HereAndGone2
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User ID: 4074
HereAndGone2
4d ago
But given that there's something of a renaissance of religious (or just generally pre-modern) thinking going on
Ooh! Coming straight out of the gate with the whip going already! 🤣
I don't get into that fight on here because I generally like you guys and it's not going anywhere. The STEM people are convinced that Science Explains It All, us religious types have been in this fight once too often before, and we end up talking past each other. There's not much room for debate when one side lays out "yeah but just because you felt the presence of the Holy Spirit, that is more easily explained by [launch into neurochemistry, neurobiology, and psychology explanation]" as their standard of proof. I mean, I've had the "St Paul was an epileptic, ackshully, which is why he fell off his horse and hallucinated Jeebus was talking to him" stuff already, I don't need more of it.
As I said, I like you guys and getting into what is sure to degenerate into name-calling and mutual insulting of intelligence and sanity isn't fruitful. There are lots of better theologians, philosophers, and apologists out there online. I'd prefer to keep my powder dry for the really important fights to come (like the third season of Rings of Power, dropping upon us like Fat Man on Nagasaki in November this year).
HereAndGone2
4d ago
Used to be stories in the Irish media back in the 80s about kids doing their Leaving Certificate from their hospital beds, so not solely an Indian phenomenon 😁 Haven't seen one of those in ages, so presumably we've relaxed things on the "this is the make-or-break exam of your life and if you fail it you will continue to be a miserable loser from age seventeen onwards" front.
HereAndGone2
4d ago
It is a jerk thing to do, though I seem to have vague memories of something similar happening in further education training course I did, so clearly it was one of those management-theory fads at the time.
But to steelman it, often during school exams (when I was going to secondary school) people would lose marks because they did not read the instructions carefully and just jumped in to answer the questions, so they missed things like "choose one problem from section A and two problems from section B" and instead just started doing the problems they found easiest.
Always read the instructions. This can save your life.
HereAndGone2
4d ago
Yeah, there's nothing stopping American VCs from deciding that the funding a UK start-up wants is chickenfeed and they lose nothing by throwing a few hundred grand their way, except the expectations that your start-up wants to make it big and to do that you need to eventually be US-based.
HereAndGone2
4d ago
forcing American VCs to invest in UK startups that aren't looking to enter the US market in the short to medium term
Except you can't force them, and American VCs will expect that any successful startup will move to the USA for reasons (we're the centre of the universe, here is where the money is, you need the Silicon Valley/Wall Street connections, etc.)
HereAndGone2
4d ago
The irony comes through in the public/state schools not being any good, so everyone who can goes private (grinds/tutoring) then it flips to the public/state universities are the best of the best (because of rigorous competition for places) and private is an admission you were too dim to get into public university.
HereAndGone2
4d ago
You do everything for family. You support them no matter what. I agree with that. But when it comes to your support doing more harm than good in the long run, you stop. You don't enable them.
And that's what you're doing here. You're living vicariously through her and her family, but does she feel the same about you? You talk about her being like a younger sister, but that was the same with you and her mother: "she was like a big sister to me". That became more distant with time, so the same emotional investment wasn't there for her as for you, and it sounds the same with this younger cousin - she gets you to do the grunt work, she benefits by it, and you get to feel useful and appreciated since you don't have a family of your own.
HereAndGone2
4d ago
I've been roped in to "help" with homework as a kid, and though for the family member it was not down to partying (they had been very sickly throughout childhood and missed a lot of school as a result), it didn't help them in the long run and I ended up resenting being emotionally manipulated into doing this by parents.
I have to agree with @Sloot that this was teaching the wrong lesson: just do what you like, blow off responsibility, then cry a bit and someone will help you out. What happened in the end? Your cousin continued lying even when everyone knew (but could not prove) she was lying, she went to higher authority to get the fake result, succeeded, and came away having 'won' by cheating and deceit. This isn't good for society as a whole or for the individuals concerned. She hasn't learned anything except that you're a soft touch who will always come through and fix her problems for her, and she can coast on charm, attractiveness, and doing what she wants while you will always clean up her messes and even look after her kids for her. How can she learn when it's you "helping her through school, building her resumes, coaching her, etc."? She did none of the work, she learned nothing, and worse, the next generation (her kids) are learning the same thing: don't worry about messing up, cousin Tretiak will sweep it under the carpet for us, the old fool!
Has her professional success benefited you? Has she done anything to help you? Or is it always turn up, turn on the waterworks, and my simp cousin will sort it out for me?
HereAndGone2
4d ago
I can see why you'd do this for family harmony, but otherwise it's a bad idea. You were helping someone who had not done the work get a fake qualification which they would then use to get a job where their inadequacy would be exposed, but perhaps not before they had done harm to someone. If the essay contained "genes" then clearly it was on biology and that might be medicine, and there are enough fraudsters in that field without helping one more.
EDIT: Though if this was high school and not college, much less harmful and it might have alerted her parents to the fact that she was wasting her time and not studying.
HereAndGone2
4d ago
To be fair to the teacher, it wasn't "this is terrible work", it was "this is way too good for you to have produced, you must have swiped it from somewhere" and that is what your cousin did. She pretended she wrote it as her own original work, and it was not: it was all yours.
HereAndGone2
4d ago
Tbh with your religious beliefs and temperament I'd half-seriously suggest checking out convents.
Back when I was eighteen or so, a lot of people suggested I should be a nun. But joining religious life just because you don't fit into secular life doesn't work (that was a huge part of the reason for all the abuse and sex abuse cases in the Church). I knew by myself that I did not have a genuine vocation so that was not for me.
I don't mind if the explanation is "you're just weird or mentally ill or both". It was a reaction to all this about loneliness that I see getting mentioned more and more, and how the default assumption is "everyone wants and needs X, Y, Z" (funnily enough, right now I'm listening to the radio and a song is on with a chorus of "nobody to love" where the singer is lamenting that state), and I'm going "well I don't, so not everybody". If that means "okay a tiny, tiny proportion of the population are just weirdo loner nutcases", fine. I was just wondering "am I the 1 person out of a hundred million who feels like this, or is it genuinely "7,999,999,999 people want love and connection and you are the 1 human on Earth who doesn't"?
HereAndGone2
4d ago
Generally it was "hey guys, am I a sociopath?" and the response so far seems to be "yeah of course, you weirdo" "okay, thanks for the clarification!" 😁
Because as I say, I'm reading and hearing all this "loneliness epidemic" stuff, even to the extent of participating in a work webinar about social isolation and suicide (cheerful topic) and while the speaker was going on about "and this and this and this means people are isolated and that means increased risk of that bad outcome and that bad outcome and that", I was internally going "but I don't feel like that, I don't have this and this and this but I don't miss it or want it?"
HereAndGone2
4d ago
I would recommend socializing more, because it can be an incredibly pleasant and fulfilling experience.
Tried that, in my youth. Hated it. Really find it draining to be around people, with noise and lights and drinking and chatting and everything. I've skipped more "this is our graduation dinner and happy time, here's your invite!/this is the work Christmas party!" occasions because I've gone to one or even two of those previously and the result was "the amount of enjoyment I got out of going was much less than staying home and doing my own thing".
I'm happy under my little rock!
HereAndGone2
5d ago
Well, I sort of have hobbies, mostly "reading, listening to music, and getting away from people as fast as I can". All the solitary pursuits. It was a constant problem when writing up CVs because you're supposed to put a list of hobbies which are thinly-disguised (or not disguised at all) lists of achievements for why you are such a go-getter successful hard-charger who will maximise value for any employer: captain of this, winner of that, involved in club A and sport B and activity C where you were leader and organiser and winner winner winner.
Having "I don't do any of that" on the 'this is where you sell yourself' document never helped, so eventually I just dropped it anyway. Ironically, the first time I handed in a revised CV with that taken off and went to interview was the first time ever an interviewer asked me "What about your hobbies?" 🤣
HereAndGone2
5d ago
Should we be arguing you into loneliness? Do you want us to be arguing you into loneliness?
No, I was just curious to see what you guys would say, because at least on here something other than the commonplace is considered. If I look around, the advice and discussion is all about "loneliness, what do we do about it, is it an epidemic" because the default assumption if "if not having A, then result B" which is loneliness.
But some people are "if not having A, result C". Now, maybe the answer is "yeah that's 'cos you're a psychopath" and maybe so. For example, the current hit movie "Hail Mary Project" where the protagonist is pressganged into that expedition, against his very vehement opposition and protest, where he is kidnapped, drugged with amnesiacs, put in a coma, and shot off into space on what is a suicide mission (they can get out to the Tau Ceti planet but they won't have enough fuel to get back to Earth).
And the expectation is, and the result is, that he will solve the mystery and send the solution back home to save Earth. He's explicitly told, by the person who ends up shanghaiing him, that he has no connections on Earth: no family, no partner, not even a dog.
And this is all supposed to make him care enough to save them? Were I in that situation, even if I found the solution, I'd send back the message "Fuck you and fuck Earth. You sent me here to die? Well all of you can die along with me. I don't like any of you, I don't care about any of you - WHICH YOU TOLD ME TO MY FACE - and I don't have any reason to help you".
HereAndGone2
5d ago
My childbearing days are behind me, thank God. I never wanted children, because I knew I would be incapable as a parent and would cause more harm than good. Also, you need another person even for a minimum period of time to get pregnant, and I couldn't tolerate even that minimum of being involved with another person.
HereAndGone2
5d ago
Not a problem, just more an idea of "have you considered that in fact some people don't want X or Y?"
I suppose a bit like recommending to a gay guy "now what you really need is a nice wife, so you'll have someone to love and take care of you". Not what is wanted.
The messaging seems to be taking for granted that everyone wants friends, family, lovers, social interaction. If you don't have it, you miss it and want it. If you don't have it, this is loneliness which is a problem.
For the majority of people, that's true. But for some people it's not, and so the pat answers about "well find friends, get involved in your community, mix with people, get a hobby that will help you meet others" and the rest of it is like, as I said, telling a gay guy that all he really needs is a good woman.
Thank you for the cheerful assessment, and is it any wonder I don't like people?
When I was a kid, my friends were willow trees. In the years since, I have never seen any reason to prefer a human to a tree.
I can definitely say that at school I was not bullied or socially rejected. I did hang out with other kids, just that I never wanted to do this by choice as my first option. I was more content on my own.
"You're a loser because nobody likes you so you have to pretend you don't care about it" is not true in my case. I don't feel all this need for connection and intimacy that, apparently, I should be feeling according to the received wisdom. But I don't feel this need or lack.
Now, you are probably perfectly correct that my wiring is all messed-up and I'm nuts and the rest of it, but I just find it unusual that surely there must be more people, even if only a handful, out there who are solitary and happy to be that way and not wishing they had all this normal life?
HereAndGone2
6d ago
This is a weird question, but my dears, if I can't find weirdoes here to help answer it, where will I find them?
So... what do you do if you're not lonely?
By which I mean, all the pop psychology and media opinion pieces and chatty helpful (annoying) little mental health wellness driblets tell you you should be lonely if (check off list of things).
Apparently there's a loneliness epidemic. Or maybe there isn't, opinions differ. But there is agreement: lack of connection is bad for you, including bad for your physical health. Some are optimistic that AI can be your friend instead.
Yeah, but... I'm alone, but I'm not lonely. I can check off that list:
Lack of human connection? Yes
Social isolation? Yes
No friends? Yes
No close family members? Yes
No romantic partners (this seems to be the big one, the cri de coeur of the incels and I do not mock them with this)? Yes
No kids/fulfilment? Yes
Not even furbabies? Oh hell yeah no pets
But you socialise? You travel? You do things? You have hobbies? No
I should be curled up in a ball crying and weeping and wringing my hands about wanting all that, and I'm not.
Now, am I depressed? I think I might be (can't get a diagnosis, the one and only time I mentioned suicidal ideation to my doctor I got asked was I self-harming or tried suicide? no? nothing to see there, then), but while the big light-bulb "aha!" moment there should be "and that's because you're so isolated", I don't think so. I've wanted to be dead (not the same as wanted to commit suicide, I've never tried that) since I was about eleven, but here it is decades and decades later and I'm still here.
The cynical view is "but you need friends because friendships are transactional and can be monetised; if you do things for them they have to do things for you". That's never worked for me, because the few times back when I was young and dumb enough to ask, in return for 'do this for me get that for me of course we'll do the same for you', "okay so now can you do this for me?" suddenly and miraculously it was always the wrong time, inconvenient, impossible for some reason.
So I never grew to regard friendship as transactional because I could never get those transactions going (sorry, Rorschach, I disagree with you there even though I would be sympathetic to a lot of your thinking and if that makes me an authoritarian, Alan Moore, then too bad).
But I'm not lonely. I'm on my own, and I'm happy that way (if you accept that this, for me, constitutes "happy"). Mostly I don't like people. I can fake it, I can get along for short bursts of interaction at work and elsewhere, remember things other person said and bring them up or talk about some topic in the news, but about five minutes is my maximum tolerance and ability to pretend normality. After that, I have to consciously remind myself "do not say out loud 'I wish this person would shut up and go away and stop bothering me', keep the expression of mild interest and pleasant smile on until they do feck off, don't look at something else like paperwork or computer screen or whatever".
So what do I do, when I'm supposed to be lonely and wanting all that human connection, but I don't. I really, honestly, don't.
What do you do when you're supposed to be lonely but you're not?
HereAndGone2
6d ago
I've recently gotten into Congo denialism and like anybody with a basic sense of numeracy and logistical capabilities of 1000 Belgians in the Congo gotta doubt the most extreme numbers.
See what Roger Casement had to say? He also gave an account of abuses against natives in Peru.
The irony here is that he was later prosecuted and executed for being a traitor, so it's not solely a case of "I praise our imperialism because we're British and denounce their imperialism because they're filthy foreigners".
The contrast when once Congolese territory is entered is remarkable. From the frontier to Gondokoro is about 80 miles. The proper left, or western, bank of the river is Belgian. The opposite bank is either under the Soudanese or the Uganda Government. There are numerous islands, and as all these are under British rule—for the thalweg, which, under Treaty, is the Belgian frontier, skirts the western bank of the river—I cannot say that I had an opportunity of seeing a full 80 miles of Belgian territory. At the same time, I saw a good deal, and I noticed that, whereas there were numerous villages and huts on the eastern bank and on the islands, on the Belgian side not a sign of a village existed. Indeed, I do not think that any one of our party saw a single human being in Belgian territory, except the Belgian officers and men and the wives and children of the latter. Moreover, not a single native was to be seen either at Kiro or Lado. I asked the Swedish officer at Kiro whether he saw much of the natives. He replied in the negative, adding that the nearest Bari village was situated at some distance in the interior. The Italian officer at Lado, in reply to the same question, stated that the nearest native village was seven hours distant.
The reason of all this is obvious enough. The Belgians are disliked. The people fly from them, and it is no wonder they should do so, for I am informed that the soldiers are allowed full liberty to plunder, and that payments are rarely made for supplies. The British officers wander, practically alone, over most parts of the country, either on tours of inspection or on shooting expeditions. I understand that no Belgian officer can move outside the settlements without a strong guard.
It appears to me that the facts which I have stated above afford amply sufficient evidence of the spirit which animates the Belgian Administration, if, indeed, Administration it can be called. The Government, so far as I could judge, is conducted almost exclusively on commercial principles, and, even judged by that standard, it would appear that those principles are somewhat short-sighted.
...I have dwelt upon the condition of P* and the towns I visited around Lake Mantumba in my notes taken at the time, and these are appended hereto (Inclosure 3). A careful investigation of the conditions of native life around the lake confirmed the truth of the statements made to me—that the great decrease in population, the dirty and ill-kept towns, and the complete absence of goats, sheep, or fowls—once very plentiful in this country—were to be attributed above all else to the continued effort made during many years to compel the natives to work india-rubber. Large bodies of native troops had formerly been quartered in the district, and the punitive measures undertaken to this end had endured for a considerable period. During the course of these operations there had been much loss of life, accompanied, I fear, by a somewhat general mutilation of the dead, as proof that the soldiers had done their duty. Each village I visited around the lake, save that of Q* and one other, had been abandoned by its inhabitants. To some of these villages the people have only just returned; to others they are only now returning. In one I found the bare and burnt poles of what had been dwellings left standing, and at another—that of R*—the people had fled at the approach of my steamer, and despite the loud cries of my native guides on board, nothing could induce them to return, and it was impossible to hold any intercourse with them. At the three succeeding villages I visited beyond R*, in traversing the lake towards the south, the inhabitants all fled at the approach of the steamer, and it was only when they found whose the vessel was that they could be induced to return.
At one of these villages, S*, after confidence had been restored and the fugitives had been induced to come in from the surrounding forest, where they had hidden themselves, I saw women coming back carrying their babies, their household utensils, and even the food they had hastily snatched up, up to a late hour of the evening. Meeting some of these returning women in one of the fields I asked them why they had run away at my approach, and they said, smiling, “We thought you were Bula Matadi” (i.e., “men of the Government”). Fear of this kind was formerly unknown on the Upper Congo; and in much more out-of-the-way places visited many years ago the people flocked from all sides to greet a white stranger. But to-day the apparition of a white man’s steamer evidently gave the signal for instant flight.
HereAndGone2
7d ago
HereAndGone2
7d ago
...the fact that Dick Cheney prior to his death voted for her, and Liz’s attempt at getting George W. Bush to endorse Harris shows that there is a significant desire among the moderates of the GOP to escape the influence of Magaist politics.
That will never not be funny to me. The Great Satan of All Great Satans for the liberal side of the equation, Dick "Darth" Cheney, came out in support of the First Ever Female Asian Black President-Presumptive, and then they tried getting Chimpy McHitler to endorse her.
Under what moon did they think this was a winning strategy? Get the guys our party has spent twenty years publicly excoriating as Worse Than Hitler to state "We just love that little coloured girl" and then lose all or most of our own supporters and don't win any of the other side's supporters?
I think the Cheney strategy did not really do anything one way or the other, sorry Liz there went your hopes of being the Token White Gal in the Coconut Queen's administration, but I couldn't believe it then and I still can't believe it now.
HereAndGone2
8d ago
Cyberlibertarianism is exactly what it sounds like: the belief that the internet should be fully unrestricted and ungoverned.
Oh great, I just got a spam email that hacked one of my email accounts to send me "pay us bitcoin or we send your naughty browsing history to everyone" blackmail attempt.
I don't have a camera and microphone attached to my PC so I laugh to scorn your clumsy efforts at "we took control and recorded you self-abusing to disgusting porn", criminals!
But these idiots want to make it even easier for criminals to scare money out of the gullible, and more importantly, clog up the inboxes of those of us who don't care if the world sees our perverted kinks history?
No, thank you. That's like the "all drugs of whatever sort should be legal and available without limit" notion, only considered a good idea by those who don't have to deal with the kinds of people who want to take all sorts of drugs all day long and/or deal in same.
Well foof me sideways, brother, I owe you an apology.
The Romanian Eurovision entry. I don't know if it's Romanians in general or just Romanian women, but yeah. When your song is called Choke Me it's pretty straightforward about what she wants.
Whatever happened to wholesome family-friendly fare like this? 😁
EDIT: Meanwhile the Italians are being romantic, all you need to get married is what every woman wants - a man in a shiny tracksuit!
And here we go already: you don't really believe what you say you believe, you're only cosplaying.
Yeah, this is going to lead to greater understanding and mutual respect, ain't it?
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