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[nancylebov]

Cheops' Law is "Everything takes longer and costs more".

I'm thinking that "Wars take longer and cost more" would work, but it would be nice to have a historical figure attached. I've had one suggestion for Napolean, which seems reasonable. I kind of like Jefferson Davis (president of the Confederacy), but I fear that not enough people will get it. Any other suggestions?

Comments

[louiseroho.livejournal.com]

Alexander.

[anniemal.livejournal.com]

The Great

"Everything takes longer and costs more"

[anniemal.livejournal.com]

Just for recognisability purposes. Just "Alexander" is too far removed from most people's history. I had no idea about him from grade school. I read up on him just a year or two ago. I still can't fathom what drew him to live his life that way. Whence comes the urge to conquer? And I'm still trying to find out how being part of his empire influenced people's daily lives.

He must've said the Greek equivalent at one of those more difficult points in his journey. Yes, when I'm not having wild, mind-blowing sex with handsome young men, I read a bunch about world history. How much sticks? My profession isn't based on it.

I think there's a temporal correlation to Murphy's Law. Or maybe I made it up. "Doing Everything takes longer than you think it will." If I didn't make it up, someone should've. Add in the past eight years' economy, and it's a pat thing the ex-pres. must've thought at some point. Probably right before he thought "How to distract the press and disguise it?". >:}

Re: "Everything takes longer and costs more"

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Not only is there Cheops' Law: Everything takes longer and costs more, there's a corollary: Everything takes longer and costs more, even if you take Cheops' Law into account.

As for Alexander the Great, I don't know why he did it, but I suspect a piece of it was that it was the sort of thing he was good at. It's very satisfying to hit the right level of challenge.

Re: "Everything takes longer and costs more"

[anniemal.livejournal.com]

Riiight. I forgot about that.

[kallisti.livejournal.com]

"No Budget survives contact with reality"
- Farrell J. McGovern II

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Edward III

[ndrosen.livejournal.com]

Or Frederick the Second of Austria (to a large extent responsible for starting the Thirty Years War). But if even Jefferson Davis is too obscure . . .

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Quintus Fabius Maximus, though that may also be too obscure.

-- Steve also acknowledges that Fabius didn't start that war either, which may undermine the joke.

[bugsybanana.livejournal.com]

Hannibal might work, though.

Or maybe Ludendorff.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

LBJ

or possibly, Robert MacNamara.

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

Funny, I was thinking Nixon. Same war, different flake.

[landley.livejournal.com]

You could go with Lyndon B. Johnson from two or 3 different angles. (Both Vietnam and the war on poverty/gravity.)

[zsero.livejournal.com]

Wars are of necessity run by governments — in the minarchist Libertarian view that's pretty much what governments are for — so of course they take longer and cost more. Governments aren't good at anything, even the things they're best at. (If that doesn't make immediate sense, read up on the doctrine of comparative advantage, with emphasis on that word "comparative".)

Consider the mess that is military procurement. Then consider the fact that that mess exists for a very good reason, and it may well be better than any feasible alternative. (I'm open to the idea that in this case the cure has become worse than the disease, but it's not obvious to me that this is so; those who propose it may be underestimating the disease.)

Note that I am a hawk. I am decidedly not antiwar, I think that wars can be just, and in particular that the wars the USA is currently fighting are just and right. But I'm not surprised that they have been mismanaged as much as they have; instead I'm thankful that it hasn't been even worse.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

My point isn't that governments are wasteful in how they handle war. It's that people generally underestimate the cost of war when they are trying to figure out whether a war is worth doing.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

It's still too soon to use GWB?

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

That's my feeling. I want this to register as a general principle without distracting issues of partisanship. My dream is for people to remember this the next time they're considering a war.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

I don't really have a good answer for the figurehead, then. So many war leaders that are remembered are the victors, or are remembered only sympathetically. Unless you aim for Hitler...

I wonder if you could approach it from the opposite angle, if you are seeking to convince those who believe recent wars were necessary -- point out that wars should be "done right", and "right" cannot accede to the needs of timeliness or budget.

[ndrosen.livejournal.com]

"I do not like wars. Their outcomes are never certain." Queen Elizabeth the First said that, OWTTE, IIRC.

[sylvar.livejournal.com]

Since when has obscurity not been a selling point?

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you were kidding, but I suppose I'm aiming for the right amount of obscurity. I want slogans which people will buy, which means either that they're understandable on the surface, or what's obscure to many people is comprehensible (perhaps with a bit of a stretch) to enough people that they feel cool for getting it.

That being said, one of the things I like about my business is that I can put a slogan out, and five years later someone will get the necessary piece of information and start laughing. However, that's not what I make money from.

[sylvar.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. :)

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

If you use Napoleon, be sure to spell his name right.

[landley.livejournal.com]

My current email .sig is possibly one of the geekiest ever:

GPLv3 is to GPLv2 what Attack of the Clones is to The Empire Strikes Back.

Is _that_ obscure enough for you? :)

[terriwells.livejournal.com]

How about Machiavelli?

[kugelblitz.livejournal.com]

Sun Tzu? Zhukov?