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That reminds me of one of my favorite quotes: judge others by their intentions and yourself by your actions.

The problem with this is that humans are actually really bad at reading others' intentions-not to mention the fact that several people who commit atrocious acts see themselves as good, e.g. Al Capone.

My aim is to judge others by their repeated actions and track record. This is hard, but I've definitely found it worth doing.

An even more extreme example than Capone is Pablo Escobar. He fashioned himself as an honored man of the people in Columbia, even as he was ordering the (often brutal) executions hundreds of police officers, judges, public officials, and personal enemies.

Yet when he died, the people of Columbia wept in the streets.

This requires knowing others' intentions. And that means you have to ask & trust what they say & not make assumptions about what their intentions are.

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