themadkat
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Posts posted by themadkat
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I can only say one thing. You, by yourself, cannot fix this. It is impossible. A relationship will die if both people are not willing to work on it. If your girlfriend does not freely choose to commit to making this better, there is no way around the fact that it must end. If the relationship is not worthwhile enough to her that she would fight for it that means she would not fight for you, and you can and should have a better woman than that.
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I daydream constantly. I daydream about all sorts of things. Unlike the author's findings though, my daydreams frequenly are either violent or sexual (not both at once, thankfully, though one can lead into the other). But I also daydream about things that have happened, things that could have happened, what have you. I spend a lot of time daydreaming about alternate universes, like one of my alter egos in a story-scape. This is certainly useful for writing fiction. I don't tend to daydream much about my future or what I'm going to do. That's more often the subject of more straightforward consideration, full-on thoughts where I'm focus. My daydreams are more about drifting away, I think. I'm often accused of having my "head in the clouds" or being "absentminded", but I get great pleasure out of considering random possibilities and alternatives.
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I know this is an old thread but it seems worthwhile to resurrect it. I saw this movie again last night. It was unfortunate that the DVD refused to play an important scene and I had a few too many folks milling about the area in the beginning, but I was still able to enjoy it. I have to say I enjoyed it even more the second time. What is the best thing this movie has going for it? Characterizations, and I'm a sucker for excellent characterizations. All the main characters are both written well and acted superbly and that is so rare these days. The casting was excellent. Everyone was believable and able to express a lot of depth of emotion while saying very few things.
After seeing it a second time my take-home message from this movie is that no one can box you in better than yourself. Your worst enemies are your unexamined premises, especially when you refuse to seriously question them even after they cause a major contradiction in your pursuit of happiness. Especially in the character of Ennis, he is the one most repressing himself as an individual, not the society around him. It's his own fear that is his enemy. You can see that to some degree that has even been transmitted to his children. The scene where he is in the car with his daughter, Alma Jr, and neither of them says much when they both clearly have many things they would like to express, I ended up shouting at the screen "How much repression can you fit in just one truck?" Alma is barely able to ask her father to live with him when she clearly wants to and it seems she has more in common with him than with her mother and stepfather.
These are just some of my initial thoughts. If someone has seen the movie and remembers it well enough I'd love to continue to discuss philosophical points about it. I don't care whether or not you actually liked the movie, although certainly if you didn't like it we may have some divergent interpretations of events in the movie.
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By taking a look at the constitution, is it safe to say that the Founding Fathers had a clear philosophy that was Objectivism? And if so when did this country stray from that path?
The philosophy followed by the founding fathers was not Objectivism. Objectivism had not been formulated yet. The philosophy followed by the founding fathers was the principles of the Enlightenment and classical liberalism.
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Yeesh. No wonder I'm a misanthrope. I want to see heroes in the world but when I look at the majority of mankind all I see is tribalistic garbage like this. What a waste.
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Before I actually describe the problem at hand, I think it is imperative that I provide a little backstory to help make things clear.
My senior year in high school, I had a steady girlfriend. It started off great; she was gorgeous, strong willed and very individualistic, and she is the only girl I have ever truly been in love with. The relationship went downhill as it progressed: she cheated on me a few times, would go through periods where she didn't know how she felt for me, and would ignore me and insult me at parties or when we were with friends (ditched me at my senior prom, for instance). She ended our relationship because she didn't want to be dating me when I would be in school two hours away from her, because she knew she would cheat on me, and she also said that if we stayed in a relationship, she would end up hating me, and she didn't want that: she'd much rather remain good friends. I agreed, because I didn't want to lose her.
We talked every now and then when I was at school, and hooked up occasionally when I came home from breaks. I justified hooking up with her because before and after each time, she told me she still had feelings for me, and I was hoping our physical relations would bring us back together. Even though I reminded myself that she took advantage of me, used me and at times treated me like shit, there were many amazing times as well. She was almost like two different people: when we were alone, together, she was perfect. We got along great and were very happy together. The other side was when we were with groups of people, where she would ignore me and walk away if I tried talking to her. There were also times when I came home when she told me she was falling for me again, and even at one point tearfully admitted that she was sorry for taking me for granted and ruining our relationship. Basically, she is very bipolar. When it was good, it was very good and when it was bad, it was shitty.
Now, one year later, I can officially say that I am no longer in love with her, nor do I harbor any feelings that can be classified as more than just friends. I can also fully admit that she is, by today's definition, a "slut". She lost her virginity to me, which she was glad about because she wanted to lose it to someone she loved, but since then she has had sex with two random guys, both times when she first met them and has told me that to her, sex has no special meaning. She cheated on me, cheated on her next boyfriend, just recently cheated on her current boyfriend with her ex-boyfriend, and will often hook up with random guys when single. She will also make up excuses and deny cheating.
When I was away at school I was happy because I had distance from her. Now that I am home, she wants to hang out with me, as she still views me as a close friend. To be honest, I don't really want to but at the same time I do because I am still very, very attracted to her in a purely sexual way. This is my dilemma: I am physically attracted to this girl, who is both horrid and amazing at the same time, and I hate myself for it. I have a huge desire to sleep with her, just one more time and it somewhat sickens me because I know now how sexually promiscuous she is with other guys. I feel that, by sleeping with her, I will conquer not her, but the injustices she has done to me. All of the shit she has put me through will go away if I sleep with her. I don't know why, I just feel like that will give me one last sense of ownership, something I haven't felt over her in a long time. On the other hand, I also want to because I feel like if we sleep together, we will connect like we used to, even if only for one more time. Deep down I still care about her, so sleeping with her will fulfill both needs. At least, I think so.
As I said she wants to hang out. Part of me doesn't because I am to good for her, and am sick of putting up with her. Part of me does because I know that she is attracted to me, and if I really want to we will sleep together. Part of me also wants to explain all this to her, although I doubt she'll comprehend it all, and the last thing I want is her to misinterpret my feelings. Are any of my feelings rational or moral, or I am just mixed up from everything I've been through? By sleeping with her again, would I just be degrading myself and my one sense of self worth?
Sorry for the lengthy post, but thank you to those of you who read it. Figuring this out is very important to me.
I see a lot of good responses here already, but I wanted to add that from my standpoint it is a simple matter of justice. There is no reason for you to be treated this way. You are a valuable individual and you need to be treated as such, not as someone to be led around by the nose at another's convenience. The problem is, no one can enforce this but you. You've got to insist that anyone you deal with, not just this girl, treat you in accordance with your worth, and if they don't, you need to walk away. I know this is easier said than done, believe me. I've made this mistake too. But do not let another use your strength as your weakness. And definitely don't let yourself be ruled by your package. However good the sex may be, it's not worth how you'll feel about yourself afterwards when she throws you away again. This girl not only doesn't respect you, she obviously has no respect for herself either, which makes her dangerous to herself and others. There is a slim possibility she really cares for you, but even if that's true, she has way too much work to do on herself before she should even approach you.
There's a lot of good people out there who would be glad to have you as a friend or partner and who will treat you as an equal. This girl has debased herself and is trying to take you with her. Don't do it. You can be better than that.
One final thing: Don't be guilty that you still find her attractive. I've seen some people on topics like these more or less imply that there's something wrong with you for the fact that physically she still gets you going. Don't sweat it. Just recognize that it's something you're not going to act on and there's no need to sweat your physical responses.
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Here's one article to get you started. I'm at work and don't have much time but I'm happy to post newer articles later (this one's from 99). This is just the tip of the iceberg. There's much more.
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/1999-03-25/...cain-a-war-hero
McCain is a barking loony sometimes, and getting old to boot, which is sure to exacerbate the problem. Do we really need someone running the country who can't keep it together when he's pissed off?As for global warming, I'm not so skeptical anymore. I'm not sure why this forum is so uniform in its poor opinion of the world's scientific community on this particular issue. One has to wonder, are there other whole fields of science that have been hijacked by a political agenda for decades? I can see groupthink, politics, and money affecting scientific output over a limited period of time, but the science on GW has been building for decades now and more and more skeptics are coming around now. From what I've read, every scientific body has agreed that man is contributing to global warming. Even the American Association of Petroleum Geologists last year had to eat crow and revise its stance to say that man was contributing to it. This is an organization that has a great deal to lose by such an admission and it still makes such a statement. That's pretty compelling.
Isn't it time to get ready for the next phase, what to actually do about this? From a market-based perspective, what are the options?
I think it goes beyond being worried about one particular animal or another, but rather what happens to a particular ecosystem
The forum isn't uniform. I definitely think climate change is occurring, and it may or may not be catastrophic at this point. However, I am not an Objectivist, so take that as you will. For me, the jury is still out on whether or how much humans have a hand in the change. What I believe the best thing to do is at this point is stop trying to prevent climate change (which is now impossible, if it wasn't always practically impossible) and work on dealing with the changes that are to come. To do that, clearly hobbling technology is not the answer.
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At the end of the day John McCain is a crazy old man and is the last person we want with his finger on the big red button. Several folks who have known him for a long time say that he is not in control of himself and prone to over-the-top outbursts. Combine that with the fact that his military service was a total joke (he more or less collaborated with the North Vietnamese for several years) and that his political record is slimy from the beginning and I don't see how anyone can vote for him.
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I would hardly call this band Objectivist, but my "theme song" so to speak is by No Doubt off their sleeper album The Beacon Street Collection:
"That's Just Me"
You think that I will change but you know that will never be I'm just that way, and that's just me
Well it's just the way I am and I am doin' all I can why can't you see, I just can't change
I could care less, what you see, I'm just nevertheless here for me...
You always get what you want but still keep lookin', I guess you just never get what you need
With your eyes wide open you still keep lookin' for your dreams, that's just me
Doesn't matter what you say cause my confidence will lead the way words will never do, sad but true
And if I didn't act this way well it just wouldn't be the same and that wouldn't do, cause I'm not you
I could care less, what you see, I'm just nevertheless here for me...
You always get what you want but still keep lookin' I guess you just never get what you need
With your eyes wide open you still keep lookin' for your dreams, that's just me
With your eyes wide open you still keep lookin' for your dreams, that's just me
That's just me, that's just me
Well it's just the way I am I am no Larry or a Sam why can't you see, I'm just that way
Well there it is it's right here, so crystal clear, well there it is it's right here
So crystal clear in front of my face
You always get what you want but never get what you need you want it
I guess you're just nevertheless lookin' for your dreams
I could care less what you see
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God this movie irks me. I'd almost like to go see it so I can help refute it if people ever bring it up in the future but I hate the thought of giving them my money. It'd be worse than the fact I paid to see Passion of the Christ.
I'm so disappointed in Ben Stein...
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My philosophy professor brought up a really interesting, albeit highly unlikely, situation and asked what we would do. Here is the situation:
Imagine a man has strapped a bomb with a timer to an infant, and if it goes off it will kill thousands of people. It is possible to defuse the bomb, but only if it is removed from the baby. If the bomb is removed, however, the baby will die. It is your decision what to do with the bomb.
In this situation, wouldn't the only ethical thing to do would be to do nothing at all? By allowing the bomb to explode, thousands will die, but removing the bomb means you assisted in taking a life. Wouldn't it be unethical to allow for the bomb to go off or to diffuse it, because that would mean you are the means to someone else's end? It isn't your responsibility, as the man who armed the bomb is the unethical one who is putting innocent lives in danger. I thought it was pretty interesting to think about.
I used to fall into this trap to a degree. It was because I understood the only moral systems to be deontology or consequentialism and I chose deontology because I supposed that it was the system based on principle (not seeing how it could easily come to be disconnected from reality). I eventually found my way around it because I had also chosen the empiricist side of the empiricist/rationalist dichotomy and, well, being an empiricist deontologist is a very interesting place to be. Do not fall into the trap here of supposing inaction to be the only moral course because then you run the danger of allowing the argument that "anyone who really chooses to make a difference will be dirtied at some point, just accept it, you can only stay clean by being uninvolved" which is untrue.
I agree with other posters. The baby is already dead. Save the crowd.
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The entire list is really pretty awful. Most of the choices don't even make sense. By what warped definition were they judging genius? It seems like for a lot of the list they're just using genius as a synonym for success, regardless of the person's intellectual standing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/world/eu...amp;oref=sloginI wanted to draw attention to this story because it illustrates some ridiculous amounts of backwardness in our culture. This man, who invented LSD was called the smartest living person back in 2007! The list itself is atrocious, but why all the fuss about the man who invented LSD? Oh, he gave us some wonderful philosophical truths like...
WoWoooooWWoooohhhaaa mmmmmmaaaannnnnnn like WHOA! That's like, THE TRUTH OF THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE mmmmmmaaannnnnnn.... it's like, in my head mannnnnnnnnnnnnn.....
Great, this guy is the progenator of the "destroy your brain to use your brain" line of thinking, and he provided the tools to do it. And yet, he is being herald as a genius. What does that tell you?
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As I said in another topic a while ago, I'm proud to be a born and raised Atheist. I have never been affiliated with any church or cult like religious organization in anyway shape or form.
My father's family is Catholic mostly (some Protestant as well), and my mother's family is Jewish. Neither of my parents are particularly religious and we never went to church. I was allowed to be exposed to religion and pretty much permitted to choose my beliefs in the supernatural, or not. The God thing never did anything much for me. I decided not only that there was probably no God at all, and that even if there was, He and I wouldn't get along.
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So you're for forcing the school to be better for "God and country"?
Nope. Making it better for the students is reason enough for me. I'll be the first to admit that Zywicki in particular is kind of a moron, and I in no way support what he said in that meeting - as I said in an earlier post, it's paranoid neocon tripe. But there's no danger of the college at large ever adopting his worldview. For one thing, the faculty would never allow it. They're far too liberal. Secondly, most alumni do not feel that way. Far more are concerned with the direction of the college over all and what may happen to our prized undergraduate experience if the administration and its cronies on the board try to treat Dartmouth like a brand name instead of a school.
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Thank you for that. The letter Paul is referring to is the one I posted here. I've already voted (class of 06 baby!), and I voted for him and his fellow slate members. I share a lot of the reasoning he outlined, though I diverge from him in some places and choose different points of emphasis. My main concern is that Dartmouth will lose its identity under these Board-packing folks. Their concern for "being outside the mainstream of higher education" is extremely revealing. I didn't want to be in the mainstream of higher education, I wanted a Dartmouth education, dammit. Dartmouth is not and never should be Harvard Lite or Princeton Jr. As I told a friend of mine, if I wanted to be in the "mainstream of higher education", I would have gone to Penn State for a hell of a lot less money!
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I don't know much about the controversy, but remember reading that T.J.Rodgers (CEO of Cyress Semiconductor) was against the establishment, and the latter were accusing him of wanting to reduce diversity. So, I'm rooting for him.
As for the letter they sent you, it is a smear job, not worthy of an educated person, least of all Dartmouth educated
I am a big fan of TJ Rodgers. The "petition" Trustees that followed him, not so much. Todd Zywicki recently made a bit of an ass of himself when he was caught spouting paranoid neocon tripe at a separate and, what he presumed private, conference. Still, even though I don't much care for some of the backers of the "petition" candidates, I feel their presence is so necessary that I'm willing to swallow some bitter medicine. On a more positive note, TJ Rodgers gave some fantastic interviews and explained his rationale in a detailed, logical manner in several publications both Dartmouth-related and otherwise.
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Most people are probably not aware of the ongoing fight over the role of alumni in the governance of Dartmouth College. Most people are probably also not aware of the things that make Dartmouth special, or why it is not merely an analog of its fellow Ivies just stuck out in the woods somewhere. The following is a letter I received today from the Board of Trustees (minus four, but they try to de-emphasize that fact) which I found highly disturbing for several reasons. First I'd like to see if anyone can find objections to it on its face, and then I'll explain why I, personally, was infuriated by this.
And for the record, I'm voting for everyone they're telling me not to.
April 28, 2008
Dear fellow Dartmouth alumni,
Last month, the Trustees launched a search for the next president of Dartmouth—a search that is critically important to maintaining the unique character of Dartmouth and ensuring that our students continue to receive an outstanding education. As we embark on that search, the College has become ensnarled in yet another divisive campaign—this time around the Association of Alumni (AoA) election. As Trustees of the College, we were reluctant to enter this debate, but we feel an obligation to respond to a recent letter by four trustees to alumni containing inaccurate claims and endorsing like–minded petition candidates for the AoA.
This group has wrapped itself in the rhetoric of "democracy at Dartmouth" but they are working with national groups that have a clear ideological agenda for the College. The Upper Valley's local newspaper, the Valley News, wrote in a recent editorial that this group wants to "turn back the clock" at the College. They believe they can manipulate Dartmouth's unique process of electing alumni nominees for the Board of Trustees and are now waging an aggressive campaign to maintain control of the AoA, which administers those elections.
A Well-Organized, Well-Funded Group's Campaign Against the College
Critics of the College—long championed by The Dartmouth Review and supported by outside groups like the Hanover Institute—are well organized and well funded. They have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on full–page newspaper ads, glossy mailings, and web sites to elect their allies to the Board and now the AoA. They are supporting a costly lawsuit against the College. This will force Dartmouth to divert some $2 million away from critical priorities like financial aid and faculty in order to protect the independence of the College that Daniel Webster so ably defended in 1819. The plaintiffs have repeatedly refused to reveal who is really paying for their suit or their campaign, although an ideological special interest group—The Center for Excellence in Higher Education—with no connection to Dartmouth is raising money to support their lawsuit.
They have politicized Dartmouth elections and have brought Washington–style politics to trusteeship. And, this week, The Dartmouth Review launched a reprehensible and baseless personal attack on Chair of the Board Ed Haldeman—unabashedly timed to coincide with the AoA elections. Members of this group even encouraged their political allies in the New Hampshire Legislature to promote a bill that would allow the Legislature to insert itself into the affairs of the College—a misguided effort that failed by an overwhelming majority.
What Is This Group's Real Agenda?
Amidst the many emails and letters you've received, we're sure you have asked yourself—what is this group's real agenda? Trustee Todd Zywicki provided an unintended glimpse of that agenda in a speech last October where he attacked Dartmouth and its peer schools, saying those "who control the university today[,] they don't believe in God and they don't believe in country." He discouraged people from contributing money to support the College and told his supporters that it would be a "long and vicious trench warfare I think if we are serious about taking the academy back."
This group's political agenda is also at the heart of their opposition to the expansion of the College's Board of Trustees. We recognize that alumni have many different views on the governance issue, but after a thorough review of Dartmouth's needs, a majority of the Board determined that it was in the College's best interests to add eight new members who could bring additional skills and talent to the College—leaders who could help ensure Dartmouth remains a world–class institution. Four of our trustee colleagues filed an amicus brief against the College to try to achieve through the courts what they could not achieve in the boardroom through normal Board processes.
We sent a copy of the report explaining this decision to all alumni. We also voted for a more open election process to ensure the winning candidate received a majority of votes. This group opposed the changes because they reduced their ability to game the system. They want you to believe that the Board is looking to "marginalize" alumni. The fact is that every member of the Board (except the Governor and the President) is a Dartmouth alum. Alumni will continue to nominate a higher percentage of trustees than at virtually any other institution in the country and will remain central to the College's governance.
What Is At Stake For Dartmouth and Its Students?
This group has publicly vilified the leadership of the College in newspaper interviews and letters. And, while the College is in the midst of a critical capital campaign—the largest in its history—they have done little to advance it and, in some cases, actively urged alumni to divert resources from Dartmouth to institutions that are more ideologically in tune with their own agenda. They have lost sight of Dartmouth's purpose. The College exists to provide a superb education to its students, not to advance the personal politics of its alumni. And now they are putting Dartmouth's future in jeopardy. They would push the College far outside the mainstream of higher education. As The Dartmouth wrote in a recent editorial aimed at this faction of alumni, "If you truly love it, you should be able to cherish the College without controlling it."
What Does All This Mean For You, Our Fellow Alumni?
By every significant measure, Dartmouth has become a stronger institution over the past decade. That progress has come despite the harmful efforts of this group—not because of them, as they have claimed. As Dartmouth looks to build on that strength, we want to encourage all of you to stay engaged with the College—and to read the election materials carefully and to let your voice be heard in the upcoming AoA elections.
We need individuals representing Dartmouth alumni who bring no political agenda to the table—except what is in the best interests of Dartmouth. We need individuals who can fairly and effectively represent the views of all alumni and work with the leadership of the College to carry forward the business of Dartmouth. And we need individuals capable of unifying the College's alumni to help Dartmouth remain the finest College in the world.
Please join us in putting Dartmouth's interests first.
Trustees of Dartmouth
Leon Black '73
Jose Fernandez '77
Christine Bucklin '84
Karen Francis '84
Russ Carson '65
Ed Haldeman '70, Chair
Michael Chu '68
Pam Joyner '79
John Donahoe '82
Steve Mandel '78
Brad Evans '64
Al Mulley '70
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My first response to this post is that you should be less worried about whether you are acting according to Objectivist standards and just make sure you are acting as rationally as you can by your own standards. Does your course of action make sense to you? Are you in concord with your values or struggling against them? What is your personal evaluation of your behavior and your responsibilities? That's what you should be asking.
That said, I've been in similar pickles before. My position at present translates roughly to somewhere between your shift manager and your assistant manager. I may be able to comment on it from a business perspective if you like. But I still maintain that the best judge of your circumstances is you.
I'm a barista at a Starbucks in Toronto, you may have seen me, I'm the one ranting about the evils of gun control, and the irony of enforcing a ban on firearms at the point of a gun. Anyway...As of late, I've been working a lot of closing shifts, with various shift managers. Shift mangers being akin to assistant assistant mangers, slightly more pay than a barista, slightly more responsibility. As you can imagine, the quality of work done during the closing shift can have drastic effects on the opening shift the next day(not to mention whether the closers leave on time), and the quality of that work is largely determined by shift manger and his/her ability. Secondary responsibility, of course, falls on the barista(s).
One of my recent closes was colossally bad. Work was left undone or half-completed, and that was with about a half hour of unpaid work by the shift and I after official closing time.
Several factors were at work here, which, while not excuses, bear mentioning:
1.) We were greatly understaffed. With two major sporting events, and a large charity gathering, there simply were not enough employees present at any one time to be effective given the number of customers
2.) One member of staff we did have was from a different store, leaving him unfamiliar with the idiosyncrasies of our particular location(i.e Cleaning procedures, where to find certain tools, etc.)
3.) The shift manager himself is notorious for slow closes and his focus on secondary duties, rather than those that must be completed.
The next night, I was due to close again, with a different shift, who is almost terrifyingly efficient. She came down on me like a ton of bricks.
"What happened with that close last night? I didn't open but [the assistant manager] was complaining, it was just terrible, how do you explain yourself?"
I delineated the points above.
"Well, that's not the fault of [the outsider]. He should have been kept on cash while you two worked on the store."
I explained that I did not think it my responsibility to delegate responsibility.
"[Dr. Radiaki], you're a good closer, but those are the times you need to speak up, and tell [the other shift manager] that he needs to be doing other things or doing things differntly."
Now, for the questions:
1.) To be honest, I must admit that I resented the dressing down. How much responsibility should I take upon myself in a subordinate position? Do I have moral grounds to question my immediate superiors in the working world?
2.) Should I approach the assistant manager about these events? If I do, how do I treat the question of the slow shift manager? I owe him nothing, yet, at the same time, creating tension by complaining directly might make it difficult for me to work with him.
3.) If work is left uncompleted after the official closing time and I continue, I will no longer be paid. My first instinct is to insist that I be allowed to leave the store, since it seems to me that unpaid work for the benefit of others constitutes unhealthy altruism. Is this correct? Might there be a more moral course of action in this situation?
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I agree and the science that supports this diet as beneficial to man is overwhelming. Anyone who holds rational thinking to be a virtue who is not following the diet described above has just found a little more room for improvement!
Are you an athlete madkat?
I am an athlete, how did you know? Also, just to clarify, I myself do not follow the above diet. I SHOULD. I would like to, and would find it satisfying. Currently, due to the nature of my night shift and the fact that I can't cook a lick, I don't eat as I should, and frankly, I know that's part of the reason I don't have enough energy and am a little on the chubby side. I currently enjoy recreational exercise on the side, but if I were to ever undertake serious practice of some sport again (which is not out of the question) I would need to seriously improve my diet. I definitely get enough protein as I'm something of a carnivore but I eat too much junk carbs and I need more fresh produce. When I buy a house, which I hope to do by the end of the year, my fiancee and I plan to have a vegetable garden so we can take the matter of good nutrition into our own hands and not have to rely on buying things as much. I have to say some of the best food I eat comes from a farm I visit up the road who holds a fundraising breakfast once a month. It did take me a while to get used to the very small portions of meat they serve in contrast to the much larger servings of veggies and potatoes, but even though they don't give you much meat it's delicious and really all the food is quite good. All the food they serve comes from that actual farm and they cook it up to order right in front of you. It's really delicious.
What I wish more people understood is that giant factory farming operations dominate the market right now not because they are the most profitable, efficient business model but because they have benefited enormously from government intervention and regulations, right down to the estate taxes that force families to sell off their owned-outright land because they can't afford the taxes on it at the generation switch. For example, do you know it can be illegal to just sell some bread you made to your neighbor? How ridiculous is that? Food is one of the most heavily regulated industries out there. Like most pervasive problems we face, I think that freeing up the system and letting people do what they feel is best for them is the only long-term answer.
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I'm surprised the issue of quality has not come up earlier. The assumption that our current methods of factory farming are the best way to feed people nutritious food is erroneous. The things that get introduced to the food in those places would make your head spin. Yes, cruelty is a factor, but another thing to keep in mind is that animals raised in a more natural (for them) setting do taste better and are better for you. If you eat a natural chicken as opposed to one pumped full of hormones and antibiotics (which, by the way, we're still not certain of the long-term effects of these things on us), yes, there is less meat, but what meat is there is much better for you and, guess what, tastes way better. The idea that our current factory farming system is somehow necessary to feed large numbers of people cheaply is not true. Less but better meat will feed you just fine. A healthy human diet does not actually require that much meat. Frankly it doesn't require as much grain as we eat either. Fresh veggies and fruit should be the base, a bit of grain for calories, and then enough meat to get your lean protein. If everyone ate like that, chronic diseases would drop through the floor, especially things like Type-2 diabetes.
Want to know the difference between a steak from a cow raised in a factory farm in a stall on grain and then slaughtered in a meatpacking plant vs. one raised free-range on grass and done up by a butcher? I can take the latter cow, throw the steak on the grill for all of a couple minutes, and if I wanted to eat it then, still bloody, I'd probably be just fine. I'm taking my life into my hands if I do that with the former. Also that bloody steak is going to taste amazing.
Lastly I want to take issue with the idea that animals are mechanical automatons. Something like an ant may be that way, largely responding to chemical cues, but the higher animals are certainly not like that. They are actually conscious, they are just not necessarily self-conscious and they don't have a conceptual faculty. I see both environmentalists and some Objectivists make the same mistake and say that we are somehow apart from nature, with different rules. We should neither be subservient to nor dominant over nature. Like any other animal, we are part of nature and, like any other animal, must live according to our natures. The main difference between us and other animals is that we do have a conceptual faculty which can give us a greater understanding of reality on a deeper level than anything else. But we're still animals and we still live within nature. Even a city is part of nature, just an environment that we happened to create. Lots of animals create their own environments to survive, just not on the tremendous scale we do.
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I've met one child in my life who was diagnosed with ADHD and was in fact pretty impaired. I watched her for a summer when she was 7 and again briefly at the end of the summer when she was 9. She was a very sweet kid to deal with, the toughest thing about her being her literally constant need for attention. (This was a little hard for me in particular to swallow because even though as a child I was demanding of attention I could also be left alone for hours to my own devices and have been perfectly content. The demand for attention would come when I wanted you to see my drawing/high score/jail cell for my action figures/whatever.) I don't actually know if what she had was ADHD but she certainly had something going on. This child, however, was adopted from Russia when she was a toddler and undoubtedly experienced some extreme forms of stress at young, formative ages. There is also the strong possibility that her mother drank during pregnancy. The other problem is that the girl's mother, although extremely caring and loving, is a very busy lawyer and adopted the girl on her own so there is no second parent. So she doesn't get much parental attention no matter how well-meaning her mother may be on this score.
The kid would be about 12 now. I wonder how she's doing.
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Youre probably right, in the case of kids who are simply unable to concentrate. I should have been more clear about my statement, in that while schools do not cause a permanent case of the disorder, similar characteristics are observed in children who are not interested in learning in a structured group environment. I think that some teachers/administrators take advantage of the convenient avenue they have to control these children, by suppressing their behavior with drugs, rather than analysing the system they have created.
I really think that the way they drug some of the kids up someday borders on child abuse, and the parents are mad to allow it. I'm not a parent but I may be in a few years and you basically won't convince me to put anything into my kid like that unless they'll die without it (ie if my kid is a diabetic, obviously I'll give them insulin).
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I think you may have misunderstood me. I was not implying that one should evaluate based on sunk costs - in fact, the whole reason we learned about it in economics was to caution AGAINST judging by them! Like evasion, it is one of those more troublesome aspects of human psychology. The reason I brought it up was to bolster Sophia's point that the more work you do on a relationship, because believe me relationships take a damn good amount of work, the more you will value it. But I think I may have confused the issue more than anything else. I agree with the subsequent posts by Kendall and Matus as I believe they understood what I was saying and how I meant it.
The psychological tendency to value things more when you have worked for them more can actually be good IF they were conscious actions taken to gain or keep a particular value. What a rational man must do is determine whether the costs are truly sunk (in which case they shouldn't influence the choice) or whether they are a past investment in something which remains now a rational value from which returns may still be gained (more likely scenario with regards to our relationship discussion).
I want to firmly express my agreement with Matus's account of human behavior and reiterate that it may take substantial effort and thought to overcome an irrational inclination which is a disvalue. Putting the context back in the sex and romance department, and at the risk of being slightly crude, let's say that we have someone who was born to be much hornier than average, off-the-scale horny. His physical tastes are indiscriminate, and he stands at attention any time even a slightly attractive woman walks by. Now, if he is the average Joe, and he is reasonably on his game, he will probably end up having a lot of casual sex, and by the time he is 40 he will be banging the secretary at the office even at the risk of losing his job. But let us suppose that he is not the average Joe. Instead, he is rational, thoughtful, and introspective. He recognizes that even though he is popping wood every time an attractive lady comes within ten feet, what he actually values, in his rational mind, is not merely sex but sex with an immensely valuable woman that he loves and that loves him. Thus, he chooses not to take random, beautiful, but shallow women home despite the fact that every time he makes this choice he has to, well, excuse himself to the restroom for a few minutes. He makes a genuine effort to have a romance with a worthy woman and, after a few false starts in his youth, he finds such a woman. Now his sex drive has a rational outlet, in the form of his beloved. (Hopefully he has found someone as horny as he is!) Now here is the really key point - down the line, his physiological response WILL CHANGE. Because he has chosen to focus his affections and attractions only where it is rational to do so, at age 40 he will NOT be banging the secretary and endangering his job. In fact, he may not even NOTICE the secretary in that way, because he has made different choices and engendered different habits which, over time, have been enough even to alter his physical responses. Man is capable of doing this. That's the whole point of saying we're volitional. But if he had not recognized value in controlling his appetites, he would have gone on along the path of mindless hookups, whereas a less horny fellow may not have, not because he was more moral but simply because he did not have such a strong inclination in that direction. The take-home point is, the longer the rational horny bugger commits himself to seeking sex only within a meaningful love relationship, the easier it will be for him to control his irrational, destructive tendencies until it is so simple it is barely worth notice or mention. So I guess my position is leaning more towards Kendall, Matus, and Sophia and away from mrocktor, Ifat, and Olex.
But I still don't agree with Dan's original caution to avoid opposite-sex friendships. I value my platonic male friends way too highly for that.
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EDIT:
This is basically assuming we are irrational, incapable of objective valuation.
No, it isn't. It means we tend not to. This is not news. This is a fact of human psychology. If I was arguing what you claim I was arguing, I would say that you absolutely cannot change the fact that you have evaluated something to be more valuable on the basis of sunk costs. That's not true. You can step back and say, "Hey, those costs are sunk costs and shouldn't affect my evaluation of my present situation." In other words, if you have football tickets but there is a horrible traffic snarl in your way from getting there and the weather is brutal, you are going to be more inclined to skip the game if someone gave you the tickets/you found them lying on the street than if you bought them yourself for $300. That's just a fact. It's been demonstrated over and over again. It's part of how the human brain is wired. But what I am NOT saying is, all other things being equal, the person who bought the tickets will always go to the game whereas the person who got the tickets free will always stay home. The person who bought the tickets can still rationally step back and say, "Hey, I'm not getting my $300 back either way, the question now is whether I'll enjoy my afternoon or not," it's just that it's going to require them to actually recognize the situation and not go with their first inclination.
Getting back to relationships, I don't actually think sunk costs is a good way to describe things, because history with a person does matter and it is rational to take that into account when making decisions about a relationship. I was just using it to illustrate Sophia's point about human psychology. History has to matter. Otherwise relationships become very "what have you done for me lately" and I don't think that's a very good way to relate to intimate friends or lovers.
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in Movies, Shows, and Theatre
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I don't understand why people here hate on Boondock Saints so much. I really enjoyed this movie and I'd be interested to know what people disliked so much about it. Of course the whole part where they supposedly felt they were inspired by God was rubbish, but that's just something of an Irish Catholic thing and I was willing to let that go.
Even though it was not a comedy, the humorous parts of the movie were priceless.