arendjr

I think there is an objective good. That goodness is Life itself. So long as we treat all Life with respect and try to live a life of balance, that makes us good. You are right though that this is still a very simplified view, and what it means to "live in balance" can depend on the situation or environment. But it's a starting point at least.

As for forgiveness, it's a choice. If someone makes an honest mistake, it should be easy to forgive them, as whatever harm they caused was not intentional. But if someone makes a wilful mistake, it will be harder to forgive them. And yet, because forgiveness is a choice, we can look at the reasons why someone acted in a manner that was harmful, and still decide to forgive them, especially if they repent.

As for consequences, those are results of our actions, whether intentional or unintentional. They are not strictly related to the concept of forgiveness, but generally speaking, we find it easy to forgive someone if their actions are harmless, or if the consequences don't affect us personally. But if someone's actions do affect us, we find it harder to forgive, regardless of whether something was an honest mistake or not. But the key to forgiveness, in my opinion, is that we need to look beyond the consequences and look beyond how we were personally affected. Forgiveness is a choice, and that choice is easier to make if our emotion is not muddied by consequence.

No worries, I understood that you were playing devil’s advocate somewhat. And indeed I don’t like it either, and fwiw, I’m not American either (European, so I don’t really have skin in this particular issue).

But when you say it’s a “rather valid decision with its motivations and reasons”, then yes, that’s basically what it means when I say it’s justified. But then you still have to ask the question as to who it is justified for. If you say it makes “sense on an economical and geopolitical level”, that’s well and good, but which economical and geopolitical level are we talking about? A deal such as this is unlikely to benefit the economy as a whole, so who are the beneficiaries? That’s the question of perspective. Probably this benefits Trump and his billionaire friends, hence why it’s justified from their perspective. But Average Joe, or the Argentinian equivalent, are unlikely to ever see a benefit from this.

I think you’re both right. The problem in this discussion is that “justified” really depends on perspective. I agree with the other guy it is justified… from Trump’s perspective. I agree with you it is not justified for the American people.

It’s an important step, yes. You are the master of your own happiness. Take care!

I’ll add one: to appreciate the beauty of life itself, or in other words: be happy.

That does tie in with the “it gets better” and you’ll have to trust me when I say that happiness can be found.

But for whatever it’s worth, I wasn’t always happy, and I went through very dark places in the past. Yet I found happiness in multiple places and I honestly don’t feel like I need to pretend anymore.

However that might not mean a lot if I didn’t give some pointers to help you find it. To find happiness the best thing you can is to find peace within yourself, which implies becoming at peace with who you are. First of all, don’t let the sadness in the world distract you from your own happiness, because the best way to combat the world’s sadness is by being happy yourself. Then you can become an example for others to become happy too. And second, don’t assume it means nothing. We live in a spiritual place that’s mysterious and wonderful. There’s endless happiness to be found there. If you don’t think that’s true, I believe you owe it to yourself to explore so that you may find it. Because you can. And when you do, things will get better. Trust.

Silver actually interacts horribly with and ruins the flavour of some foods. There’s a reason why silver cups often have gold plating on the inside to not ruin the taste of wine.

I’d stick with the steel any time.

That’s not just pedantry, that’s unnecessarily narrow-minded. Ever heard of the corrupted heart? According to your definition, that’s an impossibility, unless the heart belongs to someone in authority, or something, I guess.

The point is, there is more than a single interpretation of things, and there is not a singular definition of corruption. Anyone can be corrupted, and giving examples that show that lawlessness permeates every level of society is a great way of showing that corruption is likely endemic in the culture.

I’m Dutch too, and I used to work 8h/day 4 days a week. And my productivity became even better than when I worked 5 days a week. I could kill it those 4 days, and be rested enough the next week so I could kill it again. It worked wonders.

I like the rhetoric, because it means that my employer got something out of it too. But I don’t think it implies that was the only reason it should be given. I obviously enjoyed the time off for my own reasons.

I dunno, I have a Framework laptop and had a keyboard issue with it. It still worked, but one of the keys didn’t register well. So they sent me a new keyboard and I sent them back the old one after I’d swapped it. Not a single day was I without my laptop, which sounds quite unlikely compared to other laptop brands and the support you get (or not) with those. No buyer’s remorse here.

Captchas are getting out of hand.

I can take this one: Because he doesn’t actually care about creating anything of value. If he truly believed in it, you’re right, Twitter or even Tesla’s software engineers would be on the chopping block and he’d replace them with AI as soon as he can. But he doesn’t.

He knows this is a longshot. Most likely to fail, but very profitable on the near-impossible chance that it works. But he doesn’t care even if the odds are truly impossible. Because this is an investment opportunity, so people will throw money his way, no matter what the odds.

People assume he’s an idiot, and he is. But he’s not stupid, at least not in every way. He certainly has a skill for separating others from their money, which he happily takes advantage of.

Don’t tell that to the kids in Finland 😉

https://santaclausvillage.info/activities/santa-claus-main-post-office/