Raising a family is hard work, and it does tend to make you risk averse, but it is the most fullfilling work I have ever done. Teenagers are just as annoying now to me, as I was to my parents, but it is just part of growing up. As for being offended - I'm not. Being a parent should not be something you stumble into. Do NOT have kids thinking it will shore up a shaky relationship. Having your first child is one of the most stressful things a couple will ever do. Be a parent because you realy want the hard work, and great joy, that being a parent entails.
Obtaining huge wealth is very hard work, that takes more time than 9-5. I want to win the lottery, but I do not want wealth enough to give up the rest of life to pursue it. Most rich people work very hard, long hours to earn their wealth (except for the few who inherit). I just don't want that kind of money enough to give up all my free time. Sure, when you hit 60 and retire you'll have more money than you can spend, but what abpout the previous 30 years?
I imagine that most people who actually pusure huge wealth actually ENJOY the work, or they'd do something else. I hope they enjoy it, otherwise they have wasted their lives.
Exactly. If everyone stopped buying all the junk they don't really need capitalism would collapse. I can earn enough for food and shelter by working about 3 hours a day, 5 days a week. but I work 8 hours day, 5 days a week. Why? I want MORE than food and shelter. I want music, movies, computers, a used car, travel, hair-cuts, refrigerators, stoves, central heating, raods, etc... If I stopped buying all this stuff, the people who make this stuff would not have jobs. One day robots will make everything and capitalism will collapse, but not in my life.
Another book that explores this theme is "The Affluent Society" by John Kenneth Galbraith.
It would say, for myself (not all atheists think a like), that it is a complete lack of "faith", and a desire to have at least a shred of empirical evidence as a prerequisite for anything that enters my "believe system".
The universe is neutral - it isn't good or bad. People can choose to be good or evil. Only beings capable of understaning the impact of their actions can be good or evil.
For myself, there is no evidence that God exists, and much evidence (say the question of evil) that God does not exist.
Most people have more "stuff" than they need in rich, western society. And all your friends and relatives, tv, blah, blah, will pressure you to get more stuff if you are happy with a simpler life.
I live in a three bedroom apartment with my three kids. Every time I talk to my Dad he tells me to buy a house. I'll enjoy a house, its an invesment, you can AFFORD it. But I don't want a house. I don't enjoy gardening. I don't want more 'space'. I like having neighbors across the hall. Same with my 14 year old min-van. I like having an older car, paid cash for, that I don't realy care about. The kids can dump sand in it, scratch it with snow-boards, stain the carpets with vomit, and it isn't a big deal. Maybe I'll buy a little convertable one day, but there is no rush.
Stuff, and the pursuit of stuff will never make you happy for more than a few moments.
Balance and moderation in all things is the best path to happiness. Also, don't try to FORCE your view on others. I don't want a house, but maybe you really do. OK, buy a house. I'm not saying to give everything material up, just to pause for a minute a think if your realy need, or want all the "stuff" you have or want.
A joy becoming a job was the exact problem I was avoiding when I decided against art school and went into engineering. Art is still a hobby that I enjoy. Engineering didn't work out either, but I did drift over into computers where I discovered I realy enjoyed programming. Then I gve up the contractor's life for a steady job with a large firm because I had three kids and decided at this time I valued a steady paycheck more than a "fun" job. I mess about with directX and day dream about working on games again one day "when the kids are grown up".
Green Peace was once a great organization, but they are now just fanatics, that do indeed, play fast and lose with facts. It has become so bad that one of the founders, Bob Hunter, actually quit the GreenPeace quite a while back. More recently, Green Peace has been prattling on about the "Great Bear Rain Forest" here in BC and how the forest companies are cutting it down. Despite the fact that the forest companies are cutting down old growth forests as fast as they can, there is NO "Great Bear Rain Forest". Green Peace made it up because it looks good on billboards.
Re:Big schools still have the better pranks, thoug
on
Stealth Force Beta
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· Score: 2
Those were pretty tame pranks. UBC (U. of British Columbia, up in Canada) engineers have placed a beetle car on the top of the ubc clock tower (its a free standing tower, kind of like a mini-washington monument with a clock at the top), and later hung a beetle under the Lion's Gate Bridge (a fairly large suspension bridge).
Simply sticking out the four years proves you can at least finish a project. A degree opens doors, but it is what you do once in the door that counts. Hopefully, getting your degree has taught you how to learn - something you should expect to do for the rest of your life if you expect to excel in your feild.
Successful people work for a very short time in "crappy support" jobs before moving on to better things. Successful people don't whine about their crappy job, they go out into the big, scary world, and work, push, cajole, and sweet-talk their way into the kind of job they realy want. They take risks. They take action.
Re:I hate to say this...
on
E ~ mc^2
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· Score: 3, Insightful
The universe is not ruled by math. Math is an excellent TOOL used to describe the universe.
You can write down music, but the written music is just a description, not the actual music. In the same way, math is a handy, concise, notation used to write down descriptions of the universe.
It depends why you are diving. Our local pols tried to ban taking deposit bottles from the trash, but it was quickly shot down.
You don't generally expect people to be trying to gather evidence from your garbage. The police have a duty to get a search warrant before invading your privacy.
Generally, the police have to be even more careful to follow the law than reporters. Judges will throw out tainted evidence, while a reporter's editor likely isn't as scrupulous.
The police are NOT given the power to break the law. The police are expected to uphold the law while doing their job.
Lets pretend you are serious:
1] You preach freedom, but practice intolerance of any economic system other than capitalism. You are so free, that you made it illegal to vote communist. (As a Canadian, I enjoy federal and provincial elections featuring "commies" who get just slightly fewer votes than the lunatic right wing). You are also so "free" that you think its ok to tell other countries how much they should spend on their military.
2] You are not a democracy, you are a representative republic. There have been very few direct democracies since the times of the Ancient Athens.
3] CNN, Time mag, etc... tell me what is going on. In fact, it takes abit of effort to get good local news as we are swamped by USA news.
The most annoying things about the USA is its complete inability to understand why anyone would not want to instantly make their country over in the image of the USA.
I pity you, and hope you were able to move on to a place that was more supportive.
The administration at my kids schools is MUCH more responsive! Teachers are encouraged to learn and use new techniques (as long as the core curriculum is covered). When there are problems it is expected that the teacher will call the parents and try to solve the problem. The administration only becomes involved if the parent and teacher can't work things out. When the adminstration is called in they work hard to help the teacher, student, and parents reach a solution quickly. Whether its extra help, a special program, "homework club", or for those incidents involving explosives, suspension, the adminstration supported the teachers, while being fair to the students, and keeping the parents informed.
Of course things are not always perfect, and the last teachers strike made teacher/parent relations a bit prickly for a while, but overall I'm impressed with the skill and dedication of my kids teachers.
Why do you assume a blow out will cause an accident? I had a tire blow out on the highway and it was not a problem to pull over and park the car. It is eaier to controll if a back tire blows, than a front, but it wasn't that bad. I did learn that the steel belts wrapped around the wheel are sharp!
I'm pissed at a lot of things that the USA is doing these days (steel tarrifs, softwood lumber tarrifs, farm subsidies, patent laws, copyright laws, general world wide bullying, and this wierd lack of unstanding that the rest of the world does NOT want to become a clone of the USA and its particular set of beliefs), but you have to admit that virtually any other government, past or present (except Canada, we are much too polite to take over the world), would likely have abused the power the USA has NOW to a much greater extent.
I think the USA is being a hypocrite and simply making excuses for self-serving policies, but at the same time they are being quite self restrained given the power they do wield.
No one in Canada is worried that the USA is going to invade us, but we do wish that they wouldn't ask us to support their wars while waging economic war on us.
People are not making love more now than 300 years ago. 300 years ago it was quite NORMAL to be married by 16 or 17, and have a family going before you hit 20. Half your children died before the age of 5, and your wife spent a good part of her life pregnant or nursing. Sex was about the only fun thing a poor peasant could do for free. No tv, movies, radios, lights, indoor plumbing, or central heating for most people.
The only thing that has changed is that people are having fewer children in the rich, industrialized, parts of the world.
Just like the "ton" of resources being used to foster democracy in Afghanistan.
Once the USA ran out of things to bomb they pulled back to Kabul and have pretty much left the rest of the country in the hands of the Northern Alliance warlords. The newly elected central government has little power outside of the capital, and is getting little help from the USA. To give credit were it is due, the USA's contributions to rebuilding Afghanistan are larger than the rest of the world's put together.
Iraq doesn't have anything even close to as well organized as the Northern Alliance to step in if Saddam falls. It will be chaos, as the various factions fight over the corpse of the country. And another "bonus" is that attacking Iraq (actually a secular country) will give more ammunition for recruiting more crazies to attack the USA.
It isn't copyright that is bad - it is copyright abuse that is bad.
If I write a book, or a piece of software I DON'T want it to be legal for anyone to copy my work, sell it, and make lots of money from my work while I get nothing. After a reasonable amount of time I should have made my money and my work enters the public domain. It is this last step "enter the public domain" that is being abused. Extending copyrights everytime Mickey Mouse is about to enter the public domain means that it now can take hundreds of years for works to enter the public domain. DMR, and simply using technology that 'fades away' can stop works from ever entering the public domain by effectively locking them up.
Mozart died virtually penniless. You want to return to that?
Surely you meant "Johnny Mnemonic", the so so movie made from the William Gibson short story of the same name. That was 1995, a wee bit before the Matrix. Sony's web site: Johhny Mnmenic
I think it is fair to not accept opened software or CD's. My local music shop will play a returned CD to make sure it is defective, and replace it with the same CD, but no refunds once the shrink wrap is off.
This is required in some cities in Canada, but it has nothing to do with preventing piracy - its to prevent the stores from selling stolen goods. CD's are very popular with burglars as they are small and easy to sell.
Only your name and address is recorded, but I've never been asked for ID when selling two or three old CD's.
Capitalism is good at allocating resources, and rewarding work - in the short term. Lazy capitalists are just as poor as lazy socialists.
Capitalism is very poor at doing things that are good for society at large over the long term. Its hard to make a profit with a school and keep tuition affordable. Universal education makes all of society wealthier in the long run, but pure, raw, capitalism sees it only as a cost.
Rigid idealology, left or right, is rarely the best solution. A mixed system, capitalism were it works best, socialism where it works best, is the best solution.
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Raising a family is hard work, and it does tend to make you risk averse, but it is the most fullfilling work I have ever done. Teenagers are just as annoying now to me, as I was to my parents, but it is just part of growing up. As for being offended - I'm not. Being a parent should not be something you stumble into. Do NOT have kids thinking it will shore up a shaky relationship. Having your first child is one of the most stressful things a couple will ever do. Be a parent because you realy want the hard work, and great joy, that being a parent entails.
I imagine that most people who actually pusure huge wealth actually ENJOY the work, or they'd do something else. I hope they enjoy it, otherwise they have wasted their lives.
Another book that explores this theme is "The Affluent Society" by John Kenneth Galbraith.
Watch the "Insider" - great movie. Russell Crowe can act. A great example of why making "profit" a virtue unto itself is a very bad idea.
The universe is neutral - it isn't good or bad. People can choose to be good or evil. Only beings capable of understaning the impact of their actions can be good or evil.
For myself, there is no evidence that God exists, and much evidence (say the question of evil) that God does not exist.
I live in a three bedroom apartment with my three kids. Every time I talk to my Dad he tells me to buy a house. I'll enjoy a house, its an invesment, you can AFFORD it. But I don't want a house. I don't enjoy gardening. I don't want more 'space'. I like having neighbors across the hall. Same with my 14 year old min-van. I like having an older car, paid cash for, that I don't realy care about. The kids can dump sand in it, scratch it with snow-boards, stain the carpets with vomit, and it isn't a big deal. Maybe I'll buy a little convertable one day, but there is no rush.
Stuff, and the pursuit of stuff will never make you happy for more than a few moments.
Balance and moderation in all things is the best path to happiness. Also, don't try to FORCE your view on others. I don't want a house, but maybe you really do. OK, buy a house. I'm not saying to give everything material up, just to pause for a minute a think if your realy need, or want all the "stuff" you have or want.
A joy becoming a job was the exact problem I was avoiding when I decided against art school and went into engineering. Art is still a hobby that I enjoy. Engineering didn't work out either, but I did drift over into computers where I discovered I realy enjoyed programming. Then I gve up the contractor's life for a steady job with a large firm because I had three kids and decided at this time I valued a steady paycheck more than a "fun" job. I mess about with directX and day dream about working on games again one day "when the kids are grown up".
Green Peace was once a great organization, but they are now just fanatics, that do indeed, play fast and lose with facts. It has become so bad that one of the founders, Bob Hunter, actually quit the GreenPeace quite a while back. More recently, Green Peace has been prattling on about the "Great Bear Rain Forest" here in BC and how the forest companies are cutting it down. Despite the fact that the forest companies are cutting down old growth forests as fast as they can, there is NO "Great Bear Rain Forest". Green Peace made it up because it looks good on billboards.
Those were pretty tame pranks. UBC (U. of British Columbia, up in Canada) engineers have placed a beetle car on the top of the ubc clock tower (its a free standing tower, kind of like a mini-washington monument with a clock at the top), and later hung a beetle under the Lion's Gate Bridge (a fairly large suspension bridge).
Simply sticking out the four years proves you can at least finish a project. A degree opens doors, but it is what you do once in the door that counts. Hopefully, getting your degree has taught you how to learn - something you should expect to do for the rest of your life if you expect to excel in your feild.
Successful people work for a very short time in "crappy support" jobs before moving on to better things. Successful people don't whine about their crappy job, they go out into the big, scary world, and work, push, cajole, and sweet-talk their way into the kind of job they realy want. They take risks. They take action.
You can write down music, but the written music is just a description, not the actual music. In the same way, math is a handy, concise, notation used to write down descriptions of the universe.
You don't generally expect people to be trying to gather evidence from your garbage. The police have a duty to get a search warrant before invading your privacy.
The police are NOT given the power to break the law. The police are expected to uphold the law while doing their job.
Lets pretend you are serious:
1] You preach freedom, but practice intolerance of any economic system other than capitalism. You are so free, that you made it illegal to vote communist. (As a Canadian, I enjoy federal and provincial elections featuring "commies" who get just slightly fewer votes than the lunatic right wing). You are also so "free" that you think its ok to tell other countries how much they should spend on their military.
2] You are not a democracy, you are a representative republic. There have been very few direct democracies since the times of the Ancient Athens.
3] CNN, Time mag, etc... tell me what is going on. In fact, it takes abit of effort to get good local news as we are swamped by USA news.
The most annoying things about the USA is its complete inability to understand why anyone would not want to instantly make their country over in the image of the USA.
The administration at my kids schools is MUCH more responsive! Teachers are encouraged to learn and use new techniques (as long as the core curriculum is covered). When there are problems it is expected that the teacher will call the parents and try to solve the problem. The administration only becomes involved if the parent and teacher can't work things out. When the adminstration is called in they work hard to help the teacher, student, and parents reach a solution quickly. Whether its extra help, a special program, "homework club", or for those incidents involving explosives, suspension, the adminstration supported the teachers, while being fair to the students, and keeping the parents informed.
Of course things are not always perfect, and the last teachers strike made teacher/parent relations a bit prickly for a while, but overall I'm impressed with the skill and dedication of my kids teachers.
Why do you assume a blow out will cause an accident? I had a tire blow out on the highway and it was not a problem to pull over and park the car. It is eaier to controll if a back tire blows, than a front, but it wasn't that bad. I did learn that the steel belts wrapped around the wheel are sharp!
I think the USA is being a hypocrite and simply making excuses for self-serving policies, but at the same time they are being quite self restrained given the power they do wield.
No one in Canada is worried that the USA is going to invade us, but we do wish that they wouldn't ask us to support their wars while waging economic war on us.
The only thing that has changed is that people are having fewer children in the rich, industrialized, parts of the world.
Once the USA ran out of things to bomb they pulled back to Kabul and have pretty much left the rest of the country in the hands of the Northern Alliance warlords. The newly elected central government has little power outside of the capital, and is getting little help from the USA. To give credit were it is due, the USA's contributions to rebuilding Afghanistan are larger than the rest of the world's put together.
Iraq doesn't have anything even close to as well organized as the Northern Alliance to step in if Saddam falls. It will be chaos, as the various factions fight over the corpse of the country. And another "bonus" is that attacking Iraq (actually a secular country) will give more ammunition for recruiting more crazies to attack the USA.
If I write a book, or a piece of software I DON'T want it to be legal for anyone to copy my work, sell it, and make lots of money from my work while I get nothing. After a reasonable amount of time I should have made my money and my work enters the public domain. It is this last step "enter the public domain" that is being abused. Extending copyrights everytime Mickey Mouse is about to enter the public domain means that it now can take hundreds of years for works to enter the public domain. DMR, and simply using technology that 'fades away' can stop works from ever entering the public domain by effectively locking them up.
Mozart died virtually penniless. You want to return to that?
Surely you meant "Johnny Mnemonic", the so so movie made from the William Gibson short story of the same name. That was 1995, a wee bit before the Matrix. Sony's web site: Johhny Mnmenic
I think it is fair to not accept opened software or CD's. My local music shop will play a returned CD to make sure it is defective, and replace it with the same CD, but no refunds once the shrink wrap is off.
Only your name and address is recorded, but I've never been asked for ID when selling two or three old CD's.
Capitalism is very poor at doing things that are good for society at large over the long term. Its hard to make a profit with a school and keep tuition affordable. Universal education makes all of society wealthier in the long run, but pure, raw, capitalism sees it only as a cost.
Rigid idealology, left or right, is rarely the best solution. A mixed system, capitalism were it works best, socialism where it works best, is the best solution.