Post #29,282
2/21/02 4:18:57 PM
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Yeah, the bad guys get what they want.
But what typicaly makes them bad guys is a failure to want what they need.
You can't always get what you want. But if you try, sometimes you get what you need. (No, I didn't make that up. It's true, though.)
Socrates pointed out that a virtuous life is the most valuable thing there is. It doesn't matter what trinkets the bad guys win - they lose the big one. He went on to say that the truest form of greed is virtue - the virtuous grab the best there is for themselves. Having seen your transformation a while back, I think you are greedy like that. Socrates was very familiar with your complaint - the war slugs who ran Athens killed him in the end, because he was making them look bad and making the kids think too much.
----
"You don't have to be right - just use bolded upper case" - annon.
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Post #29,327
2/21/02 10:38:16 PM
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Bad guys always win in real life
that was my whole point in many of my messages.
Besides didn't Socrates drink [link|http://museum.gov.ns.ca/poison/hemlock.htm|hemlock] to kill himself after he was falsely accused of a crime he didn't commit and thrown into jail? Bad example, if he believed his words, he wouldn't have drank the hemlock.
[link|http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/socr.htm|[link|http://www.philosophypages.com/ph/socr.htm|http://www.philosop.../ph/socr.htm]]
"Will code Visual BASIC for cash."
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Post #29,332
2/21/02 11:45:13 PM
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Not always
A lot of the time, yes, but not always.
True story from my college days:
I went to school (ROTC) with an absolute piece of shit. Had no intention of getting a degree; was just scamming the government. Well, the Air Force finally wized up and pulled his ass back onto active duty to finish his enlistment. But he wasted nearly 4 years of scholarship money that could have gone to someone "worthwhile." I graduated and several years went by when I ran into a mutual friend. It seems the shithead pushed things to far and was spending the next 5-15 years as a guest of Uncle Sam in Ft Leavenworth, Kansas (he was ~33; she was ~16...and the colonel's daughter!)
I empathize with you completely. It sucks to follow the rules you were taught growing up, doing the right thing, but still losing out to complete jack-offs. Well, they don't always win. Sometimes the shitheads DO get their comeuppance.
Ya gotta hang in there. If you stoop to their level--they win. If you give up and blow your brains out--they win. Whatever you do, you can't give the bastards the cheap victory.
Brian Bronson
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Post #29,337
2/22/02 1:50:39 AM
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Re: Socrates: not that simple
Drinking the Hemlock was his sentence, not his suicide. He decided that accepting his sentence was the right and good thing to do and therefore did. Read up on [link|http://plato.evansville.edu/texts/jowett/phaedo15.htm|Plato's Dialogues]. That's the account of Socrates death. See also [link|http://plato-dialogues.org/tetra_3/tetra_3.htm#case|this page] about Plato's writings. Socrates was tried and convicted of "impiety" and sentenced to death. He could have saved his life by escaping but chose not to: Because Socrates was accused of impiety, as a prelude to the trial itself, Plato confronts his understanding of piety with that of one of the upholders of Athenian religion, a sort of seer supposed to be an expert on religious matters, who goes by the name of Euthyphro and happens to have some business in court at the same time as Socrates. And to show how far from corrupting the city Socrates is, Plato shows us how, after his trial, he prefers to lose his life by virtue of a lawful, though unjust, condemnation, rather than making fun of the law by fleeing away with the help of friends. He DID believe his words, and that is precisely WHY he chose to drink the poison versus escaping. -----
Steve
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Post #29,412
2/22/02 2:20:45 PM
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I've seen bad guys lose in real life.
And not just those icky Taliban on the teevee.
I once had an abusive boss who was a cofounder of the company. He pissed so many people off that he got outvoted on the board, and was forced to um, "take a less active role in the day-to-day operations of the company."
I once got a sleazy lying client rep fired by refusing to cover for him.
[link|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html|http://www.angelfir...e/index.html]
Truth is that which is the case. Accept no substitutes.
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Post #29,457
2/22/02 10:15:29 PM
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very rarely, if at all, do they lose.
But answer me this, what is that ex-client rep doing now? Maybe be working as a manager in a different company and doing the same stuff over again?
Whatever becomes of those grade school and high school bullies? You graduate with them, but lose track of them. They usually get jobs where they have a bit of power or can abuse people at will. Police officers, managers, supervisors, client reps, etc.
So what if they lose one battle or two, they still win the war and get a different job someplace else.
"Will code Visual BASIC for cash."
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Post #29,572
2/24/02 6:38:45 PM
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That isn't my experience
I have known my share of nice and nasty people.
Many of the nasty ones of my aquaintance have wound up in the end turning their lives into nasty hell-holes. Many of the nice ones have wound up with decent ones. Exceptions abound both ways of course. But I have never met someone who was both nasty and honestly satisfied with how their life had turned out. I have met nice ones who could say "I have no real regrets" and mean it.
Note that satisfaction and external success are orthogonal goals. Of the various people I have known who have achieved extremes of cultural success, not one has been able to get any real satisfaction from the accomplishment. That holds for both the nice and mean ones, albeit for different reasons.
Stop focussing on how you have been done wrong to. Stop talking about how many mean and nasty people there are. Start thinking long and hard about what matters to you, and how you are going to get it. Every time I wind up doing that I wind up telling my wife that I love her. YMMV (all things considered, I hope it does, after all you have your own!), but unless you focus on getting the basics right, nothing will really help.
Cheers,
Ben
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Post #29,590
2/25/02 12:18:07 AM
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Mean people s*ck!
I've know a lot of mean people that love their jobs and their life. From the HR lady who smiles when she tells someone they have to leave the company, to the security guard that smiles when escourting them out, to the bouncers who work in bars and movie theatres and love to throw people out, to Police Officers who love to give out tickets and bash someone in the head when they resist arrest or not, to the politicians who love to get into office and start screwing around with people's rights in the laws they try to pass. Mean people s*ck, but from what I have seen, they love being mean.
Right now not a lot matters to me. My will to live has been sucked out of me. My confidence is shot. I have lost faith and hope. All I look forward to is the day when I die and all of this is over for me. But death never comes for me when I need to die, and thus I am allowed to keep living and suffering. This makes me a hard person to kill.
"Will code Visual BASIC for cash."
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Post #29,592
2/25/02 1:36:21 AM
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I would bet that you know none of them well
To be sure, many mean people enjoy being mean.
That doesn't stop them from disliking dealing with the kind of people who are willing to be friends with them despite their being the kind of people they are. That doesn't make them feel better when they get in a fight at home.
While it doesn't always work out very fairly in the end, it does frequently enough that it is rather stupid in the end to be a mean person.
Cheers,
Ben
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Post #29,618
2/25/02 10:58:17 AM
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One day they will go home
and get confused and kiss the dog and kick their spouse?
"Will code Visual BASIC for cash."
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