Why does society view us this way?

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I do agree it is this way. Therein lies the issue that I have. Everything is seen as a commodity and this may be the way it is but I don't like it. To me, there are things that can't be purchased, is priceless and has intrinsic value. Fnord and Reuven supports this business type of world which is dominant today and the truth is it is a paper tiger. This is because it is heartless and has no soul. I support what Marshall supports. Marshall's world is where true success and strength lie. America looks beautiful on the outside but the inside looks and smells of rotting flesh.

http://www.amazon.com/Why-America-Faile ... 1118061810

Morris Berman is right. Unfortunately Marshall, we're not changing Fnord, Reuven or anyone else's minds on this. America is a hustler and business based culture. This business mindset is woven into the American cultural DNA. Fnord's words, attitude and thought process reflects this.

In the past college was a tool for one to be a broad and better thinker. Now it is a tool for business. America is not a free thinking society. We are a business society which is doomed to fail. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozymandias

You are so correct Marshall. The thing is though you will not convince Fnord or most people. It is woven into the American cultural DNA.




Fnord states that those who fail do not deserve preferential treatment and only successful people do. Fnord, whether they deserve it or not is irrelevant. It is the right and moral thing to help those who can't help themselves. Even though most people will not listen to what I have to say I'm going to continue to challenge Fnord's philosophy and this philosophy a lot of Americans have.

You know what those cases sound like? What happens when you try, fail again and again, and then decide that things are hopeless and decide to just give up.
Noone sets out to live a life on benefits. Noone wants to grow up to live in pure despair with no self-respect.

This idea that NTs are better at empathy is a common misconception. It has been scientifically demonstrated that people have empathy for people whose neurology is like theirs, because it is easy to relate to. This means that NTs relate empathetically to other NTs, but not to aspies, and aspies relate to other aspies, but not to NTs; we do not have less empathy than NTs, we just have it for a minority group of people; they can't understand us any better than we can understand them.

Exactly. NTs are just as bad at truly understanding aspies as aspies are at truly understanding NTs.

But aspies are in minority so they are most often those who stand out as lacking empathy.

Hi cubedemon6073.

I can completely relate to your opinion. I understand it. I don't want the world to merely be a business-place without heart and soul.

So what is the truth?

The truth is that humans are a species that is trying to survive, just like any animal species.

This is something one has to accept, even though it's hard. The faster the better.

Does this mean there is no heart and soul left? No!

The best survival technique is not always "pure business". When it comes to true love, family and friendships personality means a lot more than how good of a survivor you are.

The best survival technique for you personally depends on your personality - your personality is what has heart and soul! So you should try to survive in a way that fits your personality the best. In that way your life is a lot about heart and soul, but it is also about business, because we need to survive.

One should let one's personality (and associated heart and soul) blossom and grow. Finding true love with a less good survivor is a much better survival technique than not finding true love with a better survivor. Luckily, even though survival requires a good amount of business it still permits heart and soul.

But we should not view business as an innately bad thing. Business is a matter of wanting us to survive. If we didn't work. we would die.

The thing that cannot be purchased, is priceless and has intrinsic value is your personality - You! Noone can provide others with your personality, but you. You cannot buy true love, you cannot buy true friendships, you cannot buy a loving family. Not everything is for sale. And what constitutes a truly happy and fulfilling life is often the things that are not for sale - just making a lot of money will never on its own bring you happiness and peace in life.

The truly successful are not those who gain preferential treatment - it's those who find true peace and happiness in life.

Success is not about being best - Success is about being your best self.

Being the preferred one is not your success - being your best self is.

There will always be someone who is better at doing what you do, hence gaining preferential treatment - should everyone stop running because Usain Bolt is faster? No! Everyone who gives it their best is just as big a winner as Usain Bolt. As soon as you give things a try, you're a winner.

It's only when you stop trying you've lost - because you let yourself down. As long as you keep trying, you're a true winner!

You consider Fnord's advice and this article's advice as sage advice. If you consider this as true then I have a bridge in Florida to sell you.



If all of these people were able to do this why didn't they do so? Yes, it is a choice but why would they choose what they are choosing? America has this extreme internal locus which to me is a flawed doctrine.

All Fnord on here gives is one line statements and affirmations that are clichéd, hackneyed and trite. This author is the same way. This is my opinion.

There is the old proverb that says "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime"

I believe it is missing something and that is they need to be nursed to where it is possible to teach a man to fish.

a. You have to make it to where the person can be taught to fish.
b. Teach the person to fish
c. More than likely they will fish for a lifetime.

Fnord and others like him will not do a and b. The truth is their problems have to be temporarily solved until they can solve it on their own.

For example, let's talk about the Vietnam Veteran. Why is his back hurting so much that he has to swallow a cupful of opiates and prescription pain killers per day? Why is he being given all of this in the 1st place? Who is his doctor and his pharmacist? He needs to be provided better treatment. What is wrong with his back exactly? I sense some malpractice going on by the pharmacist and the doctor. If it is the VA then why aren't they providing him with what he needs?

What he needs is for his pain to go away and this requires medical attention. He needs drug rehab as well. In addition, he probably has erroneous thinking going on as well which will need to be corrected. He doesn't need to be told to get off his ass. This is the poppycock that is keeping people on their ass.

I am going to fight this nonsense all the way to the bank. This is one of the things that keeps me going and keeps me from putting a bullet to my own head. I believe in a better way of doing things. This can't be the best humanity can do. I believe humanity can do better. I believe in Marshall's way and I will fight for that. I will do it through my writings and as my critics show me my fallacies I will correct them my logic will become better.

I agree with what you said for the most part. There are two things I do not totally agree with. It is true that one can cultivate his personality but only to a certain extent. Personality is not all nurture but partly nature as well. I do not have control over all aspects of my personality and no one does either. This is one of the issues I see as wrong with America and the belief system today. It does not account for things like nature and other external things that one does not have control over. In America, the mainstream belief is that one has control and shapes his destiny 100%. One does have control and shapes his destiny but to me this is only a part of the story. To me America, is out of whack and out of balance. I partially agree with you on what you say here.

Another thing I only partially agree with you on is about survival. What I am saying is that sometimes survival is not always the best choice to make. If one has to give up his soul to survive then I have to ask is survival worth it in the end? Let's say humanity caught a terrible disease and a cure would require the murder of 5 million people is humanity's survival worth this cost? Would we as humanity have too much of a blemish on our souls? This is one example.

Fnord says "Conform or die" which apparently is so. What happens if one has to give up his soul and his very essence to conform? Is survival too much of a price to pay? How much of my soul do I have to give to America? Therein lies the issue that I am struggling with.

I agree. That mentality is misguided in my opinion. You don't control and shape your destiny 100%. Everyone is born with different bodies and minds, and are born at different places in different cultures. People don't have the same starting point - far from it! One only controls one's destiny in the frame of the ressources one has been given. Another reason why success is not about being best, but about being one's best self.




I've been thinking about this too.

Consider this:

(1) If you don't survive, your soul will die! Are you willing to let that happen? If you really value your soul, you'll try to survive, to ensure the survival of that soul.
(2) If you give up your soul in order to survive, your soul will also die.

It's a dilemma with opposing forces. If you don't survive, the soul that you value will die, but if you try too hard to survive, your soul will also die.

The fundamental thing is that it's that soul that is our true source for confidence.

So what's the solution to the above dilemma. My conclusion is:

At the end line you don't give up your soul when you try to survive - you try to survive in order to not give up your soul!! Because the existence of your soul is completely dependent on your survival. Your soul is the reason why you want to survive.




If you don't conform your soul will die. Are you willing to let that happen? Conform to let your soul survive.

Can something stop you when it comes to caring about your soul? Can the requirement of having to conform? Is that enough to beat your soul to the ground?

Never let it.

We both believe that there is a soul. Where you and I differ is this. I believe and have faith that the soul exists on long after the body perishes. I have no proof of this but I have faith there is. Therefore, I believe there is something greater than life itself. It is my soul and it is my humanity. Socrates could've have fled Athens but he didn't. He chose to die for what he believed in which was the pursuit of truth and excellence. He believed in the betterment of the soul. If he couldn't nurture other people's souls what was the point of living? He believed there was something greater than life itself. In the end, in a way he did win. We owe our modern philosophy to him. In a way, he has achieved immortality through our collective consciousness.



Like I said, I believe the soul goes on without the body. To me, the dilemma is resolved by believing there is something greater than life itself.



I actually can accept this.



Honestly, my assumption is that the soul is not completely dependent on my survival but exists after the body is dead.





Well, Socrates won in the end. Ancient Athen's victory was a pyrrhic victory.



Well the German citizens conformed to Adolph Hitler. To me, there is a greater truth and law that exists outside of America and its demands.



I won't let my soul die or anyone else's die which is why I ask my questions and question and challenge other people's values and assertions they believe.

All of this begs the question of whether souls actually exist or whether they're just concepts generated and beloved by people who can not come to grips with their own mortality.

That would be an interesting theory except for the fact that there is no drug that can treat autism, only perhaps its comorbidities like ADHD, depression, etc.

It's because human nature makes people not want to accept anyone who is not the same as themselves. NTs don't always understand why and how we feel the way we do about things, and therefore, they reject us. It's happened since the beginning of time, with anyone who is not a member of the gross majority in beliefs, color, likes and dislikes, etc. It will always be human nature for people to behave that way, but civilization should allow for people to rise above those instincts and be reasonable and welcoming to all of us. But sadly not everyone is smart enough to see that, I guess.

My wife and I are often ridiculed by others in our socioeconomic group, as we choose not to follow the typical paths as the others might. What I mean, is that they don't understand why I choose to buy used Levi's on eBay, when I could afford to go to Beverly Hills and have an Italian designer make me a pair of trousers. And they don't invite us sometimes to go to social events because we might not be wearing thousands of dollars in jewelry and clothes, and we might show up in an '84 Buick and not a 2013 Mercedes, etc. They just don't understand us, or what life means to us. I used to get offended by that, but then I realized that my wife and I are happy people, and some of those others who spend $millions to impress others, aren't always so happy. So what Im saying is that if we have a special place in this world, as we do with autism or any other differences, it's the other people's loss if they don't accept us.

Charles

A lot of people seem to be arguing on here. The OP is only trying to ask a question.

It's just the way the NT mind works, expecting everybody to follow these certain rules and be this certain way, and if one average adult person has the teeniest minuscule difference about them, they think they are going to bite or something.

Just today I was talking to my friend in the bus station, about nothing out of the ordinary, and a girl near me looked behind at me as if she had a problem with the way I was speaking, even though I don't stutter, have unusual accent, speak in monotone, speak childlike, speak loudly, or any other things that may be considered different. I've found most people do this when I'm speaking to someone, even though there are a lot more people that do speak weird (like in a loud slur or something like that). I just speak like an ordinary average British person, but people still have a problem with it and think it's great to stare.

I thought a lot of s**t like that would stop after I left school. I thought adults were finished with that silly ''you-are-perfectly-normal-but-I'm-still-gonna-judge-you-'cos-something-feels-not-quite-right'' stage, and had more things to think about than that. I feel like saying, ''you don't you take a picture, you f*****g sad b***h!''

Ah okay, I see. In that case one cannot argue that life is about survival - it could be about anything actually.

Let's hope there is. That's why I like to go to church at Christmas.

A good question.

This would imply the worth of humans is completely determined by their survival abilities, i.e. their ability and willingness to conform?

The good survivors are fundamentally better humans than the bad survivors?

When we "truly love" others we exclusively do this because it eventually benefits our own survival?