That particular aphorism, much beloved by inspirational speakers at get-rich-quick seminars, is not only based on a wildly reaching interpretation of how Chinese characters are written, but the idea behind it is that of, well, an opportunist who tries to profit off crises
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You'll notice that "Crisis = danger + opportunity" expresses the exact opposite meaning of "May you live in interesting times" being a "curse", i.e. it's telling people that chaos and disruption is good and you should try to find a way to benefit from it
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The full text of the original saying, "Better to be a dog in a time of peace than a man in a time of disaster", does serve as a fuller and more explicit rejection of the whole American "disruption" mentality though It's something disaster capitalists would directly argue with
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I've lived through too many sales seminars where they actively try to goad you like a high school bully into proving your manhood by quitting your job and staking your household finances on some predatory MLM
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"Would you rather try something great and fail, like a man, or just live the rest of your life in comfort and fear like a pussy" The latter because I'm not a fucking idiot That's the wisdom of my ancestors
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there is of course the less well-known american saying, "opportunity=crisis+wealth"
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which is just an algebraic transformation of the first saying, if you want to stretch it opportunity=crisis-danger
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μολὼν λαβέ might be literally “come and take them” but with grammar structures English doesn’t have, “from my cold dead hands” really is closer to the original idea being expressed.
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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"is accurate to Chinese beliefs" as in interesting times are seen as bad? (Having trouble parsing that sentence, sorry.)
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Yes, the idea of the saying is that "May you live in interesting times" is a curse
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