Right. Someone who’s “better” than me is someone who leaves this world in a little better shape than when they got here. It can take a lifetime. Trying to define your life as a game with a point system is ridiculous and sad. If you really think about it, games are ultimately meaningless, have no impact on anything, and even for the players only constitute a portion of people’s lives. Even the professional players move on.
If sex is in the equation, how do we know that Jamal isn’t Chessic’s better? Guy could have a monstrous one eyed…well, monster. Since Jamal’s winning at grace under pressure and tolerating silly questions at work, I think I’m giving him Better Person by a landslide.
This pretty much convinces me that this is some (ill-fated) satire, but out of curiosity: How is the appropriate metric for betterness decided? Is it something written down somewhere, or does everyone get to make up their own? And what’s the impact of placing above others on this scale? I mean, if I’m better than you in ice hockey, then I’ll probably beat you more often than not. But if I’m ‘better’ than you at life or whatever’s supposedly being measured here, then what?
It absolutely does. It’s why I’m active in CouchSurfing, whose motto is “making the world a better place, one couch at a time”. It’s why I’ve adopted an impoverished Indonesian kid through one of those charities. Those things make me better than the person I’d otherwise be.
A person that insists there are no betters out there is either:
- being polite.
- lying.
- goalless.
It’s fine to be uneasy about it though. It’s obviously not an exact science. If one ball player is a great fielder and another is a great hitter, who’s better at baseball? Hard to tell. But who’s better, Adam Dunn or Albert Pujols? Easy call, right? That doesn’t mean the system is broken, or that there’s no such thing as a “better ball player”.
Well sure, if I define my life as a game. But what if I just use a game as an explanatory analogy on an internet message board? Is that ridiculous and sad, too?
He couldn’t possibly have a hotter girlfriend than I do. There’s only one possible person that could. If my girlfriend was separated at birth from a twin we don’t know about, it would be her boyfriend.
Aw man, you should really check out my workplace sometime. It’s no IT department* or anything, but it’s close.
*This is where, if I could link to YouTube, I’d show you a clip from The IT Crowd. Trust me, it’s funny. You’d just laaaugh and laugh! 
Erm. Wouldn’t that man only have a girlfriend who was as hot as your own? Unless we’re talking fraternal twins, rather than identical - in which case, the separated-at-birth twin may well be hotter than your GF, but would have no better odds of such than anyone else in the population. And for that matter, the separated-at-birth fraternal twin may well be a brother.
Why a satire? You think I don’t believe these things, but actually believe the opposite? Now that’s just silly.
Subjective.
To quote one of my favorite plays: “You have to get to the next…level. You have to get to the…top.” “Then what?” “You succeed. You’re out! You’re…free!”
It really depends on the situation and the relationship between two people. Are you my professor? Then I learn from you. Are you my role model? Then I mimic you. Am I lecturing you on proper Metro protocol? Then I go sulk for a while because even though I got to yell at you for a little bit, I’m not actually superior to you at all. Tomorrow, you’ll be over it but I’ll still be a fucking Metro employee.
No, no. If my GF had a twin, then the boyfriend COULD have a hotter girlfriend. Or an uglier one or an equal one. But in order to even have a shot, you’ve got to date her twin.
Why do WE have the Magna Carta? Is it a permanent installation or is it just touring? I’d think it would belong in London somewhere…
What play is this? All I get when I google is this thread.
I was mistaken. I thought it was from 1215 but it’s the 1297 version, with the seal of Edward I. There are only four surviving 1215 copies, and they are all in England. (Although one of them seems to make fairly frequent trips to the U.S., including being held in Fort Knox during WWII.)
How’s that not make the whole concept completely meaningless then, though? I mean, for all you know, according to Jamal’s scale, he could have been your better just as well as according to yours, you’re his. How’s that supposed to work out?
Well, that’s very nice and all, I suppose – for you. But what’s in it for me? What do I get out of being your better? Why should I, or Jamal or whoever, aspire to being anybody’s better?
You’ve probably never heard of it. It’s Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom. It’s only been performed, like, 5 times ever. It’s got an element of Keeping Up With the Jones to it that fits this discussion. The adults compete with their neighbors while the kids play Neighborhood 3, a WoW-type game. The relationships between the two groups becomes stressed as they both “try to get to the next…level. Try to get to the…top.”
So if wealth, power and social status = “better than you”, here is a list of people who are better than Chessic Sense:
Dick Cheney
Hitler
Smaug
Kim Jong Il
Rumpelstiltskin
Genghis Khan
Sarah Palin
Again, depends on the scenario. Look at my coworker, Bob*, over there. Am I better than him? Is he better than me? Who knows? It’s not important. Neither of us goes home at the end of the day going “Damn that coworker! I wish I was as successful as he is!”
But imagine we came into conflict over, I dunno, a girl. Then all of a sudden, it matters. Then it’s not our judgment that matters. It’s hers. Whoever she choses, the other will walk away going “Damn that other one! I want to be as successful as he is! But I’m not…:(:(:(”
That’s what PTJMEE does, at least in my imagination.
*Same guy as from my socks/shoes thread.
I don’t understand. The benefit is that you’re better. You win at life. You know that saying “Fuck my Life?” Yeah, the opposite of that. Being better means never having to say FML. Being better is synonymous with having succeeded at life. Don’t you want to aspire to succeed at life? If you don’t, and you insist that it’s impossible to be better or worse than someone else, then you’re what I described in my last post - goalless.
And to think, I actually had some sympathy for the OP (I ride the trains here and the fare machines are OFTEN broken or malfunctioning…if I have a card, all it takes is cash and vice versa or just out of service…large ticket if you get caught w/o fare and NO way to prove the machines were broken or stole your cash, OR there will be a long line of people who are apparently unfamiliar with the whole concept of a vending machine who make you miss your train…why I invest in a FlexPass every term as a university student who rides almost daily, no worries)
But then I read on. And on.
Dude, hear this: You are NOT superior to ANYONE by virtue of your level of education, your race, your position, your income, your vocabularly, spelling, dick size or any other factor.
In fact, due to your entitled, racist, classist, douchist attitude, you rank pretty damn low on any sane hierarchy, imo. :rolleyes:
I have a G.E.D., fuck you very much. :mad: WTF does that indicate? (in my case, it indicates that I hated school and dropped out at 16 then took the test at 18…in some cases, it means people dropped out to go to work to support themselves or their family due to factors beyond their control. Or simply decided it was a better option for them than FT schooling for any number of reasons).
I also have a degree and am halfway done with another (President’s Honor Roll with the first and almost all A’s so far with the second). JFTR. None of that makes me any better than anyone else…just a reminder that “G.E.D” does not equal “Dumb-ass” or “lazy” or whatever else you seem to think it does.
You know, you never know if that security officer or server or paper carrier or housecleaner or other “menial” worker is a med student or Masters working their way through school. And even if they AREN’T, WhoTF are YOU to judge them and cop an attitude? NEWSFLASH: MOST people have “goals”. They might not be the same as yours, or they might just have to do some “menial” work for a while to reach them. And sometimes, they find themselves unable TO reach them.
It reveals more about you than them…you RADIATE insecurity about yourself and your status. Those who hold such “holier than thou” attitudes always do. Those who are secure in who they are and their worth/importance don’t get all in a huff about perceived “peons” annoying them by asking of them the same as they would of anyone else.
Get over yourself. Everyone else has. :rolleyes:
So, being better means I get the girl. But didn’t you just say that (at least part of) what makes somebody better is getting the girl? What does this boil down to, then – being better means being better?
I have goals, and I want to achieve them – I want to succeed at that – but succeeding at life, I don’t know what that means. And as for not having to say “Fuck my life”, there’s already a pretty good term for that, and that’s being content, or perhaps even happy; and that doesn’t necessitate having to think up some imaginary chicken ladder you can place yourself a few steps higher on than your fellow men.
As you’ve defined it, there’s no purpose to being better; it’s completely circular and empty.
Georgetown has no Metro station. Maybe you mean the bus?
I got news for you Chessic, not all “girls” (women) choose the “successful”, “better” guy (using your definitions of those terms). I dated a few very “successful” guys who were grade A, arrogant, superficial assholes (by “dated” I mean 1 date…all it took to realize the above).
Then I met the man I stayed with for 23 years. Never much of a mover and shaker in the business world…he did what he loved and was a master at it…we were never rich but did ok for the most part. Not all that much to look at either. He also happened to be a decent, intelligent, funny, down to earth, wonderful man, lover and father. IMO, I chose the “successful, better” of the lot.
I actually sort of pity you, based on your comments here. Think about it; your self-worth is so tied up in shit that ultimately doesn’t matter, and any “girl” who chose you based on said shit would just as soon leave you the minute you get sick/ugly/fat/poor whatever for a “better” man. 
Bullshit.
Goals, financial or otherwise, needn’t be based on comparisons to others. “I want to earn *x *per year." - "I want to save y by 20*zz *so I can retire comfortably.” that sounds perfectly valid to me, and it has nothing to do with you or Bob or Jamal or anyone else.
In fact, if you feel you’ll have “succeeded at life” only by being better than others, you have to define which others. Did you succeed because you’re better than Jamal (however you choose to measure “better”)? Or did you fail because you’re not better than Ted Turner? Who the fuck needs that noise? My goals are my own.
This is the second-most depressing thing I’ve read on this message board.