QueechoFeecho

The 100% certainty could be derived from one or both of the people simply mis-remembering something. So it could be a mistake on part of one or both of them. (heck, it could be generalized to N people if we wanted, haha So here is hypothetical: Person A asks "Why didn't you do the dishes?" Person B says with complete honesty: "Because I thought you said earlier you were going to wash the dishes." Person A responds, again with complete honesty: "No, I had asked you to do the dishes, and I thought you said you would." So both people 100% believe their memory is what is correct, and further that their memory of the events is contradictory to the other person's memory of the events.

So in the middle (somewhere between 70 minutes and 82 minutes through) of Podcast 1751, there is a part where the caller and Stefan are discussing the considerations one might use when choosing a romantic partner. Stef articulates that there would be different considerations for a short-term partner vs a long-term partner. Some examples below (some directly from the podcast, some are from my own thinking)... Short-term: a) physical attractiveness b) spontaneity c) is there a "spark" or "chemistry"? - sorry that is nebulous but most will generally know what that means d) sense of humor and wit long-term: 1) how will they be when your back goes out and you have to lay down for a week while there is a toddler around? 2) how will they be when your best friend is sick and you want to spend time with the best friend? 3) how will they be when their own mother is sick? 4) how will they handle the stress if one or both of you lose your job(s)? 5) how will they act when they are woken up by your child for the fourth time in the middle of the night? 6) How will they act when they are wrong about something and they know it? Will they counterattack, dig in deeper, increase denial, etc? Hopefully those two lists illustrate the differences sufficiently. Now for my questions for discussion: Q1-- In a long-term relationship, how do you best handle a conflict where there is disagreement, and both people are 100% sure they are right? Q2-- How do you interpret the various general types of responses from the other person?

I think the countries you are referring to skipped over capitalism, and therefore couldn't reach "crony capitalism", but instead have something you might just call "cronyism".

I could see the "unicorn" part being offensive. It could also be a compliment if sorts if you are both hot and crazy.

Another bump, throwing up a flag for the Pittsburgh area.

Here is another potentially useful thought exercise: Think to yourself "what would I do in this situation if I wasn't afraid?"

Good call on including voice in it. I agree that voice inflection can be really helpful. There is no reason they couldn't be used in conjunction, even with normal in-face appointments thrown in, because then body language is involved.

So in the same vein as seeing a therapist, with the attendant drive, parking, time, copay, payment, drive home, etc, I was wondering about an alternative. chat therapy Just like a chatroom like on FDR or other forums, but it's just you and your therapist. So it can be done remotely, the conversations can be saved, and it might be able to be cheaper. The underlying cost structure of a therapist's office isn't there, so they have lower overhead. Also, you could just go in and "chat" alone, and the therapist could read it later and respond. (Sounds like email at this point almost.) So there aren't constraints as associated with appointments. Anyone know of this existing?

Expecting in 20 months? That confused me. I think you mean weeks. Or maybe you are a different species than human.

I'm all out of hugs!

I price health insurance. Don't all line up to hug me at once now! Haha.

Despite almost entirely despising the rituals of the scouts, I loved my experience in it. My experience largely matched what was described in Jeffrey Slater's "wall of text" above, but we were somewhat less ardent about the rituals. We didn't recite everything at both the beginning and ending of the meetings. We did one aspect at the beginning and the others at the end, or some such division of them between beginning and end. The aspect of being a troop and then further subdivided into patrols within the troops held. That was the common structure throughout my area, which was more in the northeastern part of the country. There were some aspects of gang affiliation duplicated therein. I.e. you got to be a part of a team/group/troop/patrol, and you'd compete against the other troops and their patrols. We had twice-yearly camporees, one in spring and another in fall, where all the troops in the district (or was it council? I don't remember it perfectly at this point, but it was roughly a geographic area) would congregate on a site, be it an official scout camp or a state park, and you'd spend the weekend there. You'd build camp when you arrive Friday night, then Saturday morning and afternoon were spent in competitions that were centered around camping skills, first aid, nature aspects, some physical aspects, etc. For example one was a tree identification course. 15 trees would be marked with ribbons tacked to them, and the patrol had to run through the course, write down what kind of tree each one was, and then get back to the adult leader running the competition. The most correct would win, with ties being broken based on the time to complete. I loved the competitions. I lived for those. I would never want to relive my life without them. It was a pride thing. There were rivalries involved, which I'll admit are superficial and stupid, but being the best at something was great for one's self-confidence, especially when you or your patrol got recognized in front of the other 20 troops, which could be 40-60 patrols, and named as the winner, the second place, or third place amongst them. Sometimes my cleverness got the best of me and my patrol would get eliminated from a particular competition because we completed it in a way that was "not in the spirit" of that particular competition. That part annoyed the hell out of me, as I thought it perfectly rational to do precisely what I did in getting disqualified. For example, at one spring camporee, there was a competition that was supposed to exemplify fire-building skills. The troops' leaders that were running it set it up as follows: There were two posts in the ground, rising about 18 or 24 inches above the level of the ground. They would tie a string between them, and the patrol members were supposed to construct a fire that would burn high enough to burn the string. The patrol was timed from the second the adult said "go" and stopped when the string broke. The winner was the patrol that had burnt the string apart in the least time. I saw other patrols doing it by stacking sticks, tinder, kindling, etc, using their fire-building skills as contained in the Boy Scout Handbook. The times seemed tough to beat. 5 minutes. 4.5 minutes. One patrol came in at something like 3 minutes 38 seconds. I knew my patrol wasn't particularly skilled at fire-building as it was taught in the Handbook. So I looked around to see how we could gain an edge. The camporee was being held at an official scout campground in its parade field, which was a large flat area spanning several acres. The entire area was skirted by trees on three sides, a slope that reached a river on the fourth side, while the parade field itself was largely grass of varying heights and in varying stages of life. I took one other patrol member aside that I knew was the best at using flint and steel and sent the others off running to scoop up as much tall, dead grass as they could wrap up in their arms. Then I and the flint-and-steel guy walked up to the adult running the competition, and I announced, "Troop NNN, Rat Patrol, ready to enter the fire-building competition." The adult leader nodded and asked if it was just the two of us. I told him the rest of the patrol would be along shortly and we didn't need to wait more than a few seconds. He tied the string between the posts. Then he got in his chair, several feet away from the posts, leaving room for a patrol of 4 to 8 boys to gather around it and work together. My flint-and-steel guy held the objects in his hand, and I formed my hands in a cuplike shape, ready to put them in place to block any anti-fire-friendly wind. The rest of the patrol started running up, clutching arm and chests full of foot-long dead dry grass. The adult reset the stopwatch to zero, looked me, and asked if I was ready for us to start. I nodded affirmatively. He said "go" and pushed the button. I direct four other boys of my patrol to cluster all their dried grass in the center of the space between the two posts, with a small alcove spread apart on one side of the cluster. I cupped my hands blocking most of the alcove, and the flint and steel guy put those items in the alcove and began striking and striking. In a few seconds a spark caught a single blade of grass, which burned instantly and caught a few others afire. It spread from there, both upwards and outwards. I directed the two last members of my patrol grasp vertical bundles of grasps and place them on the top of the existing, now burning, bundle of grass, and lean them against the string. The flames grew quickly and ran up these recent additions to the pile of grass. The flames reached the top and started browning, then blackening, and finally breaking the string. The adult called "complete" and pushed the stop button then called out our time. 43 seconds. We were nearly three minutes faster than every other patrol that had attempted it and would attempt it throughout the day. However a few hours later some of the adult leaders of the troop running that competition walked over to our troops' leaders and talked with them. I found out later that that was them declaring the Rat Patrol disqualified because our fire-building technique wasn't one that was typically taught and wouldn't yield a fire that could be used to boil water or cook food or most any other task. When I found out, I approached the leaders of the troop running that competition and told them that if they wanted patrols to build a fire that can boil water, then the competition should be to boil water. Don't ask us to burn string and then disqualify us when we do. I had several similar disqualifications over the years. In one, which was stated as a lashing competition, the patrol was supposed to take three longish logs, lash them in the shape of an A-frame, has one patrol member stand inside, and have the other tie ropes to the A-frame and "walk" it from a starting line across a finishing line. They didn't say it had to touch the ground the whole time, so as soon as I we have the A-frame lashed, I told the lightest smallest kid in our group to grap the A-frame and hang on, then told the other to take the ropes, loop them around the three corners of the A-frame, and life it and simply carry it from line to line. We got disqualified for that one as well, despite our time being faster than all other patrols. Other times we'd get disqualified because for a certain competition, say for example, blindfolded knot-tying, I'd walk up to the event, say I'm the Rat Patrol, and join, because I was the best knot-tying kid in our group. I'd tie the 8 knots, be amongst the fastest if not the fastest, and then get disqualified, because the dimwitted adults running it said we didn't have each and every member of the patrol participating (they wanted all patrol members to go through the eight knots and then take the average). I thought that was foolish, because in any real world situation where you need knots tied, you don't have all the people tie it and use the average quality knot. You have the people skilled at the task complete it. Same for first aid, or swimming to save a life. You don't send everybody. You specialize. We had one guy that was amazing at tree identification. For that competition at least we didn't get disqualified, because we'd line up at the first tree, hear the word "go", and he'd start running. The rest of the patrol would each have a notebook, and everyone else's job was just to write down the names of the trees as the skilled tree identifier called them out. Everyone participated, so we didn't get DQ'd, and as long as that guy was in our troops, we won first place in tree identification. In general I enjoyed the heck out of it, because I got to do things I wouldn't have been able to do if relying solely on my parents (whitewater rafting, backpacking in the winter, all these competitions, etc). I just learned to tolerate and work around the irrational parts, like the ceremonies, the pledges, the adult leaders that weren't so bright, etc. Wow that was a long post.

In order for it not to be theft there would have to be an option one could choose that doesn't render living a normal life relatively impossible.

I might not be accurate to call them "awards", but they have these pins you can earn by completing a bunch of tasks related to learning a religion. I earned one as a youth. It was mostly about reading parts of the bible or other books and then answering questions in this workbook. It was sort of like you probably experienced in reading class from third to seventh grade.

I did use the word "maybe". There can be instances where it is more than just "a child wanting to be close to parents". Let me cook up an extreme example. Maybe there is a gorilla that comes into the child's bedroom at night through the chimney and tells the child bad jokes, disrupting their sleep, so the child flees to the parents' bedroom every night. In this case, the frequency and ongoing nature of the child going to the parents' bedroom is indicative that there is some other issue. I think you were being deliberately obtuse by characterizing the behavior as "a child wanting to be close to parents", especially given that I had put in qualifiers in the post of mine that you were responding to, like "depends on..."; "If..., [then] no problem"; and "If..., [then] maybe it's a problem".

I tried to do this once, but then I looked up "theft" in the dictionary. The definition of theft involves the word "illegal". Taxation is legal, as it is specifically made allowable via the law. Therefore taxation is NOT theft. The only difference is that one is legal for a certain group of people to do, and the other is not legal for anyone to do.

As others stated, it depends on the frequency. If this is once and there was an event that precipitated it, no problem. If it's long-term and ongoing, maybe it's a problem.

That was the Scout Law, not the pledge. Just an annoying little nitpick. Sorry could have resisted, but didn't. -----edited to add----- I think the amount of religion and nationalism varies a lot from troop to troop. The one I was in wasn't too heavy on the religion side at all. There was almost no pressure to pursue the religious awards.

When I saw "librarian" in the thread title I thought it was a deliberate funny misspelling. That made me wonder what could be a deliberate funny misspelling to use in place of the word "anarchist"?

You didn't really waste my time. Who were you asking? The impulse to ask that might be informative. What made you ask that?

I highly recommend it. If you're the parent, you can talk about the 'god and country' stuff with your kid so they navigate the issue. It could be good experience for them to travel safely deep in enemy territory! haha

Who were you asking? Me?

I was assuming the use of "our" in the threat title was meant as deliberate illustrative irony.

That was a hypothetical example. I have yet to ask my aunts/uncles if my grandfather hit any of them. I think the answer is "no".

Alcohol dependency means that one drinks in order to a negative feeling that is generated by not drinking. I don't think the OP mentioned anything like that at all.