wdiaz03

Hi Marc. I should mention that on your post you did ended it with a smiley face, So I looked at it as a sort of joke which to me is Fine. So my reply was sort of a joke as well. Your permission to post doesn't seem necessary, you are not schooling because you are posting about your approach.

My two cents, All well said, Up to the last paragraph where you put into question my interested for your approach and my desire of not wanting to be schooled. So again you put the other party in an awkward position. Should I now attempt to prove to the group that I'm not a pompous self absorbed narcissist by telling you to please go ahead and post your two part approach to learning. Or should I conclude that the approach is not that effective since you dropped that little gem at the end of your post. Hmmm decisions decisions. Now if it was me, I would have said something like :I'm doing X and Y, I would love to hear feedback on this method etc" Then again, that just me.

A car is a consumer good that wears as you use it. SO you will be adding wear to the parts. There's also no way of not preventing the owner from using it. Owner comes out of the house and you took the car...Are you going to teleport it back? It is also impossible to borrow the body, if she is sleeping she cannot be disturbed. Or are you going to rape her without touching her? like a ghost would? The whole idea is silly.

I'm curious..What do you eat exactly? And how do you live with yourself afterwards?

I agree, There seems to be some of this although I cannot tell to what degree. Others have made good points as well. Either way I now have a better understanding thanks to the feedback!

Right, In those things I do enjoy doing I stay on the minimum price scale that gets the job done. "Jack of all trades, master of none"

I could be wrong, but I think this approach has to be carefully implemented or it could backfire. Not everyone whats to hear the truth. It would be like you speaking a totally different language. Even worse a language where words that you think are nice are insulting. For example: What if Philip was just trying to score brownie points with Cynthia. He wants to complement her but knows that the complement coming from him would seem dishonest (she always says "You are just saying that because I'm your girlfriend). So he asks the rest of the group to give their opinion of the chicken expecting nice comments in return and confirming what he told her in private that the chicken was good. When you spoke your mind, he immediately insulted you and defended her (Her knight in shinny armor) Now go back in time and respond as you suggested in the original post. Isn't there a chance that he would say something like. -Marc who made you the camp psychologist? Are you trying to impress Cynthia? She's a little out of your league don't you think? And in effect change nothing. My point is that there are subtle ways of finding out if people want to get involved in honest communication. There's a time and place. For example you notice a coworker no longer eating lunch as she used to, - Hi Linda Is everything OK? - I'm fine Marc, Thanks. - You don't seem OK Linda, Are you a bit concerned perhaps that you have been putting on a lot of weight lately, there are better ways of loosing weight than skipping meals, perhaps I can offer some good tips? She might hear: You are getting FAT and are going about it all wrong, Let me school you on what to do. My two cents, (pre 1986 BTW)

Interesting, I think Muslim women have the right idea, Covering their face up

I agree, I felt like writing down the lesson of each episode. Question for ya:

Philip might have replied "Well Thank you Marc, A simple good thanks would have been fine" A rather awkward response from 16 year old. how about "Not Bad, Thank you Cynthia" The rest it seems you are assuming what he meant by the question. Just like initially you though he wanted cooking tips from 16 year olds, now you assume he was breaking the ice? If you felt like he was trying to break the ice, then why not bring up a topic? "So Cynthia, how are you liking it so far?" etc. My 2 cents. I like what Stef says "The truth is not a sword to be drawn at all times" or something like that.

This makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the reply. I might just be noticing the tip of the icebergs through the fog and completely missing the rest of their preferences. Because those activities they are interest in would be the ones they talk about I get skewed data. Also since I don't have just "That one hobby" and do a little bit of everything I relate to what they are saying but not the same "passion" if that makes sense? You are correct that I do to go up the quality/price scale for certain things, I mean some cheap stuff out there is not worth the box it comes in.

Hi Josh, Again I'm sorry for what you and your family is going through. Don't feel like you are giving up too quickly, It doesn't seem that there was anything there to give up on. I'm glad you had the talk because otherwise you probably would have always wondered "what if". You played your hand and your Dad played his. Its sad that he made the choices he did, and he will have to deal with the consequences. Keep your head high and keep searching for self knowledge you can be a great mentor for your sister. Best of luck

I apologize for the harsh responses. I suggest you don't try to use the work GOD which has been used for quite some time to describe a specific concept, say concept X. your concept Y should be called something else...say X42-B When you say death can never be void? As far as elemental particles is not, but who cares about those? Can I claim that the destruction of my car is never void, because each and everyone of the tiny pieces of metal still exist? Regardless, I'm still walking to work. So practically speaking this solves nothing.

good points. I'll give you the opposite end example. I needed a sander once, could have gone with a makita for close to $100 but instead I went for a Harbor Freight sander for $9. The thing is cheaply made, but it did the job and has worked several times after that. The story repeats with angle grinders as well, $10 for a harbor freight 4 1/2 angle grinder that thing has taken me out of more binds that I could count. As far as your bike, why do you need it to be light? I don't mind my bike being heavy, I figured the harder I have to pedal the more I exercise for a given distance.

Sounds like the Noodly Appendage of the FSM!

Oh wow, And how did you try to do it? And why would the all mighty keep you in this world to suffer when you could have had eternal bliss in the afterlife? I think you just got unlucky. He is not known to interfere this way.

When my kid misbehaved in school I explained it was not fair to his teacher and fellow classmates because he was disrupting the class and keeping his peers from learning new things. This worked well. As far as reward/punishment I explained that certain toys are for certain age groups and if he wanted to play with them he had to behave appropriately. In theory the toys were his but for his safety and that of the toy he would not be allowed to used them until he showed that he learned the lesson and stopped the bad behavior. I always try to explain how behaving a certain way affects him and those around him. I don't know if this is the best approach. Parenting to me has been like flying a plane for the first time, there are tons of books around but you are now on the pilot seat and there are a bunch of red warning lights and buzzers going off. yikes. To know then what I know now.

Amen to that, brother. The whole point of the experiment is not to interfere. Any of the OP suggestions would result in chaos. Everyone would start claiming it was "their" god providing the signs, sinking the world into holly war once again. Last time god tried miracles and such there were crusades and mass murder in the new world in order to spread his gospel, He is not going to do that again. To an eternal being we are but a mere petri dish, and experiment gone wrong, our existence a blink of an eye (If he had or needed eyes)

YOu have 10mil? Or are you going to wait for hyperinflation?

Seems subjective but to me most of the time is likely wasteful but II don't think it is immoral. good points.... Just saw on the news how thousands are lining at the apple stores to buy the iphone 5s, some people have been in line for days. damn! to each their on.

flabbergasted? Not the word I would use... more like curious. As far as affording, In most of my purchase decisions I do not buy the "Best I can Afford". You would have little money left otherwise. Do you spend a lot of time analyzing the purchases of other people? Not unless they complain later of how little money they have. As stated before I'm curious as why they do this. What people do with their money is their business but I like to understand behavior, the same way one would want to understand a drug addiction while recognizing that the addict can do with their body what they want. Do you view these people as incompetent? I don't think so. Do you want to rub it in people's faces that you are happy even while spending less money? Nope Do you wish people were more interested in virtue or developing a bond rather than worshiping gadgets? I never though about it this way. I just notice certain behavior and say to myself "Huh, we would he/she do that?" I'll give you an example: A coworker is into tennis and plays every Saturday. He has several $200 racquets, all nike gear head to toe, and they only use the balls once. Each Saturday they use a new pack of balls then throw them away. Do I loose sleep over this? not one bit. But it does make me wonder, to me this seems odd. Hope that answers it.

Thanks again, I see your point, but things are less obvious, For example on the genome analogy, you are part or a very large team, your contribution is miniscule but knowing what you know now, the end result will be abused, would you still work overtime go for promotions and become overall more productive? The reason I ask is because after taking the red pill one starts questioning the "be all you can be" slogan that is chanted by the masses, It would be like Neo increasing his brain energy output over time knowing that he is fueling the very machine that imprisons him. Certainly for Neo becoming a burden by not producing enough energy will call the attention of the machine, and he will probably get recycled, but does it makes moral sense for him to produce as much energy as he can? This might be a "Life boat" type citation we are living in and morality might not apply, or I might just be over thinking this. I just wanted to get your thoughts on the matter. Thanks all that replied.

Thank you for your reply, You correctly rephrased the question. And I think you are correct about the small effect on the "plantation" but to me it becomes one of those...Will you take money from someone if they will never find out...but it is only a dollar... it is such a small about....etc. There seems to be a moral responsibility hidden somewhere... For example say you are working on the human genome and decode all sort of genes and their effects. Later the government uses that knowledge for social engineering and exploit people even more. You can claim that you had no idea that your research was going to be used in this way. On the other hand, if somehow you knew for sure that your work was going to be used for evil...would you stop doing it?

You just have to convince your mother than buying will result in more money being wasted than renting. But maybe she wants to own a place...just make sure she understands as many props and cons and possible. Ask a professional do your homework. If she has the money for the down payment, it might be a better idea to invest that money. get a return and use it to help with the rent etc.

Worked like a charm, Thanks