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cliveandrews

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Posts posted by cliveandrews

  1. cliveandrews -

     

    Here's a proposal.  If the explanation is over our heads, then give it to us in the most impenetrably arcane way you can and let us judge.  Some of us might surprise you, and even if your explanation is hopelessly beyond our ken, you will have demonstrated your sincerity.

     

    I originally visited this podiatrist because I was a serious amateur runner suffering from chronic shin splints. He prescribed a set of custom-molded orthotics, which is a common recommendation for podiatrists to make. The problem was that the particualr orthotics he prescribed were drastically excessive and overbuit, the equivalent of huge, thick glasses for an only slightly nearsighted patient. They were the kind of orthotics that would normally be prescribed to an elderly person with real mobility problems, not an athletic young male suffering from a minor running injury. Wearing them was like walking around with my feet encased in slabs on concrete.

     

    I wore these orthotics everywhere, both walking and running for five months before I wised up and realized that I wasn't getting better and that I was being led around by an idiot. At some point I became frustrated, tossed the orthotics away and tried running without them. Immediately after I resumed running "normally", I began experiencing crushing pain in the joints of my feet that didn't go away after I stopped. In the following weeks, I learned that this pain represented permanent damage to the cartialge in those joints and that I had become permanently debilitated.

     

    As it turns out, the excessive support that the orthtoics provided had "shielded" the joints of my feet from the normal stress of ambulation, and as a consequence, the cartialge in those joints had atrophied, or become weak and vulnerable. Just as muscles become weak if you don't use them, joint cartilage becomes weak and soft when not exposed to the stress of normal weightbearing, and in this state, it is vulnerable to damaging stress. When I attempted to resume running noramlly, without the orthotics, the imposition of stress that had once been easily tolerable caused permanent damage to the weakened cartilage.

     

    The sequence of events:

    -one moment, my feet are easily able to tolerate the stress of running

    -quack podiatrist prescribes drastically excessive orthoics. I wear them everywhere for five months.

    -the next momemt, my first attempt at running without them results in permanent injury to my feet

     

    The relationship between his advice and my injuries is as clear to me as it would be if I had fallen down the stairs and broken my leg.

     

    One might suggest that it was my decision to disregard the orthotics, and therefore, my fault that this happened. He'd be wrong, because 1) those orthtoics were ridiculous and never should have been prescribed in the first place, and 2) he didn't warn me of the dire danger of trying to run without them once I became dependent on them.

  2. I can't do that, because I don't believe you. I don't think it's possible to know something without proof. Not practically, and not theoretically.

    If you said that you had the proof, but the authorities are not willing to look at it, that would be one thing. But if you don't have proof, then you don't know anything, and you shouldn't be acting on a guess, intuition, or whim.

     

    I know that this podiatrist's advice caused my injuries because I lived through the events in question and experienced first-hand the direct cause-effect relationship between my acting on his advice and the onset of my problems. I can explain the mechanism because I've done the research on my own, but most medical personnel haven't because the issue lies outside the scope of their normal practice.

  3. Why not? What gives you this certainty, and why can't it be presented in Court?

     

    I don't want to explain that because the answer involves theoretical details that you don't likely have the background to understand. Just suppose for the sake of the question that everything I said is true.

  4. Years ago I got mixed up with a quack podiatrist who gave me evil medical advice that resulted in permanent damage to my feet and ankles, and subsequently, long-term disability, suffering and dramatic loss of quality of life. Although I am certain of his role in harming me, I cannot prove the injuries in court, so he keeps merrily quacking away on patients and enjoying the money I paid him to help me. Although I try not to think about him, my thoughts often return to what he did to me, and I am overcome with anger. Although I am not aroused by violence and don't intend to act on them, I have had violent fantasies about what I want to do to him. Short of hurting him physically, I think some form of retaliation is justified, so I've decided that I want to spray paint the words "DANGER! BEWARE OF QUACK!" in huge red letters on the face of his office. What do you think of my idea?

  5. I'm interested in moving to another city, but in weighting the pro's and con's, I would like to get a better idea of what my job prospects would be when I get there. Would it be immoral to craft a dummy resume with similar credentials to mine and submit it to online job postings as a way to survey my prospects? I would have no intention of taking a job right now if someone were to respond. My logic says that yes, this is immoral since it would essentially amount to lying and therefore wasting the recipients' time.

  6. I have a misdemeanor criminal conviction from five years ago. Due to the state government's sloppy record keeping, it apparently does not show up on a state background check (the record can apparently be found in the municipal court in which the conviction occurred). Therefore it is highly likely that I could get away with lying about it when applying for employment. It is a conviction for something that should not be against the law, but it could be prohibitive when applying for a certain type of job. How should I proceed?

  7. Ok let me explain why I asked this question. I lied to an employer about my age before he hired me. I told him that I am four years younger than I really am and that I recently finished college in order to conceal the length of time that I had been unemployed. I did this out of desperation when I was very much near the end of my rope (and about to put one around my neck). How immoral am I, and what should I do now? Do I have to tell him?

  8. Suppose that one was in a situation where his survival depended on obtaining a value that he could only obtain by lying. I'm not talking about lying to avoid the initiation of physical force against oneself, but specifically to obtain a value from someone else who might not give it to you otherwise.

  9. Honesty is the best policy, but it will make it a helluva lot harder, have you been in training or education during these 4 years?

    Yes but didn't complete it. I haven't been totally inactive, I just haven't known what to do.

  10. I have been unemployed for four years as a result of a combination of abnormal circumstance (a health problem in conjunction with the depressed economy). As the length of time that I've been unemployed increases, my odds of finding a job seem to decrease, trapping me in a death spiral of chronic unemployment. A relative who is small business owner has offered to compose a fake resume and a provide a fake reference stating that I've been working for her during all the years that I've been unemployed. As a student of Objectivism, I do not believe that I can accept this offer since I would by lying to prospective employers to trick them into giving me a job that they would not give me otherwise. Is my conclusion correct?

  11. Is there anywhere on earth that you can go and be untouched by liberals? Where you can just live and be happy without having to see/hear their crap all the time?

    Now that Obama's economic policies have failed in miserable fashion, I can see the liberals in the USA mobilizing into class warfare mode, and I fear that they will soon be in the street with their torches and pitchforks. It scares me to think about what they are going to do to what's left of American industry and I just want them to go away and die. What did I do to deserve to live in a country with people like that?

    Are liberals like this everywhere? What about in Canada or Australia? I know they have liberals there, too, but are they as aggressive and malicious as the ones here?

  12. I have a pretty serious problem with computer rage. In the last two years, I've destroyed two laptops and a monitor. What always happens is, the computer malfunctions somehow, and suddenly this deamon in me comes out and I physically attack the computer in a fit of rage. After the last time, when I kicked the LCD monitor off the desk, I swore up and down that I would never do anything like that again. Then, this morning, in my single worst episode yet, I grabbed my laptop by the screen and slammed it against the desk repeatedly because a webpage failed to load. There was nothing wrong with the computer; it was all the website's fault. I don't know why I do this and I am totally disgusted with myself. I have never been violent toward anything other than computers, never punched a hole through the drywall or anything like that. For some reason, a malfunctioning computer makes me angrier than anything in the world. I don't know what to do but I consider the problem very serious. I never want to break another computer again (for financial reasons mainly). How do I address this terrible flaw in my personality?

  13. chronic indecision: A constantly reocurring or persistent inability to make up one's mind; perpetual doubt concerning two or more possible alternatives or courses of action.

    ______

    I am in big trouble. For the last year I have suffered from a progressively worsening state of chronic indecision which last left me psychologically paralyzed and unable to act. The major reasons for this are uncertainty about the future and the fact that, among all my options, I don't see any that are very good (the situation seems quite bleak no matter what what I do). It's not that the situation is necessarily hopeless, there may well be a course of action that will be successful, but I am unable to see what it is. As a result of my inability to make up my mind, I have missed many opportunities and destroyed things that I've had going for me. This problem is crippling and I am not going to make it if I don't get over it soon. I don't expect anyone here to solve my problems for me and tell me what I ought to do with my life, but in general, how should one address such a problem?

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