<p>Be careful with an such an assessment. This may or may not be true, but I would offer the following for consideration. I believe from an earlier post you revealed that you were an only child. Being an only child is something that I know a good deal about and have put a lot of thought to, as I am an only child myself. <p>Being selfish is a label which is almost automatically attached to any only child. Spoiled is another. As those were applied to me, I always thought there might be some truth to them, but I really did not give them much thought and absolutely felt no guilt from them. The reason for that stems from another quality often attributed to an only child which is self-centered which is to say that I was so self-centered as not to care what others thought or said of me.That is not the same as being selfish or is it as negative. Being self-centered is in many cases simply a reasonable adjustment for the only child to make.<p> I could go about the personalities of only children. If I am around someone for even a short period of time, I can usually identify them before it is confirmed for certain.<p>I can usually identify them from public figures as well. I was always drawn to Bobby Knight although I never have had the desire to throw a temper tantrum in front of 16,000 people by throwing chairs across an arena. Bobby Knight is not really selfish if you read about him, meet him or know and talk to people who have spent time with him. He is self-centered and it might be fair to say that he has upped that self-centeredness a couple of notches to egomanical. But the world may see him as selfish. There are many selfish coaches in college basketball and those are the ones who take players and exploit them for their own purposes. They never bother to teach or guide them to a life after basketball. That is selfishness.<p>My point is this, that only children because of a whole bunch of qualities that often come with an only childhoodl, exaggerated to the extreme in someone like Knight, are often labeled as selfish which is probably unfair, but as not as unfair as for those who accept the label as fact even though it is merely a stereotype.<p>As for Karma, I would answer that the people who I have most admired and looked up to, all seemed to have been rewarded with many blessings but not without some travail. The rain falls on the just and unjust alike, so says scriptures.
why do you consider selfishness a negative? some people consider selfishness a noble trait. see ayn rand for further details. http://www.objectivistcenter.org/ct-406-FAQ_Virtue_Selfishness.aspx allan greenspan among other notables are/were devotees of ms. rand. regards, surf
I am certainly an admirer of Ayn Rand's novels, I am particularly familiar with Atlas Shrugged. I have never had occasion to look into objectivism as a philosophy. From my reading of Atlas Shrugged, I am not sure I take what she was trumpeting as noble as selfishness as much as it was placing the individual and his self-interest above the interests of the elites who were ironically those acting out of the more traditional view of selfishness albeit attempting to pass it off as anything but. I would make a distinction between an individual acting out of self-interest and selfishness. Personally, I see Atlas Shrugged as a great novel far ahead of its time. That novel is in my view in opposition to the bureaucratic moves One Worldism that we now see and the humanism which is the secular religion on which it seeks its moral foundation. And from those two points of view, individuality in any form is denigrated as antisocial and as selfishness. Again I would not say what I said contradicts with what is in her novel, but I cannot speak for that body of her work which came about after Atlas Shrugged.
Of any thread in this entire forum, none has given me a factual basis to say that some of the most intelligent people I've ever witnessed posting on any internet forum must be right here on ET. This one has.
I don't think that intelligence should have anything thing to do with the opinion on the world sentiment. It is more of a personality trait being pessimistic vs. optimistic. The phrase should be the smarter/intelligent you are the more opportunities there are. Akuma
=============== Mr/mrs ES; No, the original quote mabe written by Chicago trader William Eng; the smarter you are the longer it takes to be profitable in trading. Agree with the Hebrew National Company, on thier ad for kosher hot dogs'; 'We submit to a higher authoity''
<b>Happy, confident students do worse in math</b> WASHINGTON - Kids who are turned off by math often say they don't enjoy it, they aren't good at it and they see little point in it. Who knew that could be a formula for success? ADVERTISEMENT The nations with the best scores have the least happy, least confident math students, says a study by the Brookings Institution's Brown Center on Education Policy. Countries reporting higher levels of enjoyment and confidence among math students don't do as well in the subject, the study suggests. The results for the United States hover around the middle of the pack, both in terms of enjoyment and in test scores. In essence, happiness is overrated, says study author Tom Loveless. "We might want to focus on the math that kids are learning and just be a little less obsessed with the fact that they have to enjoy every minute of it," said Loveless, who directs the Brown center and serves on a presidential advisory panel on math. "The implication is not 'Let's go make kids unhappy,'" he said. "It's 'Let's give kids better signals as to how they're performing, relative to the rest of the world.'" Other countries do better than the United States because they seem to expect more from students, he said. That could also explain why high performers in other nations express less confidence and enjoyment in math. They consider their peer group to be star achievers. Even efforts to make math relevant may be irrelevant, says the study, released Wednesday. Nations that try to teach math in terms of daily life have the lowest test scores. All this is not easy to compute. Math teachers typically don't avoid enjoyment, confidence and relevance in their math lessons. They strive for those things. Speaking on behalf of those teachers, one educator took exception to the study's conclusions. "If I'm a math student and I don't perceive myself as confident, you think I'm going to major in it? The answer is no," said Francis "Skip" Fennell, president of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and another member of the federal math panel. "Is enjoyment important? You bet it is. Is confidence important? You bet it is," Fennell said. "If we don't have those variables, we can't compete." Yet Loveless says pleasing kids has comes at the expense of mastering skills. His findings come from the 2003 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, a test of fourth-graders and eighth-graders across the globe. Along with answering math questions, students were asked whether they enjoyed math and whether they usually did well in it. The eighth-grade results reflected a common pattern: The 10 nations whose students enjoyed math the most all scored below average. The bottom 10 nations on the enjoyment scale all excelled. Japan, Hong Kong and the Netherlands were among those with high scores and lower enjoyment or confidence among students. Within a given nation, the high-confidence kids did better than their peers. But that changed when students were compared with a different peer group. Even the least confident students in Singapore outscored the most confident Americans. Loveless is not suggesting it makes sense to undermine kids' confidence or make math revolting. But he says the U.S. should rethink "the happiness factor," as he puts it. Math textbooks in the United States, for example, tend to have colorful photos, charts and stories to please kids, he noted. In other nations, the texts strictly have math. Fennell said engaging, relevant lessons are important. But he agreed with Loveless that every lesson should be about teaching math, not simply providing a fun class activity. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061018/ap_on_re_us/unhappy_achievers
I think in some ways, yes. The fact is, much of what goes on in the world is pretty abhorrent to any free and civilised human being. Imagine being an intelligent, free-thinking, rational woman living in, say, Bangladesh or the Democratic Republic of Congo. Or a gay man in the arab world. Or a democrat in Burma. A natural capitalist and practising catholic living in 1930s Russia. A libertarian in practically any country on earth. Life would look pretty f*cking grim, wouldn't it? Whereas if you are a conformist of low or average intelligence, it is much easier to "fit in" with the values of your contemporary society. You question the established order less, you don't look outside or across history for comparisons with your current state of affairs. You care more about "doing well" in the context of your peers, rather than doing something worthwhile in an absolute sense. Most people I encounter are preoccupied mainly with their own station in life, not that of others. So yes, in general I think that "smarts" can lead you to rather depressing conclusions at times. Luckily their exist many activities which, when pursued, give great pleasure and help take one's mind off such matters. That is life's saving grace.
But what is the purpose of this "change"? Achieving things is rather hollow if doing so just keeps you in a state of permanent unhappiness, wouldn't you say? There is no point in building skyscrapers if it makes you miserable. What is the essential difference between a used Honda Civic and an S-class? They both get you from A to B, and the Honda does so considerably cheaper, with less hassle, and (nowadays) probably more reliability too. I find it interesting that you seem to view having a used Honda Civic almost as something to be pitied, some kind of serious handicap. Bear in mind that the world's richest man drives a 14 year old Volvo. I also disagree with you that unhappiness is the key motivator. What about pleasure, enjoyment, fulfillment? Who makes the better soldier - the conscript who has to be bullied into fighting, or the volunteer for hazardous duty who loves combat? I doubt that unhappiness with one's situation is enough motivation to create anything of significance - one must also have some kind of passion for it.