I

In high school, I convinced my cross-country team to wear shirts that said:

“To run faster, you must run faster.”

Some people didn’t get it. One day, we were stretching next to some cheerleaders, and they began to debate whether the quote had meaning.

“It’s not actually saying anything! It’s like, like…”

“No, it makes sense! You’ve gotta run faster if you want to run faster. There’s no trick.”

When I tell people that story, half agree with Cheerleader #1, the other half with #2. No obvious pattern; some people are just tautology people. If you know, you know.

II

I fucking love tautologies. A logically self-evident statement clears the air: there’s nothing to agree or disagree with. You just have to accept it and move on. It is what it is.

III

A tautology, like the eighteenth camel, can be helpful even if it adds nothing.

My favorite teacher survived a bout with cancer in our senior year and came back smiling. Then Race to the Top broke her spirit: Delaware’s new mandates forced her to teach special ed with no training, making her job feel almost impossible.

One day after school, we talked about it for two hours. She was in tears, not knowing how she’d make it through the next year. I didn’t know what to say: I had no life experience and no understanding of district policy. All I had was tautology:

“If it can’t continue, it won’t continue. Something will change. Maybe they’ll change the rules, or maybe you’ll find a new school. But it won’t be like this forever.”

Somehow, this worked. She was happier when I left. I couldn’t stop Arne Duncan’s reign of terror, but I could help Dr. Greenstone reframe: if it can’t go on like this, it won’t go on like this.

IV

Nature is tautological. An object in motion keeps moving. That which survives, survives.

That second one turned Douglas Adams into a tautology guy:

I thought about that for a while and it finally occurred to me that a tautology is something that if it means nothing, not only that no information has gone into it but that no consequence has come out of it.

So, we may have accidentally stumbled upon the ultimate answer; it’s the only thing, the only force, arguably the most powerful of which we are aware, which requires no other input, no other support from any other place, is self evident, hence tautological, but nevertheless astonishingly powerful in its effects.

“Astonishingly powerful” undersells the point: a good tautology is undeniable. To run faster, you really must run faster. If you can’t run faster, then you won’t run faster — but the only solution is to run faster.

When I designed those cross-country shirts, maybe I was thinking of Adams. Or Ayn Rand, another high school influence. To her, reality itself was tautological: “A is A”.¹

V

Back when I streamed Magic: the Gathering, I used to attract viewers with wild decks, then alienate them by playing with an insane degree of conservatism.

“You missed lethal, Aaron!”

“If they had exactly the right three cards, attacking was dangerous.”

“That’s incredibly unlikely!”

“We can kill them later when it’s 100% safe. As long as I don’t lose, I always win.”

In the world championship quarterfinal, I faced a Hall of Famer who was very skilled, but notorious for playing slowly. In the pre-match interview, I explained that I planned to stall until his time ran out. As long as I stopped him from winning, he was guaranteed to lose.

VI

I used to be a professional moderator. The forum I ran had many rules.

If I ever own my own forum, I may try what I call “the perfect moderation policy”:

“If no one becomes a jerk, we won’t have jerks.”

Divisive content is designed to spread. So is divisive behavior. If acting a certain way provokes others to act the same way, the behavior spreads like fire: that’s why they call it a “flame war”.² You’ll always have would-be provocateurs — but to successfully provoke, they must provoke someone. Ergo, the perfect policy bans becoming provoked.

VII

When I got to Yale, I was delighted to find these banners in our rowing tank:

You can’t avoid the past: it happened. But it only happened in the past. The present is what’s happening now.

Some mantras fail. You won’t always be the best. You won’t always outwork the other team. But last year will always be last year. And if this year doesn’t work out, there’s always next year.

Is it stupid? Maybe. But if it works, it works.

 

1. After further research, I’ve discovered that Objectivists don’t like it when you call their first axiom tautological, even if you meant it as a compliment. No wonder I didn’t get that scholarship.
2. If you correct me in the comments, that counts as divisive.