The Perfect Is The Enemy Of The Good

[@MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI-1]

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.” C.S. Lewis

[@montycantsin8861]

A great quote.

[@zxyatiywariii8]

One of my favorite quotes! Also reminds me of what the NY Times calls "competence downshifting"; and which (as even NYT themselves had to admit) is a problem of the Left, rather than the Right. "Competence downshifting" is when White Leftists talk to people like me as if we're incapable of conversing with them on the same level with which they'd converse with a White person. It's a more eloquent (and more evasive) way of saying, "dumbed down speech"; and it's really annoying when people do it. 🤦🏾‍♀️ Obviously not all Leftists do this; but it's a nasty habit which I've only ever experienced from people on the Left.

[@BudgiePanic]

Communism

[@Dan-gs3kg]

People forget that Matthews beats the point repeatedly that the path is the most important. "I am The Light, The Truth, and The Way. If you want to meet the Father, you must go through Me". Turn away from truth, you turn away from the path. Turn away from the light, you turn away from the path. If you become complacent, then you can no sooner reach the destination. There are other accompanying statements, like "I am the Vine from which you branch". Which simply states that you have to be somewhat connected to goodness to be good. And further analogies about farming, which corresponds to Dev's statements about lifetime achievements, and Pareto's observations of bean productivity. Something that might be overlooked was the necessity of sorting the wheat and chaff, and burning the chaff, which can be said that you ought to remove unnecessary things, but also the part about the fields filled with wheat and weirs (some weed that looks like wheat until harvest time). You cannot differentiate the good from the bad before you see it bear fruits.

[@RipOffProductionsLLC]

@@montycantsin8861 and a quote that perfectly explains why Communism and other Marxist ideals will probably never go away, there will always be kind people who want to fix society's problems, and there will always be those who want what they don't have(and will destroy it out of spite if they can not), making both the selfless and selfish motives for being a Communist ever-present in society.

[@SuiteLifeofDioBrando]

Perfect Cell was a antagonist after all.

[@montycantsin8861]

A absolute antagonist!

[@MALICEM12]

As was Ultimate Kars

[@lifeyoushouldtryit]

Super perfect cell must have been like super hitler

[@thefool8224]

"like a soon to be broken man once said, you are either perfect or you are not me"

[@shadowangel6359]

"You're either perfect, or you're not me."

[@ivercingetorix1367]

Socialism vs Capitalism in a nutshell. Unattainable Utopia vs Pretty Good Spot.

[@obviouslykaleb7998]

Michael Markowsky Unattainable is the keyword

[@wert1234576]

Only under capitalism can you have anime skins for almost every thing in your life from cars to guns PRAISE CAPITALISM

[@xxGamerX-cc2ho]

@@wert1234576 Praise capitalism with checks. Pure capitalism can be just as dangerous and eventually turn to something as bad as socialism.

[@philagelio336]

I still don’t see how communism would even be a utopia if ever achieved.

[@cheddar2648]

If you hold up modernity against the entirety of human history, we are in a damn fine spot, not a "pretty good" one.

[@zombie9865]

*Shortfatotaku enters the chat Shortfatotaku: There is no such thing as perfection because to be perfect is to be infinite. *Danny Devito enters the chat *Shortfatotaku leaves the chat

[@lemonlupinreuben5362]

That's the only exception

[@SwiftSwrd]

"A true master is an eternal student" -Master Yi (from LoL)

[@Karsh.]

The true philosophers were the feeders and the toxic junglers we played with along the way.

[@toddwilliams8128]

Keep smashing that Q, brother

[@tonythekillab8189]

The Golden Rectangle is essential to perfecting the spin. Arigato... Gyro.

[@technic1285]

Do you believe in Gravity?

[@noblekatana2270]

Jojo reference for the win

[@varnix1006]

Dojyann~

[@silentecho92able]

i must say this reminds me of the last Episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog, i learned that nothing is perfect, no matter how hard we try to be, that being imperfect is better.

[@demonlordotrt754]

T reminds me of a quote in Persona 3 in the school center piece statue it says " two in harmony surpasses one in perfection" and to this day i follow this saying.

[@johnbuscher]

DemonLord OTRT It does? Huh. I never knew.

[@josuecallejero9864]

The only time when things will be exactly equal is the heat death of the universe.

[@samnope7344]

You're not accounting for the possible temperature differential between individual atoms, BIGOT. Temp equality NOW!

[@christiangonzalez6945]

If, and only if, the other two possibles steady state aren't true

[@metal0n0v]

A life filled with chasing perfection is, essentially, a life full of disappointment.

[@montycantsin8861]

The contents of my bowels are imperfect. They need to be purged. I try daily, but still no perfection!

[@tonylu2471]

Not eating might help. Nothing in the bowels will mean nothing imperfect in there. You'll die though.

[@SeikerHikaru]

It's times like this where my mind at times draws to the phrase "The truth is often stranger than fiction." Fiction, ironically for how wild and fantastical it can be, is bound within the realms of human rationality and idealism, restrained by what we think is real and unreal. We can understand fiction so well because of that restriction. Reality, the truth, is not bound by that, and is far less well understood as a result, despite what some of us may think. Reality is strange, people are even stranger. I believe this constant stretch for an idealized perfection in a way comes from a natural rejection of this strangeness. Fundamentally I feel most people WANT the truth to be reasonable, logical, to make sense with what they believe the world to be. And it's why some people react so aggressively when the reality conflicts with that viewpoint. And so we get to the point Dev made, that the past HAS to be changed, removed entirely if need be, because that's the only way they can convince others and most of all themselves that reality doesn't conflict with their views and ideals.

[@failatlife1]

I heard "The Golden Meme."

[@Gulgathydra]

A meme that will recursively propagate throughout the meme verse... no, we're still looking for that one.

[@obviouslykaleb7998]

Gulgathydra *PEPEEEEEEEH*

[@AnshulGuptaAG]

The memes, Raiden...

[@OrangeT3am]

This is basically a few hours of Jordan's Peterson in 15 minutes

[@Zach0451]

First SFO video?

[@OrangeT3am]

@@Zach0451 no i just noticed that 90% of the vid is what JBP talked about before

[@tsunamio7750]

3:59 DOWNWARD SPIRAL, DOWNWARD SPIRALS EVERYWHERE! EMP LEMON IS RIGHT! AAAAAAAAAAHHH

[@Cerebatonify]

The perfect being the enemy of the good really shows in manufacturing with tolerances. Say you want a roller for a paper mill; it'll need to be somewhat precise but it will function perfectly fine if it's not the exact nominal size. This is where you get manufacturing tolerances from, perfect would be prohibitively expensive while good works well enough.

[@barrybend7189]

No attack in an RPG goes over 9999. Much like nothing goes to infinity.

[@Zayindjejfj]

Final Fantasy would like to have a word with you. But yeah I get your point.

[@barrybend7189]

@@Zayindjejfj sorry I played Bravely Default and my attacks capped at 9998 on the final boss.

[@Zayindjejfj]

@@barrybend7189 I feel you on that one.

[@barrybend7189]

@@Zayindjejfj I did get a friend summon of a one punch man joke though. It was hilarious.

[@ShouAmaterasu]

"The purification of the world is a twisted fantasy in and of itself" "Then what do we do?" "Twist it once, together, without turning our eyes away from the distortion. "Gazing at each other." -Baroque, endgame conversation by Protagonist, Eliza, Alice, and The Absolute God... After the Archangel utterly failed at taking godhood for himself.

[@dfitzy]

A personal favourite quote "Perfection does not exist; to understand it is the triumph of human intelligence; to expect to possess it is the most dangerous kind of madness." Alfred de Musset

[@magoichi75]

Thought the title was “perfect is the enemy of god”.

[@Valmitic]

The thumbnail didn't help either.

[@wert1234576]

I could see that being true

[@blvalverde]

Short fat satanic otaku.

[@benjaminstorace6699]

Just realized that the justice in the clip has a MASSIVE SPIDER emblazoned on her shoulder. Fitting.

[@godcarryme]

I went scrolling for the comments to find this. I'm glad I wasn't the only one to notice that.

[@nashthrashington9749]

"Beware the tarantulas." -Nietzsche

[@tinyknott]

Erhm. Perfect is the enemy of the good is more commonly considered to mean that people sacrifice short term accomplishable goals because the end result is "perfect". Flawed action is preferable to perfect inaction to put it simply. It's an expression to encourage incrementalism rather than radicalism.

[@Gulgathydra]

The British Supreme Cout put itself above Parliament, _and_ the monarchy. *And they let it happen!* No repercussions, no comeuppance, no pushback. _baffling_

[@Sorain1]

Yeah, that's idiotic. I can see why the queen refused to intervene, no monarch wants to seem to be seizing power in governance in the modern day. (overtly) but the Parliament should have stepped on this with the force of a hydrogen bomb going off, asking permission to do so of the queen. (Which they would get, acting as her agents in this capacity benefits them and the monarchy.)

[@edwardweaver6869]

There is also a saying in the military “No plan survives contact with the enemy.” This simple concept eliminates the possibility perfection.

[@bruhbruh4329]

"There is no war in Ba Sing Se"

[@dkosmari]

I never heard of "worse is better" in Computer Sciences. But I heard of "less is more."

[@Party_Almsivi]

14:13 This reminds me of one of the last episodes of Courage the Cowardly Dog, where some benevolent creature tells courage “You’re not perfect...” in a weird way, and I’m sure it’s meant to be in the positive way too.

[@MM-xn6tn]

"In this world, nothing perfect exists. It may be a cliche, but it's the way things are." --- "Always strive to be better than anything that came before you, but *not* perfect." - Mayuri Kurotsuchi, Bleach (paraphrased)

[@despairgumshoe6206]

Too much freedom is anarchy, too little is slavery. Realizing that descriptors like this is just enslaving your mind-priceless. You can be living in a utopia if you accept your current reality as the perfect.

[@BigWyrm67]

By chasing perfection, you will lose good enough. Perfection is often unachievable, while good enough is always within reach.

[@Ammothief41]

From physics, inequality is required for work to be done.

[@sasi5841]

This. entropy creates creates inequality, but without entropy nothing can be done. So, inequality is inevitable.

[@KnolanCross]

Software developer here, the optimization is the root of all evil refers to the fact that without profiling, you don't really know which part of the program will be run most of the time and you may make the software much more complex and waste tens of hours to optimize a slow part of the code that is either barely run out actually fast enough.

[@No.Google.I.dont.like.handles]

Remember lesson 5 Johnny

[@cheddar2648]

"...in order to create a _more_ perfect Union..." (emphasis mine)

[@philagelio336]

The unfinished pyramid is a national symbol for that very reason. We’re continuously working on our nation.

[@JTViper]

This is my birthday video from SFO... It's an amazing video. It has been a great birthday :P

[@DetectiveStablerSVU]

Speaking of Voltaire, you should get Voltaire's Ghost on a steam of yours.

[@LegionHimself]

Perfect being the enemy of good was taught to us literally on the first day of university, in the Physics department.

[@DrInk-se7gs]

This video sure is on the Path to good

[@Gulgathydra]

Savage

[@antigrav6004]

As a creative sort struggling with projects, there's a term of "finished not perfect" I hear a lot, and I do believe this mention of premature optimization is some of the issue I have finishing projects. Overprep is worth less over time.

[@corvuslight]

'My God, it's full of stars...'

[@raumograeywolf5477]

Sap! Sssaaappp! As a fellow sapient being, love you too dude. May you live long and prosper

[@BuckROCKGROIN]

You should've used an image of perfect cell for this thumbnail.

[@viloscohaagen4230]

Thomas sowell says in the Vision of the Anointed there are no Solutions only Trade offs.

[@MsQueenOfDance]

There's a really good VSauce video on the science of zipfs law and the parado principle

[@sempersuffragium9951]

Just one thing - it's quite common for the courts to declare something null and void, therefore having the same effect as if it had never existed. So for example, if I issue a presidential executive order, it will have been null and void, and have the same effects as if it weren't issued at all, because I do not have the authority to issue it. Similarly the PM didn't have the authority to give such council as he did, and as such this action was null and void. I agree that in this particular example this was not the most elegant solution - I think generally, when an order has been given by the monarch or his deputies, that should be considered a fait accompli. But the point is it wasn't some dystopian denial of reality, it's very common legal practice. It's just that British judges are a bit more poetic in describing their judgements.

[@joaquinlanderretche]

6:38 Chris Ray Gun, are you listening to this mah boy?

[@ShortFatOtaku]

HAHAHAH

[@manuel9219]

4:25 the zipf law Michael here made a video about it The zipf mystery

[@sirzorg5728]

This is a great argument against accelerationism. The accelerationist (on the left they call themselves "revolutionary communists") has decided that current conditions are irredeemable, and as such sees incremental improvement as fundamentally delaying their revolution. If the lives of the poor under capitalism don't suck, then those poor people won't support the revolution, therefore the communist must make the lives of the poor worse to bring the revolution to bear. This is like some leftist people decrying nuclear power as an "invalid" solution to climate change because it "Doesn't solve economic and racial inequality". These people are so caught up in the idea of creating the perfect that they will never work to make the system better through any other means. On a personal level this means that they will lead unproductive lives and never work to better themselves or the people around them, and will denounce anyone who does as "supporting the evil imperfect". The left has some good ideas that should be incorporated into the worldview of an open-minded rational human, but they themselves will never do this because the dare not taint their vision of the perfect with ideas from other sources. They worship their ideology as an infallible god.

[@jimjamjimjam7700]

Wew, wise words indeed here

[@bfranciscop]

I can't believe you mentioned the Purity Spiral and didn't overlay it with an image of the fibbonacci sequence spiral for visual punwork.

[@BurntF3aceMan]

idk why but I teared up at the end when you said "I love you" felt like you really meant it. I love you too. your content is insightful and continues to get better.

[@Ultracity6060]

You've been churning out some good content.

[@johnbeech]

First half of video: Excellent break down of the principles with relevant, tangible examples. We were talking at work about the human ability to perceive things on logarithmic scales, how we can describe galaxies filled with stars, down to electrons around an atom in the same breath. Giving people a sense of purpose over time, and pointing out that wealth is distributed unequally towards older people on compound interest helps people align themselves with the idea of being in the "1%". "Born in the 1%?" In your country, on your continent, in the world? More context is important.

[@wulfherecyning1282]

The Norse heaven, Valhalla, is the best heaven to me because it perfectly matches human existence; fight until death in the morning, rest and party in the evening. It's the most human heaven because it isn't perfect.

[@TJK10]

11:40 ...is that just a real world version of Madame Web?

[@4litrespoolyboi206]

Only the weak demand equality.

[@hailgiratinathetruegod7564]

11:02 oh yes, the famous zelts

[@Skywolfhd20]

like the zeltic guardian yugioh card

[@montycantsin8861]

The zelts were fermers werriers.

[@slurpeeman86]

I usually talk about this topic as "happiness is the enemy of progress." If you're truly happy you want the situation around you to remain the same, keeping you happy. If anything changes you risk losing that happiness. Progress is only about change, you may be happier or less happy but the situation is changing and improving regardless of your emotional state.

[@nunosilva187]

I've noticed this trend in grape vines as well. You would pass through 10 or so vines with 1 or 2 bunches of grapes and then you find one that produces what all the other 10 did combined.

[@MiggehA1]

Too much of a good thing can bring anyone ruin.

[@voivodadracula1936]

Having complete inmortality is not a blessing for it is a curse, the blessing itself is being hard to kill for if you know the only thing that kills you and feel that you learned everything you could then end your existence with dignity and pride, something that very few people have had

[@Endlessfin]

This was a nice video, thank you for your work !

[@JodyBruchon]

In computer programming and business, we also say that the biggest enemy of a better solution is an existing solution that is good enough.

[@marklefebvre5758]

Not sold on your initial premise, loved that you got to Pareto. Very well put together. For me, perfection is attainable, just not for long, because the higher your level of perfection, the greater your level of fragility (ala Nassim Taleb) and so the shorter your life. Flowers attain some measure of perfection, then die, for example. To be perfect is to be so fragile as to not last any change and since entropy seems to be what drives the universe (or at least time) then the trade off is time vs. perfection. I do like your take on all this, however, and it is rather well put together overall. Accounting for a bit more of the aspects of perfection might round it out a bit better (things are never one thing) and allow for 'the perfect game' for example, which is beautiful because it can never be repeated.

[@wamda104]

Keep it up man loving these videos!

[@CaliburovX4]

You can’t be perfect, but you can be good enough. And that’s good enough.

[@urstaxfetish1206]

But.... SFO... have you heard of the "Anti- Spirals" ???

[@Yugal-Limbu]

I'm awestruck by the insight i got from this short clip. Thanks alot

[@simonpetrikov3992]

Btw the curve involving taxes is called the Laffer Curve

[@r.connor9280]

Blades can only be sharpened so far, stone blocks chiseled so fine, and hands trained so much before they are reduced to nothing. Nothing at all

[@philagelio336]

If everything is perfect, Nothing will be

[@UchihaOokami2596]

Makes me think of the quote "Progress not Perfection". Strive to do better then next day, even if that's just starting. To demand perfection is to defeat yourself before you even begin because of that unattainable ideal.

[@kungfujoe2136]

if the journey is more importend than the destination ... the juice ain't worth the squeeze

[@thehillz726]

The beging reminded me a bit of the persian flaw, a intentionally placed imperfection to remind them they are flawed. On a similar note the Japanese artisans have a concept ( that I can't remember or be bothered too look up) will continuesly practice said art as if they perfect it while believing that perfection is impossible. They also have a concept ( still to lazy to look up) of subtle imperfections being naturally beautiful. Such as the knots of a cherry tree or small cracks in an old vase. Sorry I can't spell lol

[@SuperLlama42]

I beat the King of Cards campaign in Shovel Knight recently and realized this applies to King Knight. If he'd just stayed the course he'd probably never officially be a king, but by the end of the game he's amassed a huge amount of followers and gained the respect of everyone in the valley, including the actual royalty, one of which wants to take him under his wing, and probably has a huge amount of money depending on how well the player's played. He effectively had everything a good king could desire outside of the actual royal title and territory. But when he betrays everyone to take that final step and achieve his perfect dream of becoming an actual king he pisses away all that respect and prestige, his new teammates hate him and he just loses everything in the main campaign anyway.

[@allankuria9923]

3:23 Girl: So, what do you do for fun? Pareto: I be growing these beans!

[@lofidante1778]

Have you looked into the indigenous train track protests that are happening across Canada right now?

[@ShortFatOtaku]

Yep. shitshow

[@lofidante1778]

@@ShortFatOtaku Any chance that you'll make a video detailing the topic? I don't think there are many videos about it online

[@DriesduPreez]

One of the most significant and important videos on the internet.

[@TheC-O-D-Y-Project]

And That's how you get Zombies and other incidental undead...

[@TheVeldoran]

Great vid Reminded me of arch video on the dangers of the greater good

[@gatocas7249]

An ideal is like a star. A realist understands that he is on a sailboat that he can steer towards that star to find a better destination. A perfectionist believes his boat is a spaceship and will burn the world if he thinks that will propel him towards his perfect destination. It won't.

[@DEUS_VULT_INFIDEL]

Barring extenuating circumstances, attempting to be a better person than you were yesterday _is_ trying to be the best person you can be.

[@danielseelye6005]

This made me think of another saying: "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."

[@blzahz7633]

Everyone else here has something profound to comment... I don't.

[@sawderf741]

That is quite profound. To realize one's less special is... by my count the most special of them all. *pushes glasses so close to my skull. I start to bleed.

[@anonnona6940]

Great video. Thank you !

[@edwardfitzgerald3877]

Removing statues that were erected to glorify bad actors is not a repudiation of the existence of these people. It is only a decision not to celebrate them.

[@wert1234576]

So what your saying is spiral energy could be real...time to get a drill and some big sunglasses

[@Ray3D]

This message needs to be spread far and wide.

[@sunnyshade3871]

Hey man. If u had any questions in iran contact me. Btw, love the analysis in your videos

[@ShortFatOtaku]

Iran? :O

[@sunnyshade3871]

@@ShortFatOtaku yeah man. Im Iranian.

[@sunnyshade3871]

@@ShortFatOtaku instagram : @herzonsjala

[@ShortFatOtaku]

@@sunnyshade3871 what's goin on in iran?

[@sunnyshade3871]

@@ShortFatOtaku id better not discuss all of it in public chat but heres all i can tell. theres a high level of uncertainty about every info people get on corona. goverment is not giving a real reliable data on the infected. And the other info are from social media spread by channels which claim that they are leaked (probably made up for attention). Universities and schools are closed until the end of the spring break (still not officially but theyre adding week by week to the closing period). and this is so funny, iran didnt close its flights from china and still taking chinese flights, even after china cancelled them. the supplies on alchoholic disinfectants and masks are low but somehow still available.

[@alorem123]

Love these ‘philosophical root of’ videos. The only thing that sucks is they inevitably increase the size of my reading list. Come on Dev, I need to read my light novels stop making me smarter

[@theenditedranger7556]

"Perfection and power is overated I think you are wise to chose happiness and love" (Uncle Iroh)

[@al_capad]

No taxes? Gov stops to work? Where is thos heaven you speak of?

[@MathewRenfro]

SFO is a well read, well spoken individual.

[@1MP4CT4190]

The Fate of Destruction is also the Joy of Rebirth.

[@hypemugen]

Amazing video, man. Fully agree. Again, you're sounding more and more like Jordan Peterson by the day. Have you ever heard of his "Ying and Yang equilibrium" talk?

[@mikerueffer579]

Humanity has proven time and again that we can improve on what came before. But never once have we proven that we are capable of perfection.

[@smaurf2499]

Because perfection is always better than what we have now. Many people would consider the average 21st century life perfect a few thousand years ago

[@AntonymicallyCorrect]

You didn't explain the space colony aspect so well, as it really is a function of distance just as much as time, because the main point is we could pass the first colony ship and arrive generations before it, and prepare a warm welcome for our... Ancestors. Lol

[@Hi_Im_Pangas]

Spirals everywhere? Time to go read Uzumaki again.

[@giin97]

Your background music sounds like a slower version of my alarm tone. Every time it's loud enough to notice, I instinctively move to silence it. I am Pavlov's dog 😢

[@vagabondsoul1286]

Fulgrim DOES NOT approve this post.

[@BigMantis__]

Damn this video hit my procrastinating, “I wish I did this years ago” ass way too hard.

[@noobiesmurf]

We have always been at war with Eurasia.