All The Unemployed Are Lazy Slobs...Except Me.

don't give up. (2.00 / 6)

i'm an archaeologist.  i generally have a much deeper viewshed than lots of folks when it comes to humans and how they choose to live.  civilizations fail.  all of them do.  ours will too sooner or later -- thats a given -- and it will be because we do some stupid shit (or some combination of stupid shits).  FTR, my money is on cascading ecological disasters that cause wide-spread famine and pandemic disease, but that's neither here nor there.  still, I'm not giving up.

for me, it's not about the goal or the ideal, it's about getting there.  the struggle.  we'll never fix everything.  something (or heaps of things) will always suck.  without poverty, corruption, injustice, bigotry, stupidity, and inequality good people like us would have absolutely nothing to do.

It's a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead, and find no one there. -Franklin Roosevelt

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by: fogiv @ Tue Jul 27, 2010 at 23:45:57 PM CDT

I find this quote awesome on so many levels. (2.00 / 4)

without poverty, corruption, injustice, bigotry, stupidity, and inequality good people like us would have absolutely nothing to do.

Yup. You guessed it!

Check out my sig...

Without poverty, corruption, injustice, bigotry, stupidity, and inequality good people like us would have absolutely nothing to do. - fogiv

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by: spacemanspiff @ Wed Jul 28, 2010 at 00:32:10 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

i made a spiffy sig! (2.00 / 5)

that's the big leagues, baby.

It's a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead, and find no one there. -Franklin Roosevelt

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by: fogiv @ Wed Jul 28, 2010 at 00:50:52 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

I'll just second it all. (2.00 / 5)

DTO, you hang with the wrong crowd or you deliver your message in the wrong way or both.

I'm the genetically-predisposed Moderator.  I learned early on that sitting quietly and thinking about other things made me "a good listener".  Later I figured out that it wasn't the way I absently nodded my head, but that I wasn't filling the air with my opinions but rather commenting on the other person's diatribe.

These days I find myself doing that sort of thing all the time.  Friends, work - there is always someone worked-up about  something and I have to figure out what it is and how they got to that state and try to move them to a better state.  It isn't a matter of showing anyone why they are wrong, only matching where they are to where it seems they would be better off and suggesting some steps in that direction.  Often it is just a matter of putting their situation into context.

I mentioned in another thread that there are two types of people.  Actually, that was three from my favorite novel Cryptonomicon (sic):

1.  People who don't use words much but use their hands and actions instead.

2.  People who use words as tools to accomplish an end.

3.  People who use words to discover things.

Most people when they are speaking are being the second kind.  It is worthwhile trying to be the third as often as possible.

I do not declare much.  

The answer to whether unemployment insurance has demotivational downsides is an interesting one with several layers at least.  I cannot declare a definitive position on that one.  The interesting information is hidden in the details below emotional declarations - "yes" is true, but is that 0.01% or 55%?  (then) Why is it demotivational for each demographic? (then) What kinds of things might improve that? (then) Why might the best-sounding of those not work?

I think I know a reasonably large amount about many of the technical aspects of climate.  I find it quite hard to accept the rosiest denier's arguments, but neither do I think the gloomiest is correct either.  The set of possible realities includes both of them, though, and the variables of Nature and our ability to morph various technologies over time are enormous unknowns.

It is perhaps more effort to caveat your own opinions much of the time, but in my experience it is easier than fighting to defend a combative position.  It is certainly dramatically more likely to have a positive outcome of some sort.  In any case, it is vanishingly unlikely that any of us knows what the right thing to do about a complicated issues is, anyway, so it's a fool's errand to act like we do.

"Conway, whom experience had taught that rudeness was by no means a guarantee of good faith, was even less inclined to regard a well-turned phrase as a proof of insincerity."  James Hilton, Lost Horizon

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by: chrisblask @ Wed Jul 28, 2010 at 01:34:44 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Not to Mention... (2.00 / 1)

4.  People who use words to obfuscate, enervate, proselytise and create opportunities for picking your pockets.  Consider:

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

H L Mencken

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by: Shaun Appleby @ Sun Aug 08, 2010 at 20:32:34 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Those are in the second group. (0.00 / 0)

Trying to achieve a predetermined result.  

"Conway, whom experience had taught that rudeness was by no means a guarantee of good faith, was even less inclined to regard a well-turned phrase as a proof of insincerity."  James Hilton, Lost Horizon

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by: chrisblask @ Sat Aug 28, 2010 at 21:07:45 PM CDT

[ Parent ]