Trying to make sense of the quote… bear with me:
So there are two versions of that quote floating about:
Trust someone as far as you can throw them
Do NOT trust someone as far as you can throw them
Question 1: I agree it’s contextual but which makes more sense? First implies a limited trust and the negation implies negative correlation with distance. I think.
I like the Wodehouse quote: “I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him, and I’m no shot-put champion.” - P. G. Wodehouse, The Code of the Woosters (1938)
So from the first link, let’s trust the baby (a random baby… not yours) as far as you can throw it. Will assume shot put than a hammer throw for the baby as it makes more sense. (Hammer throwing babies is for emergencies) Record for 7kg shotput for men is ~20m. Most people could do 10m with little training. Which is a fair distance to trust a baby. Anything more and I might be too late to react.
A random toddler, you can throw less distance and therefore trust it less? And what about a random human, they might not let you throw them.
Let’s take negation… What about computers? Back in the day, computers were massive so can’t trust a mainframe computer as far as you could throw it. So I mistrust it less (due to complexity) than say an ultrabook, which I could throw far enough. Of course based on your experience with computers, the negation of this applies.
Question 2: So on this scale (throwing ability), what could I trust the most? Nothing? My voice? Tangible things?
Question 3: does the metaphor hold or am I just trying to make it fit?
- "Yes, I trust the rocket, we threw into space together… "
- “I don’t trust SD cards, discs were better (or vice versa)”
- “I used to trust my scooter but ever since losing my hands…”
Maybe I’m overthinking this and the fact that the negation can also hold true means that it’s literally a matter of trust than my ability to throw.
If I can’t throw them very far: “I trust you about as far as I can throw you.”
If I can throw them far: “I don’t trust you about as far as I can throw you.”
Well put! Thank you.
You are trying to analyze an absurd statement with logic. The premise is faulty, which jives with this LLM generated and formatted nature of this post. The computer is struggling to grasp the human element.
Your actual ability to throw a person is irrelevant. If you excelled at the gym you could probably get to a point where your people throwing abilities become good, if a tad disturbing. That’s only one sliding scale of the adage. The other is your amount of trust, which is subjective and never defined. So even if you could throw a consenting average adult an impressive 24 feet forward, that doesn’t automatically imply you trust them a great deal because that scale isn’t fixed. And indeed most people don’t posses the ability to throw people at those distances, which is why it serves as the metaphorical comparative scale in the phrase. Whether the statement is used in the affirmative or negative is also irrelevant. The message transported is the same.
Q2+3 only make sense under the faulty premise that this statement can be used and analyzed logically. Since that’s wrong, the questions are irrelevant.
You would have to be sociopathic or psychopathic to actually throw a baby. Most people are neither in sufficient amounts, which makes your paragraph on baby throwing techniques only disturbing. Whether you are a human or an LLM masquerading as one.
Ouch.
But thank you? a. For considering my attempt at formatting and absurdity with clankers. I would argue that to be human is to accept the absurdity of it all. But I guess it is getting tricky…
Out of curiosity, I did ask some llms my baby throwing question:
- perplexity just straight up said no. Unethical question.
- Chatgpt treated it like a physics problem. All while asking me about technique…
- deepseek gave a balanced reply. Followed by “Do not attempt”. Which I thought was fair.
b. For at least entertaining my notion I understand that it’s all subjective… that’s why I was trying to define a scale, or at least a comparison.
c. You did help me get closer to an answer. If I take a loose definition of Trust as being my ability to predict its behaviour [and its ability to not harm me] (which I think is fair but arguable…), I would trust a rock more than an adult (and somehow even a baby more than an adult). In my hypothetical world, a trusted consenting adult would help me throwing them thus increasing the overall distance. So the positive correlation is more fitting in most cases (at least in that assumption).
I fully acknowledge the absurdity and the stupid premise. I thought this was nostupidquestions.
{Edited to try fix formatting… Ugh can’t. It stays. Thank you for bearing with me! Hope you have a nice day.}
As confusing as it might seem, “I trust you as far as I can throw you,” and “I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you,” essentially mean the same thing.
One could probably argue that the negation is explicitly saying “I don’t trust you,” while the standard phrase implies a limited amount of trust. But in practice, throwing ability is never considered, and both mean that trust is in short supply.
I hear you and yep, since throwing ability is limited, trust is in short supply.
Which is why I wanted to consider that throwing ability can vary and therefore the amount of trust. And what can I extrapolate from this scale!
The implication of the phrase is not that trust is variable depending on the subject’s or object’s physical abilities. Its meaning is more that one doesn’t trust the other person’s motivation, so the trust only goes as far as one’s own ability to affect the other’s figurative position (“throwing” them.)
