Peter Loring Borst
Subject: Brandoliniʼs law

Brandoliniʼs law, attributed to Alberto Brandolini, an Italian independent software development consultant. Unless someone else claims paternity of this absolutely brilliant statement, it seems that he actually is the original author:

The bullshit asimmetry: the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it. — ziobrando (@ziobrando) 11 Janvier 2013

To be sure, a number of people have made similar statements. Ironically, it seems that the “a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes” quote isn’t from Mark Twain but a slightly modified version of Charles Spurgeonʼs “a lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on” (1859) which, in turn, might be inspired by Jonathan Swiftʼs “falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it” (1710).

PLB