Proverbial Corollaries

Jun 26, 2025

Proverbs are pocket‑sized IF‑statements: folk pseudocode that ships the trigger but hides the ELSE.

To find alpha: treat the proverb as true, then ask what happens in the missing branch.

1 RECIPROCITY

The sayings in this bucket assume social payoffs are maximized when inputs and outputs match.

“Treat others as you wish to be treated.”
- Implication: The way they treat you is the way they want to be treated by you.
- Mirror their style. Tell stories to the storyteller. Ask the question-asker questions. Criticize the critic.
- Warm feedback? Great. Cold recoil? You are in a non-reciprocal setting.
“Give credit where credit is due.”
- Implication: Undue credit is a loan. Expect to repay it.
- When you receive unearned praise, log it as an attempted leverage hook. Bank the flattery, audit the motive, and don’t accept the IOU until verified.
“Honesty is the best policy.”
- Implication: Dishonesty harms somewhere. Figure out where.
- Map the system by modeling precisely how dishonesty would destroy you. Failure points reveal where the policy actually matters.
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
- Implication: If your heart’s not fonder, they weren’t absent enough.
- Too-near absence is just muted presence. Extend the gap until longing spikes, or no-one cares anymore. Clarity either way.

Anyone who enacts one of these norms is broadcasting a personal desire. Echo to confirm; if they recoil, you’ve unmasked a performance.

These proverbs embed a hidden boundary, x ≥ k, beyond which the advice reverses.

“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”
- Implication: A bird in the hand is worth less than three in the bush.
- The risk‑adjusted math flips once the opportunity is big enough. Trade away the sure thing.
“A picture is worth a thousand words.”
- Implication: A picture is worth less than ten thousand words.
- When a 10,000‑word technical doc costs pennies to create, store, and search, prefer text. Pictures smuggle ambiguity.
“Look before you leap.”
- Implication: If others are leaping, assume they looked.
- A mass of people already leaping marks discovered value. Verify quickly, then jump while uncertainty is still cheap.
“No pain, no gain.”
- Implication: If there’s no gain, there should be no pain.
- Discomfort untracked by progress is malpractice. Make sure your pain is paying you.

There is a point beyond which proverbial guidance still applies, but in reverse. Locate that point; once crossed, do the opposite.

Here the wisdom isn’t about truth, but about the heuristics people use to guess at truth.

“The grass is always greener on the other side.”
- Implication: Your grass looks greener to them.
- If outsiders envy your lawn, sell them the fertilizer. Monetize their projection.
“Actions speak louder than words.”
- Implication: Pay attention to unexplained actions.
- Quiet, decisive moves can shout the loudest. Big promises with limp follow‑through are noise.
“Slow and steady wins the race.”
- Implication: Anyone cruising at turtle pace thinks they’re in an endurance match.
- Either sprint early and finish before their compounding hits, or start selling gatorade to both tortoises and hares.
“Birds of a feather flock together.”
- Implication: Change your feathers, change your flock.
- Change your visible signals first (clothes, jargon, writing topics) and your network will reconfigure around the new feathers
“Those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
- Implication: If you don’t live in a glass house, feel free to throw stones.
- If you’ve bullet‑proofed your own reputation, stone‑throwing can be an offensive moat. Fragility is the real glass.

Play with the heuristic to change the game.

Know a proverb that evades these buckets? Drop it in the comments. Let’s find its ELSE together.