Um, excuse me, it’s “yä” now.
That’s Swedish for laundry … (Actually “Tvätt”, lit. “the washing”, but us Scandies don’t have a separate phoneme for w.)
Your umlaut abuse has been reported to the correct authorities.
Šîğh…
I̶̙̱̪͜t̼̘͓̩͍̟͘’̠̣͎̝͕͠ś͖̲͙͎̟̩͡
̪͉̲͡
̧̝̻̯̥́͜h͙̤̝̯a̖͖͔̖͖͕͚p̘̤̫̮p̮͎̱̜̺e̶̜̗̹͜n̷͚͇̝̯̩̤̰̥͟i̛̻͉n̵̷͉͍͔͞g̶̩̥̗̞̪̖͍̪̳
̳̯͙͔͡
̶̞͓͘a̶̢͙̭̫̮͎̘̞̞͝g͓͙͎̰̳͡͝a̵̫̹̹̝͍͟i̹͈̗̠ń̶̬͎̲͈
Oddly enough, we have a brand new member making their very first post in gandrew’s Chappell thread.
Knowing you can be long winded and passionate about a post yourself proves you have thought of it, maybe you just never realized you had thought of it. I have a long winded explanation - - well more of an example.
Which I typed about half way through before I deleted it and decided to use a shorter tact.
I used to have this friend who had a “manager” title, but was basically a conceptual guy who did not do well in the real world (that was how he got to be manager- he never did, he always talked about how to do). He had little ability to perform even simple tasks himself, but he often had insightful observations that worked as often as they didn’t. Anyway, he used to say “You don’t really know what you are doing unless you can explain it to someone not already in the field and teach them to do it as well as you can do it.” He would talk about teachers learning from students and back in the Renaissance, masters learning by teaching apprentices and so on and so forth.
The truth of the matter I learned after playing around with the concept was that he had a damn good point. Being able to say why you did it this way sometimes and that way sometimes made for very solid institutional knowledge. Perhaps only Mozart or Bach can create that music- but once it is written down, people can play it long after they have both passed away. (That is a bad example, but it gets to why examining one’s own “art” is more important than examining the art of others.)
When I lived in Texas, I had a job where my boss was the living embodiment of the Peter Principle. He had worked in a limited division of the company since he was a high school kid and he knew every job there backward and forward. Over the years he had made genuine innovations that were very beneficial to the company and the processes (he must have forgotten all the trial and error that eventually led to the stellar successes however). He was so competent he could make major decisions on the fly because he was so familiar with every single task and every single possibility. But then he got promoted to supervising an entire plant (second banana supervisor over a ton of guys and a ton of jobs most of which he knew very little about). He continued to stick with his shoot from the hip, trust his gut instincts which were ALWAYS sub-optimal at best and occasionally disastrous. He was so bad, he didn’t even know how bad he was- he could not be convinced there were better methods. When asked why he wanted to do something a certain way, he always replied that he “just knew” it was right.
I did ask wiser heads why they put up with his nonsense and got the same answer over and over. “He is hard working and committed to the company, you cannot teach that to anyone. We can teach him the rest.” Which was always followed by: “Of course, we had hoped he would be catching on a lot faster than he has.”
Watching that guy in action always reminded me to examine myself far more often and far more thoroughly than I examine anyone else. Knowing how thoughtful and articulate posters here on the SDMB are, including Max_S, convinces me everyone here knows that – but some may not be aware they know it.
(Unbelievable this is the shorter version, right?)
Careful. Max_S is also a budding white supremacist. Or, more charitably, he doesn’t find the “white supremacy” element of “white supremacy” to be “inherently detestable”:
FFS… Max_S, sometimes I’m not so sure you aren’t a troll yourself.
I was not aware of that, and not absolutely sure it is a fact without checking myself (which I will not do this instant). But I have held views before that I do not hold now, and I was once something of a racist myself. I now find those views unenlightened and small minded. (I also know people who go too far the other way- who excuse all bad behavior for people of color because they “are owed it” based upon history, which I also find unenlightened and small minded but those are a very few extreme people in very particular circles.)
I would encourage Max_S to examine those beliefs, those decisions if he does indeed hold them. Same as we should all examine our beliefs (in my view) on occasion. One thing I try to do is think of a typical situation under the most ideal circumstances, and then again under less ideal circumstances. Try to see what the best, most ideal, most moral view is under no duress, then set that up as an ideal state that we should strive to achieve under every circumstance even if it turns out to be less than ideal. Let me give you two examples:
You marry your very average looking college sweetheart and on your wedding day swear you would never ever cheat on her for any reason. Then years pass by, she loses weight and develops a deeply attractive womanly figure as a result of giving you several wonderful children whom she raises into your own ideal image of perfect offspring. She develops a more advanced sense of style than she had in college. She makes your home a perfect refuge from all of life’s difficulties, feeds you wonderfully tasty meals that are healthy and you rarely have to even clean a dish unless you want to. In the meanwhile, you have a not very attractive coworker with bad hygiene, bad teeth, and who wears an offensive perfume. She hints that she finds you desirable and that she might be willing to . . .
Of course you are not tempted in the least. But on the other hand, you marry the same woman who has several kids who do not respect you or anyone else and whom your wife ignores and torments. She is unhappy and has gained lots of weight and very rarely dresses up or wears make-up (assuming you like women who wear makeup). She develops BO and ends up missing about half of her teeth while she spends all of your hard earned money on things you do not approve of. You start staying late at work just to avoid your wife and kids all of whom you really want to love – and whom you do sacrifice to support and provide for. Your single coworker who resembles the more attractive sister of your favorite female movie star (Angelina Jolie, or some of my favorites from back in the day, Diane Lane, Ashley Judd, Kate Beckensale, Jennifer Garner for example) admires you for working so hard and being so devoted to your awful family. A deep and mutually respectful friendship develops between you and this coworker.
It might be a bit easier to make the decision to be faithful to your wife in one circumstance than in another-- but at the end of the day, what is the right decision? Is it to do what is best for you yourself, or what is best for everyone involved? Is there a middle ground where there is an optimal solution with everyone gaining the most joy and no one suffering any more than necessary? Would it ever be right to leave, to divorce your wife? Would it ever be right to stay married to her but be unfaithful, lying to her, your children, and yourself over and over again? How about the other woman? Should her wishes be considered?
I don’t know what is right for you. I don’t know if there is one right answer for everyone or if the right answer for one person is wrong for someone else. But I do think that putting some thought into it before the situation comes along in real life might be a good idea.
Let’s try a moral dilemma that has little or no personal stakes.
You are summoned to a beautiful, climate controlled board room where you and several others are asked to be the final authority on a problem of international importance. Technology has made a breakthrough so that if every upper middle class child in American suburbs will sacrifice one dessert once a month – all poverty and hunger problems on a global scale will be completely resolved. Even if the privileged kids agree- then do not follow through the adults must enforce the dessert ban once a month. But the benefit will be the end of world hunger.
Do you agree to that deal? Do you commit the children of similar strangers to sacrifice to save the children of dissimilar strangers from devastating crisis? I am pretty sure I would take that deal, I think most people would. But what if it was a bit different?
You are kidnapped and shackled. You are flown to a miserable location with no proper sanitary facilities, you are being coerced to sign a document that would commit all American children to sacrifice half of their food so the rest of the world could never be hungry again. It becomes obvious much of the food sacrificed will never benefit anyone due to waste and spoilage. The more you pursue, the more you realize this will hold a very high cost for your own sons and daughters to realize very minimal gains for anyone else. As soon as everyone signs, you will be returned to your comfortable life. Do you sign? Do you encourage others to sign the document? Do you determine to make a stand at all costs – for however long it takes?
Most of us never have to make decisions like these very often. But I believe the decisions we do make are worth a certain amount of reflection and consideration if they are world shattering or not. Despite being stubborn and opinionated and often condescending, I try to do the right thing even when I do it begrudgingly.
I was raised in a somewhat racist environment. I have a natural and automatic reaction to see certain people as “other” (not just people of color- I can be pretty judgy about styles too). But I have been teaching myself to look past my initial response and try to consider everyone as an individual who is much more like me than unlike me. Like someone who did not decide what color eyes they would have, whether they would be born with male plumbing or female plumbing (I have looked beyond that also but more later), whether they have light skin or dark skin. I try to judge people by how they act, but what they do- do they prey upon those weaker than themselves? Do they help others without trying to get something for themselves off of it? Are they defined by their skin color? Are they defined by their athleticism? By their natural gifts and abilities – or by how they use those gifts and abilities?
One of my favorite people is an autistic young adult who used to scare me when I first met him. He was awkward and loud and I didn’t want anyone to know we knew each other. But he is one of the most beautiful human beings I have ever encountered. He learned how to overcome his discomfort by diligent work and works and pays taxes and helps strangers and is a model citizen in every conceivable way. He needs to be protected, without care he would be taken advantage of and victimized, but he has a remarkable ability to care for others and a determination to do his job as well as it can possibly be done and most people assumed he never could have held a job. He has accomplished more with his limits than some others who had no developmental limits.
My most cherished love one is cared for entirely by people of color, most of whom were foreign born and speak broken English (or British English in a few cases). They seemed very different when I first met them – and now I count upon them in every emergency and have learned to trust them and admire them. I still occasionally have impulses I am not terribly proud of, but I have learned that if I will look past those immediate, unfounded reactions I can be enriched and find connection with those I had learned to ignore or look down upon in my youth. And I learned to do that by examining my views over and over again. Max, I hope you examine your views too. You do not have to reach the same conclusions I have reached, but I think it worth the effort to think about things and reach our own conclusions rather than rely upon our first reaction- the impulses we learned when we were not old enough to be trusted with drivers licenses or voting rights.
And the people I least respect are the ones who have not learned one new thing since I went to school with them forty years ago. They still have the same narrow view of the world and refuse to consider new information. I do not resent their conclusions-- I resent their unwillingness to consider other ideas even if they ultimately reject those ideas.
This is the entirely wrong time and place, but for once I do not apologize for the length or content of this post. It seems important enough to say and to say fully. Even if the last two thirds of it are all soapbox ranting. I yield the soapbox to the next poster.
Troll vs know-it-all snot-faced kid, it’s hard to tell the difference. I think Qin Shi Huangdi was before your time, but I get a similar vibe as his early posting. Qin got better. Then there’s Machinaforce - they never did.
I think that all of what you said in the previous is summed up by “There but for the grace of God go I” (And you don’t have to actually believe in any sort of divine being in order for that to be applicable.)
This whole deal sounds like taxes. Asking the affluent to make a small sacrifice in order to provide for those less fortunate.
This sounds like the options that colonialists gave to the people living in the lands they were “acquiring”.
As was I. Still rather steeped in it, in fact. That means that I’ve learned to not take for granted some things I used to think perfectly benign. I examine things for unconscious racism, both in myself and others, as I have seen how pervasive and insinuating it is.
I try to judge people based on the context of the situation they are in. I hold someone who is affluent to a higher standard than I hold someone born into poverty. I judge more harshly someone who was given advantages over someone who is marginalized.
As an extreme example, I would hold entirely blameless a slave in the 1800’s murdering every single white person on a plantation, women and children included.
That makes up about 90% of my involuntary social interactions.
tl;dr 
There are those who examine their beliefs, with the desire to update them to better reflect the world around them, and there are those who defend their beliefs, with a desire for others to capitulate to them.
Getting back to the subject, in my dealings with Max_S, he has shown no desire to examine his beliefs, only to have others validate them. He seems to get quite angry and passive agressive if others do not agree with his views. There is no desire to grow, but only a desire to stunt the growth of others.
Stipulating that the term is being used appropriately, the actual word is “tack.”
I have thought about it, I may have even written about it, but apparently I wasn’t thinking right before I critiqued you.
WTF?
I guess we all have our faults. I am apparently a “budding white supremacist” (which I still deny), and k9bfriender will apparently look the other way for revenge killings of women and children.
~Max
I’ve seen this bullshit horror expressed at other boards but keep me a slave from birth and I’ll eat your babies and make you watch.
There is no morality in a chattel slave society. Nothing a slave could do in an effort to escape, or protect/free other slaves, can possibly be considered immoral.
A slave has no agency and thus is morally inculpable.
“Seems like a serious overreaction to a little bit of injustice.”
In the “What happened to Portland OR” thread, Dinsdale wonders why the homeless don’t just move someplace with cheaper housing.
Please tell me he’s trolling. No one is that stupid, right?
Hmmm…
Escaping slave 1: “Should we let the little kids live?”
Escaping slave 2: “No, they’re witnesses. Kill them all.”
Nope, sorry - don’t buy it. Was Nat Turner justified rising in rebellion? Yes. Was he justified in killing women and children as a calculated (purportedly) act of terror? Nope.
Servile revolts are always bloody and bloodthirsty on both sides. That’s an unfortunate fact. And to lash out in hysterical anger at your oppressors and everyone associated with them is understandable. But understandable is not the same as justified - that’s a much higher standard.
Everything and anything is justified. In a chattel slave society, morality is broken. There’s no possible way you or I could judge the actions of someone held in bondage and subject to daily brutality and rape.
Just try to listen to yourself - “hey, I know you were brutalized every day for decades and watched your children beaten and raped before they were scattered and never to be seen again, but did you have to be so hard on those white people?”
Come on.