Merlin on Complaining

I think there’s a lot of people who would say “you’re never allowed to complain about something unless you have a solution,” and I disagree. I think if you have a really good complaint about something it’s not always your job to have to fix it too. And furthermore, the people who do go out and fix things hate it more than anything else in the world when people think they understand how to fix things.

— Merlin Mann


Siracusa’s Corollary1

The ability to understand what’s wrong with something has very little direct correlation with the ability to do a better thing.

— John Siracusa2


  1. Hypercritical Episode #43, The Scorpion and the Frog, Minute 11. Published November 18, 2011. 

  2. John sent me more background on this concept from this Ars Technica post from 2009. It’s a good read. 

Posted on 01 November 2011