with Murphy, deviate!: 5
Florentin’s Laws: Ignore Peter’s, relax!: 6
Florentin’s Interdisciplinary Laws: 7
More variations in Florentin’s law: 8
Call for Contributions: backcover
If anything can go wrong,
pass it on to someone else!
ADVENTURES AND VARIATIONS IN MURPHY’S LAW
PREFACE
Probably all of us used to hear the Murphy’s Law, in particular if you’re in
industrial design office. This rule, saying that ‘If anything can go wrong, it
will go wrong,’ has become a rule of thumb in industrial design, for instance
electrical engineers who design USB plug will make the plugs symmetrically,
only to make sure that no stupid person will plug the USB in the wrong way.
While this simple law works in these small industrial applications, for some
people, Murphy’s Law sounds too pessimistic, because no one can say with
full certainty that anything will go wrong (or not) given a design or given a
planning. Therefore, one can also say that probably there is exclusion of this
Murphy’s law, for example, given a weather prediction that tomorrow it’s
going to be raining, then does it always mean that it is going to be raining?
Similarly, in other practical or social applications, Murphy’s law may not be
applicable.
For instance, if a wanna-be politician would take this Murphy’s law at its face
value, it is more likely is that he/she will not dare enough to assume a chair,
either as governor, state minister, or president of country. It is more likely, a
politician –and particularly politician without engineering thinking – will
adopt another pragmatic principle: “If anything can go wrong, pass it on to
someone else.” In these situations it is more likely that he or she (for example
if he has made decision in the past to embark a misguided combat against
XYZ country for unproven reasons) will use Florentin’s law instead of
Murphy’s law.
In the mean time, Peter’s law (“If anything can go wrong, fix it!”) is best
exemplified by the USB illustration above, that industrial designers nowadays
prefer to anticipate what can possibly go wrong, and then design to protect it
before it happens. Some people may call this practice as ‘Fool-proof’ design.
Just remember in Simpson’s Movie, how the fence of the lake is designed as
‘fool-proof’. But unfortunately the hurry Homer breaks the fence with his
truck.
Things like that happened all the time. In other words, sometimes the problem
is that we don’t know how fool-proof is ‘fool-proof’.
In philosophical parlance, Peter’s law can be considered as Weberian (you
know, those who think that hard-work ethics is the basic element of good
society, and it does), while Murphy’s law may be more like ‘Malthusian’ (for
who can escape from the fate of anything that can possibly go wrong?).
In this sense, Florentin’s law can be considered as something between these
extreme situations: it is more comparable to Zen attitude, in the sense that it is
advising us to keep the hard work, but keep it fun too. Or if we are allowed to
rephrase a wisdom saying: “Give me strength to change what can be changed,
And patience to accept what cannot be changed, And courage to pass it on to
someone else to make the changes happened, And wisdom to keep the
change.”
To conclude, if you think that Murphy’s law seems to go wrong, just pass it on
to Florentin’s law.
F. S.
WHAT AND WHY FLORENTIN’S LAW
Starting from the 1980 Paradoxism’s Laws:
1. All is possible, the impossible too!
2. Nothing is perfect, not even the perfect!
3. Everything is bad, the good included –and reciprocally;
4. The sense has a non-sense, and the nonsense a sense;
5. Anything has a value and a non-value; a new series of laws emerged in
1986-1989.
Florentin’s Laws are neither Murphy’s (pessimistic) Laws nor Peter’s
(optimistic) Laws, but partially pessimistic and partially optimistic, while
another part is neutral (ambiguous: neither pessimistic nor optimistic) – as in
neutrosophic logic.
Therefore, each Florentin’s law includes negatives and positives, unlike
Murphy’s law which has only negative attributes, and respectively Peter’s law
which has mostly positive attributes or results.
Being paradoxist in nature, Florentin’s Laws are especially deviations,
modifications, generalizations, contra-sayings, parodies, or mixtures of the
previous Murphy-Peter laws.
And also of aphorisms, proverbs, known citations, clichés, scientific results
(from physics, mathematics, philosophy, ...), etc.
Alternatively, collations of opposite ideas - gathered from folklore, from ads,
from literature, from familiar speech.
For example, Murphy’s law “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong”
which in Peter’s law is stated as: “If anything can go wrong, Fix It!” becomes
in Florentin’s law, through deviation: “If anything can go wrong, pass it on to
someone else!” in a Machiavelli way, as a mixture of pessimism / optimism
and laugh! In the above example, while Murphy’s law output is negative and
Peter’s law output is positive, Florentin’s law output is indeterminate
[perversity] as in neutrosophic logic (i. e. the problem has not be solved, but
passed to another person!... it’s a trickery (deception, cunning, dodge, swindle,
caper, subterfuge).
Florentin’s laws are in between Murphy’s Laws and Peter’s Laws, since they
are less pessimistic than Murphy’s, and less optimistic than Peter’s. They
break both Murphy’s and Peter’s Laws as well as various petrified statements
or clichés.
When talking about conflicts, these three categories of “laws” can get closer to
the ‘Art of War’, by Sun Tzu [SunZi] (VI-V centuries B. C.).
Nevertheless, they often bear some humor... and that’s what the readers feel
attracted for.
Many examples of Florentin’s Laws can be constructed and the readers are
welcome to contribute to a future printed and online collective volume of such
laws.
Each Florentin's Law should include: negative (pessimism) and positive
(optimism) attributes, while its conclusion should be moderate – often trickery
bended with humor.
E-mail your contribution to
fsmarandache@yahoo.com at anytime.
Main References:
E. A. Murphy, Murphy’s Laws, 1949.
Peter H. Diamandis, Peter's Laws / The Creed of
the Sociopathic Obsessive Compulsive {Peter’s
Laws # 14 & #18 by Todd B. Hawley}, 1986.
F. Smarandache, Florentin’s Laws / How-To-Do
and Not-To-Do List, 1986-1989.
F. S.
Florentin’s Laaws
!An Author to the Cube!
Florentin’s Laws: To hell with Murphy, deviate!
1. If anything can go wrong, pass it on to someone else!
2. When your team wins, it is thanks to you. If the team looses, it is because of
others.
3. Get a reason to award your friends, and a pretext to punish your enemies.
4. Even good things have negative side effects. Moreover, negative things
have positive side effects.
5. Don’t play by others’ rules. Build your own rules that allow you to win. If
you still don’t win, prove the game is useless.
6. If he’s better than you, deny him. If he’s worse than you, praise him.
7. If you can't beat them, beat others.
8. If bad actions are in your favor, make them look good.
If good actions disadvantage you, undermine them.
9. Elect the boss who is worse than you are, so you can manipulate him.
10. As a commander, don’t appoint as second in line one who is smarter than
you are.
11. If things go from bad to worse, they don’t belong to you.
12. If it matters against you, make as it doesn’t matter.
13. If it's not worth doing, let others do it.
14. Oh, God, protect me from my friends, because from my enemies I protect
myself!
15. We are unhappy because we always want what we don’t have and to be
where we are not. Moreover, we are happy when we don’t ask for anything –
so live an amorphous life!
16. If you classify the last, switch the order. If you’re somehow in the middle,
invent a new world order that sets you in the front.
17. Interpret the worst thing positively, and the good things negatively.
18. Failure is good - it brings you experience. Success can make you lazy and
arrogant.
19. The less people understand a theory, the smarter they believe it is. So,
make easy things complicated!
20. The more you work, the more work you have. And the less you work, the
less work you have.
21. If you’re always wrong, re-define the notion of “wrongness”. If you’re
always right, forget about!
22. Don’t visit sites that slander you, neither those that flatter you. Erase them
… from your memory.
Florentin’s Laws: Ignore Peter’s, relax!
23. Don’t run when you can walk! {Festinalente.} Let others struggle!
24. The faster you go, the more energy you consume and earlier you die… so
slow down!
25. It’s easier to challenge, than to be challenged.
{The best defense is the attack, says a soccer proverb.}
26. When forced to compromise, don’t hesitate to comprise the compromiser.
27. Interpret the defeat as a victory, even if no body might believe it. Pay
attention to the victory, it might be deceptive…
28. Don’t doubt when in doubt. Don’t be sure when you’re sure.
29. If you have no choice, still choose! When given two choices, take three!
30. Bless your enemies, they ambition you. Blame your friends, they idle you.
31. If your foes don’t like to do something, make them do that. If they love it,
prove they’re wrong.
32. If you do not want to execute an order, convince others to executing it. If
you do, still have others helping you.
33. A rejection is a step ahead. A promotion brings you closer to your level of
incompetence [according to The Peter Principle (1968)].
Florentin’s Interdisciplinary Laws
Children Watching TV Rule:
The best TV is no TV! The worst TV is the TV.
Department of National Injustice:
Law is a barrier that hounds jump over,
puppies pass under, and caws come up against it.
[Romanian folklore]
Boss’s Rules:
1. The chief is right.
2. When the chief is not right, the previous article applies.
[Romanian folklore]
Double Negation:
If you committed a mistake, make another one to correct the first mistake.
Government’s Financial Principle:
The government never gets bankrupt, even if it gets bankrupt (because the
government just prints more money!).
[Folklore]
Property Principle:
What is yours is mine, and what is mine is mine.
[Folklore]
Theorem of Incompleteness:
If you’re not sure of a proof, ask your enemies’ criticism. After you’re sure of
the proof, check it again.
Uncertainty Principle:
When not certain, be certain. In addition, when certain, don’t be certain!
More variations in Florentin’s law
The followings are various modifications and applications of Florentin’s law.
Florentin’s law in research:
If anything can go wrong to your research, pass it on to the references.
Florentin law for old scientists:
Old scientists never die; they only become more prone to be blamed for all
mistakes in the past. Contemporary scientists are always right, especially
when they are not.
Florentin’s laws for statistician:
- If you don’t understand a theorem, make it as obscure as possible.
- If you want to convince others, scale down your findings. If you want to
make a surprise, generalize it to global scale. (Example: Darwin’s finding was
based on small-scale ‘sample’ observation at Galapagos island, yet it made
surprises for the past century.)
- If at first you don’t succeed, erase your data set. But if you succeed, double it
to impress others.
Florentin’s law for lawyer:
If anything can go wrong to your case, pass it on to the jury.
Florentin’s law for programmers:
To err is human, to re-curse is divine.
Florentin’s law for the incompetent president:
If anything can go wrong to your presidential duty, pass it on to your advisory
staff. [Karl Rove?]
Florentin’s law for the chess player:
If anything can go wrong to your chess game, pass it on to your secondhand.
Florentin’s law for soldier:
It pays off to let your self not in the first row, because chance to be shot is
larger at front side.
Florentin’s law for biker:
It pays off to let yourself behind the frontrunner at least until the last miles,
because the biker in front of you will get bigger windpressure than you get.
Call for Contributions to Florentin’s Laws
Many examples of Florentin’s Laws can be constructed and the readers are
welcome to contribute to a future printed and online collective volume of such
laws.
Each Florentin's Law should have: negative attributes (pessimism) and
positive attributes (optimism), while the conclusion should be trickery bended
with humor.
E-mail your contribution to
fsmarandache@yahoo.com at anytime.
