Wiio’s Law: Communication usually fails, except by accident

Just found this interesting set of laws, called Wiio’s laws:

1. Communication usually fails, except by accident.
   • If communication can fail, it will.
   • If communication cannot fail, it still most usually fails.
   • If communication seems to succeed in the intended way, there’s a misunderstanding.
   • If you are content with your message, communication certainly fails.
2. If a message can be interpreted in several ways, it will be interpreted in a manner that maximizes the damage.
3. There is always someone who knows better than you what you meant with your message.
4. The more we communicate, the worse communication succeeds.
   • The more we communicate, the faster misunderstandings propagate.
5. In mass communication, the important thing is not how things are but how they seem to be.
6. The importance of a news item is inversely proportional to the square of the distance.
7. The more important the situation is, the more probably you forget an essential thing that you remembered a moment ago.

And there are three corollaries by Korpela:

1. If nobody barks at you, your message did not get through
2. Search for information fails, except by accident
3. Give the student a chance to realize he misunderstood it all

These are all taken from this blog post.

At this time, I don’t have any thing else to add to these laws. But I’m sure that in the years to come, I am going to quote Wiio’s laws #1 and #2, and Korpela’s corollary #1 repeatedly to people. (Just like I love to quote the Three Chinese Curses:

• Third Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times
• Second Chinese curse: May you come to the attention of important people
• First (and most dangerous) Chinese curse: May you get what you wish for

And this concludes my first ever parenthetical remark which has a bullet list embedded in it (And also concludes this blog post))