h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I was thinking today about how important it is not to crow about it when you win.
And how easy it would be to crow sometimes too - especially when there has been a lot of animosity during the course of a dispute of some sort. It can be tempting to go "I was right, you were wrong, *and* now I've forced you to admit it ".

It's not good to humiliate people when they accept defeat. Let them walk away with their pride intact. And a smile on their face if they can manage it.

There must be a military simile or a sport one or something. Let's see...

If a defeated military leader were to offer his sword, accepting it would be ok, but to make him peel carrots with it would make you a bit of a scumbag.

Or if Morcambe beat Liverpool in the FA Cup Final, there's no need for them to take down the famous Liver birds and drive over them in a steamroller. They would be humiliated enough already.

Leave people with their dignity intact. It's good tactics, but that's not the main reason. The main reason is that letting them keep their dignity is what allows you to keep *yours*.

Only mothers are allowed to say "I told you so".

Mothers are allowed to say "I told you so" only because, well...


They're our mothers.




But, agreed.



"I told you so!" breaks Wheaton's Rule (Don't be a d!).


"I told you so!" is about the most tempting thing anyone can say. In our heads, it's so satisfying. We all want to be right, but being Righteous seems even more satisfying.

Until we say it. Then we realize we're just being petty and more importantly, we're not helping the situation. At the point of saying "I told you so!", whoever one would say this to has already experienced some sense of failure.

But, damn.... when you actually warned someone before about some foreseen repercussion, it's damn hard to resist rubbing it in.



Just keep in mind when you do, you instantly become a .

It's an unpleasant characteristic that's getting harder to avoid these days. So many people in public life (politicians especially) love to do it and the news media loves to report them doing it. So may private citizens love to do it, and the news media loves to report them doing it. It's nothing new, but the amount of it one has to wade through during the course of the day is becoming too much. It's made me change my habits and avoid certain places (on the web, mostly) that I used to go and would still like to but can't bring myself to.

The way news is reported now has changed out of all recognition to how it was 30, 40 years ago. There's an almost zealous focus on individuals; what they did (or didn't do) what they should have done (or not done), why they shouldn't be allowed to do it any more (Resign! Resign!) and why they resigned/were fired/have had to apologise. I'm pretty sure my views on this aspect of news reporting are no secret around here

Moreover, there are certain newspapers - I'm sure I don't need to name them - whose sole reason for being seems to be to crow about how right (in all senses of the word) they are and to shout about how fantastic it is when anyone they dislike does anything wrong, in the biggest headline they can fit on their front page.

It's not a stretch of the imagination to figure that people are influenced by that and will carry it over into their everyday life, when it's something they really ought to have left behind in the school playground.

All you need do is spend a day or two on any social media site to see it in action.

I blame 2legs.

I was slightly conscious that the first post in the thread here might seem like I was sermonising, when it was really a reminder to myself not to, as BG put it, "break Wheaton's Rule". So I'm glad that it didn't sound preacher-ish.

You did rather leave it open as to whether you had been the recipient or the originator, or whether you were just philosophising.

Oh, yes, the 'I told you sos' -- I have to bite my tongue every so often. Usually, I manage.

It is true, it's neither nice nor helpful to rub it in. Yet, it is very tempting (well, with some people, it is).