The “Confusion of Principles” is what I call what I believe is a mistake that many people make: believing that everything about them, no matter how minor or trivial (even something like a food preference) is “a principle” which must not be “betrayed”.
People seem to have some difficulty in separating:
For the past few days, I have been thinking quite a lot about my past relationships, and, by an amazing coincidence, several friends have been telling me about theirs. And one particular response that has been coming up is something like “as if I’d ever put away with that…” - or, when thinking about my own relationships, “what the hell was I thinking?”
Have I become less tolerant? Maybe, but I’d like to believe that “tolerance” isn’t always a quality. Being “tolerant” in the sense of not being a bigot, of accepting different, unknown, new things in others is a quality, certainly (and a rare one, still, though humanity is slowly improving). But what about tolerance to things that are just plain wrong?
For instance, is it right to “tolerate” an abusive person? An authoritarian? Someone who demands respect for her feelings but doesn’t have a shred of respect for yours? Someone who demands that everything is exactly as she wants or she will leave? A guy who is obsessed about his car and forgets about you? A woman to whom the only thing that matters in the world is how tidy the house is, and who does everything in her power to make you feel like a monster if something is a millimeter out of place? Or what about someone who is insanely jealous and accuses you of flirting with other people every 5 minutes?
(This is another one from my wiki, slightly edited)
The Fast Worker’s Dilemma is something which intrigues me, and which gets different responses and opinions from different people.
Consider this scenario: you work in a factory, in a production line. The factory produces “Qwerties“. The average production rate for each worker is 10 Qwerties per day.
Now, assume that you find out that you can produce 10 Qwerties in just half a day. That is, you are able to work twice as fast as anyone else, with no loss in quality. What is, to you, the proper procedure, then?
Continue reading ‘The Fast Worker’s Dilemma’
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If you don’t think that this site is one of the most disgusting things you’ve ever seen, then forgive me for being blunt, but you have a problem.
For the last couple of decades, the media, sleazy lawyers (redundant, I know) and opportunistic politicians (there I go again…) have been, from time to time, creating media circuses because computer and video games are corrupting our children with gratuitous violence, blood, gore, disrespect for authority and, worst of all, nudity! That no scientific study (and there have been several) has ever linked real life violence with computer games is of no interest to these parasites - it is an opportunity to get richer (to a lawyer like the vermin above) and an opportunity to be seen as “protecting children” and “fighting for family values” (just check out Hillary Clinton, whom I had nothing against until now).
Continue reading ‘Violence, video games and personal responsibility’
In many blogs, sites, articles and so on, one tends to see a lot of opinions similar to the following: “oh, the relationship didn’t work out because he was too much an individualist!”. Or “people are way too individualistic these days, nobody cares about others”.
Apparently, people think of “an individualist” as “a manipulating, selfish, self-centered bastard who uses people and is incapable of caring about anyone”.
Which is quite a weird definition, because it doesn’t have anything to do with the word!
As today is my 31th birthday, naturally, I thought a bit about, well, what everyone (or close to that) thinks about in their birthday (at least after leaving adolescence). I wrote a little about it in my personal blog (in Portuguese), and there’s a bit I want to translate, extend and say here.
A lot of people say something like this: “getting old isn’t really a question of age, it’s about how old you think you are; if you believe you are young, you are young, and so on”.
I believe they’re only half right - and possibly wrong about the fundamental part. It’s not a question of belief, but of attitude.
Quite a lot of people believe that in this world there are conformists, a.k.a. “mindless sheep”, the people who do things because “that’s what everyone does” - and, conversely, don’t do something because “nobody else is doing it”. People also believe that there are non-conformists, who supposedly are the opposite of the above. So far, so good.
It had to happen soon or later, and so, 3 days since this blog was created, here is an entry that is sure to offend a lot of people. 
Astrology, of which are several kinds (the “sun signs” one, which everyone knows about, is just one) is thousands of years old. Which makes a lot of sense - when there is no science at all to tell us how life, the universe and everything work, and people do want to know, they are bound to invent something… to imagine something may be true, and then unconsciously change that belief to: it is true. Thus, our cave dwelling ancestors would believe that a thunderstorm was “the wrath of the gods”, and would scurry around trying to figure out what they could probably have done to offend the gods, and how they could appease their anger. Hey, what about a sacrifice? If an animal isn’t enough, maybe sacrificing your youngest daughter will really prove your faith…
Back to astrology, though.
(This one is related to this blog’s name. I wrote a little about this in the What’s this? page.)
Maybe it’s just me, but from reading magazine articles, blogs, books, and talking to people, there’s one thing I hear (in some way or other) quite a lot: something to the effect of:
and so on. In short, people complain that everyone “thinks too much”, and that we should let go of that and care more about our emotions. Reason is seen as “outdated”.
Note: this article is adapted from one I wrote some time ago in my wiki.
Sadness worshipping is what I call a particular phenomenon that I despise, and that is sadly too common.
This phenomenon is the idea ingrained in society that sadness and suffering, especially if it is one’s own, is something positive, something to be proud of, something to defend if necessary.
Sadness is, indeed, a part of life. So is having a cold. But one does not feel proud of his cold, does not get used to it so much that the idea of being cured of it becomes frightening.
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