Reply personal responsibility is a crock: here is why

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1. No one is omnscient. It is not possible to conceive the absolute outcomes from choices. One can make reasonable approximations of the outcomes based upon what we think is reasonable at the time and that is what we as humans with limited understanding of things can do.

2. No one lives in a vaccum. It is true that our choices do have influence over our outcomes but so do other variables that are outside of our outside of our choices including but not limited to other people's choices.

3. No one has absolute knowledge of what all of their choices are in given situations. This is a corollary to number 1.

4. Personal responsibility or Individual Responsibility is the idea that human beings choose, instigate, or otherwise cause their own actions. A corollary idea is that because we cause our actions, we can be held morally accountable or legally liable.

5. Looking at #4 and because of 1-3 it is not always possible for all individuals to truthfully choose, instigate, and otherwise cause the actions that would be the most beneficial to themselves and to others.

6. And, because of #5 it is not reasonable to morally hold individuals morally accountable or legally liable to certain things.

7. If there is a creator who knows all, understands all and can do anything he wishes with no limits at all then he should held accountable and responsible for all evil that has existed, exists now and will exist. Even if God was not the cause of all of the evil that has existed, exists now, and that will exist should be held accountable and responsible for neglect. God is neglectful of his children and puts unreasonable demands upon people who cannot think beyond what they were designed to think with and so do conservatives and other personal responsibility advocates.

1. Except God. What God reveals IS certain and absolute, so it doesn’t necessarily follow that outcomes cannot be known. The idea of reality being what is reasonable “at the time” is linked to the relativistic fallacy. You could take God out of the picture, but then you have the unresolved objectivist problem of epistemology. If you assume objective reality as the basis for epistemology, relativism remains a fallacy since outcomes can be reasoned from objective reality. This point is completely irrelevant to your argument, though.

2. This is true, but I must point out that this presupposes human choice.

3. Freefalling completely naked and unassisted from a skyscraper absolutely will kill you.

4. Pretty much, yep.

5. Non sequitur. HOWEVER...it is true that people can’t be held responsible for things that truly were beyond their control. Personal responsibility is about positively responding to circumstances in order to bring those things under a person’s control and shift future outcomes in one’s favor. If I take a corner too fast and wreck my car not knowing the curve was dangerous, I can’t be responsible for the curve being dangerous. I can only have my car repaired or replaced. Then I’ll know next time to anticipate the curve and slow down. I didn’t make the curve, so I cannot be faulted for the curve being dangerous. I AM responsible for being the driver, though—I’M the one who wrecked the car, the curve wasn’t driving. So the choices I make after that are my own—change my driving habits, repair the car, or replace it. Neither can I be held morally responsible for the next driver that wrecks his car in that curve. If the road is maintained by government and open to the public for travel, and if too many wrecks happen at that curve, it is the government’s duty in its role in infrastructure and keeping citizens safe to put up danger signs warning motorists to slow down. What individuals do from there is entirely up to them.

6. Well...your #5 doesn’t follow, anyway, so it doesn’t matter. As to legal responsibility, consider my curve analogy. Can you sue a curve? Who is the driver of the car? Who owns the car and makes all decisions about using it? Who built the curve? Who maintains it? Does someone have a duty to warn others of road dangers? Why? If you are to assume that the driver of the car is not responsible for the curve, and of the driver of the car is absolved of all responsibility of his own car crash, and if no one can be found to be at fault for the crash, how exactly does that bring the driver’s car back? To deny all personal responsibility also means that the driver will never get his car repaired or replaced, thus he will lose his job and be unable to care for himself when doing so requires driving longer distances. The driver need not necessarily buy a new car, but he will have to work out walking routes, public transportation if available, how to get groceries home, and so forth. If no one is at fault, then no one can be called upon to help with things. Complete denial of personal responsibility is death.

7. Not even remotely close. You’re saying that God is compelled by his creation, his TOYS, which are all we really amount to, to go on trial and be made to pay for the mess his toys make when they don’t function as intended? If God wishes to neglect his playthings, he can do that. If he wants to dump us all in the trash, burn us in the incinerator, or flush us down the celestial toilet, he has every right to. If God loves us and wants to forgive us, he can do that.

What’s interesting, though, is what happens when God actually does allow his creation to put him on trial. They bring him up on false charges, pay liars to give false testimony, and sentence Him to death. Go figure. I think if we continue to do evil after our Creator paid the ultimate price to free us from the eternal consequences of our own evil choices, what happens to us after that is no one’s responsibility but our own.

To be clear, I’m less concerned with personal responsibility in terms of evil and consequences, because I just don’t think there’s really anything to discuss when it comes to morality or law. Modern law in western countries is based on Old Testament principles of equivalence, a balance between injury and restoration. I dislike our reliance on incarceration, but it all goes back to repaying your debt to individuals you harm and to society at large. There’s not really a question of whether murder conviction sentences should be severe. There’s no question that no one else should pay the penalty for murder except the one who commits murder.

In dealing with morality and p.r., there are reasonable limits as to the degree to which someone is responsible for something. This is not a popular idea and may seem sexist, but men are largely scum. Women are and have always been vulnerable since men typically are bigger and stronger and have the ability to dominate women. There are also often conflicts of roles within relationships with men expected to both provide for the household and protect their wives. I don’t hold women responsible for cheating on their husbands to the same extent as men cheating on wives because women are more vulnerable. I don’t hold women blameless, either, but I simply recognize that women are marginalized and may not have quite the level of control as we’d like to think all individuals should have. A woman who pursues a man FOR THE PURPOSE OF CHEATING, however, is fully responsible for her actions in pursuing a man and having sex with him. A woman in a position of trust and authority over men is fully responsible for her abuse of power. In the Bible, Bathsheba gets a bad rap for apparently seducing King David. However, what was David doing spying on a woman taking a required ritual purification bath after her period? And what power did Bathsheba really have to refuse the king? She was dead either way. I can’t fault a woman for making the best choice available to her for her best self-interest. But I can fault David 100% for what he did to her and her husband.

Where they both went from there in admitting to their grievous error, enduring punishment for it, running a kingdom, and raising up an heir (NOT David’s firstborn) to usher in Israel’s golden age, brief as it was, is an example of personal responsibility turning a bad situation around for good.

I find dwelling on the negatives to be depressing, tbh. There’s no good in doing that. I tend to see personal responsibility in creating a vision and realizing it through human initiative and effort. It’s not about right and wrong, good and evil, but about creating the world you want for yourself. Nobody can have your vision of your life but you, nobody can take the first steps in creating it but you. Want to be a millionaire? Who’s stopping you from at least trying? It does not mean you’ll reach your loftiest goals. It just means you aren’t waiting around for someone to do it for you. If you don’t at least try, the only person you have to blame for staying poor is yourself.

a lot of folk have not the foggiest notion of even how to try in the first place. sorta like expecting a tone-deaf person to comprehend music.

I get what you’re saying.

But if we were actually talking about a tone deaf person, I’d say forget about music and go with something you can understand. Besides, it’s not exactly like many of your commercially successful people right now even really have a great sense of pitch, anyway.

There are too many facets of personal responsibility to cover, so when it comes to things you aren’t suited to, or things you can’t comprehend at all, then it’s less about personal responsibility and more about being honest with ourselves. There’s never any pressure to really go big or go home...sometimes you try things just because you enjoy them and you have time and energy for it. I’ll never make the next killer app, but it doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy Puredata or Python. I may not have what it takes to be a developer, but it doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy things. I don’t focus on things I’m ill suited for, just things that I’m good at.

And even your tone deaf guy and music...it still takes courage and initiative to find a starting place at all. That guy might start with programming beats in GarageBand and use sampled chord hits following common chord progressions. It’s SOMETHING, at least, and one of many steps you can take on many different paths to get there. It has to start with someone wanting to do something and figuring out the best way to get there that works best for the individual. I’m not certain those are things that are easily taught, but I know any time I ever wanted to do something or learn something new, I pretty much had to figure out things on my own with what little tidbits I could extract from teachers and others.

This has become a bit of a personal saga for me, which is perhaps why I’m such a believer in it. I’ll fill you in on how things are for me at the moment.

So I took this job because I was in a bad situation and the pandemic gave me plenty time to get an exit strategy together and get out of town. For many, many reasons beyond my control—and NO, not EVERYTHING is my fault—the program I’m in charge of is not doing well. I could list PAGES of reasons why, which amounts to trends that began long before I got here, and of course certain things that band directors have long understood kill music programs. I tried as much as I could to figure out how this is MY fault, because I’m the guy in charge, right? So it has to be my problem and I have to fix it.

But in being honest with myself, I’ve had to step back and understand that the direction things have gone were already on that trajectory and nothing could have been done to change it in the short term. Personal responsibility is NOT asking water to not be wet, or expecting the sun to rise in the west and set in the east. Personal responsibility is not reordering the entire universe to your liking or unreasonably exceeding your abilities. I’m finding that I’m being asked to move Heaven and earth to revitalize my department. And with since the expectation is unreasonable, I’m understanding that they are not telling me they actually want me to do my job. What they are telling me is they no longer want to support this program and they want me to leave.

THIS is where personal responsibility kicks in—not because I can control unreasonable people, but because I’m reading the writing on the wall and preparing for the next steps. First, massive recruitment effort and building up the elementary band program for a feeder program to get numbers back up. Second, strengthen relations with senior band parents, push for seniors to win scholarships at all state universities. Third, demonstrate high level of competence with the students I DO have, execute all school duties to the best of my ability, and jockey for good letters of recommendation from administrators. Even if they want me out, pettiness makes them look bad. Never burn bridges. Fourth, join professional organizations, network, network, network, and get the drop on job openings early. Finally, proactively apply for available jobs, develop exit strategy (sell/buy house, etc.), and WIN!! !

I cannot reasonably hope for improvement. I know that. There are people getting in my way that I can’t get around by trying to stay. If I want to stay in this game, I have to keep moving. I’m ok with that, my family is ok with that, and I do still have a few friends out there. But that’s the whole point of personal responsibility. I know I’m being mistreated. It’s not simply a matter of me shifting the blame elsewhere and avoiding admitting to my own role in these circumstances. It’s a matter of being honest and understanding my situation REALLY ISN’T MY FAULT. I’m better than this. I’m worth more than this. And that’s why I’m ultimately going to end up on the winning side when this is all over with.

That’s where I prefer to stay in the p.r. conversation. It’s important to take responsibility for things you do wrong, yes. I don’t deny that. But some things are your fault and some things aren’t. I prefer a p.r. paradigm in which one is focused on creative, proactive choices and achievement. Second guessing yourself and always having to apologize is a dismal existence I want no part of.

AngelRho, If a trial against God took place I do hope God would provide insight, those who would put on the trial would listen to what God had to say, the insights provided made sense and ........

God and I could go out for a pizza at Dominoes with extra cheese and pepperoni and green peppers. How would you feel about getting a pizza with God and I?

Prayer is a thing. I question God all the time. I’ve never failed to get answers.

But there is a difference between asking “God, WHY???” and arrogantly approaching God with a sense of superiority. I don’t view God as some invisible sky bully. But if God were to take a magnifying glass and fry us with a focused sun ray as though we were no more significant than ants, if God chose to be a sadistic killer, there’s no moral argument we could possibly make to say God couldn’t do it. I’m an egoist, and probably most human beings are egoists on some subconscious level at least. It’s too easy for us, even myself, to imagine that what God intends when things don’t work out the way we expect can’t possibly be better than our own intentions. We shake our fists at the Almighty and forget that in a side-by-side comparison, that given the vast size of the universe, we are tiny, insignificant creatures running around on a floating speck of Horton-style dust. Our existence is rather inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. We might as well not even exist. So all the “God, how could you?” and fist-shaking is pointless and a waste of time. We are not superior to God, and behaving as though we are gets us nowhere.

If human beings have value, it is only because a Creator loves us and grants us importance. We exist, which is itself a miracle. I think ethical egoism is a natural conclusion that follows from the importance we are granted and thus is the best secular philosophy. We must be careful that we avoid the trap of treating God as though we created him. Many of the moral discussions we have regarding God amount to that.

Every skill you mention, reading the writing on the wall, having a plan for the next steps, and networking are traits autistic people are known to be generally less skilled at. I am not saying at all autistics have no skills at all in these areas. I am not saying we are incapable of learning these skills to a certain degree. Of course autistics in certain situations are better then their NT colleagues at reading the writing on the wall and those other skills.

Even if the autistic masters these skills we run a higher risk of burning out and burning out sooner.

All of the impediments above are no excuse for not trying. I am poor at figuring out at what point is it time to give up. I either give up too soon and shortchange myself or I end up wasting precious time on lost causes. Since my diagnosis I have significantly improved in this regard but less bad is still bad.

What I find frustrating is learning all this stuff about the time I turned 39 or 40. Things that helped me the most were reading the Bible, Dale Carnegie, and Ayn Rand. It’s not that I’m an Ayn Rand fanboy—I’m not, it’s just that Atlas was the first book I ever read that reflected my personal experiences all the way from childhood to now. The bullying, low self esteem, feeling isolated, that every opinion except mine was important, and the feeling of intense dread of asking for help when I worked hard for other people and never asked for anything in return. Suddenly the world started to make sense.

I’d always been attracted to the idea of never being a quitter. Quitting football was easy because I was uncomfortable playing, plus it would have interfered with band, which I WAS interested in. So when I’d get fired from a job, it felt as though the whole world ended. What people like us may not understand is we don’t live in the same world as our parents, our grandparents, or even as classic rugged individualists like Ayn Rand and her real-life heroes, like Frank Lloyd Wright and so forth. I settled for a very stable lifestyle and career and raised 3 kids, but the whole time I felt as though something was just WRONG. That long, 10+ year period of time allowed me to reflect on everything that happened to me and observe the comings and goings of people I worked with. It was the secrecy of everything that confused me the most, how people would just vanish. And I eventually figured out that the problem was more regular people who were just absolutely horrible things that...well, I don’t know how we justify calling them people because of how monstrous they behave. I watched a couple of good people get screwed, saw all the warning signs, and remembered similar patterns to others I’d seen vanish. That’s when I realized that an existence of constantly being “marked safe” was not any better than one where I was constantly at risk.

The idea that you never quit is really a lie, and a manipulative, self-serving one at that. Every single person who gets ahead in their career these days quit one or more jobs along the way. The world we live in now is populated by lifers who snatch up the best jobs. It’s impossible to get those kinds of jobs, so you learn to just not bother and make your own way. If you want those jobs, you create them, but you do NOT go into a company and work your way to the top. Instead, you build up experience and bounce from company to company while giving yourself a raise every time you move. The only person you never, EVER quit is yourself, and I unknowingly became guilty of that exact thing.

I realize autistics are going to struggle with that, and maybe it’s easier for autistics to go on believing that it’s something that’s wrong with everyone ELSE. Regardless, if you cannot adapt and assimilate these principles, it doesn’t matter if you accept personal responsibility or not. You will not change the world by simply wishing it all away.

Fail early and often while you’re young, avoid repeating the same mistakes, apply your knowledge. Never stay long in a job, insist on moving up or moving out. Don’t get tied to any location, don’t accumulate a lot of personal things—a few changes of clothes, a bed, and a desk to write on, some dishes, cookware, and that’s it. If you need to move and you accumulate some things, sell all your non-essentials and rebuy them later—moving companies are a ripoff. Set your expectations high, but prepare for anything.

And that’s the Dutch Uncle personal responsibility speech. I’ll try to be a little less tl;dr next time.

I do like Dale Carnegie. I do need to finish reading his stuff at some point. Some of his stuff has helped me in China with certain things. And, I would recommend reading "How I found freedom in an unfree world" by Harry Brown.

What I wish for myself and future children is to free ourselves from a lot of these social expectations and be able to live as I see fit as long as I don't intentionally harm or defraud others.

As for the Bible, I've tried to read it and I find it extremely confusing. I'm not sure if you see BeetleJuice the movie. If you have then it's like reading "The handbook for the recently deceased."



I guess I don't understand this. I've always been told to never quit or never give up. Anytime, I've asked this of others especially shrinks they'd want to treat me for depression.

My mother and my uncle died about 2 years apart. I got to saw their dead bodies. Neither one of them were quitters. My uncle was a lawyer who fought for the underdog and did a number of cases pro-bono.

Whether one quits or one does not we all end up in the same place in the physical realm regardless of if there is an after life or not and what this afterlife entails and that is 6 feet under.

What exactly is the point to trying exactly? The only reasons I've chosen to not off myself are following:

1. Upsetting my loved ones.

2. The fear of the afterlife. What if Christians are truthfully right and there really is a hell or something else that would not be pleasant?

Other than these two things why should one choose to remain alive? What exactly is the point if we end up 6 feet under?





What do you mean just vanish? I don't understand.



Interesting! And, no one really explains this. I wonder why.



I'm not trying to change anything. I'm trying to understand certain things like is why am I not allowed to blame any external entities outside of myself no matter the circumstance. And, Is there ever a legitimate reason for blaming a person, or society, or some segment of society, for things done to you?

Years ago, I asked this of a dye in the wool conservative and country man who has his own blog and he is a dye in the wool Bible Believing, the Bible is inerrant Christian man.

You can check it out right here and his answer. https://solitaryroad.com/a996.html

Why is it that the individual is always wrong yet the collective is always right? Why is the collective treated like they were omniscient?

Personal responsibility seems to say or others seem to say when I go to their various writings that one is never allowed to blame society, society is always right and if you're in negative circumstances then it is your choices that is the cause which means I'm always at fault in someway and others are never at fault.

I literally don't get it. I don't get how you all get to this as a standard at all.

The man brought up my anger which had nothing to do with the question asked. All I wanted the man to do was to explain things in logical terms. Whether I was angry at society or not is irrelevant to the question asked.



That assumes when you make a mistake you understand what you did wrong and what went wrong. I would love to be able to tell others my story of my time since I graduated college and have them tell me where I zigged when I should've zagged. Instead, they either preach a bunch of personal responsibility or positive attitude BS.

IDK if I’ll get to respond to everything, but I’ll answer some for now...

The Bible is just awesome. The thing to remember is it’s an ancient compilation of many different things written for different purposes. Understanding it depends entirely on context and your own presuppositions. If you don’t begin with the right mindset and account for context, none of it is going to make much sense. Ftr, not even many Christians understand it either, and I find that disturbing.


Quitting is all about assessing whether a job is even worth doing. Jobs these days lack the value they once had when our grandparents and great grandparents were children. The pride of having a job is gone. The best employees are entirely too expendable, and people who make it to the top are too busy acting as gatekeepers. At one point in time it took gross incompetence to get fired, and loyalty was all it took to get promotions and raises. Now, the very people who took less pride in things are the ones in charge, so things like competence and loyalty have lost their value. It’s assumed that whatever position you take when you join a company, that’s where you’ll stay. By demonstrating competence, you can jump ship for better jobs elsewhere. But unless somebody dies, you’re going to be stuck where you are. Once someone vacates a position at your own company, they’re going to look outside the company to fill that position. It happens so much now it’s taken for granted. You’ll only learn things like that through experience.

Caveat: exceptions do happen.


Exactly what I said. People hide conflicts beneath a thick veil of secrecy. You never know there are problems at work until you realize that your coworker has been out the last three weeks. You can ask, but people look at you like they don’t know who you’re talking about. I mean...sometimes I wondered if I was going schizo or if they were gaslighting me. Best way to explain it is think about how we don’t discuss banned members on WP. I’ll sometimes mention a banned member to see how long it takes for a mod to edit my posts. I knew it was time for me to quit my previous church gig when I DID manage to get deep enough into the inner circle that I helped my boss who’d been forced to resign clean out his office. That was the first time I really understood how these things work.

I’m not going to tell you that it makes any sense. I’m just saying that’s how people are. It’s just one of those unfun aspects of the career path I’ve chosen.


I can’t explain it. It’s just how it is and not likely to change. But once you know that things work this way, getting ahead in life isn’t really so hard if you don’t think about the hard work that goes into it. But then you’d not mind the hard work anyway. It’s doing the hard work and feeling like you’re on a hamster wheel that’s so frustrating. So keep doing what you do and work hard, just get off the hamster wheel.


There ARE legitimate reasons. I’ve never denied that. But on the topic of personal responsibility, the blame you put on externals is irrelevant. Personal responsibility focuses on the individual response to external circumstances. Any legit blame on others is beyond the scope of p.r. Blaming externals will not change anything. You have to take charge of change if you ever want to see it happen. Nobody can do it for you. That’s all p.r. means.


I have no idea. I think what we’re really doing here is drifting beyond the scope of p.r. and into something else. As I just said, p.r. is simply a focus on what power an individual DOES have to initiate change or exert control. I have no idea what you mean by individual always being wrong, but this isn’t exactly relevant to the topic.

I follow open Objectivism, so my view places the individual in the highest place of importance. Eff the collective. I’m not a sheep. We can either cooperate to reach a common goal or we can stay out of each other’s way. I don’t care what popular opinion says. When has the crowd ever prioritized my own best interests? Only God is omniscient. So we have a few issues here—namely the role of society versus the role of the individual versus the role of God. But we’re not discussing God or Objectivism, but rather p.r.

It’s not that society is never to blame. Society, government, and even religion are to blame for many, many ills we face. That’s not the question. The question is what YOU are going to do about it? Does blaming society or God ACTUALLY make things right? That’s the role of p.r.


It sounds to me you’ve pretty much lived out the principles of p.r. and reaped the benefits of it despite that you think it’s a crock. Keeping a positive attitude is another thing, and that is also a big part of Objectivism, too. Being pessimistic and having low expectations doesn’t really help you. When you have positive expectations, you work to achieve positive results when the unexpected happens. You never get behind the wheel of a car expecting it to break down or wreck. You expect to get where you’re going safely. When your car doesn’t start, you immediately begin the process of fixing it. You set about bringing your world from an unexpected state into the expected one. If you never expect good things in life, then you’re less likely to take risks that MAYBE good things will come your way. If I know nothing good can come from my new job, then I start the job search again. It’s that simple. If I keep a negative attitude and low expectations, I condemn my family to being homeless and starving.

If all your information comes from inspirational and motivational texts, you’re going to find most of it is anecdotal and metaphorical. Those authors are simply trying to relate to less educated audiences who enjoy inspiring stories over reason. They identify with the characters in the stories and testimonials. Atlas Shrugged is an outright work of fiction that is written in part to inspire and entertain, but there is also a lengthy section that explains the intellectual core principles of objectivism. There’s an abundance of non-fiction, philosophical writings and essays that expand on such things as why Objectivists are happier people. So you can explore ideas about positive attitude through the use of reason and understand it’s really not BS. But in order to reach that conclusion, there are a number of ideas you have to let go. Otherwise, none of it will ever fully make sense to you.

What context do I go by and how do I know I'm going by the right one? And, what is the right mindset and how do I know for sure that is the right mindset?

If many Christians don't understand it then how do I know for sure that you're not one of those who don't understand it yet believe that you do? That's the problem with the Bible? How am I supposed to know who understands it properly and who truthfully gets the context properly? Faith? Many of those who get it wrong believe they have it right and have faith as well. So, how is faith useful?



And, I was told opposite that you weren't supposed to quit many times. So, go figure! Another lie that others told me. Yet, if I believed these lies in good faith and I fail in life and have negative circumstances due to believing BS then it is my fault that I made poor decisions?

And, by the way I don't believe that PR is 100% absolutely a crock. I just think the American version of it is BS. I think that the USA culture just over simplifies it and refuses exceptions and mitigating circumstances.



In my life I've never had this experience. I don't know what places you worked at but places I worked at if someone was gone it was acknowledged they were gone. Whether others lied about the reasoning or not is a different story and I don't know. I never really thought it important to dig any further.



Maybe in your area!




I understand.




The thing is this. All you're doing is restating what the standard is. You're not explaining certain things that are under the hood. Why is it considered wrong by others to blame external factors in the first place at all? Why is blaming wrong and considered a no-no no matter the circumstances? Why do others get so upset when I do this even if it is based in truth and evidence and logic can be provided?

As for taking charge, what if one is in a situation in which one can't take charge and one needs others guidance, assistance, and answers to certain questions to do so?



No, they all tie in together.



And, what if the individual is not able to initiate change or exert control due to certain circumstances and he needs help and guidance to do so and certain questions answered in a meaningful way that makes sense to him?

Let me show you an example of why I think conservativism today is a hodgepodge of nonsense. This will give you a window of my mind and how I see things. Yes, it is anecdotal. I think Child pornography is evil and those who do that belong in prison for life and should possibly be sentenced to death. And, that is why I believe in Political correctness to a certain extent. This whole idea of being absolutely against PC like conservatives are just like being 100% for personal responsibility (without looking at other factors) without looking under the hood and seeing the underlying complexities makes no sense. Certain things should not even be considered in the realm of free speech. And, like that I think certain things individuals should not be responsible for and should receive some assistance in someway.



Yet, you can't exclude society who has influence as to what decisions you have and what decisions you think you have. Societies or really other individuals play a role as well.



And, the assumption you're laboring under is that there is always something YOU as the individual can do. And, what if there is really not?



I don't think it is a crock absolutely. I think the American version of it is a crock and we don't have as much control of our lives as the USA promotes.

And, did I really live out these principles? Maybe to a certain extent but other external things had to come into play for me to get to China otherwise I wouldn't be here right now.



I'm going to give you an example of where this failed. I had to jump start my SO's vehicle. I simply googled how to do it and followed instructions. I didn't think I would get it right and I thought I would f**k up either one or both of our cars. Yet, I managed to jump start it. I had a negative attitude yet in spite of that I followed the instructions and it worked. Why did it work in spite of how I felt?

What extent does one's emotions have on the universe, existence and reality? My experience is very little. Reality, existence, etc has little correlation with how I feel.



Does a positive attitude and high expectations help you as well? I've been told by other conservatives and personal responsibility advocates that I have to high of expectations? And, I have no idea what expectations should even have of yourself, of others, existence, and God (if there is one).



Isn't positive a negative of the negative? Why do we even use mathematical and formal logic with emotional states?



I don't go in and fix the car. I call AAA and have them give me a tow to someone who can fix it.



You know what's funny or ironic. If I expect good things in life I'm considered entitled and have to high of expectations. If I expect negative things in life then I have a negative attitude and I'm pessimistic. So, what exactly am I allowed to expect? What is acceptable exactly? If had had a penny for many of society's contradictory standards I'd be as rich as Bill Gates.



And, what happens if you do this job search 100s to 1000s of times and it doesn't work? Now, what? And, what if you don't know how to do an effective job search, others will not explain things to you (or what is explained makes no sense to you) and when you read online it is like reading from the book of the recently deceased in the movie BettleJuice?



Where should my information come from? A lot of the stuff out there is from inspirational and motivational text.

Instead of a positive attitude why not go with what Francis Bacon says "Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed." Why must one's emotions factor in at all?

What ideas do I have do you think I should let go?

Bottom line: Some people need help and some people need guidance to be able to function in society at all. And, some people will never be independent.

Context is context, and there’s only one that works. Biblical passages have to be understood in the context of the whole. It’s like people who say “don’t judge” by quoting Jesus when He was referring to justice.

Who made the poor decision? And if you continue making the same mistakes after you figured out they were mistakes, then the only person you can blame is you.

But like I said, it’s really about taking control of your own life within reason. Focusing on past mistakes, while useful, is not the point. Moving forward is.

It also depends on what kind of work you do. Gossip is a big no-no in the circles I run in, so people tend to be secretive. I used to be ok with that until things that got other people fired started to affect me. That’s how I eventually got pulled into inner circles and got more of the story. I also was able to connect with people who were more trusted and could pass info back to me. I can accept that people are dirty and corrupt as long as they stay out of my way. But if the axe is coming down, I want to know ahead of time while I still have options. I’ve survived mass firings between two separate jobs largely because my position is so specialized, I’m actually good at it, and I couldn’t be replaced. Part of that was my enthusiasm for my work.

I’ll check out my church gig replacement on Youtube sometimes. I know that pianist, she’s good, but she can’t get her head out of boring sheet music and has no feel for upbeat, contemporary music. I built my reputation on my excitement for trying new things and eagerness to adapt to change. Old school pianists don’t do that. What happened at my last church was a small contingent of fabulously wealthy elderly people wanted to push music in a more regressive direction. Remember, I like challenges and adapting to change. But I felt it was wrong for this irrelevant group of backwards thinking people, and I’m talking about not even 10% of the church who’ll be drooling on themselves in nursing homes in 10 years, to have that much control over music in church. It wasn’t fun anymore, so I quit.

I can’t speak for others. Neither can you. Blame is justified where blame is due. If you want to make progress, you leave blame in the past since nothing can change the fact that crap happened. Sorry to repeat myself, but p.r. is only about taking control over what you have NOW and turning circumstances back in your own favor. You can’t do that when you hang on to blame.

That doesn’t mean everything is always your fault. Forgive the anecdote, but I almost married my high school girlfriend. I felt henpecked, but I really couldn’t understand how everything wrong in the relationship was my fault. I wanted to fix it, but trying to be non-confrontational and making amends when she couldn’t be bothered to apologize for anything when I felt she’d mistreated me seemed to only make things worse. By the way, there have been scientific studies done about this kind of thing! So when I seriously thought about how everything was my fault, I realized that I’d only done one thing wrong: I stayed in the relationship. I decided to solve all her problems at once and dumped her. Oh, of course, suddenly she thought I was the man who hung the stars and the moon, but I was moving on from her.

And there’s your answer. P.r. is all about YOU. But what you have to understand is that it runs both ways. If you have to be accountable for your own sphere of influence, so does everyone else. That means understanding what’s really your fault and what isn’t and refusing to allow people to put their problems on you. When people make their problems your problems, that’s called “toxic” and “bullying.” Don’t accept the blame for something beyond your control and not your responsibility, anyway.

Now...also understand that we fall victim to irresponsible and incompetent people. You hope those people get fired, or maybe you have the power to fire them yourself. When they’re gone, they can no longer clean up their own mess. So we get stuck on cleanup crew and we get the blame when things continue to go wrong. You can say “well, that was HIS fault and we fired him” all you want, but you still have to fix those problems that you didn’t cause. File it under $#!+ happens. Still, nobody is going to fix it unless you do it. My ex made a mess of my life. We’d been dating since jr. high. You think I knew how to chat up college girls? Yet I had to start somewhere, else I’d still be single. Girls weren’t going to come to me. No amount of blaming her for making me an emotional wreck would make me attractive to women. And no amount of blaming people and circumstances is going to change anything. If you want things to change, it’s all up to you whether you try.

Based on what we’ve already discussed about p.r. so far, what do YOU think the answer is? Yeah, I know...typical teacher response.

Apples and oranges. PC by definition is just knowing what to say to make yourself look good. My last school wasn’t a black, Catholic school. It was a predominantly minority school. If you get offended by the word “black,” then describing it as predominantly minority is still just as racist! The Woke generation doesn’t buy it, which is one of the few positives about wokeness. Even so, just say what you mean. If it offends people, that’s THEIR problem.

P.r. is just one of those things that you kinda have to decide for yourself. It doesn’t mean you accept the blame for everything. Absolute p.r. means taking control over absolutely everything you CAN control. To what extent anyone does that depends on the person, their willingness, and their ability. Draw your own conclusions from that last sentence.

What do YOU think?

Whose idea was it to go to China and enlist the help of others in getting there?

That’s some red herring fallacy that I can’t name right offhand. It doesn’t indicate failure. If you honestly expected failure and did something anyway, then that simply makes you irrational. Remember, invalid conclusions can “accidentally” be true and valid conclusions can be drawn from gibberish. Neither one is particularly desirable. Objectivism aims for conclusions that are both valid and true.

True.

There’s no such thing as an expectation that is too high. There are only expectations that are reasonable or unreasonable. Acting on low, negative expectations is irrational because that contradicts the desired or intended outcome. High, positive expectations are rational because they reflect desired or intended outcomes. When unexpected things happen, we act to restore expected outcomes, same as how you’d call AAA if you had car trouble. AAAA doesn’t exist because you expect your car to break down. It exists because you expect your car to work properly. They don’t send you a wrecking ball or push your car off a cliff. They help you get your car up and running again. If I can’t expect growth in my job, I find a better one.

Expectations should be high but also reasonable. It’s one thing to expect AAA to tow your car. It’s something else entirely to expect them to replace it with a Bentley. It’s unreasonable to expect being a manager at McDonald’s will earn you a million dollars. If that is your expectation, then you only take jobs that pay that much. To get those jobs, you must also be reasonably qualified and well connected to handle those responsibilities.


I’ll let you answer that one on your own.

My point being you do what is necessary. It’s perfectly acceptable when you cannot solve a problem to bring in someone who can.

I’ve covered this already, but to summarize: what people really mean by “too high” is “unreasonable.” There is functionally no such thing as an expectation that is too high. Expecting my car to run is high and reasonable. Expecting my car to get to Mars and back isn’t too high to expect of my car—it’s logically possible to modify my car to go to Mars. It’s just unreasonable given the current state of my car’s capabilities. It was not built for that purpose. For what I want to do with my car, there’s nothing I reasonably cannot expect of it. My expectations for what I want my car to do are high and I’m rarely disappointed. When I’m disappointed, I take action to restore my high expectations. If this proves to be unreasonable, I buy a new one.

Answer these questions yourself. Sure, it’s logically possible that I never succeed in getting a new job, and I’ve learned the hard way trying to get advice is pretty useless (again, exceptions). But it is also unreasonable to expect that you’d NEVER get the job or NEVER find anyone who could help. You’re trying to explore avenues that don’t exist in any meaningful way. It’s like if the POTUS pushed the red button and incinerated China and you blamed the quadriplegic for not getting to the White House in time to stop it. Nobody is doing that, and pushing our conversation into areas that are unreasonable and meaningless isn’t going to be helpful for anyone.

Endless questions you don’t actually want answered are things you could let go. Objectivist thinking is something to be explored and discussed, not defended. P.r. is like that, it just IS. At some point we reasonably come to accept things as true or we don’t, but wasting time with questions when your mind is already made up is an irrational activity. These final questions here—you could answer these questions many times over on your own. Stick with what’s most relevant.

1. If we can't even define what constitutes facts and proof are then how can we have objectivist thinking at all?

2. One of your rationales for defending God's existence and the state of being eternal that it is not logically possible to have an infinite amount of creators in a regressive way.

a. First the problem is that it never answers why there can't be an infinite amount of creators in a regressive way.

b. Second, it never answers answers how an entity can be eternal. How do you logically derive this. In our going back and forth you've never explained it.

3. "At some point we reasonably come to accept things as true or we don’t, but wasting time with questions when your mind is already made up is an irrational activity."

a. As in accepting things by faith. But, if we are simply to accept things by faith then how does one know what to go by. Islam has its own version of faith and each denomination of Islam doesn't necessary agree with each other on everything. It is the same with Christianity and Judaism. All of them believe that they've come to reasonable conclusions. Everyone is in a way trying to sell me their brand? Which brand is correct exactly? How do I really know?

b. If we can't even have an agreed upon definition of what facts are, what proof is, what logic and reason are then you can't have objectivist thinking at all. And, if you can't have objectivist thinking then what is considered rational and irrational because nothing but subjective opinion. You don't even make a lick of sense at all.

4. These final questions here—you could answer these questions many times over on your own. Stick with what’s most relevant.

a. Really? Can I? If I'm truthfully irrational they can I really successfully answer these questions on my own?

b. What is defined as relevant? Who tells what is relevant or not? What If I think something is relevant but you disagree? How do we decide?

5. Now, I'm going to give you my thoughts. I'm going to give you the dictionary definition of what objective is. (of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts. And, this is what I have observed. People living their day to day lives do not always do their actions and live their lives day by day based upon reason, truth, logic and fact. They simply go by their culture and they go by their values whether the culture and values make sense or not and whether the culture and values as a whole is logical or not. And, this goes by the subculture as well. The real, objective, logical and factual truth is some things are universal but a lot of things are not and are subjective and relative to the culture at hand. Your decisions that you have and you will make is not only influenced by your experiences and your genetics but your culture and subculture that surrounds you. We live in a world not just of reason, logic, objectivity and fact but we live in a rich and varied world with both similar and differing ideas of how we all should live our lives, how we see our world amongst other things.

Well, we define everything in objectivist terms. Objectivists seem to have their own language, hence why other philosophers get so frustrated with us


A. Extremely short version: Because you cannot distinguish infinitely regressive creators in any meaningful way. It’s much more parsimonious to understand an infinite, singular God. God revealed Himself to the Israelites and others as a singular being. If you already know there’s one God, then there’s no need to make the matter recondite by asserting an infinite number

B. Self-evident.


A. Mostly divine revelation. Islam is supposed to be built on top or Judaism and Christianity, yet it contradicts them. It cannot be true. Judaism is actually built on a different, defunct religion that was destroyed with the second temple and denies that the Messiah has already come. Besides, Judaism is not ordinarily accessible to outsiders. Christianity teaches that Jesus fulfilled ancient law and is the only way to salvation. No other religion can make that same claim.

B. Yeah...not even touching that one. Trying to answer that kind of question pulls people into deconstruction and the relativist fallacy. You may not intend it this way, but it’s a trap and doesn’t solve anything.





You can choose subjectivity and objectivity at will. As I said, people who follow Objectivist philosophy practically have their own dictionary and don’t waste much time on definitions. I’ve learned the language over time, and it’s really fascinating that non-Objectivists struggle with it. The language is comparatively odd because Objectivists were forced to come up with their own framework without much external influence from more well-read philosophers. Words like altruism, sacrifice, and self-interest mean something entirely different from ordinary usage because we tend to focus on literal meanings taken to logical extremes. Collectivism=looters. Greed=Craving things you don’t earn or deserve. Envy=Hatred for the achievements of others. Selfishness=rational self-interest, believing in yourself. Because so many people are entrenched in self-loathing (altruism), they tend to look at objectivism as evil and narcissistic when all objectivists do is celebrate the achievement of the individual over the collective.

It’s not that things can’t be subjectively true. All things CAN be subjectively true without being objectively true. Objectivists prefer objectivity to subjectivity and attempt to center their worldview on objective truths rather than the subjective. I have a subjective preference for the color red, for example. It is objectively true that I prefer red things.

Objective truths must be derived from a universal standard as you have clearly observed. What is that truth? Reality. Animals rely on instinct, not reason, for their survival. When an animal is hungry, it eats. When it is satisfied, it stops eating. Predators and prey can live closely together without risk of extinction because an abundance of prey means that predators always get their fill while allowing prey to reproduce at a fast enough pace to keep up. Cicadas reproduce at an enormous rate, yet few actually survive long enough to reproduce. If a population of prey drops to low levels, predators are unable to compete and eventually die off just enough for prey to reproduce in sufficiently large enough numbers. Cicadas really only have one survival instinct: Mate quickly and lay eggs. Predators only have one survival instinct: EAT.

Human survival depends on reason rather than instinct. Why eat until full if that means killing off so much prey ends with starvation later? Leave some animals for breeding in the wild or domesticate them and have all the animals you want as needed without needing to hunt? Or rather than mate for reproduction, why not consider why you WANT to reproduce with a particular person, what mutual benefit you might have, or whether this person fits some ideal beyond sexual attractiveness? Humans do that, not animals, and the tendency of some animals to choose one mate over another is strictly instinctive. Human beings can even make the choice to die. Suicide. Animals don’t have that.

So the key to life is reason—not simply to eat but to enjoy food, not simply to reproduce but to love, and so forth. Humans cannot live without it, and human beings without reason are not alive in any meaningful sense. Without reason there is no life; without life there is no reason. So the highest human value is life itself with reason functioning to sustain it. Thus three essential axioms of Objectivism are reality, life, and reason. It’s not that things cannot be subjective. We just don’t consider subjectivity to be essential. Subjectivity create uncertainty; objectivity prefers certainty. Subjectivity=relativism. Objectivity=realism.

Things that are subjective to surrounding culture may negatively affect the life of the individual. Strict dependence on culture is collectivism. Collectivism means altruism, the total surrender of the individual will and welfare to the collective without benefit to the individual. Altruism taken to its logical extreme requires the death of the individual—either literally, such as giving all your food to the poor, or metaphorically in surrendering the rational mind to the will of the collective. Altruism=death. Rational self-interest=individual freedom=life.

It is, indeed, healthy to have divergent views and diversity of ideas. However, it is never healthy to have these views and ideas at the expense of the individual. It is morally wrong to impose an idea, especially a collective one, on the individual. Individuals, even individuals in groups cooperating for common goals, find more success when the ideas they’re working on are entirely their own. That doesn’t mean people don’t benefit from exchanging ideas. It means individuals are not obligated to share. It means that they are free to engage in a meaningful trade of ideas to achieve mutually beneficial goals. Everyone knows that ideas are more powerful in groups. When people willingly cooperate in groups, amazing things are accomplished. By no means are these people obligated to each other. They act out of the value they hold for their ideas. The automotive industry brings together steel and oil interests. When oil businesses do well, people have abundant fuel for cars. When steel businesses do well, engine makers have abundant steel for engines. When automakers do well, there is a high demand for steel and oil. And because they work together to succeed, each respective industry can develop new goods and services that benefit more than only that group.

That’s why objectivity is so important and beneficial to any society. It’s much more optimistic, less angsty like subjectivism, relativism, or existentialism. Actually...”existentialism” sounds like a better term than Objectivism because it has the root word “exist,” and objectivism does focus entirely on existence. However, we say “objective” to avoid confusion.