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What's the measure of individual human success? (pg. 9)
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| Silky Johnson |
I just like how even though most would agree it's a completely subjective thing, he comes in here telling most of us we're wrong. Lol.
edit: Now I see where System J went wrong. He assumed I meant that social support networks are the ONLY measure of success, when in fact I never said that at all. |
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| nefardec |
the idea that there is success at all (or even individuals that can 'possess' achievements) is completely ridiculous and meaningless in the long run.
and it's a shortcut to unhappiness or a volatile, fleeting happiness during life at best. |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by jennypie
I just like how even though most would agree it's a completely subjective thing, he comes in here telling most of us we're wrong. Lol. |
Come on! I find that to be a bit charming about System-J :p
He's the child of a tradition of English You-bloody-idiots-all-wrongsters, such as Charlie Brooker and Christopher Hitchens, and can be very entertaining when riled up. The Modus Operandi is quite simple:
- Say something;
- Be automatically in the wrong;
- Have your opinions thrashed by a critical and satirical analysis of every word you uttered;
- ???
- Profit, mate!
If anything, sometimes I wish Syst tried to entertain his audience (i.e. us) a bit more with non sequiturs, reductio ad absurdums, and the old good comical spirit of the British Islanders. Like PKC does to CTers in general, though I assume PKC's heritage may have been strengthened by the fact that he's in an even smaller island full of Tasmanian Devils.
I'd pray for your soul, Paul... but I don't pray, and you don't have a soul :( |
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| Silky Johnson |
| I got a B+ on my exam yesterday. I do not consider that a success. :/ |
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| Schadenfreude |
| i got a plus on my exam too yesterday...unfortunately for me it came after "hiv". :( |
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| SYSTEM-J |
| quote: | | edit: Now I see where System J went wrong. He assumed I meant that social support networks are the ONLY measure of success, when in fact I never said that at all. |
No I didn't. My whole point, which you've spectacularly failed to grasp, is the one contributing factor to a one aspect (well being) of your life is not a measure of success, unless you follow your own rickety argument through and also count your physical environment as a measure of success. More saliently, you never picked up on things like physical fitness as measures of success, because those don't sound nearly as humble and righteous as saying you live for your family and friends.
You can pull this "It's only a subjective opinion card" if you want, but it's also my opinion, as I said several pages ago, that if you judge people as "successful" or not based on their social network, or even their health, you are a tard.
Because there is no quantification or measure of it, all you have is what people personally care about in their lives, and since that's a personal subject, the only thing you can do is judge your own life on how "successful" it is. And like I said, I consider that an incredibly smug and self-congratulatory activity at best. Especially when you start assessing people around you on that same arbitrary, subjective, un-knowable "measure" of an equally abstract and pointless concept like "success". |
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| Schadenfreude |
girl: let me suck your system
system j : you are wrong to do so, sucking is not subjective.
girl:just shut the up and pull down your pants!
system j: they aren't pants, they are the result of our evolution and a way for the church to hold us back.
girl: i just want some cum....fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
system j: no you don't, it should not be called cum it should be called go as it leaves the body, it doesn't enter it.
girl: what the man
system j: that is quite interesting...what the ? i don't know either.
girl: this
system j: you can't, it has no orifices.
girl: *fists self and s on floor*
:p |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| quote: | Originally posted by Schadenfreude
system j: no you don't, it should not be called cum it should be called go as it leaves the body, it doesn't enter it. |
LOL. |
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| nefardec |
| quote: | Originally posted by Schadenfreude
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you forgot the italic text |
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| Schadenfreude |
| quote: | Originally posted by nefardec
you forgot the italic text |
naw i'm ashamed of my heritage:p |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by SYSTEM-J
No I didn't. My whole point, which you've spectacularly failed to grasp, is the one contributing factor to a one aspect (well being) of your life is not a measure of success, unless you follow your own rickety argument through and also count your physical environment as a measure of success. More saliently, you never picked up on things like physical fitness as measures of success, because those don't sound nearly as humble and righteous as saying you live for your family and friends.
You can pull this "It's only a subjective opinion card" if you want, but it's also my opinion, as I said several pages ago, that if you judge people as "successful" or not based on their social network, or even their health, you are a tard.
Because there is no quantification or measure of it, all you have is what people personally care about in their lives, and since that's a personal subject, the only thing you can do is judge your own life on how "successful" it is. And like I said, I consider that an incredibly smug and self-congratulatory activity at best. Especially when you start assessing people around you on that same arbitrary, subjective, un-knowable "measure" of an equally abstract and pointless concept like "success". |
Come on, mate! You can write very well and you must try to take it to the next stage: you need to mock her arguments, not just point out her flaws! Show what would happen if she was right with lots of absurd generalisations! Here, have an example:
| quote: | Charlie Brooker | Offensive Facebook groups such as Raoul Moat's are 10 a penny. Yet sympathy is in short supply.
Raoul Moat group is idiotic on many levels – not least for calling him a 'legend'
Stupid people! Thinking of setting up a Facebook group dedicated to an inflammatory cause? Why not simply scream your views into an empty breadbin instead? All the cathartic release, none of the lingering opprobrium.
One of the chief joys of the internet is the way it has liberated millions of anonymous hecklers, strikingly few of whom had hitherto risked sharing their coruscating views in public because people tended to yawn, or ask them to shut up, or physically attack them. Suddenly they had an outlet, and before long, a vastly inflated sense of self-worth. They could pop up, courageously tell a blogger that she was fat, and disappear into the night like Raffles the gentleman thief.
If I was designing the comments section for a website, I'd insist that every posting be accompanied by the poster's full name and portrait – unless they preferred to remain nameless, in which case their username, by default, would be Timid McSqueaky, and their comments would appear in weak yellow text on a bright white background, like urine in the snow. (Inevitably, there would be complaints that some commenters required anonymity because they were whistleblowers, dissidents or victims of some kind. Fair enough: they'd be able to submit their comments via a moderator.)
Of course, most activity on Facebook is accompanied by the user's full name and portrait, something the members of the Facebook group 'RIP RAOUL MOAT YOU LEGEND' failed to consider fully. It's offensive on many levels, not least because anyone who refers to any public figure other than King Arthur as a "legend" really ought to be denied access to food, water or any kind of comfortable horizontal surface for a minimum of 96 hours.
Mind you, if the ensuing interviews are anything to go by, the group's creator, Siobhan O'Dowd, can scarcely be blamed for failing to consider the consequences of her actions, because she doesn't seem to possess any power of thought whatsoever, and comes across a bit like a tree trunk that's recently learned to grunt in response to nearby sounds. Rather than labelling her a SICKO in bold type on the front cover, the tabloids really ought to run the story on their 33rd page under the heading THICKIE DOES THICK THING.
Attempting to blame Facebook seems especially short-sighted: equally dumb and inflammatory statements are made in the Have Your Say sections of newspaper websites every day. Occasionally the readers even manage to out-spite the columnists themselves. Furthermore, an inflammatory Facebook group is established every two seconds, although since the majority tend to consist of outraged overreactions to palpably false tabloid fantasies about Muslim groups demanding the execution of Mr Kipling and suchlike, we don't tend to hear much about them, even though they contain far more threatening hate speech than the pro-Moat page could muster. O'Dowd's group was chiefly unusual in going against the tabloid grain.
Not that she's adopting an intellectual position, of course. Her idea of "adopting an intellectual position" probably means not standing on all fours. On YouTube there's a recording of a radio interview in which a TalkSport presenter runs so many rings around her, it's a wonder he didn't black out from the centrifugal force. In the end he exposes and exploits her stupidity so mercilessly, I found myself experiencing pangs of sympathy for her.
Which puts me on wobbly territory, because it turns out I've been getting the concept of sympathy wrong all these years. I thought it referred to a sense of compassionate understanding that could be applied in varying degrees to an infinite number of individuals. Now, thanks to David Cameron, I realise it's an all-or-nothing, binary state of mind. You either have sympathy, or you don't, and in this instance Cameron claims he can't understand people who show any sympathy whatsoever for Moat. "It is absolutely clear that Raoul Moat was a callous murderer, full stop, end of story," he said. "There should be sympathy for his victims; there should be no sympathy for him."
He rejected the idea of censoring idiots on Facebook, but the worrying implication of his position on sympathy is the notion that it's an either/or choice: a finite substance, rather than a basic human trait. But you can't simply switch it off. Torturers and dictators aside, there are very few people it's impossible to feel absolutely zero sympathy for.
If I had to assign a quantifiable figure to my sympathy, which I guess I should since the prime minister has instructed me on how best to apportion it, I reckon I feel 100% sympathy for the victims and 1% sympathy for Raoul Moat: he receives a solitary crumb of pity, doled out on the basis that he suffered a gigantic mental collapse which led him to commit a series of pathetic and unforgivable deeds before killing himself.
That gives us a total of 101% sympathy. A sympathetic overspend. A deficit of compassion. Maybe that kind of extravagance can't be maintained in our current age of austerity. After all, we have to make cuts somewhere. What was it John Major said? "Society should condemn a little more and understand a little less"? Or to boil that down to a tabloid strapline: MORE JUDGMENT, LESS THOUGHT. |
In short, you have to evolve from:
| quote: | girl: this
system j: you can't, it has no orifices. |
To something more like:
| quote: | girl: this
system j: yeah, right, because it's warmer and smoother than whatever it is that you pitifully call your cosy cunt, plus it doesn't squeal like a dead pig when I'm trying to concentrate on how far I'm going to shoot my hopeless attempt to perpetuate the species. |
See!? |
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| Chimney |
| edit: In about 10 years when I'm a plastic surgeon, I'll consider myself successful. |
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