“The One With the Biggest Hammer Wins”

Published on May 24, 2022 (updated Jul 9, 2024), filed under philosophy, politics, misc. (Share this post, e.g., on Mastodon.)

Highly evolved beings do not hit themselves on the head with a hammer, because it hurts.

They also don’t hit anyone else on the head with a hammer, for the same reason.

Evolved beings have noticed that if you hit someone else with a hammer, that person gets hurt. If you keep doing it, that person gets angry. If you keep getting him angry, he finds a hammer of his own and eventually hits you back. Evolved beings therefore know that if you hit someone else with a hammer, you are hitting yourself with a hammer. It makes no difference if you have more hammers, or a bigger hammer. Sooner or later you’re going to get hurt.

This result is observable.

Now non-evolved beings—primitive beings—observe the same thing. They simply don’t care.

Evolved beings are not willing to play “The One with the Biggest Hammer Wins.” Primitive beings play nothing else.

Incidentally, this is largely a male game. Among your species, very few women are willing to play Hammers Hurt. They play a new game. They say, “If I had a hammer, I’d hammer out justice, I’d hammer out freedom, I’d hammer out love between my brothers and my sisters, all over this land.”

I don’t know of a better description of the current state of mankind. How great it would be if we stopped playing “Hammers Hurt.”

Quoted with friendly permission from the most recommendable The Complete Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch.

About Me

I’m Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I’m an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I’ve worked as a technical lead and engineering manager at various companies (e.g., Google); I’m an active web and tool developer (code optimization, digital defense), a contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and a book author (O’Reilly, Frontend Dogma).

I love trying things—in web development and engineering management, but also in politics and philosophy, where I hold to one idea in particular: that we can only be well if we take good care of everyone. Here on meiert.com I talk about some of my perspectives and experiences. (Interpret charitably but be critical—and share feedback and advice that makes my work better.)