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Thomas comments on Rationality Quotes June 2013 - Less Wrong
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Source? It's pithy, yet not on the usual quote compilations that I checked.
Sounds like Takamachi Nanoha to me.
That's more along the lines of, "I will convert my enemies to friends by STARLIGHT BREAKER TO THE FACE".
Offhand I can't think of a single well-recorded real-life historical instance where this has ever worked.
Substitute "friends" with "trading partners" and the outlook improves though.
Fair, the British were totally befriending their way through history for a while.
"Befriending" by force? Well, post-WWII Japan worked out pretty well for the United States. As for dealing with would-be enemies by actually befriending them, Alexander Nevsky sucked up to the Mongols and ended up getting a much better deal for Russia than many of the other places the Mongols invaded.
That's what her reputation turned out like, and what TSAB propaganda likes to claim. It's not what she actually did. Let me count the befriendings:
Alisa Bannings. The sole "Nanoha-style befriending": Nanoha punched her to make her stop bothering Suzuka, after which they somehow became friends. No starlight breaker, though.
Alicia. Mostly Alicia was the one beating up Nanoha. It's true that Nanoha eventually defeated her in a climactic battle, after first sort-of-befriending her along more normal lines; however, Nanoha's victory in that battle isn't what finally turned Alicia. That's down to the actions of her insane, brain-damaged mother.
Vita. Neither motivation nor loyalty ever wavered.
Reinforce. Decided to work with Nanoha after Hayate asked her to. Nanoha's starlight breaker was helpful for temporarily weakening the defence program, but was not instrumental in the actual motivation change.
Vivio. ...do I really need to go there?
Her reputation for converting enemies is not undeserved, but she's not converting them by defeating them; she's converting and defeating them. Amusingly, the movies (which are officially TSAB propaganda) show marginal causation where there's only correlation.
Oh, and explicitly because people have asked me not to, you're hereby invited to the rizon/#nanoha irc channel. I'm relatively confident you won't show up, which is good - it has a tendency to distract authors when I do this. :P
Did you confuse Alicia with Fate?
No.
I'm just opinionated on the subject.
MAHOU SHOUJO TRANSHUMANIST NANOHA
"Girl," whispered Precia. The little golden-haired girl's eyes were fluttering open, amid the crystal cables connecting the girl's head to the corpse within its stasis field. "Girl, do you remember me?"
It took the girl some time to speak, and when she did, her voice was weak. "Momma...?"
The memories were there.
The brain pattern was there.
Her daughter was there.
"Momma...?" repeated Alicia, her voice a little stronger. "Why are you crying, Momma? Did something happen? Where are we?"
Precia collapsed across her daughter, weeping, as some part of her began to believe that the long, long task was finally over.
So, in case anyone is still confused about the point of the Quantum Physics Sequence, it was to help future mad scientists love their reconstructed daughters properly :)
An Idiot Plot is any plot that goes away if the characters stop being idiots. A Muggle Plot is any plot which dissolves in the presence of transhumanism and polyamory. That exact form is surprisingly common; e.g. from what I've heard, canon!Twilight has two major sources of conflict, Edward's belief that turning Bella into a vampire will remove her soul, and Bella waffling between Edward and Jacob. I didn't realize it until Baughn pointed it out, but S1 Nanoha - not that I've watched it, but I've read fanfictions - counts as a Muggle Plot because the entire story goes away if Precia accepts the pattern theory of identity.
After a bit of googling, I don't think it's a quote by Maimonides.
The closest I could find is this passage of the Babilonian Talmud:
That's because it's usually attributed to Abe Lincoln, with an exception.
That's kind of amusing, considering that Lincoln is also famous for destroying his enemies the other way.
He tried the nice way first...
This would seem to further weaken the quote in as much as it is evidence that the tactic doesn't work.
I don't know in what context Lincoln said this (if he really said it), but the tactic worked very well for him at the convention in the summer of 1860. (In those days, the conventions would start without people knowing who would be nominated. But often you had an idea, and Lincoln was a long shot.) All of the other candidates then joined Lincoln's cabinet (his ‘Team of Rivals’).
DId not work in one notable case, to which the quote may or may not have originally been applied.
Of course it doesn't apply all the time.
Just because your enemies will not always be your friends does not mean it is useless to TRY to convert them to be one's friends. It is, as most things, a bet. One must know, beforehand, if it is WORTH it to try.
I would say it's a useful quote because it provides an alternative to the usual "smash them as soon as they oppose you" deal going on.
Nevertheless, the statement to which I replied remains evidence against rather than evidence for. You are of course welcome to support the sentiment despite the anecdote in question---such things aren't typically considered to be strong evidence either way.
It may also be better than the even more common "deal with them as you can, but don't expect they'll ever be on your side".
Found on the Forbes site a week or so ago. Then I've googled it further and found some more occurences. Interestingly the quote is usually attributed to Abraham Lincoln. But he was certainly not the first with this nifty idea,
I'm not sure where this, and the idea is good, but it doesn't sound like Maimonides. He was extremely willing to declare that those who disagreed with him were drunks, whoremongers and idolators. Rambam would rarely have talked about how his own personal goals anyways. It really isn't his style. I'm skeptical that this is a genuine quote due to him.
does anyone know the original source in Maimonides writings?