Tretiak
2hr ago
Sounds to me like if it was fraud and mismanagement it wasn't being spent on social spending and defense anyway.
That’s awesome. You and I are identical in this way. I wonder what explains people like us.
Tretiak
23hr ago
Don't think my personality has changed at all or if it has, hardly so. People aren't very good when it comes to their own self-conceptualization and how they imagine themselves to be. Circumstance and local conditions modulate how the different aspects of your psychology express themselves so where you place the emphasis on the spectrum is never going to seem completely accurate because it's always shifting around a bit before you run into regression to the mean.
Tretiak
23hr ago
Thank you.
Again, I'd never been officially checked or diagnosed with anything, and some people just have general personality quirks. Not everyone connects the same way. If I did have it, I'm pretty high functioning and most people wouldn't suspect it. But even as I've gotten so much better, it's still never one of those things that never comes naturally. Socialization in general is one of those things that always gets easier the more you do it and everyone has bad experiences. How you succeed and in what environment depends very much on whether individuals find 'their people' and group or not. It feels much more natural and at home in the company of close family and friends. I've also strangely never had any problems speaking to large crowds or groups. I can do that with ease when others typically run away from the stage or podium.
Tretiak
1d ago
Would you rather be a crackhead or a crackho?
Crackho’s getting fucked ‘on’ crack, crackheads getting fucked ‘by’ crack.
Tretiak
1d ago
Hard to know how domestic industry isn’t important to your country’s ability to survive. If “non-military,” then sure, but then how asinine their claims would look. I think that’s why they ran with “non-defense.”
Tretiak
1d ago
Sometimes the good ol’ “flatten the tires” treatment does the trick. Or you could try putting a potato in his exhaust pipe. Or stand on top of the hood of the car and piss all over his windshield (I actually have a friend that did this once). Not that I would ever advocate anything like this, it is highly illegal. Unless you ‘want’ to go to jail.
… On thing I have never taken into consideration is whether my argument is intellectually consistent with an argument I've made in the past, even if I'm arguing for the same client in front of the same judge in a case with substantially similar facts to a case I've argued previously...
Not trying to demean you as a litigator but isn’t that what most of the legal system is about anyway? Most cases are just a performative exercise in plausible sophistry, and I’m not using that term disparagingly, but ultimately it’s about persuading the judge.
Isn’t it also the case as I’ve read that most parties sue in order to settle out of court? Parties that litigate to the very end are fairly rare from what I heard, which is why I remember when the Newegg case happened several years back with that one patent troll outfit, it garnered a lot of media attention and notoriety because Newegg counter sued in order to get all their patents invalidated. When the party that originally sued them first sent them a memo, Newegg basically sent a letter back saying “… Uh. Do you know who we are?…,” and they then retracted their original infringement claim but did so in a way that basically said they’d reserve the right to go after them later. That’s when Newegg attacked.
When I was younger my friends swore that I was autistic because I was never afraid to say ‘anything’ to anybody. It was made worse by the fact that I spent a lot of time growing up in the hood. My friends were afraid I was going say something that was going to get us shot. I’ve been jumped before a number of times by over a dozen people. But it wasn’t uncommon with most of us, we all got into several fights. Once you’re in hell, only the Devil can help you out. You had to fight to establish yourself in the pecking order among the boys and even if you didn’t gangbang (which I didn’t), you still had to be affiliated with the clique, just to get by and survive. I can remember doing homework in the hospital with bruises all over my body once when people used to come and visit me. One of my friends, she still makes fun of me when we have the opportunity to hang out, because I have this habit of walking I sometimes slip into that she calls my “ghetto strut,” and she grew up in the same area I did and we've known each other for decades, so she could immediately tell where I was from. The influences sometimes still rub off on you.
Socialization was always one of those things that was difficult for me because I had no capability to be fluid with it. I improved enormously as time went on, but things still seem rigid at times as if I’m searching for the appropriate or correct answer that speaks to the moment, and there isn’t a lot of natural flow to it. I tend not to pickup on context very well. If someone comes up to me and restarts a previous conversation we had from the point we last touched upon, I’ll have ‘zero’ idea what they’re talking about unless they clarify things prior to picking it back up (e.g., “so about earlier,” “to answer that question you asked awhile ago,” “remember when you said X earlier today,” etc.).
Never been diagnosed in any way. But my friends were always fascinated by things I could do and wanted to know how I was the way I was. They’d always have me take these personality tests, and in a couple instances paid for the exams for me to take; and had me do all these complex mental challenges. I never liked doing them though and always got tired of it, and after awhile I think they finally picked up on it.
We certainly don’t believe the same way they did thousands of years ago. Few years back I caught by background surprise some YouTube interviews of the OT scholar Joel Baden. He pointed out something I used to have thoughts about but never spent anytime to polish and formalize the notion of.
Back a millennia, the early communities of Judaism absolutely ‘believed’ the ‘Torah’ but they didn’t have modern ideas about it. One of the struggles of dating ancient documents of that time period more generally, is that these books continuously evolved, underwent multiple redactions and revisions, were compiled differently, edited differently, etc. So asking when these documents were “written” is a fallacious question, because these books aren’t singular, unified compositions.
Tretiak
1d ago
“Non-defense,” spending huh? So presumably, offense? Lol. The political doublespeak is always a trip. Reminds me when Matt Slick described God’s attributes as “non-dependent.” With the American military occupation all over the planet and the resolve to “defend our interests” everywhere we have them, the contrast strikes me as a distinction without a difference.
The cuts it involves are insane IMO and not worth it unless you think out of all that excess spending, benefits will fall out of it and accrue to other industries and subsectors of the economy that will make up the gap and deficit to these areas and departments, but I don’t see it. The article’s “light on the details” statement I think makes a good point related to that.
Tretiak
1d ago
Refreshing to hear a voice like yours actually. I’m an American who lives in the US but I try to stay well informed or what’s going on in the world. I’ve always thought the MSM portrayed a parody of other countries. But it isn’t surprising. Anything that’s a challenge to the prevailing paradigm is in effect an enemy, so it doesn’t surprise me.
Tretiak
1d ago
Ah. Well, YEC is a joke in itself. If it was a joke within a joke then I clearly missed it.
Tretiak
1d ago
I know next to nothing about what’s going on there today except their foreign policy after we pulled out of the country became much more aligned with Iran. I did know quite a bit about the country under the Ba’athists and that was an intense republic of paranoia and fear. If I had to guess the country is better today than it was then. There are no Uday Hussein’s opening roaming around or people in the parliament being rounded up to be executed.
Tretiak
1d ago
Oh I’m definitely aware of that. Americans do have this national “we’re the center of the world” outlook in contrast with everyone else. When it comes to how much the average citizen here knows about what’s going on in other areas of the world, they’re shockingly ignorant.
There were other things that happened in my case as well, but she burned every bridge I built for her. I found through her friend that I guess the reason she moved out was she heard from other coworkers that she lived with me and that it was my apartment she was living in. Basically the exact opposite of what the living arrangement was. I never said any such thing to anyone. It’s just people making stuff up and gossip and rumors. I actually wonder if people were going around and spreading information maliciously and that was a worry of mine at first and I didn’t exactly want everyone knowing about it. I was wary about telling other coworkers. I asked one of them I knew well about his opinion at that time but that was it. When I got word she told people we were living together I figured she was alright with having others know, so I stopped being guarded about it after that. If she was hearing things from people, the mature thing to do would’ve been to ask me about it. I’m not someone that goes around making judgment calls with only one side of the story. I’m too disciplined for that. Especially when others are going around saying random things. When it really has the ability to negatively impact someone, I always tell people you’re going to have to give me evidence of what you’re saying. Otherwise it’s just nonsense. I don’t react purely on things that get said and float around.
Even after everything was clarified though, she’d do nothing but give me the cold shoulder. On one instance I remember walking into a room where it was just her and I calmly said to her that me and a couple other people had plans a few weeks out to go do something fun and said it’d be nice if she could come. She backed up away from me and her head started turning left to right and her eyes were darting all over the place with that whole caged animal looking for an escape look. She said she couldn’t, that she had other plans, and gave me a very angry and stern look in the face. I didn’t reply at all and just turned around and left. I always knew she was a high anxiety woman and someone on the neurotic side. She was pretty easily emotionally provoked. There was also no physical equality between her and I. She was under 5 feet all, I’m much taller than the average man. I could easily accidentally knock her out if we came around the corner at the same time and I wouldn’t even see her. But for months after that she’d do this thing where she’d leave her workspace and very aggressively hover around my area where she could be seen by me, but she’d never make eye contact or talk to me at all. Almost like she wanted to bait and keep me on the hook. That was obvious to me and I noticed it immediately when it started happening.
Then this kid who was much younger than her eventually gets hired and expresses an interest in her. She starts leaving her workspace, doing his tasks, buying him coffee, making plans to hang out, coordinating their schedules to have the same days off, etc. And I always knew when she told me she had plans that that was almost certainly a lie, because she told me when she lived together that her plans were always changing. One day I come around a certain area of work and I see her hiding behind some big equipment with him standing real close next to her. As I come around she immediately bolts, far away from his side as if she was caught doing something she didn’t want to be seen doing. I keep having to come around, second time she’s standing close to him but her eyes are pointed down and she gets very quiet, third time he is completely gone and she moves more into visibility as if she wants me to see her and to think it’s all normal. Next couple days she puts on this very professional outfit as if she wants to convince people there’s nothing going on but then stops after a couple days. Shortly thereafter she wears this alluring outfit and crosses my path and makes eye contact with me briefly as if she’s signaling something else. The basic read is simple attention whoring and validation. It’s all a costume designed to fool. Nothing genuine or virtuous about it. I was already pretty much done at that point and was already spending time with one of my cousin’s friends though we hadn’t started dating at all yet. But towards the end of one of my shifts, I caught her friend abruptly just before our shift ended. I didn’t want to tell her I wanted to talk to her about so-and-so because if I did 100% she’d find out about it and they’d probably coordinate about what to say if I ask certain things. So I made sure I caught her off guard. I asked a couple questions and her friend told me she was in a relationship with someone now and it’s unrelated to anyone worker related.
In a way though it’s actually a massive relief. A woman who would behave as she did on the work floor is not someone I would consider trustworthy. Fooling around with a young boy at work, behaving in these hot and cold suggestive ways, etc. The problem is more fundamental than thinking they’re lying to you or engaging in other behavior. Once you start giving someone reasons to doubt and distrust you, you get a reputation. And when you get a reputation, you’re not going to get the benefit of doubt in any interaction you have with them, even if they’re not doing anything wrong. The fact that you have to do ‘any’ thinking about them, at all, for even one second; that’s the problem. There’s a trail of suspicion a person like that leaves behind them, meaning there will always be a question mark above their head, no matter what else they do, because you know it isn’t beyond them to behave in questionable ways. They’ve done it before. The loss and is disappointing, but not catastrophic. The grass is always greener on the other side.
Your experience and mine definitely sound very similar. I’m sorry that happened to you.
And thus I've reached a point in my life where I do not feel the need to assist anyone get up out of their life circumstances other than opening doors for them if they seem to need it and present the capacity to carry themselves once I help them get the leg up.
People often wonder why decency is dead. I knew a number of very good people growing up who eventually threw their hands up and went rogue against the values they were raised with. Even they were forced to come to reality and realize it didn’t pay to be the kind of people they were. It’s disheartening when you’ve seen people who were once so honorable and full of life, succumb overtime to screwing everyone else over in pursuit of their self-satisfaction. I know how that thought process works. I’ve experienced it. I’ve learned once people have this dyed in the wool idea about who you are, nothing you can ever do will change their minds, even when their ideas have no basis in fact. I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m pretty much fucked no matter what I say, so why spend any time trying to prove otherwise? People have their good conduct beaten out of them through cruel experience and if you want to get ahead in the world and achieve the things you desire, being good isn’t the way to do it. The one thing virtue gives me is peace of mind because an honest man has nothing to fear. I’m knowledgeable enough and have the connections where if I wanted to do some highly unethical shit I could do very well. The only problem is I have dignity and I know I’m a good person and I really wish I wasn’t; but I can’t help it. I just don’t understand why she was so rude and disrespectful to me. I only ever treated her good.
Tretiak
2d ago
I think anyone who's introspective and tries being thoughtful would come to the conclusion that young adults aren't reliable actors in their best interest in this space. Forget the specific matter for the moment and think even in more general terms. Just looking back 20 years ago I can see so many things today where I say to myself "God how ignorant I was," and today think 20 years from now, how ignorant I'll be right now. The two ideologies of individual happiness and personal choice that dominate civil society today aren't worth the costs people pay when they make the 'wrong' decisions. And that's their words, not mine. When I walk around here, I don't see a lot of happy people. I see people swallowed up by digital distractions, quick dopamine hits, but nothing that's fulfilling and enduring in any sort of long-term way.
Tretiak
2d ago
Trump I don’t think agrees on anything based on any comment or analysis greater than his own intuition, so he either gambles on outcomes or outsources the process to his cabinet who makes choices it for him. “Gut” can get you lucky and sometimes that luck can get you far, but eventually it runs out and comes crashing back down.
The chief ‘accomplishment’ people are going to remember him for in 20 years is the Iran war. There will be other points to speak of, but his presidency will eventually get colored into a specific issue the same way a lot of people only remember Obama for the Affordable Care Act and his rhetorical talents.
Lol. I lived in an apartment once with a neighbor like this, and our walls were practically paper thin. What I did was find a playlist for all of the loudest, most annoying, longest music on YouTube, download the files, wrote a script to automate the playback, and ran it on my JBL speaker at the maximum volume and placed it at the wall ‘right’ by their bedroom when they went to sleep. They stopped shortly thereafter. It’s unfortunate that people respond to pettiness, I’d already asked them nicely if they could just lower the volume. I wasn’t asking them to turn anything off. Then they started blasting it. Sometimes you got to take matters into your own hands.
My problem isn’t finding someone. I’ve got people in my life who have known me for a very long time who are on the level. Finding a stable one who is ‘normal’ wants something serious is the problem. I’ve got a major weakness for religious women but holy ‘shit’ are they like no other subculture on Earth. I had two of them stalk me in high school, one appear at my home and startling my sibling, had my phone blown up, one who had a desire to hold a kitchen knife to the throat in missionary, one who wanted to be punched with a closed fist, etc. Nope. Fuck that. Anything that involves setting the stage for a crime scene is beyond what one should be willing to tolerate. The only way I’d do that is if my phone was actively recording the audio and broadcasting to the police in real time. But I always loved a woman who could wear a veil. All the sinners are definitely in church.
Tretiak
2d ago
People that take the long career path in academia should come to grips with the fact that they’re significantly disadvantaging themselves in time, money and effort to make room for developing new, major pursuits in their personal life.
Being conservative (but not Republican) myself I’m a huge believer that happiness in the national community is what matters, far more than it ever does or can for short-term personal satisfaction. In the end people don’t live for theories or programs or organizations; rather all of them must serve the life of a people. That’s why the blue state model has never made any sense to me. Laudable to be sure. Someone needs to be doing that hard but technologically progressive work at the back end while the rest of society continues to move forward just fine. But it’s not reliable a route to happiness that should be encouraged by anyone. It comes only by risking enormous personal sacrifices and trade offs.
You can find all kinds of abuse on all scales and in every corner between people. What’s relevant is what’s typical and tends to generalize and what is the cause of it.
I lived with a female co-worker after her husband had tragically passed away, for 5 months at her invitation and it seemed like a mutually beneficial arrangement at the time I was approached about it. One of her friends helped to mediate and socially organize things between us, but we hit a rough patch before things even really took off. She was forward at first, asking if there was anything I needed, etc., and I maintained a respectful but independent stance out of the way I’d been raised, along with my own life experience. I was someone who was always trained not to accept help from other people and that your place in life should be determined through your own effort. I’m someone that needs to be worked on very hard into thinking it’s acceptable to say “yes” to somebody.
After we had moved in I was immediately met with a rude awakening from our first direct interaction. I spent the next couple weeks trying to talk to her here and there but always got short and quick answers that were never open ended. I figured she didn’t walk to talk or had other things going on, so I just kept to my side of things and worked on some stuff I already had going. Next few months we rarely saw each other and didn’t speak a single word to one another when we did see each other at home. Again, I figured if she felt like being more open and receptive to talking to me, I’d talk to her. She never did, so I assumed she didn’t want to talk.
The vibe of things felt increasingly stiff between us and one day she tells me something came up and she needs to move out. She broke the 1-year lease we had, so I cleaned up a mattress she lent me, immediately gave it back and left before we both had to be out. I didn’t know when she was looking to leave but I didn’t want to hold the situation hostage if she needed to go quickly. So I just took things at face value.
I actually felt emotionally and physically drawn to her in several respects and took active steps to try and court her after our departure. Giving things the benefit of the doubt. I basically got attacked at every turn. She knew my sibling who was a pathological liar and tragically died of an overdose. My niece got neglected who I’d made frequent attempts to see and spend time with, but they would hang out with each other based on what I’d heard, while my niece inadvertently would up getting abandoned to fend for herself.
I bought her things. Flowers. Chocolate. Got her Christmas gifts. Invited her out with other work friends. Tried texting her, protected her at one point and all she ever did was almost completely ignore me whenever we crossed paths or privately attack me for it to her friends. She said she didn’t want to be my friend, criticized me for having a dysfunctional relationship with my sibling, said I had a dark cloud over me (first time I'd ever heard of that in my life; unlike my drug addled sibling, strangely, who she had no problem associating with) when I’m in good standing with most everyone I know, have no enemies, never touched drugs, doesn’t drink, makes decent money, etc. I don’t understand people like this. It’s unbelievably rude and disrespectful; and all I ever did was treat her good and care about her. At some stage in her life I suspect she learned or was trained into thinking this was somehow acceptable behavior or just has an avoidant personality type. She described herself as very independent and logical at one point. As expressive ‘personality’ characteristics, those are hallmark features of an avoidant. Psych textbooks about attachment theory will tell you that explicitly.
Right. And so I’m not for cutting all spending necessarily. I’m for the government money going where it’s supposed to go…
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