Reply personal responsibility is a crock: here is why

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i can tell you it is both easy and tough to be stupid.

Yep!

AngelRho

Here is the thing. Conservatives give advice but usually their advice is extremely overly simplistic to the point of being nonsensical.

Example: I tell them I don't know how to get food. They will tell me tell me to go fish. But, I don't know how to fish. So, Mr. Conservative are you willing to show me how to fish?

Or, if a young man complains about his parents and then the conservative tells him to move out. Overly simplistic advice without sitting down with them and helping them to develop a plan of attack.

Or, I personally explain the difficulty I had with getting employed which includes the questions on the personality tests. Usually, the questions are vague and conservatives will either tell me I'm making excuses or look it up on line. What if I did so and I still didn't get it or the advice is different from different people?

Or, not knowing what to do exactly to get the experience employers require and when I look it up online it's like going through a bunch of Alice's rabbit holes. It doesn't answer certain questions. And, even your answer AngelRho, was confusing as heck to me. I literally didn't get your answer or advice.

Or, they'll tell me to work at places that single mothers will work at. But, a. I have no idea how to structure my resume to get those jobs. b. I horrible motor coordination issues to do the jobs they suggest like painter.

They give advice without truthfully the person's circumstances.

What I need, what those with disabilities like ours and others need is more disability organizations that truthfully understand our disability and the types of disabilities. But, because of their values they wish to cut services like Voc Rehab. And, we need these orgs to have more funding by the gov't. Most of these orgs are under-funded, under-staffed and the staff are over worked.

I would've been able to take responsibility for my life if I had help and guidance to do so in an intricate way and certain questions were answered and certain concepts were explained. Even to this day I still have missing information as to how things really and truthfully work even when I try to read online. Reading online is like going through Alice's Rabbit holes and so is conservative type explanations.

So it's politically incorrect to call women women then?...

I don't think anyone is claiming that on the left. Unless you want to be transphobic about it and say 'well they say it's rude to call a trans man a woman'.

Ayn Rand was a woman. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with calling her one either. Do you have the same ridiculous standard when it comes to saying the word 'man'?

BTW - the right can be collectivist too. Religion is collectivist. Ayn Rand supported abortion rights - religious people don't.

Oh, I’ve noticed collectivism on the right. No argument on that one, and religious collectivism is probably the most insidious form of it. No wonder Rand was an atheist. And the abortion rights thing is a red herring. It is incorrect to say all religions are collectivist. My religion isn’t. Rand’s views on individualism presuppose that babies don’t have an inherent right to be born. The mother was there first, which I DO agree with Rand on. I also believe that in the case of giving birth spelling certain death to the mother, she has every right as anyone else to defend her own life even if that means the death of her baby. But I also believe that the unborn are also living individuals with the same inherent right to life as anyone else. Rand’s values regarding life are internally inconsistent with her views on abortion, so I conclude that on this point Rand is mistaken, her logic flawed, and her conclusion rooted more in wishful thinking. Should abortion be banned entirely? No. I think it can be a reasonable life-saving procedure. Beyond that, no, people do not have so much agency that they can just kill anyone they feel like. Destroying a human life can be morally and logically justified. There is seldom a logical or moral justification for killing a baby, and I don’t care which side of the womb it is.

I have no problem calling Ayn Rand a woman. I’m not even above sexist language, nor do I care who calls me a male chauvinist; however, WP has a huge problem with it. Your more foaming-at-the-mouth, radical, lefty types are especially hyper-sensitive to it. That’s why I can’t help but find it amusing when someone who opposes conservatism accidentally uses language that could so easily be interpreted as sexist. The tone is not that Rand is simply an exemplary woman. Quite the opposite. She’s histrionic. It’s only a problem when conservatives say things like that, but leftists will invariably circle the wagons when the same is said ABOUT a conservative woman.

Not exactly useful in proving my point and staying on-topic, but it is amusing nonetheless.

I disagree. Often the simplest solutions offered are the best ones. You do yourself no favors by making things more complicated than they have to be.

Conservatives love fishing. Look, it’s super easy: Get a cane pole, a float, a lead weight, a hook, and monofilament. Monofilament goes on the pole, the float, weight, and hook go on the line in that order, leaving a few inches between the float and the hook. Get crickets from a bait shop. Push hook into cricket from end to end. Swing the line over the water, but be gentle. And then wait. When the float goes under the water, pull back firmly on the pole to set the hook. Slowly pull the line out of the water and hook from the fish. You’ll want something you can keep your fish in so they don’t die before you process them. But that’s pretty much it.

You can also try fly fishing if you’re more into fishing as a sport, but that takes more effort than it’s worth if all you want is food.


But you are making assumptions about what people are obligated to do. Sitting down and helping someone with a parent problem is all about replacing dependency on parents for decisions with dependency on someone else. If dependency is the problem, it can’t be solved with more dependence. If you want out, the best thing you can do for yourself is work it out on your own. I’ve lost a few jobs and was even homeless at one point. How did I get past it? Partly by taking running home to mommy off the table. It simply wasn’t an option. If someone has to be told everything to do, it could be that independent living isn’t the right way to go. But you can’t blame us for not doing everything FOR you.

It takes time and practice to figure out what’s going to work best for you. You don’t need anyone to do that for you. I was job hunting from day 1 of the pandemic. I only got two interviews and took the only offer I got. Does that make me feel confident about where I am right now? No. You better believe I’m already shopping for the next gig once all this pandemic crap is over. Looking things up is not really all that unreasonable.

I’m not familiar with personality tests. What is that all about?

My answer was that employers purposefully give you Catch-22’s asking about experience. So you look for all the different ways you can make a reasonable claim for having experience. Volunteer work, hobbies, extracurricular activities, clubs, etc. If it’s a job you actually want doing things you’re excited about, then yes, you DO have experience. Don’t let 3 years experience required throw you off.

Ok, but those are red flags. Conservatives and objectivists place a higher value on ideas that are realized as productive work. Anyone can paint stuff, it doesn’t require any tremendous intellectual energy. And that’s when it becomes less important that you achieve at a high level and more that you produce something of value. What’s happening is you are letting the value of a job—ANY job—be worth less than nothing. Single-mom work isn’t IT work, but it’s work and it pays. That’s a lot better than an IT job that’s not even available to you. Very few, exceptional people even start out with those kinds of jobs. You do better just worrying about making money any way you reasonably can.


Free stuff has no value. They aren’t under-funded, etc. They’re just ineffective. People who work in those kinds of jobs don’t really care all that much. They just want a desk job where they don’t have to actually do anything. That’s part of the reason conservatives hate them so much. You really do better figuring things out yourself. That way, you actually own the knowledge and experience and don’t have to worry about people telling you everything to do.


It’s not as complicated as you think. Look, I have similar experiences with the computer music programming I’m working on. Why? Because math was my worst subject in high school. Today I taught myself how to draw a waveform using lines, convert the lines to exponential curves between each two points, analyze the results for harmonic frequency and magnitude, resynthesize the results, and randomly phase-offset the coefficients. And I can upload the resulting wavetables to a Waldorf Blofeld synthesizer.

There’s been very little online to actually help. I’ve found bits and pieces of stuff here and there that served as clues, but I had to piece it all together. Slow down. Take your time. Process what you read, put it into practice. That’s how we do it.

Now, where have I read those very words before ... ?

In other words, if I'm a blind person don't be blind. This is ridiculous advice. You say don't make them more complex or don't over think. I f*****g CAN'T!




God f**k almighty! Can't you accept simple vs complex in addition to being objective can be subjective as well. Simplicity may be the least amount of directions but if a person doesn't understand those simple directions it's not f*****g simple for him.

You can also try fly fishing if you’re more into fishing as a sport, but that takes more effort than it’s worth if all you want is food.





Ok, do you want to have to pay for them through welfare or through three hots and a cot in prison if they're unable to figure it out on your own? You will have to pay either way it goes.



Which goes againt Biblical teaching and supposedly you believe in the Bible. But how can you believe in Capitalism, the Bible and Objectivism when they're diametrically opposed to each other.

What about the proverb that basically says feed a man a fish and you feed him for a day but teach the man to fish and you feed him for a life time

I'm paraphrasing. And, don't forget the verse that says "train the child up in how he is supposed to go and he won't depart from it."

By the way, child doesn't have to be literal child but can mean teacher to student, etc, elder to novice, etc, etc.




Well, it took me ten f*****g years to get a job in China. But, if I had guidance in certain things I would've had a job much faster or even a career. So, what do you guys want? Do you want to support those who have difficulties with either SSDI or jail time when a person commits a crime so he can get his three squares and a cot or do you really want them to be productive. Come on! Use that selfish motivation. You want people to succeed right and not end up on SSDI, welfare or jail right?



Look it up!





And, it took me a while of putting the pieces together myself to realize this and going to various groups that had career counseling for IT to get some of this information including using the process of obtaining your certs for experience. And, as for the bolded part this another thing that brings up my anger towards conservative folk. It's that condescending way of talking as I should've known better. How? How should I have known when I graduated High school and going to college that there were other expectations out there? Research it? <<< My response is I couldn't because of unknown unknown or out of context problem.



f**k! Did you read what I said? Pay Bloody Attention! I said I have motor coordination problems and I have no idea how to structure my resume to where an employer will hire me for those types of jobs. It's not an intellectual issue. Those jobs aren't beneath me as you seem to be implying. Even if I was hired to do one of those jobs I literally can't do them. I tried painting. I couldn't do it even with the instructions given. I literally could not physically do the job at all.




Like I said, do you want people to be productive citizens or do you want them on SSDI and/or prison? Do you want to have to pay for the person's three hots and a cot. Some people aren't going to be able to figure things out themselves. Come on! Come on and wake up and smell the coffee. There are more disabled people who are not in the labor force according to the bureau of labor statistics then who are employed.




Why can't you accept that sometimes complexity and simplicity are subjective to the person and may not be so objective as you think?

Yes, if you reduce the number of steps it will make it less complex in that sense but again if the person has no idea what you're talking about if you give him 2 steps vs 10 steps then it's not so simple for that person after all.



I've done so here and there but if the information is scant, others have no obligation to help as there is no communitarian mindset then expect some to go on welfare and/or go to prison. And, guess what you'll have to pay for them through your taxes anyway.

Trying to have a rational discussion with a conservative, objectivist or libertarian is like squeezing sunlight out of a cucumber like in Gulliver's Travels. You can't discuss things with people who don't even believe in the concept of a society or community.

If you want people to be independent and truthfully be so then you have to teach them to be independent not force them to muddle around in the dark. What kind of BS thinking is this? By this logic no schools should exist and all students should teach themselves and if they fail to know a concept then oh well!

[Rant]
IF YOU WANT PEOPLE TO FISH YOU HAVE TO TEACH THEM HOW TO FISH NOT MAKE THEM FIGURE IT OUT ALL BY THEMSELVES! WHAT KIND OF ASININE AND BULLSHITTY PHILOSOPHY IS THIS? YOU DON'T WANT TO PAY FOR SOMEONE'S WELFARE OR THEIR SSDI AND YOU (Generic You for Conservatives) WANT THEM TO TEACH TO BE INDEPENDENT THEN TAKE SELFISH ROUTE! TEACH THEM! SHOW THEM HOW TO FISH LIKE GOD f*****g COMMANDS!
[/RANT]


How the USA can be call itself a Christian nation when actual Christian principles and American principles are so diametrically opposed is beyond me.

Let's not forget that the USA has the greatest amount of people who have covid-19.

Conservatives will always tell you that you have unrealistic expectations of the real world but what they will never tell you is what the realistic expectations are exactly when one is in High School and when one is in college?

Based upon the culture of the USA (It is a culture contrary to what others think), disability and employment on the bureau of statistics and other quoted stats for autistic folks and I think parents need to rethink what they're doing with their disabled children.

I think instead of spending money on all of these therapies that are questionable and everything else to mainstream them to be a part of society that doesn't want them anyway I think parents need to take all of that money that would be spent to mainstream, cure them, normalize them, make them a part of the workforce and save up and invest it and give the child a nest egg or some kind of group home so they don't have to work.

What do parents do with those who are severely disabled? That is what I would do with those who are mildly disabled based upon the evidence and culture.

Another idea: If you can. Do what I did. Get the hell out of the USA if you can't find work there.

I suppose the answer for someone who is that bloody extreme in their selfishness/capitalism is wanting massively disabled beggars out starving on the street.

Bring back the Victorians

You're not an objectivist if you believe in spiritualism.

You're just a capitalist using her words.

What religion is it that makes it ok to be selfish?

If you're a Christian, consult your Bible. Luke 12:23.

Extreme capitalist ideology relies on disabled people not existing.

Especially working class ones. That advice you offered works well for my parents but doesn't work for someone whose family is living pay cheque to pay cheque. Who's going to pay for their kids in the private sector?

We're no more going to convince him than convince anyone else who's 100% convinced on their ideology.

True

Nope, I've already tried. It doesn't work.

Getting all emotional about it isn’t going to make things better. We’re not talking about blind people not being blind. We’re talking about changes that can be made, aspects of circumstances we do have control over. Blind people CAN do stuff, btw. Stevie Wonder. Ray Charles.

Beethoven was almost completely deaf when he wrote his greatest music. Robert Schumann was battling mental illness when he produced his best work. Stephen Hawking’s brain was about all that was left of him that actually did function. Some people believe Mozart suffered from Tourette’s. You can go down the list of artists, musicians, scientists, rock stars, etc., and find any number of physically disabled, ADHD, autism, bipolar disorder, etc. I mean, there’s no shortage of people out there who “couldn’t”... but DID. Yes, you ARE overthinking this. It stems from a victim mentality seeking an enabler. That’s not something I do. I prefer empowerment to enabling.


You implied you wanted to know how to fish. I just told you how. You shouted obscenities at me. If this is how people act when conservatives try to help, is it really any mystery why conservatives keep their distance? If you are actually serious about wanting to know something, come find us, read our books, read our blogs, watch out YouTube videos, and download the podcasts. We don’t spend a terrible amount of time debating it because nothing known to be true requires a defense. We certainly don’t waste time with unfriendly reactions such as these.


We already ARE paying for them against our will. What is your point?


Be careful who you engage in Bible discussions. He might actually know more than you.

Actually...I strongly recommend really studying the Bible. I mean REALLY study. The Bible and Objectivism aren’t opposed at all. Not really. The problem is that Catholics coopted the gospels to promote a certain theological agenda that isn’t entirely factually grounded. Jesus said “take up your cross and follow Me.” Many theologians interpret that to mean follow Jesus into death. Others take it to mean we all have some burden we’ll carry all our lives. I disagree. Jesus went down in victory over sin and death. When we take up our crosses, we are doing so as conquerors.

Ancient Hebrew law demands honest weights and measures for use in trade, along with a modest guide for consumer protection. Eye for an eye is really the best worker’s comp, assuming you read as far as the explanation of what that means. There are laws that cover negligence, wrongful death, and even the equivalent of prison labor. In other words, it lays the groundwork for fair trade and individual freedom.

Where the Church went wrong was in leveraging guilt to manipulate the faithful. Christianity is not about guilt. It’s about forgiveness and new life.

I think the Bible and Objectivism harmonize well. Jesus points us to heaven and eternal life. Objectivism helps make sense of this world while we’re here.


You’ve missed the point. Objectivists cannot be bothered with the concerns of others. People who make the choice to remain poor or to commit crimes do so without needing our approval. But people who succeed likewise do so without our approval. That’s the whole point. You can do whatever you like, but you can’t hold us responsible for your actions or lack thereof.

Some things are self-evident and some things are rudimentary things you learn in kindergarten. I’m not the one behaving unfriendly towards you and telling you to look things up. I thought this was a meaningful exchange of ideas. Perhaps I was mistaken.

As I said, those things you mentioned are red flags. “I can’t,” constant disagreement and argument, unfriendly language, etc. It’s good that you have a job after all this time. The work of discovery makes what you have and do much more valuable. But...if you behave towards others the way you behave towards me, yeah, no, it makes sense that you end up at the bottom of the list or in the circular file. It shouldn’t have taken you that long. But it did work out in the end. We should expect that you display gratitude for having worked it out on your own, which I’m sure you do offline. Ranting and repeating “I can’t” is not going to help you make your case. Assuming that we’re just being condescending isn’t going to help, either. When you say things like that, you really ARE making excuses because what you’re blaming conservatives for doesn’t match up with objective reality. People avoid others who act that way.

On the topic of disagreements and arguments: There is a time and place for everything, including philosophical and scientific discourse. What you’re dealing with is conservatives, or more accurately successful people regardless of politics, frequently build on success. There is little point in arguing with dissenters who insist on denying things one knows from personal experience to be real. No, it’s not scientific or falsifiable, but those kinds of arguments place demands on people that call their grip on reality into question. When you say this doesn’t work or that doesn’t work or that’s simplistic, etc., you are invalidating the reality of the steps someone took in becoming successful. You’re saying, no, you lied, cheated, stole, backstabbed, or slept your way to the top. Well...if it’s cheating to look for ways beyond the norm to find success, then so be it. What about all those smart people who developed antibiotics and saved all those lives? How horrible! Just think about how many doctors and sanitarium owners lost their livelihoods because someone discovered a cure for tuberculosis! How horrid, those cheater scumbags saving lives like that. Or how about all those workers losing their jobs when the polio vaccine came out and put the iron lung out of business? Shocking! But you do, you relegate the experience of successful people to mere cheating and dishonesty instead of finding applicable truth to foster your own success. That IS making excuses. If good, moral people are cheating and winning, there are two conclusions: Either cheating is moral and good, or what’s happening isn’t really cheating. Learn from it and chart your own course. But don’t waste your life arguing against what someone else knows to be true. Those people are successful for certain reasons. If they are willing to tell you those reasons, don’t automatically hand wave them as wrong.

Too bad Leon Fleischer recently passed away. I got to hear him give a lecture and a recital in which he focused on piano music for left hand only. This was back in the early 2000’s, not long after Botox treatments became trendy. He’d been searching for a cure for dystonia since the 1960’s, meanwhile teaching, performing, and even conducting. He took an experimental Botox treatment that restored his right hand and released an album for two hands in 2004, which was not long after I attended his lecture. I wonder how much “I can’t” factored into his long, distinguished career.


I don’t care if other people are successful or end up in prison. I don’t care if they figure it out on their own or not. I don’t owe somebody something because of THEIR problems, disabled or otherwise. If helping people doesn’t enhance my life, then I’m not going to enable them. Victims can’t be helped if their goal is to forever remain victims.

Welfare exists because there are needy people and people who love them. If you pay your taxes to a government engaged in your protection, it only makes sense that your government repay your kindness. There ARE disabled people who cannot do things. Historically women and young children have been at the mercy of those who were allowed to work and produce when they themselves were denied that right or otherwise lacked the ability. It was contingent on male family, friends, and governments to see that women and children were well-treated. In ancient times, women were in danger, too, in ancient societies and at elevated risk in the marketplace. I think denying women rights to work and property might have risen out of good intentions, but they ended up worse off without male protection and no control over their own lives. Without some means of welfare, they were unable to survive. I have absolutely no problem at all if my tax money goes to benefit someone who is in actual need. I just wish I had more assurance that my tax money wasn’t going to causes I find objectionable. Welfare in the US doesn’t work that way in reality. Our welfare system is used as a means of redistributing wealth between people with great ideas and work hard to achieve great things and those who feel entitled to money they don’t deserve.

My wife once applied for a program when our situation was at its worst. Even after she cut through all the red tape, the lady in charge, who happened to be a black woman, told her that because she was white and because she’s married, she’d never qualify for aid. I’m not making this up. It’s things like that which will make you wonder, even for a fraction of a second, if racists don’t actually have a point. Either that, or you begin wondering about the real nature of racism. What can I say? Some people are just more equal than others. Welfare is more often redirected towards people who are open to becoming permanently dependent on it rather than those who just need a short-term safety net. I really do believe welfare should only be given to those who object to it.


Because things are either complex/simple or they aren’t. My inadequacy in writing Blofeld programs is not in my ability to solve complex problems. The problem isn’t actually all that complex. The problem is that I am well versed in MIDI control but not handling system exclusive messages. The difficulty is that sysex messages are exclusive to the manufacturer of a specific device, and digging up the exact sysex data format can be a tricky task. The other difficulty I face is that I’m not a computer science expert. I first recognized the need for automation in creating the music I wanted, I had some extra time on my hands, so I slowly, very slowly applied what I knew about MIDI control to learning PureData. It took months, but I built a MASSIVE patch to generate the music I wanted. Once I was finished, I learned that the program was a failure...not because I’d done something wrong exactly, but because there was too much code clogging up memory and slowing down the processor. I started over and replaced a lot of redundant code with loops. Worked perfectly. And then I realized that PD was still a bit clunky, not to mention it’s impossible to easily compile for a mobile app. So I started learning Swift. I got enough of the basics to reproduce my Pd work, but again, I never could figure out how to compile and deploy it. I tried C and C++. No good. Then looked at Python and got addicted. Less than ideal, but I have something that works almost perfectly for what I want to do at the moment. The code is minimal, too, but the results are exactly the complexity I was going for. I still need to build my own synthesizer, but I’m taking it one step at a time.

My point is that there are coders out there who could likely instantly build the apps I want. It’s not an overly complicated problem. The main obstacle there is finding someone who is actually interested and willing to accept my money for her or his time. That person has yet to be forthcoming, so I’m content to hack away at the problem on my own in my spare time. As I solve one problem, such as with building wavetables and working out how to transfer them to hardware, I can build on that to do other things without having to retrace all my previous efforts.

And that’s really all any success is, building on prior successes no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. Steady learning, asking the right questions, digging enough to see if there are already answers, and moving forward to achieve a definitive goal. You asked about how to fish, so I outlined how it’s done. All that’s left is to actually use the information in a productive way. I’m experimenting a lot with my computer and synth setup and can honestly say I own my knowledge from what I’ve been doing. Nobody taught me. I worked it out. I’m aware that the solution is a simple one for people who work with code for a living. My difficulty is that I’m not one of those people. But if I were, would I still have the same interest in composing music? Perhaps doing things my way is the best way to go. I’m not afraid of difficult things.



I have no problem with society or community. What I have a problem with is the idea that society/community owns me, my things, and my thoughts. I owe NOTHING to society. I owe NOTHING to community. And I’m not going to contribute unless it suits me to do so. It isn’t that society is a bad thing. I just refuse to derive my identity from it or be guilted into participating. If society doesn’t have my true best interests in focus, if it doesn’t facilitate my freedom and agency, I have no use for it.