I had to log out to see it for myself after I was pointed to it by another forum user. So, he lied again while accusing others the entire time of the same. I put him on ignore and blocked him long before I even replied to vanzandt. This makes him a liar. I only write this for the records, I maintain that I have not told any falsehood on this forum ever. Since our first disagreement newwurldmn has done nothing other than attacking my character. I sometimes shoot below the waist but I do attempt to return to the topic at hand. I definitely can take some heat, no question. But what he does is pure character assassination, and I am not sure how healthy that is on a trading forum. All this after he insulted me over multiple pages: "I’m sorry if you are barren or impotent and can’t have kids" "I know you think poorly of the “masses.” It’s one of the ways you get to feel superior." "lying clearly hasn’t stopped you before." "With regards to your fictitious kids"
Don't worry about it, it happens to everyone on this forum who has strong opinions. Like the scrapes I get into with folks like wildchild and margin gamble. The former about football, the latter about being the world's most extreme bear ever. More extreme then Ken Calhoun, if you can imagine! MG is just whacked in the head.
There are many valid reasons why people voluntarily choose not to have kids. Personally, I spent a lot of time, many years actually, considering whether or not I should have kids. I ultimately decided to and although there were periods where I questioned my decision, I'm glad that I did, but at the same time won't be having more. (I came from a large family and had a good childhood. I think that factor led me towards wanting to have kids.) Having kids is a lot of work and involves a lot of sacrifice if done right. I knew that before having kids. (And of course, it was an even bigger physical burden for my wife who had to have a last-minute c-section.) However, people tend not to talk about the hard parts of having kids...they don't talk about the added stress that it can cause to marriage and impact to relationships. https://www.verywellmind.com/coping-with-stress-that-children-add-to-marriage-4121318 There was a parenting book that I read that brought up that fact as well as many others that were not covered in my high school health class. Even different parenting styles in itself can add stress to a marriage. If you bring up that stuff outside of close friends or family, people might think you are selfish or don't like kids because you're a bad person. There is this view that most people should be having kids by default or that it is an intrinsically noble pursuit. I have nothing but respect for those who thoroughly consider the pros and cons of having kids and decide that it's not for them. The default decision should be not having kids because if you're wrong, you won't just mess up your life, but also the lives of all those involved. For this reason, even as a libertarian, vasectomies should be one of the few things govt provides for free.
"I know you think poorly of the “masses.” It’s one of the ways you get to feel superior." I thought a bit more about that statement even though it was not directed at me. I also have a low opinion of the masses. Here's a few reasons off the top of my head: -People generally slow down and gawk at the scene of an automobile accident. Not even a bad accident, could just be a car pulled over on the side of the road. They are willing to cause stall and crawl traffic, make everyone behind them wait in order to get a glimpse of what is absolutely none of their business. Maybe 1 out of 10,000 will actually pull over and help if no police or EMT has arrived on the scene yet. But their gawking impedes not every other driver behind them, but also the emergency response. This isn't caused by one or two drivers...most people do this. -The fact that political yard signs which only display the person's name and no actual position actually work and can change the outcome of elections. If they didn't have a significant effect, then campaigns would not spend money on them and time putting them up. This suggests that a large number of people actually have no idea what the hell they are voting for and only vote based on association and names that they have heard. -The fact that all the corruption we complain about on here exists. Insider trading - members of congress can still directly profit from the impact of legislation that they control. Certain people are above the law and untouchable as long as their associated with the right people. -We're $31T in debt and still doing record spending. You can blame politicians on both sides, but it's the people who elected them that are the real problem. This is because a politician who does not offer something without sacrifice won't get elected. Some people want tax cuts, some people want handouts, some want both. No one campaigning on promising a budget surplus would get elected. -Vote buying the form of loan transfers from the irresponsible is allowed to happen with not that much public outrage. Many people feel that others who never even went to college should be forced to pay for their piss-poor decisions on getting worthless degrees. My body my choice, but my debt your problem. These are the same people that will steal from others as long as they believe they won't get caught and can find some way to rationalize it. There are a lot of them. Look at how the PPP funds were abused. -The fact that you can sue a company for spilling hot coffee on yourself and win! This is not a recent case, but there are enough people on the jury to deliver a totally messed up verdict. I have not served jury duty, but a friend who did told me you never want to end up having your fate decided by a jury...way too many stupid and illogical people out there who can really mess up your life. -A significant percentage of the population gets in favor of completely stupid ideas in favor of "social justice". Recent example being the defund the police initiative. There were enough stupid people to actually pass legislation that ruined major cities. Any logical person would know that if you remove disincentives for committing crime, you'll get more crime. Guess what happened! Same with decriminalizing hard drugs in Portland...people actually voted for that. Drug problem has gotten worse. Of course that would happen. -You have a lot of cities which were nice places -- Seattle, San Francisco, Portland that have turned into homeless shitholes. People there keep electing the same people and expect a different result. -Too many bad drivers not paying attention while driving. Common example is the person in the left lane blocking traffic. Either due to stupidity or laziness. -Test scores. They keep going down. Graduation rates, same trend. More money, more problems when it comes to government run schools. Admittedly, this is a cultural problem. I think people have simply become too comfortable. Once they are comfortable and have food and shelter regardless of what happens, the Darwinian forces lose impact and people tend to degenerate. Some of it though is due to kids in bad conditions at home, malnourished, and bad broken family situation, dad took off. I feel sorry for those kids. -Check out the content that is trending on Instagram or TikTok...see what is popular and what people pay attention to. That should lower your opinion of the masses. -The fact that quiet quitting is a thing. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/30/is-quiet-quitting-a-good-idea-heres-what-workplace-experts-say.html There are so many job openings in the US. What kind of loser stays in a bad situation indefinitely? If you don't believe your hard work will pay off, then make a plan to leave. Work on getting valuable skills that are in demand and find a job that pays you for what you're worth. I can understand someone prioritizing school, maybe even taking work time to work on school, but that's not what the article is describing. It's people that have resigned to spending the majority of their weekday hours doing something they do not enjoy. That's just sad. -I could go on, but tired of typing...no one probably reading this anyway. If you want more, listen to Doug Casey and Bill Burr, especially the cruise ship rant. I don't believe I harbor those feelings in an effort to feel superior. Rather, it's sadness that I feel after realizing that so many people are not living anywhere near their full potential and unlike me and many others here, don't even bother to give a serious effort. We could be so much further ahead of where we are now.
I’ll be honest and say I didn’t read all of your post but I skimmed some of it. Here’s my thought on the “masses.” I used to think the same thing until I realized what made me different from everyone else? And the reality is a lot but also not a lot. I don’t run the world. I am not a tastemaker on any scale. I might have done okay financially but my fears and my hopes aren’t that different. I’m ignorant about a lot of topics like everyone else. I don’t do my own original research - I’m not on the ground in the Ukraine and at the same time traversing glaciers to measure global warming. And science has shown that our minds all work pretty much the same. So I’m part of the masses even with my Ivy League education and net worth. Read about the McDonald’s coffee lawsuit. It’s not black and white. The lady got third degree burns because McDonald’s was keeping the coffee much hotter than they were supposed to in order to make it last longer. McDonald’s new people were being burned by the coffee. And the award was brought down substantially later. The whole story wasn’t in the headline and you made a general statement based on the headline. What you did is not dissimilar to the “masses.” I’m not faulting you for it; we all do that and that makes us all the same and no better than anyone else. people in the left lane who are “lazy” are likely going the speed limit and following the law whereas you (and I) are wanting breaking the law.
Another lie, there is no bug, it all becomes clear now: When one lies a lot then one sees liars all around one. The only thing this guy lives up to his full potential is to be a genuinely unpleasant human being who is so concerned about his ego and ivy league degree that he must still talk about after years attaining it. Speaking of small accomplishments in life when the one great accomplishment has to be elevated at any given opportunity.
The jury awarded her $3M because she spilled coffee on herself. I was aware that the award was brought down later, but that doesn't matter. It's still the case that some jury was assembled, which represents a random (although somewhat biased sample as productive people have a bigger incentive to get out of jury duty and it's actually pretty easy for a half-way competent person not to get selected for a jury) sample of the population, and decided that someone who spilled coffee on herself should be given $3M. It wasn't just one crazy person who decided that, but a large group of people came to that decision. Because of that, we now have warning labels on everything for what should be common sense. When you try to base your argument on an assertion of which everyone here can see is speculative, you really undermine your argument. You have no basis for claiming that I want to break the law by speeding. That's not the case. When the speed limit is 55, someone should not be going 45 mph in the left lane. This guy explains in more detail: I understand the privilege / luck argument. Yes, outcomes are influenced by initial conditions. I was certainly lucky to have a good childhood and loving parents who did what they were supposed to do as good parents. But I and many others made sacrifices in the short-term to improve the long-term. I did not spend Friday nights in the library studying for fun while most people were out enjoying the recreational parts of college life. That's where the "you didn't build that" and the "you would all be slobs if you had bad parents and poor education" arguments fall apart. The counter-examples are the Hunter Bidens of the world, those who were born in privilege (although he likely was missing the good parents part...) were given everything and turned out to be reprobates. It's not the case that we're really just all the same, we just have differing levels of luck, it's the choices we make which are based on the soul / core of the individual's value system that really matters. Someone who is willing to run into a burning building after a 747 flew into it to save others is an outlier. Someone who goes off to war to defend their country is an outlier. Someone who is willing to get on a boat and go off to start a life in another country which they have never seen and leave behind family they will never see again is an outlier. Most people don't do that. Anyhow, if none of those examples above convinced you, consider that just 2000 years ago, colosseums full of people would gather to watch other humans get eaten alive by animals. Or watch other human gladiators fight to the death. That was for entertainment. That's what the masses did for entertainment. And that was only 2000 years ago. On an evolutionary time scale, that's not a significant amount of time. So we're really not that much different than we were back then. My dad once told me, "The masses of men live lives of quiet desperation". He was quoting Henry David Thoreau. Very true.