Ninth law of worker entropy: Difference between revisions

From The Jolly Contrarian
Jump to navigation Jump to search
(Created page with "The anal paradox is a theory of negotiation. It proposes that as the number of people involved in negotiating a contract increases the contract’s brevity, and comprehensibil...")
 
No edit summary
Line 1: Line 1:
The anal paradox is a theory of negotiation. It proposes that as the number of people involved in negotiating a contract increases the contract’s brevity, and comprehensibility and utility ''decreases''. The [[anal paradox]] predicts that the longer a negotiation continues, the more complicated the agreement will become, even though its meaningful content will stay constant or, more likely, decline.
The anal paradox is a theory of negotiation. It proposes that as the number of people involved in negotiating a contract increases the contract’s brevity, and comprehensibility and utility ''decreases''. The [[anal paradox]] predicts that the longer a negotiation continues, the more complicated the agreement will become, even though its meaningful content will stay constant or, more likely, decline.  
 
Briefly stated, however anal it may be to add qualifications, clarifications, [[for the avoidance of doubt]]s, [[without limitation]]s and other forensic {{f|celery}} and {{tag|flannel}}, once these additions have been added, it is even ''more'' anal to request their removal again, seeing as, [[Q.E.D.]], it would make no difference to the legal or economic substance of the agreement if you did. So, inevitably, one doesn’t [[I’m not going to die in a ditch about it|die in a ditch about it]], however appealing by comparison that might, to a [[prose stylist]], seem.
 
There is a threshold (the “[[Schwarzschild radius of document comprehension]]”) beyond which the {{tag|contract}} passes irreversibly into a kind of [[heat death]] of ennui and unintelligibility. An [[Mediocre lawyer|Earth-bound lawyer]] crossing that threshold passes a point of no return: {{Sex|she}} will be unable to resist the fascination of trying to understand the contract, will hold out hope of rescuing it from semantic oblivion, and will eventually be consumed by the colossal forces of gravitational tedium, eventually being regurgitated into a parallel universe as an [[exchange-traded derivatives]] specialist.


Briefly stated, however anal it may be to add qualifications, clarifications, [[for the avoidance of doubt]]s, [[without limitation]]s and other pointless forensic {{tag|flannel}}, once these additions have been added, it is even ''more'' anal for an opposing lawyer to remove them again, seeing as, [[Q.E.D.]], they make no difference to the legal or economic substance of the agreement.




{{plainenglish}}
{{plainenglish}}

Revision as of 18:11, 25 January 2017

The anal paradox is a theory of negotiation. It proposes that as the number of people involved in negotiating a contract increases the contract’s brevity, and comprehensibility and utility decreases. The anal paradox predicts that the longer a negotiation continues, the more complicated the agreement will become, even though its meaningful content will stay constant or, more likely, decline.

Briefly stated, however anal it may be to add qualifications, clarifications, for the avoidance of doubts, without limitations and other forensic celery and flannel, once these additions have been added, it is even more anal to request their removal again, seeing as, Q.E.D., it would make no difference to the legal or economic substance of the agreement if you did. So, inevitably, one doesn’t die in a ditch about it, however appealing by comparison that might, to a prose stylist, seem.

There is a threshold (the “Schwarzschild radius of document comprehension”) beyond which the contract passes irreversibly into a kind of heat death of ennui and unintelligibility. An Earth-bound lawyer crossing that threshold passes a point of no return: she will be unable to resist the fascination of trying to understand the contract, will hold out hope of rescuing it from semantic oblivion, and will eventually be consumed by the colossal forces of gravitational tedium, eventually being regurgitated into a parallel universe as an exchange-traded derivatives specialist.


Plain English Anatomy™ Noun | Verb | Adjective | Adverb | Preposition | Conjunction | Latin | Germany | Flannel | Legal triplicate | Nominalisation | Murder your darlings