Money makes the world go SQUARE

Looking down on people for whatever choices they may make doesn't mean you're any smarter or better. It just makes you a bit of an ass.

Getting tired of seeing people let themselves get duped and screwed over again and again makes me an ass? Alrighty, then.

I just want people to wise the fuck up for once. Is that so bad?

get a reciept!!!

Being able to see how people are repeating bad choices, and being able to understand why repeating bad choices is a less-than-desirable thing actually is an indicator that you're smarter than the ones not able to see either. A desire for people to learn from bad mistakes as to not repeat them is, objectively, better than indifference or disregard for such.

Being a bit of an ass in expressing frustration at people doing the same futile dumb shit over and over doesn't mean someone ISN'T still also smarter and better. :/

Everybody fucks up now and then, and we all do stupid shit we probably should have all learned to not do. But between the options of simply shrugging and ignoring when we do this, or making each other feel like dumbshits when we ARE being dumbshits... well, one is more likely to reduce the amount of dumbshit moves we make while the other is not.

You can point out peoples mistakes without demeaning them. There's a difference between a journal stating "Here's where I think many of you are making an error, and here are the ways you can avoid making it because I care about my fellow sentient beings" and "Wow some of you are so fucking stupid."

Besides it's completely possible to know a lot about some things, and not a lot about other things. That's how most everyone is which is why you shouldn't act like you know so much better. Odds are pretty good there are plenty of people smarter than you are in certain areas. That doesn't make it right for them to think themselves better than anyone else.

Being smarter doesn't make you better, but it's a seriously detrimental condition of our general social attitudes that insist smarter/better people have to be infinitely and unendingly patient, tactful, and nice. There is also an ENORMOUS difference between speaking harshly to one or several specific individuals, and speaking harshly towards an act or attitude or behavior trend and the people who contribute to it.

Calling out a behavior is not the same as calling out a person, even though obviously calling out the behavior is aimed at the people who do it.

I am very VERY much in the camp of "don't be shitty to people, even if sometimes 'they're really asking for it,'" but again, being shitty towards people and being shitty towards a specific detrimental choice/attitude/behavior some people exhibit are two entirely different things. You're currently treating the latter as if it was the former.

For example, I could bitch on and on about how fat people like myself are not being done any favors by people telling us 'no, no, you're fine however much you weigh, don't worry about it, just be yourself' despite the fact that no, obesity is a serious problem that IS quite detrimental to the health and longevity of people who are fat, and being a problem that IS within the 'victim's power to affect change, all the happy fluff niceness only serves to make it that much harder for people to convince themselves to make the massive effort needed to do so. The sentiment behind the behavior is a good one, but it's shielding and protecting an absolutely damaging and harmful trend. Despite a very strong stance against the trend of fat-enabling, I would not speak to a specific well-intentioned, nice-minded fat-enabler person the same way I would speak about the trend of fat-enablers in general.

People making stupid decisions repeatedly obviously DO need something other than their own intelligence and reason in order to alter the cycle. Obstructing abuse directed at specific people is a good thing, and I've spent more hours than I can count trying to do exactly that, even when I do agree that whatever the person speaking abusively was motivated by was a valid point. Shielding people specifically from targeted abuse and hurtful speech can help keep them from being defensive and unwilling to change the detrimental behavior that is under fire, but shielding people from non-specific, non-targeting, non-personal social pressures and outside influences that may encourage learning from their mistakes does them no favors.

There's an insane amount of general defensiveness of peoples' ability to be wrong and not just self-defeating, but detrimental to everyone else as well, but almost zero defense response when someone is, by all accounts, right about something, yet less than entirely nice and patient and tactful about it. People who might not be the best and brightest may be frustrated and hurt by seeing something they do/say/think called into question, but people who ARE the best and brightest are just as rightfully frustrated and annoyed at living with circumstances that easily could and SHOULD be significantly more optimal than they are, and by all reasonable expectation WOULD be better if not for the preponderance of people being just Plain Old Dumb.

Everyone has their limit with the stupid they can brush off and patiently try to correct, especially with specific recurring issues that simply should not be issues. Don't confuse "I hate this less-than-optimal circumstance, and thus hold animosity for the behaviors which cause it, and the people contributing to those behaviors when they do" with "I hate these people."

Besides, this journal was really fairly benign. "Fools and their money..." is a very old saying, and expressing a wish that people who get fucked over could learn enough so they stop continuously letting themselves be fucked over is hardly a sentiment that makes someone an ass. Stupid people get to make stupid decisions, making the world less awesome for themselves AND the rest of us, but nobody can make them feel bad about it, yet smart people who just want everything to be better for everyone - including the stupid people - get criticized if they're in any way forceful or blunt about it. That's not a good trend.

Thank you.

"Stupid people get to make stupid decisions, making the world less awesome for themselves AND the rest of us, but nobody can make them feel bad about it, yet smart people who just want everything to be better for everyone - including the stupid people - get criticized if they're in any way forceful or blunt about it. "

OP was an ass, and you're basically saying it's OK to be an ass because you're doing us all a favor by doing so.

If you're going to be an ass to people 'for the greater good' don't do the word any favors. I'd rather have a world full of stupid nice people than smart assholes. It's the smart assholes that seem to be the root of all our problems, anyways. People who think they know better so of course 'they' should get to run things, and anyone who doesn't think their way is best is bad/dangerous.

It tends to justify a lot of hate.

Hahaha! WOW! What are you even on about? So what you're basically saying is that I'm an ass because I've lost my patience for seeing people get screwed over again and again...yet apparently it's totally fine to let people get screwed over and I should be ashamed of myself for calling people out on their bullshit? God damn your logic is hilarious.

OP was not an ass.

"Fools and their money..." he says, "are soon parted" being the rest of the saying for anyone who didn't know. The saying merely states that foolish people are easily separated from their money by those who would take advantage of them not knowing any better, and that's what he feels to be happening.

"Seriously, how many times do people have to be fucked over before they figure it out? It's so very sad. XD "

How is he being an ass to say that it's sad to watch people get fucked over repeatedly and never learn to stop letting themselves be fucked over? Be nice, be tactful, be PC, be all that happy fluffy sunshine crap and try to get people to understand they're being duped. They still don't get it? Oh well, can't cross the horrible line of maybe being even slightly impatient or frustrated with them, no, just walk away and let them continue to be fucked over and taken advantage of, because that's the Good Guy thing to do, and anything else makes you an ass. People are being taken advantage of, and they're going along with it, and he thinks it's sad - both that they're being fucked over AND that they aren't learning from the long steady existing previous history that should have everyone know better by now. Which part of that is being an ass? That he calls foolish people foolish for doing something that IS foolish? That he wishes people could be smart enough to NOT get fucked over?

Like I said, when someone appears to possibly be criticizing a lack of intelligence and/or understanding of an undesirable situation, people like yourself will jump to defend the nice stupid people from the mean assholes. And, as often as not, try to remind everyone that smart people are bad guys unless they are perfectly and entirely okay with not-smart people staying not-smart. I've been accused of this - I have stepped in to try and come between some random asshole being a shitface to someone who doesn't deserve their bullshit. I've had people explain their entirely valid points about why this person they're tormenting is stupid and wrong, and I still object to and oppose them harassing someone no matter how much that person's nice stupidness WAS asking for it. Because Railing against stupidity and railing against a stupid person are - again - VERY different things.

This god damned apathy to simple plain >wrongness< is such an enormous root of so many issues that should have been solved by now. Defend a nice stupid person under attack, yes, sure, do NOT defend their stupidity itself from being educated or corrected. Nobody trying to get people to stop doing stupid shit is this mythical evil smart guy. The smart people you have to watch out for are the ones NOT trying to elevate everyone to the same levels of intelligence - someone who is smart but has no problem with letting others stay stupid is far more likely to be the one taking advantage of the significant advantage their intelligence gives them.

Someone with enough brains to see something stupid happening says "people are doing something stupid again, I sure wish they wouldn't," and that's a bad guy to you. It's also the bad guy to everyone who LIKES taking advantage of all the stupid out there. Trying to get everyone to be smarter is not in the interests of any of the smart bad guys. It's the smart good guys that eventually get sick of everyone being so fucking stupid all the time, and letting themselves be taken advantage of time after time after time.

I used to say the same thing. "I'd rather deal with nice stupid people than smart assholes." The exact same thing has come out of me numerous times. But you know what I've learned? THOSE AREN'T THE ONLY OPTIONS. I want to be in a world of smart nice people. It's easier to convince a smart person not to be an asshole than it is to convince a stupid person of the same. So while I am all for pushing for smartness AND niceness, when it does come down to one or the other, the latter will come much easier after we get the former covered.

Too many stupid people are so afraid of the big bad smart guy trying to pull one over on them - so they disregard the guy angry and frustrated with all the stupid crap we shouldn't be doing, and instead, they want to go for the nice friendly guy who insists there's nothing wrong with all the stupid going on, and people shouldn't be mean by reminding everyone that they're not all rocket scientists and sometimes someone else IS smarter and DOES know more about the subject at hand and IS a more valid perspective on what would make everything better. You ask people who they'd rather vote for, a guy who seems really smart, or a guy who makes obvious dumbshit mistakes, and most of them say they trust the 'down to earth' idiot because he's more relatable.

News flash: The human race doesn't advance by the power of stupid people. It's smart people dragging the stupid forward, kicking and screaming and fighting it all the way.

Is it any wonder why this country is hell-bent to be dragged down the shitter by all the stupid people no matter how hard the nice smart ones TRY to keep it afloat for them?

So what are we talking about here? Student loans? Loans? Interacting with banks in any way, shape, or form?

Certain current events. I'll just leave it at that.

Ooooooh you're one of the conspiracy theorists.

Have fun with that.

Um...okay? XD

If this refers to donating to FA for a change in hosting, I get why it appears a stupid decision XP. My own perspective is that I have made thousands of pounds over the years here and developed a fanbase, all with FA never requiring anything from me besides occasional patience with site clunkiness. If anyone has screwed anyone over it's me who's screwed FA. They've hosted and facilitated my work for years and I've given back essentially nothing. It's for this reason that I'm not critical of FA, however much I can empathise with the views of others. This is a userbase of mostly freeloaders, so I cut the site some slack.

Well in FA's case, it's the fact that this has pretty much become a regular thing. Almost like clockwork. It's quite obvious at this point that people are just getting suckered and I find it bizarre that people don't seem to mind throwing their money away again...and again...and again...and again. Nothing ever improves. Nothing ever changes. It just keeps going in a vicious never ending cycle and nobody seems to catch on.

I agree that this site is practically the definition of stagnation, it's almost exactly the same as it was when I joined in 2006 lol. I don't mind that, though. FA is free and it does what I need it to do; if it means donation drives now and then, even if it's just to keep things as they are, I don't see anything horrible in it. The promises over the years for new stuff that hasn't been delivered is rather sad, but nothing that has in any way negatively affected my life XP. I think people are too critical of FA. Not because theres nothing to criticize but because its mistakes and shortcomings don't have any real detrimental impact on anybody. I mean its fine to be critical but so many people are downright fucking venomous towards FA sometimes, like it fucked their mothers.

Well, I believe a lot of the venom is justified depending on the person. I've seen some pretty devious shit pulled on people here that has been downright inexcusable. I'll go deeper into it if you'd like, but not here. Shit would be a drama magnet like you wouldn't believe. Plus I'd probably get banned. XD

Haha yes, I know there are some people who have had fucked up run-ins with staff. I think they have perfectly good reasons to hate the place XP. Most of the anger I've seen from people, though, is the sort of entitled, petty rage that's all over video game communities; except that people actually paid for the games XP.