"All good is hard. All evil is easy. Dying, losing, cheating, and mediocrity is easy. Stay away from easy"
About this Quote
Scott Alexander’s line reads like a self-help aphorism stripped of incense: blunt, binary, engineered to stick. “All good is hard. All evil is easy” isn’t a metaphysical claim so much as a behavioral one. It’s aimed at the part of a reader that wants loopholes - the hope that decency will feel frictionless, that excellence will arrive without humiliation, repetition, or delayed gratification. Alexander denies that fantasy outright, then doubles down with a deliberately ungenerous list: “dying, losing, cheating, and mediocrity.” Notice the odd coupling. “Dying” sits next to “cheating” not because they’re morally equivalent, but because they’re outcomes you slide into when you stop steering. The shared trait is passivity.
The subtext is a critique of modern incentive landscapes: algorithms that reward outrage, workplaces that reward performative competence, and social systems where cutting corners is often cheaper than doing things right. “Easy” here is not leisure; it’s entropy. It’s the default setting of a life left unattended, where the lowest-effort choice compounds until it looks like a personality.
“Stay away from easy” is the rhetorical pivot: a command that reframes discipline as moral hygiene, not grindset cosplay. It’s also quietly suspicious of our culture’s obsession with optimization. The easiest path frequently comes dressed as efficiency, comfort, even “being realistic.” Alexander’s intent is to make readers wary of that seduction - to treat ease as a smell test. If it feels too smooth, it may be greased by avoidance.
The subtext is a critique of modern incentive landscapes: algorithms that reward outrage, workplaces that reward performative competence, and social systems where cutting corners is often cheaper than doing things right. “Easy” here is not leisure; it’s entropy. It’s the default setting of a life left unattended, where the lowest-effort choice compounds until it looks like a personality.
“Stay away from easy” is the rhetorical pivot: a command that reframes discipline as moral hygiene, not grindset cosplay. It’s also quietly suspicious of our culture’s obsession with optimization. The easiest path frequently comes dressed as efficiency, comfort, even “being realistic.” Alexander’s intent is to make readers wary of that seduction - to treat ease as a smell test. If it feels too smooth, it may be greased by avoidance.
Quote Details
| Topic | Self-Discipline |
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