You spend a good chunk of your life at work.. why not make it more fun. I'm not saying you have to hang out with coworkers every weekend.. but mixing personal and work life a little bit has made the day go a lot nicer for me.
Because under IDEAL conditions your co-workers would have been selected for their capability to perform the job. Not because they had the same religious / political / etc opinions as you.
IF someone else who you work with has the same opinions as you then it is great if you can become friends.
But to put the focus on that means that the focus is not on getting the work done so you can get out an live your non-work life. Which is a problem.
It shouldn't matter... but it does. When the money runs short... it's a lot easier to let bill, who while not rude, is not exactly friendly go than to let tom, who we were just laughing with at lunch, go.
Yep. And if Bill and Tom had the same skill levels and such, then that would one thing.
But in my experience (your experience may differ) it is the more social person who lacks the technical skills. Simply based upon personality type. The stereotype of the nerd who spends his waking hours hacking on his computer instead of attending parties is a stereotype for a reason.
I don't care about their latest trip to Florida, or what new restaurant they discovered, or what the weather is like. And that's just from "normal" people. I also don't want to hear about your WoW character, or your latest raid, or what armor set you collected.
Or how well your fantasy baseball team is doing.
Or whether or not I should join you in Mafia Wars on Facebook.
Or any of a million other, uninteresting things.
I am just as focused in my hobbies but I do NOT think that you'd find them interesting. So I do not inflict them on you.
If he attributed the success to a picture of a porcupine he kept on his desk, chances are he wouldn't be CEO of anything more than Padded Room, Ltd.
I think you missed the point.
The point was that the CEO can (and often does) attribute his "success" (success being defined by him) to whatever he WANTS to based upon his pre-existing bias.
And if he fails, that doesn't mean that he was wrong. It just means that something else cancelled out his great idea. At least in his mind.
Success in business usually comes down to being in the right place at the right time with the right product and the right personal connections.
Back in the "dot com boom" it was very easy to start a company, get name recognition and then sell out to a larger company for a wad of cash. Even if your business model was impossible to support. Even if you didn't have a product to sell.
And that is why there are so many cycles of management fads and books.
A group lunch isn't a cocktail party, and just being at the table reminds people you are part of the team and keeps you informed on what other people are doing, having trouble with, etc.
No. That means that your primary channel of communication if broken.
So you're attempting to compensate by using a secondary or tertiary communication channel to exchange work-related information.
Or just save everyone's time and bring donuts to the daily / weekly meetings and PRETEND that you're at lunch. It's easier. It's already scheduled. And you still get your personal alone time at lunch.
Basically, the assumption is that they because you work at the same place, in similar jobs, you're going to have similar non-work interests.
Sorry, I don't.
So either the lunch meetings are extensions of weekly meetings where work topics are re-hashed or there is a lot of awkward silence.
Of course it is ALWAYS nice when you have a nice, homogenous group with the same political / religious / etc beliefs and feel free to discuss them at lunch. Everyone always agrees.
I think you're right. The best way to fight that is to pass a law requiring two pictures AND those photos must include distance markers and time stamps (to 0.01 second) so that people charged can challenge incorrect reading.
Speeding cameras are okay. But they need to be able to demonstrate their accuracy in each and every instance.
Yeah, but it's probably happening at layer 2 and 3, since a lot of American networks are being offshored to Japan who in turn hires the cheapest third country nationals (Chinese CCNA's) to administrate.
Japan? Why Japan? Most companies I now (including the one I work at) have gone straight to China. And the network is via China's telco. And the guys running the systems are Chinese.
This isn't "back door". This is inviting them in the front door and giving them the keys to house so they can look after it for you.
I don't doubt that what you say is accurate, but I'm amazed it's still socially acceptable for people to be unable to use the basic technology we interact with every day.
Where I work, we have have ADMINS that cannot keep their machines in working order.
It's not what you know. It's who likes you.
A person who needs to drive a company vehicle as part of their job would be out pretty quickly if they kept crashing into trees - sure, the occasional genuine accident happens, and will be overlooked, but negligence/stupidity/repeated incompetence will (rightly) get you fired.
Except that the "accident" can be blamed on something else and IT can magically repair all "damage" done.
And when a computer crashes, no one dies. Or is injured and collects disability for the rest of his/her life.
Insistence on a literal intepretation is not a pre-requisite for believing in Adam, the Garden of Eden, eternal sin, or Jesus dying for our sins.
I think you do not understand what "literal" means in this context.
Believing that The Garden of Eden was a place on Earth inhabited by Adam and Eve who were tempted blah blah blah is a literal interpretation of The Bible.
I don't insist that all the details were exactly as reported.
Then you do NOT subscribe to a literal interpretation. It's that easy.
You've resorted to a straw man.
Go buy a dictionary. Or use one of the on-line versions. You don't know what "literal" means nor do you grasp "straw man".
I do believe... blah blah blah blah blah... Eve.
Who cares? This isn't about your personal interpretation (being non-literal) of anything.
Which is why your beliefs should NOT be taught in a science class.
And that is exactly why "Intelligent Design" or "Creationism" is NOT a science and should NEVER be taught in a science class.
Science requires that any hypothesis or theory be falsifiable. At least in theory. It may be impossible to perform the experiment to falsify it.
With non-science, there is no way to falsify it. If the experiment shows A, then the creator wanted it to. If the experiment shows B, then the creator wanted it to.
Since it is not science, it should not be taught (even as a "controversy") in a science class.
Leave it in the social sciences / philosophy classes.
Its my understanding that people are capable of being evil on their own.
What does that have to do with LeVey? LeVey did it for marketing. What "evil" has LeVey's "church" done?
I wasn't trying to prove it wasn't something that many Catholics believed individually, I am pointing out that it was never an authoritative teaching of the Church.
No, I understand that completely.
My point is that Catholicism is SO INTERNALLY INCONSISTENT that such ideas as "Limbo" have to be continually created and discarded BY THE CATHOLICS THEMSELVES in attempts to resolve the logical flaws.
Whether those concepts are ever formally institutionalized by the Pope is immaterial.
Using Limbo as an example of a lack of logic doesn't really advance the point since it was never anything more than speculation to begin with.
You are wrong. It is valid because it illustrates the flaws in the internal logic of Catholicism. Even the Catholics cannot resolve the logical flaws in their BELIEF SYSTEM. Which is particularly telling because belief systems require a degree of illogic to participate in.
Consider that LaVey's Church of Satan are actually atheists:
LeVey created the "Church of Satan" as an easy way to attract women so he could get laid more.
"Satan" in that context is 100% marketing. And the product being sold is rebellion and hedonism.
I'm not sure what you are getting at. Limbo has never been a dogma of the Catholic Church.
Yet, from the very Wikipedia page you linked to...
In the theology of the Catholic Church, Limbo (Latin limbus, edge or boundary, referring to the "edge" of Hell) is a speculative idea about the afterlife condition of those who die in original sin without being assigned to the Hell of the damned.
Come on. It was the VERY FIRST LINE in that paragraph.
Then maybe it's cheaper to work within the system for change/power, rather than outside it?
That SHOULD be the end goal. But wait one moment.
Unless they're fanatics, they're going to see a drop-off in recruits if that's all they can afford.
Sadly, no, they won't.
Which brings me back to the other point. There will ALWAYS be a segment that cannot participate in the established system due to some reason. These people WILL attempt to establish themselves as the head of their own government. Even if they can only manage "warlordism" and "rule" through violence in their segment.
Think about the mafia and longshoremen or teamsters.
You don't have many professional illegal alcohol dealers because legal alcohol isn't that much more expensive in most areas, the teen market is satisfied with ad-hoc non-organized dealers, etc... It's not organized.
Actually, you do. The mafia runs alcohol from cheap states/cities to expensive states/cities. That's why part of the local government's alcohol control board investigates where the local bars are buying their alcohol from. If they don't have legitimate receipts, they are fined.
I think most satanists call themselves satanists because they enjoy trolling (I enjoy trolling too, so it's not a criticism).
So the "religion" is named as it is to troll members of a different religion that they don't believe in any way.
I don't think trolling counts as a "religion".
If you meet a satanist, it is unlikely she actually believes in the Judeo-Christian idea of satan.
Quite correct. And to be more correct, she probably got into that "religion" because it offended Mom and Dad who didn't understand her any way. She was raised kind-of-Christian and when she went through her rebel phase she started hanging out with the group who claimed to be following the most famous rebel bad-boy that she had heard of. Even though their "religion" is whatever they saw in the movies or on this really cool TV show where the cute witch-girl was wearing this really awesome black lace outfit and...
There's a whole bunch of people who call themselves Satanists who really don't actually believe in Christ (or even actually Satan) for that matter.
So what they do believe in does not have a name of its own? Or is this "bunch" just a few teenagers going through their angst phase?
If a group can appropriate the name of someone they don't believe in and use it in their religion, I would think that its certainly possible for others to follow the teachings of that same entity and call him something else, or even deny his existence entirely.
While they CAN take the name of a heresy of a religion they don't believe in... WHY would they do that?
And that has nothing to do with your other statement. It is POSSIBLE to follow the tenets of some religion that you were previously unaware... it's just extremely unlikely unless that religion is VERY relaxed about their tenets.
Okay, well, that's probably too much for someone who doesn't actually believe in God to bother with, but I think its important to realize that there is an entire set of logical premises out there that you accept if you are actually a Catholic.
I would argue the "logical" part of that. What's the current status of "Limbo" in Catholic doctrine?
The system is not even internally logical. Which is why so many concepts such as "Limbo" have to be invented and then discarded.
Of course, of the items you list, I'd have gambling be mostly legal but regulated, if everything is legal there's probably not enough of a profit of margin to keep substantial smuggling lines open for the few things I'd keep illegal, etc...
One of the problems is that with ANY regulation, there is a chance for profit from the black market.
The core problem is that the "gangs" are attempting to set up their own political / economic systems with themselves in charge. They will pursue whatever generates income. Even if that income is only enough to purchase weapons and ammo.
The "gangs" will try to find other sources of income. And they will fight over those.
The problem for the "gangs" is that nothing else has the mark-up that illegal drugs do. They just won't make much money.
Not to mention that the majority of drug dealers live with Mom because they do NOT make much money.
So the "gangs" will, probably, switch to standard organized crime staples such as "protection racks", "illegal gambling" and "smuggling" other items such as cigarettes to turn a profit from the tax differentials between states/cities.
The core problem is that no one understands basic politics and economics. It's all about the local people establishing their own political and economic system inside of the USofA's national/state system. Which leads to their own "police force" and "judicial system".
Gorbachev's changes were more about limited access. You could still buy vodka but you could only buy limited quantities and at limited times. Which drove sales to the black market. Which hurt the Russian economy.
Hell, that's kind of like Washington state's laws as of 10 years ago when you couldn't buy vodka on a Sunday because all the liquor stores are state-owned.
Alcohol (and other drugs) are complex subjects that cannot be "solved" with simplistic solutions.
Unfortunately, most politicians can only think in the most simplistic of sound-bites so that's all we ever get.
"Greed is good". As long as you're a visionary producer that drives this world.
And let's face it, you ARE! Because you know you are and you're getting paid more than x% of the population. And you did it all on your own! By having the foresight to get the right parents in the right city and the right economic level.
John Galt would want to have a beer with you. He'd think you were pretty cool.
So do what John Galt would do. When you know that you're being oppressed by those who aren't as deserving as you are... leave. Find some place away from everyone else and build your own Utopia for you and those like you. Let the rest of the nation rot. Go ahead. John Galt would have done it that way.
Government spending is "good" as long as it is for the people who deserve it. People who look like me. People who think like me. Real Americans like me.
Government spending is "bad" when it is for people who don't deserve it. People who don't look like me. People who don't think like me. The people who are ruining this country.
The Daily Show covered this. And they always do a great job.
A banker making $250,000 is barely above the poverty line. Cut them a break! Look at all the good they do for this country!
A teacher making $50,000 is living a lavish lifestyle on the public's dime. They're spending this country into bankruptcy. And they're doing it in only 9 months out of a year.
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Because under IDEAL conditions your co-workers would have been selected for their capability to perform the job. Not because they had the same religious / political / etc opinions as you.
IF someone else who you work with has the same opinions as you then it is great if you can become friends.
But to put the focus on that means that the focus is not on getting the work done so you can get out an live your non-work life. Which is a problem.
Yep. And if Bill and Tom had the same skill levels and such, then that would one thing.
But in my experience (your experience may differ) it is the more social person who lacks the technical skills. Simply based upon personality type. The stereotype of the nerd who spends his waking hours hacking on his computer instead of attending parties is a stereotype for a reason.
Or how well your fantasy baseball team is doing.
Or whether or not I should join you in Mafia Wars on Facebook.
Or any of a million other, uninteresting things.
I am just as focused in my hobbies but I do NOT think that you'd find them interesting. So I do not inflict them on you.
I think you missed the point.
The point was that the CEO can (and often does) attribute his "success" (success being defined by him) to whatever he WANTS to based upon his pre-existing bias.
And if he fails, that doesn't mean that he was wrong. It just means that something else cancelled out his great idea. At least in his mind.
Success in business usually comes down to
being in the right place
at the right time
with the right product
and the right personal connections.
Back in the "dot com boom" it was very easy to start a company, get name recognition and then sell out to a larger company for a wad of cash. Even if your business model was impossible to support. Even if you didn't have a product to sell.
And that is why there are so many cycles of management fads and books.
No. That means that your primary channel of communication if broken.
So you're attempting to compensate by using a secondary or tertiary communication channel to exchange work-related information.
Or just save everyone's time and bring donuts to the daily / weekly meetings and PRETEND that you're at lunch. It's easier. It's already scheduled. And you still get your personal alone time at lunch.
Basically, the assumption is that they because you work at the same place, in similar jobs, you're going to have similar non-work interests.
Sorry, I don't.
So either the lunch meetings are extensions of weekly meetings where work topics are re-hashed or there is a lot of awkward silence.
Of course it is ALWAYS nice when you have a nice, homogenous group with the same political / religious / etc beliefs and feel free to discuss them at lunch. Everyone always agrees.
That's AWESOME!
And if he had attributed the success to keeping a picture of a porcupine on his desk, would it be as relevant?
The key point is that he sold the company to a larger company.
He did not buy the larger company.
It all comes down to how you define "success".
I think you're right.
The best way to fight that is to pass a law requiring two pictures AND those photos must include distance markers and time stamps (to 0.01 second) so that people charged can challenge incorrect reading.
Speeding cameras are okay. But they need to be able to demonstrate their accuracy in each and every instance.
Japan? Why Japan? Most companies I now (including the one I work at) have gone straight to China. And the network is via China's telco. And the guys running the systems are Chinese.
This isn't "back door". This is inviting them in the front door and giving them the keys to house so they can look after it for you.
Where I work, we have have ADMINS that cannot keep their machines in working order.
It's not what you know.
It's who likes you.
Except that the "accident" can be blamed on something else and IT can magically repair all "damage" done.
And when a computer crashes, no one dies. Or is injured and collects disability for the rest of his/her life.
I think you do not understand what "literal" means in this context.
Believing that The Garden of Eden was a place on Earth inhabited by Adam and Eve who were tempted blah blah blah is a literal interpretation of The Bible.
Then you do NOT subscribe to a literal interpretation. It's that easy.
Go buy a dictionary. Or use one of the on-line versions. You don't know what "literal" means nor do you grasp "straw man".
Who cares? This isn't about your personal interpretation (being non-literal) of anything.
Which is why your beliefs should NOT be taught in a science class.
Who mod'ed that up?
It makes the same old mistake that we see every time this topic comes up.
A scientific theory is NOT the same as a "theory".
A scientific theory is NEVER "proven".
A scientific theory can only be shown to be flawed.
You are 100% wrong.
And that is exactly why "Intelligent Design" or "Creationism" is NOT a science and should NEVER be taught in a science class.
Science requires that any hypothesis or theory be falsifiable. At least in theory. It may be impossible to perform the experiment to falsify it.
With non-science, there is no way to falsify it.
If the experiment shows A, then the creator wanted it to.
If the experiment shows B, then the creator wanted it to.
Since it is not science, it should not be taught (even as a "controversy") in a science class.
Leave it in the social sciences / philosophy classes.
Of course it isn't.
But it IS "an either-or proposition" if you insist on a LITERAL interpretation of The Bible.
You can be religious and understand/accept evolution and understand that "The Garden of Eden" was a parable.
You CANNOT believe that The Garden of Eden was a physical location on Earth and understand/accept evolution.
Not without some serious mental gymnastics about a trickster god.
Follow the money.
Someone is getting paid. Find out who and what that person's connection to the person signing off on that expense is.
What does that have to do with LeVey? LeVey did it for marketing. What "evil" has LeVey's "church" done?
No, I understand that completely.
My point is that Catholicism is SO INTERNALLY INCONSISTENT that such ideas as "Limbo" have to be continually created and discarded BY THE CATHOLICS THEMSELVES in attempts to resolve the logical flaws.
Whether those concepts are ever formally institutionalized by the Pope is immaterial.
You are wrong. It is valid because it illustrates the flaws in the internal logic of Catholicism. Even the Catholics cannot resolve the logical flaws in their BELIEF SYSTEM. Which is particularly telling because belief systems require a degree of illogic to participate in.
LeVey created the "Church of Satan" as an easy way to attract women so he could get laid more.
"Satan" in that context is 100% marketing.
And the product being sold is rebellion and hedonism.
Yet, from the very Wikipedia page you linked to ...
Come on. It was the VERY FIRST LINE in that paragraph.
That SHOULD be the end goal. But wait one moment.
Sadly, no, they won't.
Which brings me back to the other point. There will ALWAYS be a segment that cannot participate in the established system due to some reason. These people WILL attempt to establish themselves as the head of their own government. Even if they can only manage "warlordism" and "rule" through violence in their segment.
Think about the mafia and longshoremen or teamsters.
Actually, you do. The mafia runs alcohol from cheap states/cities to expensive states/cities. That's why part of the local government's alcohol control board investigates where the local bars are buying their alcohol from. If they don't have legitimate receipts, they are fined.
The same with hijacking a shipment of cigarettes.
So the "religion" is named as it is to troll members of a different religion that they don't believe in any way.
I don't think trolling counts as a "religion".
Quite correct. And to be more correct, she probably got into that "religion" because it offended Mom and Dad who didn't understand her any way. She was raised kind-of-Christian and when she went through her rebel phase she started hanging out with the group who claimed to be following the most famous rebel bad-boy that she had heard of. Even though their "religion" is whatever they saw in the movies or on this really cool TV show where the cute witch-girl was wearing this really awesome black lace outfit and ...
Yeah, you get the idea.
So what they do believe in does not have a name of its own? Or is this "bunch" just a few teenagers going through their angst phase?
While they CAN take the name of a heresy of a religion they don't believe in ... WHY would they do that?
And that has nothing to do with your other statement. It is POSSIBLE to follow the tenets of some religion that you were previously unaware ... it's just extremely unlikely unless that religion is VERY relaxed about their tenets.
I would argue the "logical" part of that. What's the current status of "Limbo" in Catholic doctrine?
The system is not even internally logical. Which is why so many concepts such as "Limbo" have to be invented and then discarded.
One of the problems is that with ANY regulation, there is a chance for profit from the black market.
The core problem is that the "gangs" are attempting to set up their own political / economic systems with themselves in charge. They will pursue whatever generates income. Even if that income is only enough to purchase weapons and ammo.
The "gangs" will try to find other sources of income.
And they will fight over those.
The problem for the "gangs" is that nothing else has the mark-up that illegal drugs do. They just won't make much money.
Not to mention that the majority of drug dealers live with Mom because they do NOT make much money.
So the "gangs" will, probably, switch to standard organized crime staples such as "protection racks", "illegal gambling" and "smuggling" other items such as cigarettes to turn a profit from the tax differentials between states/cities.
The core problem is that no one understands basic politics and economics. It's all about the local people establishing their own political and economic system inside of the USofA's national/state system. Which leads to their own "police force" and "judicial system".
Gorbachev's changes were more about limited access. You could still buy vodka but you could only buy limited quantities and at limited times. Which drove sales to the black market. Which hurt the Russian economy.
Hell, that's kind of like Washington state's laws as of 10 years ago when you couldn't buy vodka on a Sunday because all the liquor stores are state-owned.
Alcohol (and other drugs) are complex subjects that cannot be "solved" with simplistic solutions.
Unfortunately, most politicians can only think in the most simplistic of sound-bites so that's all we ever get.
"Greed is good".
As long as you're a visionary producer that drives this world.
And let's face it, you ARE! Because you know you are and you're getting paid more than x% of the population. And you did it all on your own! By having the foresight to get the right parents in the right city and the right economic level.
John Galt would want to have a beer with you. He'd think you were pretty cool.
So do what John Galt would do. When you know that you're being oppressed by those who aren't as deserving as you are ... leave.
Find some place away from everyone else and build your own Utopia for you and those like you. Let the rest of the nation rot. Go ahead. John Galt would have done it that way.
Nope. Your premiums went up because the CxO's in your HMO all got bonuses.
College kids are usually the cheapest for medical insurance. They don't get sick that often. They're healthy.
Government spending is "good" as long as it is for the people who deserve it. People who look like me. People who think like me. Real Americans like me.
Government spending is "bad" when it is for people who don't deserve it. People who don't look like me. People who don't think like me. The people who are ruining this country.
The Daily Show covered this. And they always do a great job.
A banker making $250,000 is barely above the poverty line. Cut them a break! Look at all the good they do for this country!
A teacher making $50,000 is living a lavish lifestyle on the public's dime. They're spending this country into bankruptcy. And they're doing it in only 9 months out of a year.