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Things You Would Change in Your Past

Started by Ecurb Noselrub, January 06, 2023, 08:53:37 PM

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Icarus

Lies about the size of the fish I caught and the claims that Bruno made about his phallus are innocuous.  The lies that the Santos dude told are egregious in that he betrayed his constituents into voting for a psychopathic con man.

Alas the speaker of the house (himself of questionable competence and honesty) is in the process of appointing the Santos scum bag to a place on a meaningful committee.

Tom62

I haven't got a high opinion of politicians at all. On both sides of the political isle there are cheaters, con men, corrupted, lying, hypocritical and incompetent bastards.
The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract.
Robert A. Heinlein

Asmodean

Yep. That's partly why I think that one needs to be good at deception to be an effective politician - you'll have to deal with people who mostly are on a daily basis - and by "deal," I don't mean just be in the proximity of. Deal deal.
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

Ecurb Noselrub

One of the flaws of democracy is that it will always tend to place more and more corrupt people into office. They want power, and will promise anything to get your votes, even though they know they cannot deliver. It would be nice to have some sort of non-partisan committee who screened for these sorts of frauds, but that would also probably become corrupt. So, freedom and democracy carry the seeds of their own destruction. Bottom line is that the people are flawed, so their leaders will also be flawed, yet with power. And that power will corrupt them even more. Sad state of affairs. We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us.

Icarus


Dark Lightning

*cough*enlightened oligarchy*cough*

Too bad such doesn't, and likely never will, exist.

Tank

I agree that any system that awards personal wealth and/or power will probably suffer from corruption. We are seeing this in the UK with the awarding of Covid contracts to government cronies among other things.

Personally I go with the old adage that the person who wants power is the last person you should give it to. Police officers being a prime example.

I would like to see a professional civil service selected by lottery. This would be properly democratic in that it would be government of the people by the people. Voting is in my opinion not democracy but a flawed method of achieving democracy and that's why democracy is itself ultimately flawed. But people in power don't like to give it away so I don't think my idea will ever come to fruition.
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Harmonie

Plenty of mistakes in my life...

Not taking care of myself and going into denial about health issues I was experiencing at age 18. Would completely alter the course of my life.

I would, unfortunately, also have to alter my career path to something different. The way my life has gone with health issues and the way the world/country has gone has put me in quite a pickle the way things are. To have a career that would land me a good, stable job in a blue state is of utmost importance.

My ex. No matter what, I can think of some mistakes I made roughly a decade ago and now she's long gone. Things probably would have ended the way they did either way, but still I was an idiot and I should have never made those mistakes. I loved her so much. That, too, was a mistake I should have never made, but it's not one I chose so I can't just say I would change that because it was never an option of mine.

Icon Image by Cherubunny on Tumblr
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

The Magic Pudding.

This sounds sad Harmonie, so I'm going to give you a soft toy wombat.  Soft toy wombats are better than people partners, more loyal, more huggable, really I don't know why anyone bothers with air breathing objects of affection.




Icarus

Harmonie, it may not be of much comfort to know that all of us have made some unfortunate choices.  Seemed like a good plan at the time and went to hell later is a familiar refrain. Yes I know that those realities do not much ease the pain.

Please hang in there. Please try not to lose a lot of sleep while damning yourself for failing to to make perfect decisions that affect the long term condition.





   

 

Asmodean

Quote from: Icarus on March 11, 2023, 11:33:42 PMPlease hang in there. Please try not to lose a lot of sleep while damning yourself for failing to to make perfect decisions that affect the long term condition.
Indeed. If I was in the advice-giving business, I'd say "don't live in the past." It gets harder to do as one gets longer in the proverbial tooth, as the past makes an ever-greater portion of one's life, but there is always tomorrow... Until there isn't, by which point it does not matter.
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

Ecurb Noselrub

You can observe the past objectively, although it is painful. You have to admit that you have some defects, some aspects of your inner self that are ugly and undesirable. Then it becomes sort of a reality check about life in general. There are somethings that are just a matter of what hand of cards you were dealt. Life the silver ball, you were shot out of the slot, and you ran into some bumpers and got flipped by some flippers, and one day you will drop into the hole. It's a brutal assessment, but I have come to think that the vast majority of life is something that we have absolutely no control over. We are spectators and can observe, but so much of it is predetermined. You didn't chose your sex, your race, your DNA, your parents, the time/place/circumstances of your birth, and on and on. The big things were chosen for you, or just happened. Enjoy watching the movie, and grab some popcorn.

Ecurb Noselrub

Does anyone besides me think that life can be an absolutely humiliating experience? Not all the time, of course, but enough to make you dread being in humiliating circumstances again? I would change all my humiliating experiences, if I could, to at least neutral. But man, some of them were rough. Never again.

Tank

That's an interesting thought, not one I have ever considered. I can't remember an occasion where I have ever been traumatically humiliated.
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Icarus

I was thinking of one of those occasions earlier today. It was about one of my race motorcycles a long time ago...like 60 years ago.  That bike was spectacular and it won every race that it entered. I decided to give it a little extra maintenance.  I will give it a new piston and attend to the valves or any other part as needed.

I sent the cylinder out to a machine shop to have it bored for the new oversize piston. It was a German bike and I had the service manual and also some direct advice from the factory. The proper piston clearance was 0.10 mm. I told the machine shop to bore to fit that spec.  They told me that they figured that was too much clearance. I said "no use that dimension". They bored it 0.010 inches for the piston clearance. The engine was a poor performer immediately after that, until I discovered, to my extreme humiliation, that the damned piston was flopping around in the cylinder. Ten thousandths is two and a half times one tenth millimeter.

Why I was thinking about that this morning I cannot know.  Actually this small episode was  a result of my own stupidity which caused me much humiliation. I knew the difference between metric and Imperial measure but failed to make the important distinction to the machine shop. That was 60+ years ago and metrics were not a common unit of measure in the US, at the time.