I don’t get the mindset of “I’d rather be right/have the moral high ground that solve the problem.” People who refuse to support (or even discuss) finding rational solutions to problems because they don’t believe the problem should exist in the first place-- and they won’t look past that. This pops up in every single thread about any social issue that could be solved if only everyone behaved perfectly.
For example: “If people can’t afford birth control/having a baby then should just not have sex. That’s the only solution this problem needs.” This is all well and good, but reality is people will have sex. Regardless of how much anyone shouts. Even the briefest glance at history will tell you this. And we as a society are going to have to deal with those babies. Head in the sand is not helpful.
I tend to notice it more on the right (maybe because I disagree with the underlying principles), but it exists on the left as well. No matter how wrong our starting the war in Iraq may have been, no matter who lied when, it doesn’t change the fact that we’re in the middle of it now and there’s a situation to be dealt with. Getting angry about the beginning and getting stuck on that won’t solve the problem. The horse is out of the barn.
The Catholic Church in Africa may be the best example. How they hold the “condoms are wrong” party line in the face of the AIDS epidemic just staggers me.
If you haven’t driven a high-performance car on the limit in a reasonably safe environment you simply don’t know what you’re missing (I’m talking the track or an autocross event). There’s so many intricate things happening, one after another rapid fire, that’s it’s nothing like you’ve ever experienced once you’ve more or less mastered keeping the car under control while still going fast. Well I take that back-similar sensations can be had by snow skiing or surfing, same general kind of intricate control is required. If you think they just point the car down the track and go and that’s the end of it you’re sadly mistaken. Now yes there’s idiots who drive like maniacs in the middle of rush hour and whatnot thinking they are in the Daytona 500, but even off the track I can get that high in a perfectly legal way by going on something like the Blue Ridge Parkway (which I’ve done twice now-very sweet experience).
And while I’m at it, people who dis the experiences of other people without even so much as making a pretense of understanding the attraction of said activity.
Workaholics. I work a lot because I don’t want to get fired. I still take days off or skip work for the heck of it. I don’t understand the “I’ve never missed a day of work” mentality. And the stupider and lower paying the job, the less I understand it. So you’ve never taken a vacation day. Big deal. Congraduations on wasting your ENTIRE life at some stupid menial job.
My day is spent dealling with a constant parade of jerks who send emails on weekends, at 7:00 at night or 5:00 on a Friday. How about you call back during normal business hours, jerk?
Personally, I would love to know how everything works. As you say, of course, it’s just not possible. So I limit myself to:
[ol]
[li]Things that I find more interesting than others.[/li][li]Things that directly impact my life.[/li][/ol]
One would think/hope that (2) would kick in at some point for MacTech’s parental units.
That never kicks in. My parents are 12 o’clock flashers (the power goes out and all digital clocks start flashing 12:00…12:00…12:00) and no matter how much I tried to teach them it never helped. I finally created a cheat sheet for them with photos and diagrams, laminated it and velcroed it to the shelf in their entertainment center. That saved me from getting a call when daylight savings time kicked in. Now if I can only get them to figure out how to use their call waiting without hanging up on me. :rolleyes:
emilyforce - When I watch racing I am watching a skilled team of individuals engaged in fast-paced competition. It can be as exciting (or as dull) as watching the NASA command center during a launch. Sometimes everything goes according to plan and it’s dull. Othertimes, something goes wrong and the team has to improvise and it can be exciting, frightening, sad, funny. It isn’t just the cars, it’s the pit-crews, it’s the work that goes into it beforehand, it’s the companionship of others who share my passion. My daughter is a musician, I am not. I go to the symphony with her and so many of the nuances and glories of the music are lost to me. She goes to the races with me, and she just doesn’t see or enjoy it the way I do, because I understand the nuances and have years of history.
<end hijack>
I can’t understand the mindsets of people who assume that passtimes (racing, golf, sports, reading, theology) that they don’t enjoy are somehow intrisically stupid or unenjoyable or enjoyable only by some subset of defective humans.
I don’t get people who are comfortable on a financial edge. I like to be able to pay my bills, having savings. I get downright cranky when I’m not financially secure. But I know (and like, enjoy, and respect, but don’t GET) several people who will go off and spend a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars on clothes, jewelry, a vacation, a new couch - charging it with the attitude that they will pay it off “someday.”
Apologies to alla y’all if I’m off base, but I don’t think this is a hijack at all. You explained a mindset I didn’t previously understand.
<Now here’s a hijack…> (Really? Can you tell that much about what’s going on if you’re live at a racetrack, or only if you’re watching on TV with all the special cameras?)</hijack>
Dangerosa, sad to say, I think it happens incrementally. You start out thinking debt is stupid, and then something happens that makes you go into debt anyway, even in a small way, and then… you notice you can live with it. And then something else happens, and you notice you can live with a more substantial debt – after all, it’s very organized; you simply have one additional bill every month, which is mailed to you with no indication that debt is in any way unusual, scary, foolhardy, etc.; very official looking, exactly like the phone bill (except for that stuff on the back about interest rates should you miss a payment). The inhibition loosens, and one day you find yourself telling yourself that you “deserve” something you couldn’t otherwise afford. You allow your inhibitions to erode. It’s still stupid, but it’s also very human.
Race fans usually have scanners that allow them to listen in on team conversations, as well as listen to the race broadcast on the radio. The scanner can be set to eavesdrop on one or more teams, including the pit-crew, driver and spotters. TV coverage of races is (IMHO) quite simplistic, focused only on a few highly popular racers, and often does the sport a disservice. Rather like if baseball announcers felt they had to explain every inning how many strikes make an out and what a balk is. I can’t speak for other race fans, but I get a lot more out of being at the track, then the radio broadcast, then print media, and then TV. (Of course, the crash footage is impressive on TV, but that’s only a few minutes of any race.)
They may not actually be at work. They may have discovered the magic trick whereby they can click “Options” and then “Do not send message until after <enter date and time>” and thus make it appear that they were working at such-and-such a late hour, rather than what they really did, which was go home early.
Kind of a dangerous trick if your recipient is actually there at the postponed time one enters…
These, and the ones who have no curiosity whatever about history (be it their own nation/culture or anybody else’s) and no desire to learn. Anybody who seems to be proud of their ignorance.
I don’t understand people who can spend all day in a shoe store but be in and out of a book/music/thrift store in five minutes.
People who buy RVs for the express purpose of driving to college football games (particularly when it’s a college they didn’t graduate from) but don’t attend professional theater in their own back yard (I’m thinking of someone in particular, but in general as well).
People who still have W bumper stickers or are in the 30% approval raters.
Similarly, it bugs me when people say “I know what I want to do. I shouldn’t have to take all of these general-ed/math/science/exploration/liberal-arts/what-have-you classes. Just give me my damn degree already!”. I can’t really understand that mindset at all.
On a related note, “expectorate” is a fantastic verb and I’m a little miffed that people don’t use it more.
I had a friend who was raised Jewish (like me) and gradually dumped the religion (like me), then went through the religious fanatic phase (like me) but didn’t get over it (unlike me). One of the last things she said to me before I started realizing that we had irreconcilable differences was, “I try to just eliminate the word ‘nature’ completely in everything I say and think. Why do we need ‘nature’ anyway?”
That story reminds me of a conversation I had with a prospective mate on the phone back in my days as a freshman at the University of Arizona. Racially speaking, the U of A has your typical major-university blend of Asians and Caucasians with a few other people thrown in, but it also has a relatively ginormous number of Native American students, what with the state’s also-ginormous Navajo reservation. I loved it–I had a Navajo roommate who told me all about live on the reservation, I got a few chances to try authentic Navajo food on campus during a few particular celebrations, I met lots of interesting people from the reservation, and my family had his family over for dinner once for a night full of interesting, new things learned.
Needless to say, it did not go over well when this girl, upon finding out that my roommate was Navajo, immediately shot off, “Does he smell bad?”
Started somewhere between 2000 and 2005, I’d say.
I do it all the time. Like, constantly. I usually don’t realize I’ve done it until after a disagreement of some kind, even though I perpetrate it all damn day long, every damn day of the week. It must come with being 21, although I was told I was the same way when I was little. Maybe I got it from my dad. The bastard.
And count me as another one who doesn’t get the whole pro wrestling thing. I finally gave it a chance when I rented a room from this guy who was way into it. The whole thing is just a soap opera with loads more testosterone. Even weirder was that the guy claimed to really just like it for the fights, and skipped a fair bit of the soap-opera bullshit to go straight to the fights themselves…which consisted of the most unconvincing and uninteresting choreography I’ve ever seen, and let me tell you, I have seen some bad action movies. So i definitely don’t get it.
Those people have never thought about their own sexual preferences. My mother was one of those until I got her to think through “ok, so you liked Jimmy Stewart, what a surprise given what Dad looked like… so, did you choose not to like John Wayne? Oh, you didn’t? Well, George Michael didn’t choose not to like Naomi Campbell either!”
People who play mind games, engage in power struggles, jockey for position, and form little palace conspiracies, especially when the apparent reward is picayune.
I have seriously seen the equivalent of people engaging in Russian court epics over who gets to be assistant secretary-treasurer of the Alliance of Left-Handed Notaries Public of Faeroese Descent, Prince Edward Island Division. It’s absolutely baffling.
I don’t agree. I’ve seen and heard some reports of this behavior. Now, some of those incidents are as completely pointless as you say. But others are escalations of personality conflicts that have grown all out of any sensible proportion. And since it was done one little baby-step at a time, very often none of the prinipal parties have any actual awareness of the reality of what they’re fighting over, only that their antagonist has become some kind of avatar that must be stopped.
It’s often stupid, and petty, and always sad, and disappointing, that nominal adults can’t be self-aware enough to realize what’s going on. But it’s not always baffling, if you have seen the whole buildup to that point.
