Deep down are we really all the same?
 

Here is my question: In the big picture, are some people better then other people and can people really help who they are or have become and is it a big ego to actually think you are better then/superior to others?

If you want to read what led to this question:
I had a situation at work where I was charged w/ sexual harassment. Without going into too much detail I was on face book and sent a half nude picture of myself to a contract employee (another female) -- I have lost some weight and been working out and wanted to show off I guess. I know, stupid, but let's move on. I work in an office with 3 other ladies (1 is a female attorney) and a male attorney. I am single, fairly attractive, no kids and basically living free and easy.

In any event this was used as an excuse to try to squash me. In the rush to put me in my place, even if it was sexual harassment and not some made up bullshit, it was not handled correctly. My boss, the male attorney, is semi-retired and was on vacation at the time (how convenient!). Things are resolved. Not exactly to my liking but that's not my issue now.

I am having a hard time moving past this. I know people can be petty and mean and small but when I am confronted with it it is unbelievable that people are actually that way.

I do not like conflict but I did stick up for myself in an appropriate way.

I want to think I'm better then they are, which would give me great satisfaction, but there is a part of me that says, no, you're not better then they are, that deep down we are all the same and that we should not compare ourselves to others. One should be humble, Blah blah blah.

Thoughts please.

LunarEclipse.

To this day, I'm not even sure what being a 'better person' than someone else really means.

As best I can tell every person has their particular set of baggage that they carry around and any attempt to quantify which is more or less important, by some external (non-existent) standard that you think you're ascribing to, provides more information about you than other person.

My honest opinion is that what you're feeling is some sort of hardwired ego preservation circuit in the brain. Imagine how you would feel about your life if you actually thought you were a shitty person, probably not good for contribution to the gene pool.

yes, some people are better than others. although rare, there are happy folk who do good things for their family and for their community without harming others or having bad intentions while being super smart and incredibly athletic and competitive but nice at the same time, in my experience, they're mostly mormons (the mainstream ones, not the whackos). there exist a few outliers too, but mostly just mormons

every person's a good person. Why, their eulogy mentioned it!

Even rapists, muderers, and psychopaths are good people when it comes time to prepare that final speech. Thats all that it comes down to right? How people remember you once you're gone.

what i seem to be missing is trying to understand why you seem to think that you are better than these people. You even admitted that what you did was wrong, why not man up and move on?

Learn from your experience and move on instead of getting caught up with the demons of your own ego.

^ that gave me a pretty good chuckle

its a pity that people arent remembered by their entire live, just the good things. i think if people had unbearably honest eulogies that outlined every homeless person they saved, and every old lady they ran over, people would act so much differently knowing that the short amount of time they would have to establish a reputation would be so important when it came to their eternal memory.

Hmm. Every human has the potential to be a good person. however, we all tend to have our brains wired differently and it may be much more difficult for some than others.

Then you have people who have been abused or just in general been treated like shit. It must be harder for them but not unattainable.

I believe that we all should have equal rights over all. I'm no better than anyone because I have SMA and no one is better than me because they do not. Yet when you think of people like Gandhi, Desmond Tutu or Martin Luther King, Jr. you have a clear picture of some people who went well beyond their obligations of being a human being. They are better than most.

As for your situation I hope you do okay but that's one... umm. dumb thing to do. Best luck to you either way.

I don't think I'm better, I guess I just wouldn't have acted the same. But you are right in that "would I rather be right or would I rather be happy" - I would rather be happy.

---------- Post added at 03:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:00 PM ----------

I think you're right. We are not blank slates when we "come into this world" - whatever that means.

Thanks for feed back.

LunarEclipse

I'm a creep. The people who recognize that piss me off, & vice versa, so, YES. Feeling the same doesn't damn any of us, unlike feeling different has.

first off, i'd have to see the picture of you half naked to really understand what is going on, so if you could just forward it to me....

yes, some people are better than others. and those people are better than others. and it goes all the way around to the first group, like an mc escher stairwell.

in the big picture, it doesn't matter, because we all end up dead which pretty much equalizes everything out.

Big egos maybe, but I don't see much "big picture" here. This is not Hitler vs. Ghandi. It's a squabble in a small law firm.

It was your own admitted lapse in judgement that brought this situation about. You put the firm at risk of a harassment suit. They probably had to react to cover their own asses. Absent that, how would you be judging these people?


If you want to move on, do so. Don't give this incident (and their reaction or overreaction to it) permanent free rent in your head. Move on, and seek your "great satisfaction" in another venue.

Lindy

I totally love the dump-the-clutch flow of this thread's OP.

General Discussion:

People are not equal. Some are better than others. Some lives are worth more to society as a whole. It's the whole trite "beautiful and unique snowflake" speech from your favorite social dystopia flick. If everybody is special, nobody is. So let us be realistic: Some people are just garbage.

I believe we are what we do.

To get all philosophical: We are both the raw materials and shaping the produces the final product. The raw materials can be lacking if the shaping is superior. The raw materials can be superb but if they are poorly shaped the final product is... yeah, garbage. Not a lot to debate here in my mind.

OP Specific:

That was stupid. Don't send pictures of your tits and ass (or whatever) to people who didn't ask to see what you look like under your professional attire.

Accept that you were a total retard and move on. Next time... post the pictures on Reddit's GoneWild or TFP's Tilted Exhibition or whatever other venue you prefer. If you want someone to pump up your ego about your weight loss efforts, do it anonymously. It makes look like less like a vain douchebag.

I think we are not smart to think, other people are nicer. It's stupid to give anyone ammunition and think they wouldn't use it.

Egos are far too important.

Or, ya know, any detail... like the one that might explain why you felt it necessary to do what you did. Totally missing the motivation part of your story.

"So, I fucked my buddy's wife... ANYWAY... now he won't invite me over to his Superbowl party. What gives? I thought he was better than that."

Uh...

...

BONUS:

Example: Completely Unwarranted Shot of my Sweaty Chest for Unsuspecting Thread-Goers

...AWESOME PICTURE...

You didn't ask for it... but what do you all think? Pretty awesome, huh? Yeah, I thought so.

Pass the eye bleach, please.

****

Actually, I pretty much agree with 9er. No one is special. Period. There are occassions where individuals do deserve special treatment, but there is no one who's special all the time.

And yeah, WTH were you thinking with that picture?

someone read me cynthetics signature again. thats all that matters really.

there's way too much nipple in here. what do you say we smack a NSFW tag on this one?

9er tried editing out the hand and blonde hair out of the pic, but that would have been at the expense of the nipple. at least we know which one's more important here.

I love it when a plan comes together.

I also love the Tag(s) for this post.

Hot.

wow, nice teeth, Plan.

Do I see a surgical scar, or is my phone's crappy display playing tricks on me?

Also, since when does fucking up entitle one to feelings of superiority?

At least the prepubescent chest hairs match the prepubescent beard.

OP, all I can say is that I think you made a mistake and your ego is damaged because there ended up being consequences for the mistake. Think of work as a bunch of heads floating through the air. Never discuss anything below the neck. That's pretty much the safest way to avoid the consequences that smacked your tight, little ass. Heh, we aren't at work. :P

You aren't really having a hard time finding people to send nudie pics to in order to boost your self-esteem, are you? Instead, we have 9er hijacking your thread with his moobs in order to boost his. I demand you turn this thread back into what it was intended.

---------- Post added at 11:47 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:45 AM ----------

Yeah, those are hair transplant scars.

Plan9 has the least fuckable tits ever.

Also, I'd just like to point out that the fact that everyone is unique or special does in no way reduce the meaning of their uniqueness or specialness. To think otherwise is equivalent to believing that there is nothing unique about any whole numbers because all whole numbers are unique.

Everyone is special. Some folks just happen to get the short end of the special stick.

Filtherton, you're clearly middle class whitey... as only middle class whitey would push some drivel like that.

You're confusing "special" with "different." And you can't apply math to this problem anyway, college guy.

6 doesn't think it is better than 7. But a lot of people walk around acting like they're "special." Uproarious.

What am I babbling about, you say? Entitlement, ego, being a prick. The real difference between those two.

This is more a case of the glass being half empty, half full... fuck it; the glass is too big for what it is holding.

...

Don't hate 'cuz my tits are perkier than yours. They're special.

You're more of a middle class whitey than I am. I won't be middle class until I get a job whose title doesn't begin with the word "grad". And special and different do kind of mean the same thing.

I'm just saying. Everyone is a snowflake, a special little snowflake. Most of the time, that specialness doesn't amount to much. That doesn't make it not special. Somewhere out there there is someone who could be correctly called the Tiger Woods of stamp collecting. That isn't the kind of specialness that would allow a person to get away with sending unsolicited nudie pics to your coworker (that requires more of a Brett Favre kind of specialness), but it's still kind of special.

I think your tits are special, even though they aren't especially notable for their size and areola breadth.

This is for your specialtits.

That's my son's favorite song. He says, "Daddy, I like Katy Pearwy." I say, "Daddy does too, son, daddy does too."

Funny that "special" is also used to describe the mentally retarded.

And the special forces!

am i retarded? i'm looking for a pic. i see nothing.


i are teh confuzzlled

---------- Post added at 03:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:44 PM ----------

also. i agree with plan9. no one is special. special people are either dead heroes or mentally challenged.

So are you arguing that everyone has a special "talent" at which they are the absolute, hands down, bomb-diggety?

my response is Astronauts. they could probably out do most snowflakes at whatever makes them snowflakes. Astronauts (i'm referring to the ones that weren't so psycho as to drive across country in diapers to find ex-bfs) are about as close to human perfection as it gets and i would be willing to bet dollars against dimes that they can out perform 19 out of 20 people at whatever activity the John Doe chooses. are people inclined to enhance whatever they're talented at? sure, but there's no way there are 6 billion Tiger Woods at 6 billion different activities

But all snowflakes melt when peed upon. :(

I'm saying that everyone is unique and that makes them special, but that there aren't necessarily any significant ramifications of this uniqueness.

I don't think everyone is special. Just because we are unique, doesn't make us special. That's just some leftover bullshit of the american dream that got shoved down our throats.

I dont want to come over as harsh, but at the end of the day if you send a half naked picture of yourself to a female co-worker, whatever the intention behind it was... I think you have to hold your hands up and take your medicine.

If you kept your job out of the situation I would say you've done well and dont really have a right to complain

_

As for the question... some people are smarter than others, some nicer, some better looking, some stronger, some better equipped to deal with the emotional weather... but I do believe that we are all basically the same insofar that we are all WORTH the same. (with a few exceptions - beasts and monsters in human forms, Jack the Ripper for example... but luckily these types are pretty rare)

My daughter likes it too. She belts it out at the top of her lungs.


As for unique vs special: this argument is pointless if you folks can't acknowledge that there is a difference between being special and being special with significance. There is nothing special about being special if one is speaking of being special in a general sense. Everyone is special, and that makes everyone special. The fact that everyone is special doesn't make no one special, it just means that the diversity present in humanity is large enough to ensure that there isn't very much overlap between two distinct individuals. Every snowflake is special simply because there are none like it. The fact that that doesn't give you a boner doesn't mean it isn't true. I certainly don't go around catching snowflakes and drooling over how special they are because the specialness inherent in snowflakes isn't interesting.

Do you want to feel special? Shuffle a deck of 52 playing cards 7-8 times. Then hold it in your hand. Congratulations. It is incredibly likely that you are the only person who has ever held a deck of cards with the cards in that order and you may be the last person to ever do it too. That's special. Not necessarily significant, but special nonetheless.

If you mofos want to say that not everyone is special, you have to be more specific about the scope of that specialness, otherwise, you don't make any sense. In the the general sense, everyone is special. No amount of too-cool-for-school posturing will change this fact. On the other hand, if your point is that not everyone can be Michael Jordan, well, I agree.

Yeah.

I admire Filtherton's especial strikings, very much.

God, I wish it had been a more generalized question!

Why?











seewhatididthere? :)

Our society has stressed "no person is better than any other, just different" PC way of thinking. However, I believe that while everyone has the potential to be better than others in some individual way, very few people actually live up to that potential.

“Each man is good in His sight. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows.”
- Sitting Bull

"You can't polish a turd."
- Shitting Bull

In how many orders can a deck of 52 cards be arranged? Is this correct:

8.0658X10(exponent 67) different possible orders

Found it in the net, I never thought there would be so many combinations.

Context and Semantics Troll is Special.

...

There is a total lack of T&A in this thread.

Somebody special post their nipples.

The exact expression is 52 x 51 x 50 x ... x 2.

The difference between the propensity for reflexive cynicism and the propensity for reflexive skepticism of reflexive cynicism is more than just a matter of context and semantics.

And somebody did post their nipples, but I can't see them anymore.

i'm amused by your "some animals are more equal than others" line, plan 9.

worked real well on the animal farm.

maybe folk read orwell as an endorsement?

maybe folk dont read orwell----it's possible because exactly the sort of things he ridiculed these days wend their way around conservative ideology, repressive institutions and related spaces that impose the cognitive adjustments required for enthusiastic participation in the class war.

if some animals are simply more equal than others, the ideology that is being defended in the class war is neutral. you defend what is because it is.

no matter that the politics of---say---distribution of wealth or the relation distribution of cultural opportunities (you know those things that work to assure that formal equality in the united states never creeps over to substantive equality)----often produce the social deviance you may be called on to adjust.

no no----you're simply a more equal animal herding around the less equal animals and removing the recalcitrant or deviant. because they should recognize their less equal status when confronted with the more equal. the natural order of things for the less equal is submission.

that's funny.

I love it. Everything comes back to class warfare.

And now, a close approximation of what this thread's become:

http://blogs.sfweekly.com/shookdown/....thumbnail.jpg

.....Cuz I totally love scraggly man-nips.

Roachboy:

You’re amused? I’m amused. Can man live on a diet consisting solely of Whimsical Good Intentions? What's the RDA of Unicorn Blood and Fairy Dust?

Masturbatory Story Time: I read Animal Farm in high school. 1984 as well. Starship Troopers. Catcher in the Rye. Flowers for Algernon. I Am the Cheese. Hatchet. All of these important works; several times. Read them first in the public high school I attended where not all students were equal. Then after I graduated from the public high school were not all students were equal with my mediocre grades (because the system was okay with mediocrity, being as not equal as it was) I worked some blue collar jobs such as slinging lumber and running a cash register. Blah, blah, blah… 10 years goes by and boy graduates top of his class from a Major University by using What Is instead of wondering why What Should Be didn’t help out. Stupid in action, I say.

In that example? Of course I’m more equal than others. I was born into a system and made it work for me instead of masturbating about politics and socioeconomic stratification. Why should I care about anything else? I can't change it. I'm low on the totem. And I’m a total myopic prole like that. My only concerns are loading up my IRA, watching History Channel and cracking the top on my next beer. Richard Bachman’s Sanity at its finest, I say.

[insert poorly researched paragraph (rife with run-ons) about how mankind is basically a bunch of aggressive crabs in a barrel; other barbaric things that nobody with soft hands dares to consider outside of the confines of a history text opened somewhere between the Black Plague and French Revolution]

It's okay to have dreams, Roachboy. We all have them. Even dogs dream. I’m not an oracle nor a political genius--I don't work with The Future. I’m just another creature--I work with What Is. Tell me, how often do people with such grand ideals descend from their lofty towers to work with What Is?

Yeaaah.

Hope that made sense. I mean, I have no idea what the fuck you’re trying to say above so I just winged it with the self-righteous tirade routine.

To go from digitally flashing one's tits to an unsuspecting coworker to the moral imperative of those aware of socioeconomic segregation... in 40 posts.

By God... It Is What It Is.

So you don't think a person can make the system work for them while at the same time noting its flaws?

Some folks can chew gum and walk at the same time.

World observed. Flaws noted.

Unicorn Blood. Fairy Dust.

...

Tilted Politics: It's Ruining Conversations About Tits.

Well, I believe that we're essentially similar (not sure if we're the same). However, the bigger impact on outcome is through action based on variables in situations and environments. That's how you get variances between people; for example, you get people like Plan9, who are both more well-read and actually useful in society compared to people like me, who simply squander their potential.

If there truly is an essential variance between people, I refuse to believe that it plays a major role in who we are. It's not like white people are essentially better than everyone else.

Generally people who get things done are considered better than others.

so let's see if i understand this:


sociology-->hard to think about. can't see the social through my gun sight.
masturbation.

class stratification-->complicated. i'd have to admit sociology mattered to get to it. pinko term in any event
commie masturbation.


formal equality-->abstract idea. don't like them.
masturbation.

substantive equality---> unamerican. only pinkos think about it.
masturbation.

complicated sentence structures---hard to read. i'm busy making the system work for me. don't have time to read hard things.
masturbation.

problems that might arise for a cop if that cop thinks that he and his cop buddies are better than the people around them--->non-existent. we are better.
masturbation


that about right?

Too much politics, big guy. I'm about as political as a Chia Pet.

And you totally forgot the part about me having a small dick.

Let's escalate to personal attacks. Your vocabulary is bigger.

And I'm armed with the use of the Shift key and the period.

...

This is a thread about a girl showing her tits to another girl.

But if you want to beat on the retarded kid, be my guest.

Whilst I was making pancakes, you have produced one cupful of sperm.

it's a strange thread.

and you misunderstand my form of playing. not serious. i just found a curious hole in your initial post and worried it a bit. took a couple minutes. they were interesting.

carry on.

Talking about Animal Farm and Imputing Views on to Other People....Capitalization....:lol:

Katie Perry video make me think of those small sticks you light up at New Year's Eve (don't know what they're called in English) rather than fireworks. I could actually smell them. Then I saw Plan9 chest hair and imagined how the hair smells, when it's burning.

I can't believe a discussion almost broke out in this thread.

At least I learned something: It isn't polite to point fingers at people while your dick is in the other hand.

Rather than an interesting discussion about how we view people, it became about 'repressive institutions' and probably insert something about how 'the police are keeping people down' and maybe throw something in about hitler and the Tea party too. :rolleyes:

---------- Post added at 02:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:29 PM ----------

And veiled personal attacks.

/Goes back to typing up ICCPR and CAT notes while looking through my gun-site. FRONT SIGHT PRESS BITCHES!

So rather than coming up with an interesting response, you post a demotivational poster instead?

Do you agree with it or not?

...

Are you drunk posting? First the nonsense about me being well read and now this. Say what? Was the OP not examined and discussed? Or are you referring to the circle jerk threadjack that has no business in a General Discussion thread about something that could have been totally resolved by posting nude photos online and flicking the bean vainly once the lewd comments and TinyURL links to pictures of veiny erections started rolling in?

Please show me how I can be a better TFPer.

If you think that Roachboy and I are going to have a conversation on politics, you've got an extra chromosome. He's rabid and I don't give a shit.

All conversations would lead to politics. He's using terms that were hip when my parents were in high school. Pinko. Commie. Seriously?

Aren't Pan and AceVentura around enough anymore?

Somebody dig up UsTwo, fahdahlubbuhgawd.

And yet you did it anyway? I don't get it. Do you give a shit or not? How long did it take to post your responses?


And for the record, I said more well-read.

I don't have a dick, so where does that leave me?

Hey, a gangsta has to flex sometimes. In my case, I always realize I'm mentally outgunned.

Yep, you're drunk. You read more in month than I'll read in two decades. Let's be realistic here.

...

You can close the thread any time now.

It just seemed to me that you were appalled at roachboy for doing the same thing you were doing. It's just your styles are different. See? Deep down, we are all the same!

You overestimate me. But, then again, that's how I get by. One thing is for certain, you read more than I did in high school. Did you stop reading or something? I doesn't seem that way. I do read at least 8 books a year, but that's for work.

I think I'm in too deep now. Perhaps it's up to Jazz.

Suck it, inferiors. This thing's staying open.

Maybe someone should start a thread about false modesty? Perhaps one where we could all take turns posting about how little we care about how little we care about the current discussion?

Hahahahahaha! When Jazz asked why I wished the OP hadn't been quite so specific, I thought we would prove an answer in due course, but my rose-colored glasses are no doubt in play. I think the operative words in the title are "deep down," & "the same" does not equal equal. I'm really disappointed I didn't get to see Plan9's nipples. MAYBE that stuff about posting inappropriate pictures didn't clearly lead to asking the question in anyone else's estimation, but to me that's further proof that the answer is yes.

...or was I just being sarcastic? :D Yeah, there is definitely no serious conversation going on here, brah. I have to be drunk for that.

CHECK IT:

I said veiny erections. Yeah. Veiny... Erections. Do I have to Fugly it up and draw cartoon dicks with smiley faces?

ALSO:

Fuckin' Optimus Prime!

PLUS:

Is anybody else totally creeped out by OCM?

...

How can you monitor anything these days? Don't you have a platoon of screaming progeny to wrangle?

i bet you wont do it...

Don't underestimate how good I actually am.

What the hell happened?
 

Jesus Fucking Christ .. I must have passed over the email notifying me there are responses to my thread.

It WASN'T SEXUAL HARASSMENT you idiots, it was on facebook and my question was philosophical.

Some you guys/gals (whatever) are way out of my league... I think I will take my toys and go home now.

LunarEclipse.

p.s. I do have some nice tits. I would post a picture but I am probably too stuck on myself and trying to get strokes for my ego (read ego, not any other body part) and prove my self worth that I can't figure out how to embed a photo.

PROTIP: You might want to edit the OP if you're going with this new version of your story.

And without even seeing them I can assure you that my tits are better than yours.

I disagree, I originally posted I was on facebook and this was used as a jumping off point to parlay it into sexual harassment.

Regardless, I also said I want to think I am better then they are .. does this mean I am better then they are, no.

In regard to tits I would also have to respectfully disagree with you, but to each his/her own.

Vanity ... yes I admit I am vain to a certain degree. Am I proud of that fact, no, unfortunately looks do a play an important part in life even if we want to think that they don't matter.

Okay, I'm done defending myself now.

Peace.

LunarEclipse.

^I'm glad there are people on the internet that realize this

i don't know who's dumb idea it was to tell their kids that looks don't matter when they obviously do, but people need to put down the disney coloring book and realize that being ugly puts you at a disadvantage and you can either moan about it or accept it and be careful about putting yourself in situations where you are likely to be discriminated against for your looks.

i've met tons of people who look like a bat to the face would improve their looks and they're all good, smart, nice, and decent people.

they're just ugly. i'm not going to avoid ugly people since deep down we are all the same (in the sense that we're all faced with similar choices and can rationally make a decision) but if i'm face with a decision between dancing with a SI swimsuit model vs the hunchback of Notre Dame's sister... its not exactly a difficult choice

I'm EXACTLY as totally creeped out as you are. :thumbsup:

Shylock:
I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands,
organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same
food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases,
heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter
and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If
you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, do we not revenge? If we are like you in the
rest, we will resemble you in that.

Well, there ya go. Nobody says it better than Shakespeare.

Let's leave it at Shakespeare shall we and put this thead to rest.

This was my first "serious" post and I got a sense of what TFP is all about. Not always want you want to hear but all of it good...well almost.

LunarEclipse:)

It's probably pointless and silly at this time to reply to the OP but, hey, apathy.

I think it's a matter of values.

I know what I think is better. I know what personality traits and life experiences I find better. If you introduce two people to me, after talking with them, I can (and might, if one is particularly loathsome or annoying) tell you which one I find better.

Social groups are usually formed over shared values, or eventually come to create an average set of values. Any group can tell you, even if they aren't quite aware as to why, who the "best" person of a group is based on those values.

You have a specific set of values that dictate standards of behavior.

Your coworkers' behavior did not match those standards.

Does that make you universally "better"?

No, as there is not a universal "better". But it makes you "better" by your standards.

While your coworkers' reactions and the general situation was disappointing and surprising to you (and, apparently, somewhat offensive)... it doesn't make them "lesser". Just on a different track. And, apparently, their value system did not allow for partially clothed (or whatever) pictures to be distributed online within a social group of professionals.

You evaluated a social group incorrectly. It sucks, but it happens.


Okay, kids, back to tugging on Mr. Rogers.

It's an interesting question and an interesting(entertaining?) discussion. I don't see how one could defend a position that basically says some people are better than others in absolute terms. But, i do think most people would find it easy to say that some people are better than others at a particular skill, and I think most of the friction in this thread is how one interprets on what end of the spectrum the original premise was.

The question in philosophical terms is almost impossible to answer, it's too broad. Speaking from the heart it's as many have already pointed out in the thread: treat everyone with equal measure and then we're all the same.

its obvious that we aren't all the same though. smart people get paid better, sexy people get more attention, and depressed people get lonely because nobody wants to hang with a downer. what sucks is that its almost impossible to quantify "better" but i think if someone sat down for 30 years or so to dissect every aspect of a human being into one dimensional value spectrums, it would be possible to give a mean (average, not unfriendly) score to everyone to include talents etc.

Yes, but how would we decide which talents and behaviors were desirable and which were not? How would we assign value to talents? Would all be weighted equally, or would certain talents/behaviors be assigned more weight?

It sounds, on the surface, like it would be easy. That would be incredibly incorrect. Give me any five people from this board and it would be impossible to have them agree on any such system and its value distribution.

yeah each skill would be its own category and the ability for a person to perform that skill a number of times successfully would be that person's score in that skill. at least in EH-land thats how it'd go

Humans are all humans. Some people are born with slightly different predispositions or physical characteristics, but if you're talking about bare-bones worth, all humans are equal. I am no greater than you are. Once we all can admit that to each other, then we can get to appreciating those little things that make us different.

i disagree. i know for a fact my best friend is a better human being than i am because he is more athletic, more intelligent, more sympathetic to righteous causes, and 10x the ladies' man i'll ever be. i'm not resentful for it, but i accept that hes just worth more.

the way i see it is with those hypothetical scenarios of trapped on an island or earth is about to blow up, and you have to pick certain people from the folk you know to come with you. don't get me wrong i think my friends are awesome, but some of them did nothing with their lives, some are born to be congressmen.

Athletic people consume more than their share of oxygen. Compassionate people ruin the Randian utopia that would surely ensue if no one helped anyone do anything ever. Beautiful people ruin the notion that the people actually deserve what they get. Intelligent people are invariably elitists who lord their intelligence over everyone else from their ivory towers. War is peace. etc.

Value is one of the most subjective quantities in existence. There will never be a day where we can all be reduced to n-dimensional data points and rated objectively by our value.

Goddamn, it's times like this I want to make love to my monitor.

I never knew you felt this way about me. I'm flattered. :)

Aww, shucks. Don't go making me feel special.

truth hurts

---------- Post added at 06:57 AM ---------- Previous post was at 06:56 AM ----------

but it still doesn't change the fact that the person who possesses those qualities is better than you (in terms of personal ability, no societal impact) in some aspect that can be measured

What about really, really talented rapists? I mean, I know I'm a horrible rapist. Does that make someone who rapes three women a week a better person than me? They certainly have more raping skills.

haha well if you want to factor "rape" into the value of a human being, go for it. i was talking about things like reaction times, healing times, capacity to learn (administer identical tests over an interval of time), ratio of setting goals to meeting goals, and other such nonrape things

But rape has been a very necessary function of society. Most, if not all, of us would not be here if our ancestors weren't talented and successful rapists.

Which means talent at raping is much more valuable than healing time or how long it takes your mana to regen.

As a side note, I have these +2 pauldrons of raping that I'm willing to part with for 5 gold, if you're interested in buffing your stats.

I believe our brain is our consciousness/"soul". There are one hundred billion nerve cells (give or take a few) and everyone is wired differently.

Here is a very good article which discusses this in depth and way better then I could.

In Praise of Self-Deception

So if we get down to physiology, if we are all wired differently then can one be wired better then another? Can rapists help raping, can psychopaths really control their urge to murder?

LunarEclipse.

our means of reproduction doesn't hinge on raping people anymore so i say that all of your "raping people" WoW gear is just the stuff of an age gone by the wayside

All intercourse is rape.

Property is theft.

Subjectivity is illusory.

Deep down inside we're all the same.

Why not? You've already joined the club.

In my defense, WoW is still one of the biggest MMORPGs out there. So that's relevant.

Our means of reproduction never hinged on rape. It just was the most successful way of truly conquering your enemies and claiming a territory with lasting success. Europe alone would be radically different if this were not so.

So, at one time, successfully being able to rape and have reproductive offspring was of top priority and, therefore, top value. (In fact, in some countries, it still is.)

And if you're saying that ability to rape successfully is no longer of any value, you're also saying that values change as society changes.

Which means that if any such study as you suggest was performed, it would only be able to apply to one time period.

And since there are currently a total of three (theorized) universal laws (and even that is under much debate) because societies have such varying values and ideas of talents at any given time, that further causes the proposed study to only be able to assign quantified values to talents in one small section of society during one brief time period.

Even with that, you have to get your researchers to agree on how to assign values to "talents" and behaviors. (Not to mention, behaviors is an entirely other mess.)

It's an impossible feat.





Sometimes, just sometimes, having a degree in Sociology is vaguely useful. The rest of the time, not so much.

...


but not our country, and not in today's society, which i think is the context of which the question was asked. would a different scoring system be needed in the future? absolutely. but the thought that every one is equal (some people are just better at other things and other people are better at others) or that somehow nature compensates for a deficiency somehow is ridiculous.

yup, but it'd be worth it.

which laws are you referring to?

i could care less about behaviors. also, i'm not making a prescriptive statement about what talents are bad and good, but i think you're getting too specific. think of it as IQ tests for more than just your IQ. not degrees or technical skills, but innate abilities like "probability to attract opposite sex after making an approach" or "rate at which person decreases their run time" or "number of fights entered/fights won"

this "different but equal" business sounds eerily similar to "separate but equal" when in fact we're all together and unequal.