>>73325

But practice is creative, too. Making new ideas and refining them and building on them is a wonderful part of the process.

I'd rather not derail Fuzzy's thread any further, but if you visit HAY or make another topic, I'd be glad to continue talking.

>>73326
I'll be in hay.

I think you do yourself a disservice by distancing yourself from enjoyable works or good ideas just because they happen to be associated with morally questionable people. People aren't split into pure good and pure evil--everyone does some good and some bad in their life, good people can make mistakes, and bad people can be charitable and helpful in some ways. I believe in making the most of resources that are provided to you, regardless of where they came from, as long as you don't actively encourage bad behavior yourself.

Maybe you can look at it as taking good ideas from a bad person, making those ideas your own, and using those ideas to create something even better and more meaningful than could have been accomplished by the original person. It doesn't even have to be another piece of art that you make, you can just incorporate those ideas into day-to-day living, and still do something good with them.

>>73281
Well, sure people in certain situations would like to be judged. We don't always all handle criticism so well, though, nor are we always wanting of it particularly when not asked: but there are times when 'passing judgement' on a person or something they do is not only important, but welcome, and even helpful if done correctly.

For instance, if a person is behaving badly, judging them for it and pointing it out can be important to helping them see and consider their own behavior.

I also have a work evaluation coming up through a placement agency which is essentially a really long and in depth aptitude test of sorts. They will be judging me and I am looking forwards to it.

A player on a sports team might generally want to be judged frequently and accurately by a coach, so as to improve their game and take note of how to play to their strong and weak points for the better of their performance/the team.

A mod, wanting to know how their moderation job has been over recent times, would ask for people to judge them, etc.

>>73281
>I doubt there are many situations in which one actively wants to be judged. It seems like a safe bet that we just, well, shouldn't, by default
Why? It is not always helping someone to give them what they want. And giving someone what they want often comes at the price of doing great harm to many other people.

The obvious example is violent crime. I'm sure most violent criminals don't want to be judged and in fact don't think of themselves as bad people - their actions probably make internal sense and seem justified. But I'm sorry, while I don't actively hate the violent criminal or want to see them punished, their behaviour is not acceptable and I'm not going to allow it. Giving this person what they want - refraining from judgement and accepting their differences - is not worth the cost to everyone else who this person and others like him are harming.

Someone who is very rude or awkward and refuses to improve themself is similar. It is not worth it to force many people to subject themselves to this person just so that they can avoid judgment for their poor behaviour. Some people may even be innately incapable of getting along with others, and that's really unfortunate, but the world does not revolve around any one of us.

>>73292

I didn't mean to say the world should revolve around any one of us, but instead, all of us as individuals, simultaneously. I spoke too broadly, so I think I should clarify. In cases where someone causes emotional or physical harm to another human, I do think it's appropriate to rationally judge them. I've seen a lot of folks get judged for silly reasons, is all, and it got to me.

Last edited at Sat, May 18th, 2013 02:20

>>73284
Art isn't powerless to cause change, but I would not say it's ever been very good at it. For most of history, few people were literate or had access to much art. And today, most art that is consumed is pulpy entertainment. There just aren't that many open-minded philosophers walking around to be affected by good art, though probably more in a discussion forum than elsewhere.

But the progress of technology: industrialization, telecommunications and the internet, mass transportation, advanced medicine. The progress of science, with its ever-greater understanding of reality. These things profoundly affect almost everyone in the world in any modern era; they are precise, allowing you to bring about specific changes that you desire; and they are fast, causing great change within mere decades.

>>73287

I'm not arguing that science is that important. I know it is. I just also enjoy art, and I think that there's something to be said for how much effort goes into pouring one's self into a work.

http://moldavite-soul.tumblr.com/post/47240145938/that-joyous-bittersweet-meloncholy-that-all

update ^^

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/05/15/charges-dropped-against-florida-teen-over-amateur-science-experiment/?utm_source=feedly

>>73294

>>73294
its good that she got off the charges, but someone needs to take responsibility for this mess.

how can a system that advocates that students take responsibility for mistakes when the system doesn't take any responsibility for its own mistakes?

>>72958
It is really not that hard to stop breathing

I tried

I mean, not to intentionally kill myself

>>73296
pretty sure you breathe while unconscious, without the choice of will, which would be your first step of success in attempting to stop breathing in order to die: and ultimately, a failure to do so

>>73277

I really don't have anything to argue with, there. I suppose I agree, although it seems terrible we would need to deny them that choice because kids are unpredictable. There isn't an easy fix for it, either. Perhaps another kind of approach would've been better.

>>73261

Unrelated to the issue at hand, but...

>There's a difference between being something and defining yourself by something.

I absolutely love you for this. I am autistic (and proud of it), Taoist, demisexual/aromantic, and androgynous. None of which define me. Certainly, I could be described as any one of these and some would describe who I am almost completely, but... how do I describe this?

I guess it would be that my thoughts and actions define me as these things, not the other way around. If there is some aspect of who you are that you are letting take precedence over who you are in your decision making process, something is wrong and you need to step back and think about your motives for a bit. I would bet you find that it's the acting out, rather than putting that aspect before others, that is your motive.

By the way, when I say "you," I don't mean you, Shiny. You clearly don't need this lesson.
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>>73282
>Unrelated to the issue at hand, but...
I think that is up to OP. Oh wait...

>There's a difference between being something and defining yourself by something.

I think it is precisely related to the issue at hand. If it is one thing that I have learned while mentally vivisecting myself, it is that while there are very real biological and therefore useful for stereotypes features that should be known and available to us, they are always defined by the person first in terms of meaning. If no one is physically effected the mob can go screw themselves with a cactus.

Last edited at Thu, May 16th, 2013 08:00

>>73185
I understand your angle, but for me this is more a question about internal group identity. Education opinions is a decent way to judge other groups, but it doesn't help resolve conflicts/identity crisis within a group.

What do I, as a feminist, do to reconcile myself with transphobic radscum feminists?

What would somebody else, as a Christian, do to validate their christian identity in the face of truly loathsome acts defended under its banner?

What can a gamer due about misogyny in gamer culture?

What action is possible? How do I be part of the solution rather than ignoring the problem?

My feeling on it is that these are just the types of limitations you run into when you start using labels to describe large groups of individuals. People have a general notion of what it means to be a feminist, a Christian, or a brony, but it's only a vaguely defined ideal. There's a downside to this, since there are a lot of people who can misconstrue those values or take advantage of them to do bad things. But there's a positive side to it as well, since you get a lot of people coming from a lot of different backgrounds with a lot of different ideas, and there's a certain potential for these people to work together and make use of their individual strengths to accomplish something good.

That said, there's always people who are frustrated by the lack of standards set for joining these groups (especially if it's not anything more than self-selection), and these people do set out to establish a more specific group with more clearly-defined goals. This is why there are different branches of feminist thought, and hundreds of different Christian sects. But these labels come with their own limitations; by setting these new rules, you drastically cut down on the number of people who meet the qualifications for joining, and more limited variety of participants cuts down on the new ideas you can get for strengthening the group. Both of these factors severely limit the power that the group can have for making changes to anything. Furthermore, by establishing and enforcing these rules, you can draw focus away from the actual heart and values of the organization that originally made it meaningful. It's extremely hard to define moral values in such a way that you can enforce specific behaviors to promote only those values, and not accidentally turn focus towards some other, unrelated thing.

In short, groups with vague labels have a lot of power and potential with their numbers, but that power isn't directed very well without clearly defined rules, so you also end up with a lot of bad eggs who misrepresent what's good about the group. Groups with clearer rules are a lot more focused in their power, but they also have a lot less power in general, and…

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>>73182
>The problem for me is, there's no license that can be revoked, no test you have to take, to get in certain groups. They should have some kind of minimum standard of decency, but they don't, because they can't. I understand many of the reasons why they can't really be regulated, and I understand the general "don't let a few bad example ruin it for you" idea, but it still gets to me.

It is a constant frustration to me too. I have thought a lot about how to deal with things like this and the best, most basic explanation I can think of is a grand failure in ability to criticize and/or sanction ones peers. Or ask for why they think a certain thing. I'm starting to think that we need a fair way to point out how the behavior of ones peers does tar ones reputation.

It's a hard thing to be fair with, but at the least we should point out that most people tend to accept the words of ones political and social peers with too little criticism. On that basis a demand that one call-out the behavior of ones peers sounds more reasonable. In discussions with relatives it is common for them to shut down on a level when I harshly criticize something like the moral character of Republicans that make moral arguments that get listened to. For example statements about marriage from such as Rush Limbaugh or Newt Gingrich.

The best I have come up with is to point out that it is not my fucking job to define what a Christian, or Republican, or Democrat, or any other social group that I am not a part of. So if a Mormon tells me they are a Christian as far as I am concerned they are. It's not my business and I find it amazing how often the "Not a real X" and other defensive crap gets brought out when I try to call out genuinely horrible behavior on Facebook or other parts of the internet and life. I want to scream "You go tell them to stop calling themselves X because it's not my job. Stop distracting from, and preventing criticism of genuine bad behav…

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>>73193
Well, you know, sometimes its all for the better even if it doesn't seem so at the time I suppose.

I can't give you much input on resume stuff, but I am doing a very in depth, 4 hour work evaluation here shortly - friday - which I am looking forward to. It should give me some insight into career ideas and such, measuring both what I would enjoy and what I would be good at. I might have more to say then, I imagine I would: the experience should be something I'll take away quite a bit from, and I'm intrigued about it myself.

I need to brush up on some really basic stuff before I go, though. Like reading different types of gauges and meters and some math. Those are the only things I think I will tend to score particularly low in any sort of general work evaluation test.

>>73193
i can imagine it must be rough to go through something like this twice, feeling like you wasted a lot of time. I haven't had many of these experiences myself, but if it helps anything i know that my mom has gone through several educations and a total of 4 job fields just this year in order to figure out what she really wanted to do. and to be perfectly honest even though she says she is content right now i bet she'll move on to something else soon.

the way i see it, the job market is kind of a trial and error thing. you keep on pushing until you hit that point where you mind just clicks and you think "yea this is pretty nice, i think I'll stay here".
of course i could be totally wrong, as i said i haven't had any of these experiences myself.

also...
what kind educational career?
and how are you doing with regards to handling this anxiety/emotional sensitivity thing?

>>73225
>I'm sorry to hear things aren't working out, Flutterguy. I know you take your work in education very seriously and you've done a lot of good there. I hope you're proud of that, whatever you decide.
I'm proud of the effort I put in and the little differences that I can remember making. Other than that it was not wasted. Spending three years in a worst case teaching scenario on what can be a daily basis has been strangely useful in a lot of ways. It's still a little personal but it was far from a wasted period of time. I'm just not sure how to make it worth while best, or what is worth doing with it yet.

>I know a lot about resume writing, but mostly on the side of organization and style for maximum impact on a hiring manager, and mostly in areas related to IT and software engineering. I don't know if that is of interest to anyone here.
It might be to someone. I actually have a pretty good idea about what to do next. But there are always other suggestions and someone might notice something.

>I'm about to graduate in June and also having issues moving into a new career. Mostly I'm afraid that what I'm doing now is all I'm good at and I have no chance of moving on. I know that's really bad to think, especially going into interviews, so I'm working to deal with this anxiety.
That is a tough one. Elsewhere I mentioned to someone else about the anxiety of new employment being similar to that for new environments. Going from over a decade in labs to public education was rough and felt a lot like the mice I read about. I wonder how that compares to the old apprenticeship system? Do you have any working experience with what you are going into? Any way you can get information about the real-world experience would be helpful.

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Man... i feel bad for anyone stupid enough to do this to another person.

I feel worse for this kid Michael though, imagine living the rest of your life with a handicap like that just because some stupid teenager decided it would be fun to throw a bomb at you.

>>73207

>>73207
Consider that any time you make a retard comment, or an Autism joke. You contribute to an environment where it's cool to pick on and harass Autistic children.

Last edited at Tue, May 14th, 2013 23:47

Would it really bother them so much that they'd limit you social life?

You're already discussing this on another page, you should delete this one.
http://www.ponychan.net/chan/oat/res/38384496.html

>>73214
Hope for the best, I suppose.

You can always try to get them to watch an episode or two. I would pick carefully, though. Very carefully. I think there has generally been a 'list' of 'good to share with first timers' episodes that unofficially floats around in brony circles. Check that.

Your other thread seems to have had it handled, though. GL!

sage for handled issue

>>73176
>How do you stay motivated?

That depends on the nature of the demotivation. I'm trying to figure out my particular issues, but they all essentially come down to similar things. Lack of desire, lack of organization, and at least one psychological rationalization that gets you off track.

The screwed up part is sometimes it's the desire that gets suppressed, because of the rationalization from past incidents. Shit sucks.

My ADD book gives some advice, let me see what I can find and I'll put something up later. For now, what I remember is that you need to get into the habit of outlining the entire project on paper and writing down how long you think it should take you to do each step. Make it a checklist. As you do each thing write down how long it took. Look for patterns.

In the areas where it took longer than normal you want to start thinking about internal emotional impulses, little voices telling you to go and do something like the internet for just a little bit. That kind of thing.

>>73177

Whenever I come here I never know how to respond to the good advice given without sounding strange, so when I say "Thank you, that is really useful to know," What I mean is "I just spent 10 minutes trying to figure out the proper way to convey my gratitude without sounding crazy, and couldn't settle on anything besides this." So...

Thank you, that is really useful to know.

>>73198
I like discussion boards because lots of ideas pass ways. Just because I like science does not mean that some other people somewhere else did not notice an alignment out in the world that is helpful or part of a world that we knew about yet. I like seeing as many kinds of people talk about as many things as possible. If I am good at anything it is trying to read about or learn about other people and let that change how I see the world. Then a spread it around if it has universal value.

Everyone does that. Also I am 36 and some of that involves literal sifts in how I process social information. So I get a little better a analyzing everything around me. That does not hit everything or everyone equally though. So yeah I'm old and have ADHD.


Thank you very much.

Last edited at Tue, May 14th, 2013 11:25

>>73190
>Sorry. That will (hopefully) be the last anti-Obama rant.

If he has legitimately made bad decisions in our insurance system, *shrugs*. All that matters to me is the argument.


>So I've got two jacks and the flop comes J, 6, 3. Well, Jim's been drinking a little and we're playing no limit and suddenly I've got my entire stack of $1,200 in chips in there. All told, there's $2,500 in that pot and Jim turns over AK with three cards to a flush.

Before I respond I want to make sure I understand you correctly. What does the whole game represent? Life? Your chances of winning and losing in the disease game (living longer/shorter)...?

>And then Frank stops the dealer and offers me a side bet: If I lose, he'll give me $2,000. If I win, I give him $200.
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>>73191

The issue with the anti-Obama rant is the crap he pulled with online poker. First, his administration completely trashes it. Yes, the UIGEA kind of made things more difficult, but I actually started playing after the UIGEA. Now, though... it's pretty much impossible to play online.

And then he went and talked about how he wouldn't stand in the way of intrastate online poker, as if he could have in the first place.

As far as my views on Obamacare... I'll not go into what I think about specific measures. This post really isn't about that. I only mention Obamacare because the whole issue with pre-existing conditions was a big deal about it.

As far as the poker game, the game represents the game. It's the similarities between the different kinds of insurance that are important.

I guess you could think of it like that. The important part of it is that insurance requires that you not know whether or not you're facing an unlucky hand when you pay. Otherwise, it just wouldn't work and no one would be able to offer insurance.