I love the education programs from the same software houses that actually develop faulty software *AND INCLUDE* bug fixes and workarounds to current problems in their training criteria rather than actually fixing the problem at the software level so that a human wouldn't need to be expressly educated to deal with this exact problem.
This, in my opinion, is the fundamental flaw in all aspects of IT training, humans interfacing with computers add value by being flexible and intelligent in a way that a computer cannot be, I have seen my share of certified professionals who have been no more educated than the simple memorising of reams upon reams of troubleshooting and errata manuals, a simple google on a given problem instantly negates their advantages, whereas others that have trained long and hard to understand the underlying principles of development and administration, although they would be unlikely to bother with acquiring a certification in a given product, have skills which are quite simply put, priceless.
Give me one clever, wily hacker over a thousand MCSE monkeys and a hundred Ivy League accredited CS students.
This doesn't seem to have been covered, but surely it isn't too far outside the realms of possibility judged by how many people are saying this is not very impressive and terribly old technology. What I want to do is more of a toy application, mount a camera on my roof and project the image onto the ceiling, As far as I can tell I'd need...
Retro-reflective sheeting cut to dimensions of the ceiling. What's with the half mirror? unclear on this aspect. Camera mounted on the roof. Projector set to project the image on the roof.
You make subjective statements based on your beliefs with no back up evidence, every example you have given even though you keep coming back to it are of people who are following their own needs wants or desires.
The only people that do not do this are slaves, end of story.
Making a statement like there's no such thing as an individual is a pretty extraordinary one, and even more extraordinary is the statement that everything that everyone does affects everyone else, I can hold my finger up in the air right now and spin it in a few circles a few times, it will affect noone else.
We affect other people by the choice to do it alone, this is the only truth that empiric evidence supports, everything else is at this point subjective opinion.
This makes more sense now, if you don't accept a system of right and wrong then anything goes, thankyou for your explanation.
I don't look at it that way though, I do have a system of right and wrong and it's quite simple, I view everyone as an individual self contained person with the right to be left alone. That's pretty much my only moral gauge, so when they attempted to breach it, I breached them, am I proud of it? I'm not sure that's the right word, I didn't care too much for their consequences, but I wasn't dancing about like Ali chanting that I was the greatest and would've preferred that I didn't have to beat the shit out of them in order to get them to respect my boundaries. Am I ashamed of it though? Only insofaras they are also humans yet do not appear to have the ability to respect everyone elses space and I am also human, I am not ashamed of my actions in response to their initiations.
The only issue I had is that you refer to me as if I viewed the pain of others as a game, I have no desire to cause pain to anyone as a general rule, I don't go up to people in the street and hurt them for kicks. I don't see how this is by any measure the same as defending yourself against an agressor and inflicting great damage on them in the process.
in the case of volunteers rather than conscripts, they chose to be there, in the case of Bin Laden I think you'll find he believes he's carrying out a duty, something he feels he needs to do.
As for conscripts, they're no better than murder victims of the state. This doesn't apply to you though cause as far as I know noone is forcing you to do as you do, and you don't seem to be in a life threatening situation because of it.
No, not everyone feels like going to work every day or school every day, and sometimes they don't go, if this happened too often though, they wouldn't be able to go to work at all, which would not be preferable to most people.
Every example you keep going back to will contain the beliefs, needs, or wants of the person in question, so it's still exactly the same. They're taking their own path and dealing with the consequences of those choices. (except for thos aforementioned force one)
So basically you will not take responsibility for your personality?
I'll not take responsibility for someone else getting the shit beaten out of them because they couldn't deal with my personality, also, if it *had* been the other way around and I *did* get beaten down, you damn well bet I'd cry assault quick as lightning, under no circumstances will I take responsibility for the consequences of someone physically attacking me, except in the case that I physically attack them first (this has never and will never happen) end of story.
Lets not confuse the issue here. The issue is a nerd getting pushed around and tripped. It's not about murder. It's about them being marked, and maliciously picked on. Big fucking deal. All these dumb ass kids need to get a little bit of perspective on life. Yes, at 12 I had much more perspective on life than how bad it was to get pushed down.
That's assault and battery, do you think the argument is anymore convincing in that case? No. Just because worse things exist than something bad, does not make something bad somehow OK and something that people should just learn to deal with unless it can be effortlessly ignored, physical violence cannot be effortlessly ignored, if you want evidence of this refer to earlier experiment regarding high velocity foot impacts to the head.
When I was young, I got bullied. It was because of two things. I was smart, very well known as the smartest kid in my school. There was actually a rather large event that surrounded this so it was hard not to know. Second, I didn't realize other kids weren't, so I didn't know it was bad to say, "Well, I aced the test and didn't study at all."
Dude I pity you, it's *not* bad to say that, It's ok for some fucking neanderthal to take pride in his natural ability to run a field and plonk down a ball but it isn't ok for a bright kid to be pleased with his academic progress? How the fuck does that work?
I take responsibility for my ignorance, and my personality. I was a magnet for ass-kickings. I say, "Because of the way that I acted, I marked myself as a target for bullying." It's not hard, you should try it sometime. Because you "acknowledge" your involvement, you should take responsibility in the aspects of your personality that caused you to be marked.
Hahahah, this is too funny, you want me to take responsibility for the aspects of my personality that caused a few dickheads to break their bones on me? Why should I? Do you really think I care that they were damaged? even permanently damaged? If they had *died* I wouldn't have given a damn. I don't care about their "marking" of me and I never will.
If you get mugged walking down a street, you don't say the mugger forced you to walk down that particular street do you? The bully isn't forcing you to act like a reclusive freak.
No, he's trying to force me to act some *other* way and getting his ass kicked for doing it, what's your point? why should I change? why should I even care? As for the mugger I suppose you're trying to say by that you shouldn't walk down any streets because you might get mugged? That was just a nice shot out of the blue.
You seem to be confusing taking responsibility with acknowledging. I'll acknowledge that the poor hapless souls who attempted to bully me probably did it because of a perceived slight, but I won't take *responsibility* (i.e. a share of the blame) for their perceptions. Noone should have to.
Why is it so hard for people to understand that staying away from other children, or people in general, isn't an action?
That's exactly what I said, it's not an action, I didn't do anything, I said that, why are you agreeing with me as if though this is somehow against what I've been saying all along, it's not.
Of course there is a reason I stayed away from other kids, it's a very simple one, I was not interested in them, at all, period, didn't want to know them. If you think it's because I hated them, I'd like to ask you if you've ever studied ancient Persian culture? if not, does that mean you hated it? same thing, I just flat didn't care.
Involvement is in part responsibility, but not in the sense that it excuses the actions of the bully. People getting bullied never see their own involvement in it. End of story, you don't see it apparently, if you are grown up, you probably never will.
I saw how I was involved, they wanted to make an example of me and they failed, I was in no part responsible or to blame, they came as close as you possibly can come to breaking their own bones whilst having another person involved in said breakage.
As I've said before, thinking something will seep into your body language. For instance, why didn't you interact with other children? Name two reasons why you didn't, and I guarantee you that they seeped well into your behavior that someone outside would pick up on. Besides, any kid that can truly conceal what they are thinking from seeping into their actions would be amazingly popular anyway.
I am perfectly capable of completely eschewing thought and emotion from physical reaction, if you don't believe me I'll introduce you to a few of my exes, if they'd talk to me again.
And as for the popularity that would come with this, that's only if you take away the natural responses to thoughts and emotions and *replace* them with the *preferred* responses. I just took them away and didn't replace them at all, I had no interest in popularity, they tried to make friends with me and I ignored them.
Understand, Involvement is not equal to justification for what happens, but you must take responsibility for your own involvement in any circumstance.
I won't take responsibility, but I'll acknowledge I was involved, it was their responsibility entirely. Try pulling that in a court of law to reduce your damages
Your honour, I killed him because he looked at me funny, can you knock me down a few years on that sentence?
No, you remember I said exactly that I did nothing, I stayed away from all other children, and I didn't really have an opinion on their intelligence, I just flat out didn't want to know them. I also didn't end up with an ass beating, *they* did, so it wasn't really my problem in the end at all, they initiated it and I finished it, I held absolutely no responsibility for the event and that's the end of the story. Please direct healthcare costs to 127.0.0.1.
As for people who really *do* think that they're a bunch of fucking idiots, say they had no justification for thinking that, then said enlightened people would just look upon them as the sad pathetic little whimpering pups they were, if they *did* however have justification for thinking as such, why should they change their mind? It's not clever to rub their noses in it, but to simply think it? Come on, a thought crime, you've got to see where that's fucked up.
I never said the possibility of violence justified it, it isn't like I got to school, looked around for the guy with the baddest rep, then tore him a new asshole, even if I could have reasonably assumed after a day or two who the first person to attempt to attack me would be.
Preemptive, you know? You Americans seem to have a problem with that whole concept.
I also don't believe in your definition of provocation, you think that that "I hate niggers" definition is ok, but it's not. Noone has some innate moral right to smack you silly for pissing them off, they can ignore you of course and noone is worse for it, but beating it out of you is hardly justifiable.
I'n my example, I suppose you'd say I "provoked" the bully team by not wanting anything to do with them?
I get what you're saying, I just don't think it is any different for doing something for selfish reasons, you have a need, the need to help those you love in your own words, thus no different to the need to do drugs or fuck like monkeys on meth, etc etc etc.
You're scratching your itch, just like everyone else.
I never said I didn't give a fuck about *anyone* I said that I didn't give a fuck about the people that attempted to force me to participate in their silly little games. Your distinction between doing things for your own reasons and doing things because you believe it helps others is largely superficial, you help others because that makes you feel better about yourself, objectively that's no different from a sadist, a hedonist, or whatever.
There are a few people now I do give quite a large damn about, my closest friends, lovers and my immediate family, they have earnt my respect and trust and they have never attempted to force me to participate in some foolish popularity contest, which is the primary reason I ostracised everyone in high school, because they kept trying to force me not to.
Violence was the only thing they could use to get a reaction out of me and unfortunately for them it was a negative reaction. You'll have to excuse me if I don't feel sorry for them.
Foreign policy has nothing to do with it, but for the record I hope you're not trying to say Hussein is a pacifist and the US is a bully? I mean, come on, it's not even the same situation.
I don't even think kids are so violent, They just want to create their little social structures as the article originally stated and violence is one of the tools used to that end, in my case it was the only one I responded to, and unfortunately for them, that response was negative. When it became clear it wasn't going to work they gave up.
Didn't really matter, I've been floored numerous times in training by people a quarter my size, typically only in Aikido, but that is very well what people could learn in order to defend themselves.
How can you claim that you know me well enough to know my morals and where they stand? You disrespect me more than you add to your argument with your attempt at an attack against me. It does matter one bit what one person thinks about another, because while your thoughts hurt the other person their actions physical hurt you. Why is it that people say emotional pain is worse than physical pain, yet the constant knowledge that some smart-ass smug little nerd is always thinking down upon you without knowing you is perfectly ok?
Here's an experiment for you jack, You stand there and you think up the most hurtful and superior remarks you can possibly think of and hurl them at me relentlessly for three hours. After this period, I am going to kick you as hard as I possibly can directly in the face.
If you're still alive after this, you tell me which one of us had the better deal.
Physical damage is reality, it cannot be ignored or countered except by physical means, perceived verbal insults from party a to party b, real or imagined, are entirely as worthless as you choose to accept them to be, that's how it works, end of story.
You know you could sit there for 24 hours and hurl abuse at me for the duration and I could just bitchslap you and I would *still* have the better deal. Physical violence is in your face, social faux pas are as important as you make them.
Someone saying "I'm a fucktart, beat me" is in fact not a good justification for going ahead and beating that person. If you think any different you're getting into subjective ideals of what a fucktart is and how one goes about broadcasting such a thing and then everyone may wake up one day and decide that *you* are said fucktart and deserve to be beaten on.
There can only be one truly good reason for violence, and that is violence itself, that's not subjective, it's obvious when you're physically threatened, if someone attempts to put you in a headlock and you snap their arm like a twig, it doesn't matter what their original moralist social argument was for attempting to beat on you, they got what they deserved, end of story.
1) This pertains specifically to two, but so what? they'd get the shit beaten out of them again, or them and their friends. 2) I don't remember a statement of "no reason" he said the biggest guy of a group of tormentors... Torment being the reason for said fighting, assumedly.
Now, if the guy was messing with you and deserved it, hey, do what you gotta do. But, if you just pick out a random big-popular guy and kick his ass, then you got some big problems that only serious therapy can help you with.
Why did you feel the need to say that? Did you really care about his feelings or what he thought? If so why were you fighting at all? I know all I thought about when I heard the bones snap or sharp cries of intense pain from my wouldbe tormentors was that if this was the game they wanted to play they really ought to become far more adept at it.
Why *must* an effort be made? I don't get this compulsory need to socialise, if I choose not to socialise, with anyone, for whatever reason, that doesn't make it morally correct that they should try to change my policy by force.
That seems to be what a lot of people including yourself are saying here, and it just doesn't wash. If this really is the common viewpoint, I'm so totally glad that instead of submitting to it I had the physical ability to kick the shit out of anyone that got violent with me back then.
It's not ok to care about the physical things you leave behind, but it is not only ok, but quite clever, to care about the things you leave behind in the hearts and minds of other people?
If you live your life always trying to imagine your eulogy, you'll not live much of a life.
Who cares what people think of you when you're dead, you're dead. It doesn't *matter*, not to you, being dead and all nothing matters to you, whether Cindy cried cause you were a nice person or whether noone even noticed.
It just doesn't matter, end of story.
Thus, the only reason to pursue popularity is if you value the opinions of other people in life, that's subjective, but for the record, I don't give a fuck.
I always did well academically *and* isolated myself from all other students, not because I thought I was so much more clever than them but just because I wasn't interested in them.
I went to a few different schools, the pattern followed was always quite similiar, They'd ignore me until they realised that I was also ignoring them, and then they'd try to bully me, assumedly because they thought I was arrogant or whatever.
It never worked, I was twice as large as the average child in high school and had a developed interest in several martial arts, after a few fights resulting in the assailants getting concussions, broken bones, or knocked unconscious, they went back to leaving me alone like they did in the beginning.
Some of them even tried to make friends with me, I guess due to my not reciprocating I was a little arrogant, I can't rightly remember, it was nearly ten years ago now, I don't remember consciously hating them or feeling anything about them at all, I think they were just there and that was all.
The point I was trying to make I think is why should anyone be required to give a damn about any of their fellow students? It seems to smack of attention seeking behaviour to me. You shouldn't be under any obligation to massage somebody else's ego by gracing them with conversation or even acknowledgement if you choose not to, and for that person to then become violent with you and expect to be in the "good guy" seat is a little too much for me to stomach. I may not have hated them, but I was not at all sorry when they were severely injured as a consequence of their actions, either.
Slashdot Mirror
I love the education programs from the same software houses that actually develop faulty software *AND INCLUDE* bug fixes and workarounds to current problems in their training criteria rather than actually fixing the problem at the software level so that a human wouldn't need to be expressly educated to deal with this exact problem.
This, in my opinion, is the fundamental flaw in all aspects of IT training, humans interfacing with computers add value by being flexible and intelligent in a way that a computer cannot be, I have seen my share of certified professionals who have been no more educated than the simple memorising of reams upon reams of troubleshooting and errata manuals, a simple google on a given problem instantly negates their advantages, whereas others that have trained long and hard to understand the underlying principles of development and administration, although they would be unlikely to bother with acquiring a certification in a given product, have skills which are quite simply put, priceless.
Give me one clever, wily hacker over a thousand MCSE monkeys and a hundred Ivy League accredited CS students.
And to hell with formal accreditation.
This doesn't seem to have been covered, but surely it isn't too far outside the realms of possibility judged by how many people are saying this is not very impressive and terribly old technology.
What I want to do is more of a toy application, mount a camera on my roof and project the image onto the ceiling, As far as I can tell I'd need...
Retro-reflective sheeting cut to dimensions of the ceiling.
What's with the half mirror? unclear on this aspect.
Camera mounted on the roof.
Projector set to project the image on the roof.
Any ideas anyone?
1. I'm not American.
2. You're wrong.
You make subjective statements based on your beliefs with no back up evidence, every example you have given even though you keep coming back to it are of people who are following their own needs wants or desires.
The only people that do not do this are slaves, end of story.
Making a statement like there's no such thing as an individual is a pretty extraordinary one, and even more extraordinary is the statement that everything that everyone does affects everyone else, I can hold my finger up in the air right now and spin it in a few circles a few times, it will affect noone else.
We affect other people by the choice to do it alone, this is the only truth that empiric evidence supports, everything else is at this point subjective opinion.
I remain unconvinced.
Cheers
Eth.
This makes more sense now, if you don't accept a system of right and wrong then anything goes, thankyou for your explanation.
I don't look at it that way though, I do have a system of right and wrong and it's quite simple, I view everyone as an individual self contained person with the right to be left alone. That's pretty much my only moral gauge, so when they attempted to breach it, I breached them, am I proud of it? I'm not sure that's the right word, I didn't care too much for their consequences, but I wasn't dancing about like Ali chanting that I was the greatest and would've preferred that I didn't have to beat the shit out of them in order to get them to respect my boundaries. Am I ashamed of it though? Only insofaras they are also humans yet do not appear to have the ability to respect everyone elses space and I am also human, I am not ashamed of my actions in response to their initiations.
The only issue I had is that you refer to me as if I viewed the pain of others as a game, I have no desire to cause pain to anyone as a general rule, I don't go up to people in the street and hurt them for kicks. I don't see how this is by any measure the same as defending yourself against an agressor and inflicting great damage on them in the process.
in the case of volunteers rather than conscripts, they chose to be there, in the case of Bin Laden I think you'll find he believes he's carrying out a duty, something he feels he needs to do.
As for conscripts, they're no better than murder victims of the state. This doesn't apply to you though cause as far as I know noone is forcing you to do as you do, and you don't seem to be in a life threatening situation because of it.
No, not everyone feels like going to work every day or school every day, and sometimes they don't go, if this happened too often though, they wouldn't be able to go to work at all, which would not be preferable to most people.
Every example you keep going back to will contain the beliefs, needs, or wants of the person in question, so it's still exactly the same. They're taking their own path and dealing with the consequences of those choices. (except for thos aforementioned force one)
Like I said, again, you're scratching your itch, I totally understand what you're saying, you just don't understand what I'm saying.
You feel some kinda "need" to do it, in your own words, so you do it, to sate that need.
Some people feel some kinda need to go have sex or do drugs.
Sorry but I won't call you any morally better, although I will say you're more socially conducive.
I'll not take responsibility for someone else getting the shit beaten out of them because they couldn't deal with my personality, also, if it *had* been the other way around and I *did* get beaten down, you damn well bet I'd cry assault quick as lightning, under no circumstances will I take responsibility for the consequences of someone physically attacking me, except in the case that I physically attack them first (this has never and will never happen) end of story.
Lets not confuse the issue here. The issue is a nerd getting pushed around and tripped. It's not about murder. It's about them being marked, and maliciously picked on. Big fucking deal. All these dumb ass kids need to get a little bit of perspective on life. Yes, at 12 I had much more perspective on life than how bad it was to get pushed down.
That's assault and battery, do you think the argument is anymore convincing in that case? No. Just because worse things exist than something bad, does not make something bad somehow OK and something that people should just learn to deal with unless it can be effortlessly ignored, physical violence cannot be effortlessly ignored, if you want evidence of this refer to earlier experiment regarding high velocity foot impacts to the head.
When I was young, I got bullied. It was because of two things. I was smart, very well known as the smartest kid in my school. There was actually a rather large event that surrounded this so it was hard not to know. Second, I didn't realize other kids weren't, so I didn't know it was bad to say, "Well, I aced the test and didn't study at all."
Dude I pity you, it's *not* bad to say that, It's ok for some fucking neanderthal to take pride in his natural ability to run a field and plonk down a ball but it isn't ok for a bright kid to be pleased with his academic progress? How the fuck does that work?
I take responsibility for my ignorance, and my personality. I was a magnet for ass-kickings. I say, "Because of the way that I acted, I marked myself as a target for bullying." It's not hard, you should try it sometime. Because you "acknowledge" your involvement, you should take responsibility in the aspects of your personality that caused you to be marked.
Hahahah, this is too funny, you want me to take responsibility for the aspects of my personality that caused a few dickheads to break their bones on me? Why should I? Do you really think I care that they were damaged? even permanently damaged? If they had *died* I wouldn't have given a damn. I don't care about their "marking" of me and I never will.
If you get mugged walking down a street, you don't say the mugger forced you to walk down that particular street do you? The bully isn't forcing you to act like a reclusive freak.
No, he's trying to force me to act some *other* way and getting his ass kicked for doing it, what's your point? why should I change? why should I even care? As for the mugger I suppose you're trying to say by that you shouldn't walk down any streets because you might get mugged? That was just a nice shot out of the blue.
Why is it so hard for people to understand that staying away from other children, or people in general, isn't an action?
That's exactly what I said, it's not an action, I didn't do anything, I said that, why are you agreeing with me as if though this is somehow against what I've been saying all along, it's not.
Of course there is a reason I stayed away from other kids, it's a very simple one, I was not interested in them, at all, period, didn't want to know them. If you think it's because I hated them, I'd like to ask you if you've ever studied ancient Persian culture? if not, does that mean you hated it? same thing, I just flat didn't care.
Involvement is in part responsibility, but not in the sense that it excuses the actions of the bully. People getting bullied never see their own involvement in it. End of story, you don't see it apparently, if you are grown up, you probably never will.
I saw how I was involved, they wanted to make an example of me and they failed, I was in no part responsible or to blame, they came as close as you possibly can come to breaking their own bones whilst having another person involved in said breakage.
As I've said before, thinking something will seep into your body language. For instance, why didn't you interact with other children? Name two reasons why you didn't, and I guarantee you that they seeped well into your behavior that someone outside would pick up on. Besides, any kid that can truly conceal what they are thinking from seeping into their actions would be amazingly popular anyway.
I am perfectly capable of completely eschewing thought and emotion from physical reaction, if you don't believe me I'll introduce you to a few of my exes, if they'd talk to me again.
And as for the popularity that would come with this, that's only if you take away the natural responses to thoughts and emotions and *replace* them with the *preferred* responses. I just took them away and didn't replace them at all, I had no interest in popularity, they tried to make friends with me and I ignored them.
Understand, Involvement is not equal to justification for what happens, but you must take responsibility for your own involvement in any circumstance.
I won't take responsibility, but I'll acknowledge I was involved, it was their responsibility entirely. Try pulling that in a court of law to reduce your damages
Your honour, I killed him because he looked at me funny, can you knock me down a few years on that sentence?
I don't think so.
Something I Did?
No, you remember I said exactly that I did nothing, I stayed away from all other children, and I didn't really have an opinion on their intelligence, I just flat out didn't want to know them. I also didn't end up with an ass beating, *they* did, so it wasn't really my problem in the end at all, they initiated it and I finished it, I held absolutely no responsibility for the event and that's the end of the story. Please direct healthcare costs to 127.0.0.1.
As for people who really *do* think that they're a bunch of fucking idiots, say they had no justification for thinking that, then said enlightened people would just look upon them as the sad pathetic little whimpering pups they were, if they *did* however have justification for thinking as such, why should they change their mind? It's not clever to rub their noses in it, but to simply think it? Come on, a thought crime, you've got to see where that's fucked up.
I never said the possibility of violence justified it, it isn't like I got to school, looked around for the guy with the baddest rep, then tore him a new asshole, even if I could have reasonably assumed after a day or two who the first person to attempt to attack me would be.
Preemptive, you know? You Americans seem to have a problem with that whole concept.
I also don't believe in your definition of provocation, you think that that "I hate niggers" definition is ok, but it's not. Noone has some innate moral right to smack you silly for pissing them off, they can ignore you of course and noone is worse for it, but beating it out of you is hardly justifiable.
I'n my example, I suppose you'd say I "provoked" the bully team by not wanting anything to do with them?
That disgusts me.
I get what you're saying, I just don't think it is any different for doing something for selfish reasons, you have a need, the need to help those you love in your own words, thus no different to the need to do drugs or fuck like monkeys on meth, etc etc etc.
You're scratching your itch, just like everyone else.
I never said I didn't give a fuck about *anyone* I said that I didn't give a fuck about the people that attempted to force me to participate in their silly little games. Your distinction between doing things for your own reasons and doing things because you believe it helps others is largely superficial, you help others because that makes you feel better about yourself, objectively that's no different from a sadist, a hedonist, or whatever.
There are a few people now I do give quite a large damn about, my closest friends, lovers and my immediate family, they have earnt my respect and trust and they have never attempted to force me to participate in some foolish popularity contest, which is the primary reason I ostracised everyone in high school, because they kept trying to force me not to.
Violence was the only thing they could use to get a reaction out of me and unfortunately for them it was a negative reaction. You'll have to excuse me if I don't feel sorry for them.
Cheers
Etherael
Foreign policy has nothing to do with it, but for the record I hope you're not trying to say Hussein is a pacifist and the US is a bully? I mean, come on, it's not even the same situation.
I don't even think kids are so violent, They just want to create their little social structures as the article originally stated and violence is one of the tools used to that end, in my case it was the only one I responded to, and unfortunately for them, that response was negative. When it became clear it wasn't going to work they gave up.
Didn't really matter, I've been floored numerous times in training by people a quarter my size, typically only in Aikido, but that is very well what people could learn in order to defend themselves.
Here's an experiment for you jack, You stand there and you think up the most hurtful and superior remarks you can possibly think of and hurl them at me relentlessly for three hours. After this period, I am going to kick you as hard as I possibly can directly in the face.
If you're still alive after this, you tell me which one of us had the better deal.
Physical damage is reality, it cannot be ignored or countered except by physical means, perceived verbal insults from party a to party b, real or imagined, are entirely as worthless as you choose to accept them to be, that's how it works, end of story.
You know you could sit there for 24 hours and hurl abuse at me for the duration and I could just bitchslap you and I would *still* have the better deal. Physical violence is in your face, social faux pas are as important as you make them.
Someone saying "I'm a fucktart, beat me" is in fact not a good justification for going ahead and beating that person. If you think any different you're getting into subjective ideals of what a fucktart is and how one goes about broadcasting such a thing and then everyone may wake up one day and decide that *you* are said fucktart and deserve to be beaten on. There can only be one truly good reason for violence, and that is violence itself, that's not subjective, it's obvious when you're physically threatened, if someone attempts to put you in a headlock and you snap their arm like a twig, it doesn't matter what their original moralist social argument was for attempting to beat on you, they got what they deserved, end of story.
1) This pertains specifically to two, but so what? they'd get the shit beaten out of them again, or them and their friends.
2) I don't remember a statement of "no reason" he said the biggest guy of a group of tormentors... Torment being the reason for said fighting, assumedly.
Now, if the guy was messing with you and deserved it, hey, do what you gotta do. But, if you just pick out a random big-popular guy and kick his ass, then you got some big problems that only serious therapy can help you with.
I don't think that's what he was advocating.
Why did you feel the need to say that? Did you really care about his feelings or what he thought? If so why were you fighting at all? I know all I thought about when I heard the bones snap or sharp cries of intense pain from my wouldbe tormentors was that if this was the game they wanted to play they really ought to become far more adept at it.
Why *must* an effort be made? I don't get this compulsory need to socialise, if I choose not to socialise, with anyone, for whatever reason, that doesn't make it morally correct that they should try to change my policy by force.
That seems to be what a lot of people including yourself are saying here, and it just doesn't wash. If this really is the common viewpoint, I'm so totally glad that instead of submitting to it I had the physical ability to kick the shit out of anyone that got violent with me back then.
C'est la vie.
Etherael.
It's not ok to care about the physical things you leave behind, but it is not only ok, but quite clever, to care about the things you leave behind in the hearts and minds of other people?
If you live your life always trying to imagine your eulogy, you'll not live much of a life.
Who cares what people think of you when you're dead, you're dead. It doesn't *matter*, not to you, being dead and all nothing matters to you, whether Cindy cried cause you were a nice person or whether noone even noticed.
It just doesn't matter, end of story.
Thus, the only reason to pursue popularity is if you value the opinions of other people in life, that's subjective, but for the record, I don't give a fuck.
Cheers
Etherael.
Anecdotally,
I always did well academically *and* isolated myself from all other students, not because I thought I was so much more clever than them but just because I wasn't interested in them.
I went to a few different schools, the pattern followed was always quite similiar, They'd ignore me until they realised that I was also ignoring them, and then they'd try to bully me, assumedly because they thought I was arrogant or whatever.
It never worked, I was twice as large as the average child in high school and had a developed interest in several martial arts, after a few fights resulting in the assailants getting concussions, broken bones, or knocked unconscious, they went back to leaving me alone like they did in the beginning.
Some of them even tried to make friends with me, I guess due to my not reciprocating I was a little arrogant, I can't rightly remember, it was nearly ten years ago now, I don't remember consciously hating them or feeling anything about them at all, I think they were just there and that was all.
The point I was trying to make I think is why should anyone be required to give a damn about any of their fellow students? It seems to smack of attention seeking behaviour to me. You shouldn't be under any obligation to massage somebody else's ego by gracing them with conversation or even acknowledgement if you choose not to, and for that person to then become violent with you and expect to be in the "good guy" seat is a little too much for me to stomach. I may not have hated them, but I was not at all sorry when they were severely injured as a consequence of their actions, either.