I have yet to find better. There is a very high signal-to-noise ratio around here. Most other boards are either too narrow in their focus, or are populated by l33t-speaking troglodytes. Besides, I have a number of friends here that I would miss were I or they to leave. Pay me enough money that I can fly a bunch of them to Vegas for a party and I might think about it. But not before.
I’ve been here a long time, so obviously I like it. I won’t say there’s no amount of money high enough to get rid of me, but it would be a lot more than $500.
I’d certainly let him sleep in my bed. We’d have to negotiate a bit more to keep me out of it while he was there.
I’d take the $500 to stay away forever.
I’ve been thinkly lately it isn’t worth the 15 bucks to deal with a board that times out on me constantly. So any amount of money might convince me to walk away.
The phrase everybody has a price includes more than money. I would expect part of the price of a criminal or vial act for most people to include a non-monetary compensation. Murder for your country as a solder pretty much requires no criminal procecution when you go home. It’s just an example and nothing more, to point out one common circumstance people don’t associate with the phrase.
My own personal theorem on this sort of thing is that for any action one does not consider dangerous or immoral, there is some arbitrary sum of money one would accept for taking that action. When we’re talking personal inconveniences, non-harmful deprivations or even potential humiliation – none of which weighs in on the scales of “right and wrong” – it becomes a simple question of whether the advantage gained from the money outweighs the disadvantage of accepting the conditions of the offer. I’d be interested in the mindset of anyone that wouldn’t consider such an offer in this manner.
In other words, everyone necessarily has a price within certain terms. If we step outside those terms – say, by getting into a discussion of “how much to kill someone?” – that’s a whole different can of worms, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.
The only way I can see conflating the two is if someone were to have a moral stance against accepting money in exchange for being inconvenienced. If that person exists, I hope he’s happy in his penniless, jobless squatter lifestyle, living off of rainwater, insects and berries.
Back to the main point: how much to leave here forever? For me, $500 and I’m gone. Any less and I’d at least have to think about it. Any takers?
Sorry for the hijack, but soldiers who commit murder are not immune from prosecution. Soldiers who appropriatly engage the enemy are immune from prosecution.
Sgt Schwartz
$500 would not be enough; ten million would. That’s for never posting here again.
For two years? $500 is still not enough. Say, twenty-five grand. I like it here, so I wouldn’t do it for chump change, as Lib says, but maybe I could amuse myself somehow else for that much.
Non-monetary rewards would be better. I got money already, so more doesn’t help as much. I don’t need hookers, and I don’t do illegal drugs. Hmmmm…
How about the Magic Genie guarantees that genuine conservatives (people who agree with me on serious issues) will control Congress for the next eight years? You wouldn’t see my ass for dust. Or else a real change in the rules, where the mods would warn or ban you for sticking up for conservative principles, or the other way around where there were no mindless Bush-bashers to kick around. That would get rid of me in a hurry.
Regards,
Shodan
Oh, I suppose I could find the same, or better.
Same for my home. Frankly, I could sell it for a boatload of bux and get something just as technically nice cheaper.
But my place has been in the family one way or another for over 120 years. I grew up here, it’s where all my stuff is. I like it here, in a way that money doesn’t easily compensate for. I’ve my roots in my home.
SDMB is my internet home. I’ve invested a lot of intellectual time here, and have some claim on some posters’ respect for a certain honesty and factual credibility in my areas of expertise. The mods and admins know me and take me seriously. So far.
I could make the effort to find a different place, but it’d be such a bother. I don’t need the money, unless the money is big enough to seriously change my lifestyle.
So we’ve got to decide what our “whore” price is. I’m beginning to understand why we’re losing the war in Iraq, and we why we’re surprised that someone won’t cough up Bin Laden for the 50 million dollar reward. It’s no wonder other less “advanced” cultures hold us in disdain as moral prostitutes.
$500 isn’t enough. But if legal documents were drawn up proving the deal was legit, I’d stay away for two years if at the end of two years, I get whatever is the latest, greatest top-of-the-line Mac laptop + whatever is the latest greatest iPod/iPhone at the time. I figure this would be worth $3,000-$3,500 or so.
I knew somebody would take this the wrong way. I support the practice, but killing is murder reguardless. Solders that do it against orders get prosecuted. I’m not going to play political correctness word games.
One Creme Egg, a bottle of Dr Pepper, a jam doughnut and a magazine. That’s the lowest I’d go.
But if anyone wants to give me £250 to stop posting then I’d prefer that. Make it a grand ($2000) and I won’t post on any message board or blog anywhere.
Wow, nice hijack.
If somebody offered you $50,000 for your car, would you be a whore because you sold it? If your employer asked you to work on your day off and offered to pay you time and a half, are you a whore for doing it? If you own a book store, are you a whore everytime somebody buys a book from you? You don’t abandon any moral principles just because you sell something - most of us are able to understand that some things are just things and have little moral value.
I’m really puzzled by all the moral outrage over this. It was a business deal. There was a buyer and a seller. Both are satisfied. In the Land Where Capitalism Is God, you’d think people would be having a party to celebrate the triumph of the Deal.
Yeah, people are throwing around the “whore” word mighty easily.
I’m already on record that for $500 I’d leave – payed in advance, natch. I don’t see how I’ve prostituted myself, considering that doesn’t require me to actually do anything, but rather only to refrain from doing something. I can only assume the guys who think that’s whoring go to S&M whores, where you pay them and then they don’t have sex with you.
Nonsense. The thing you’re being asked to do is not post. ‘Whore’ is being used metaphorically anyway, so it doesn’t matter if you’re avoiding something for money instead of doing it.
Is that sarcasm, or do you think that nobody has a conscience just because we live in a capitalist society?
You know how, when you’re a kid, relatives will sometimes offer you money to try a food you’ve said you don’t want? I never took the money. Part of that was just me being stupid, but on some level I also didn’t want to be someone who would do things he didn’t want to do just for some money. I don’t think I’d leave this board for money.
Ah, but you’re assuming PRR didn’t want to do it. But he was not forced, was he? Did someone go to his house and twist his arm? I suspect that the person who said he was on his way to a flame-out was right and that maybe Liberal got taken on this in that PRR intended to leave anyway in one last ‘death by Mod’ (analogous to ‘death by cop’) blaze of glory. Just theories, of course, but still, in the end, it was a choice between two consenting adults and there was no wife at home being harmed by betrayal.
I am with Silenus, **Qadgop the Mercotan ** and **Shodan ** and others. It would take a lot more than $500 for me to pass up on the Dope.
Anyone that read the link already knows how I feel about went down, so I will not rehash it. Quiddity Glomfuster, many of us consider this place a community or at least a local pub/club to hang out at. We really enjoy the exchange of ideas, even ideas with which we strongly disagree.
I consider many of my fellow dopers to be on-line friends. I hope to meet many of them someday. In this thread alone Marley23, Silenus, **Qadgop the Mercotan **, twickster are people I respect and really enjoy talking with. At this point twickster is the only one I have met, **PRR ** was another. I did not agree with a lot of what he said or how he said it in the Atheism rants, but I respected his position and still enjoyed the debate.
There are few places in the world or even on the web where you can get good answers to gardening problems, talk up baseball with fans from around the country, speak to someone that actually know more about Tolkien than I do and have answers from experts in dozens of fields. This happens at the dope. Reading **samclem ** and **QtM ** alone is worth my yearly fees. Then there are the other hundreds of posters and experts. I am lucky enough to have met a couple of dozens posters so far.
Jim
How about 2 million, cash? 5 million? If Bill Gates offered you a lock billion, would you do it?
10-4 good buddy. How much you would take is, if nothing else, a function of how much you need. So what if $500 is peanuts to someone? It might be a life changing amount for someone else.