This has influenced my entire idea of spending money:
“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
This was the Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”
If the penalty for breaking a law is a fine, that law only exists for poor people.
Not my circus, not my monkeys.
Used this against my controlling mother, who liked to lay BS at my feet and make me think it was my responsibility to fix. When it was HER that caused the whole thing. The look on her face when I hit her with that phrase and just turned around and left was priceless.
There a LOT of things that are just flat not your problem, even if someone else tries to make it yours.
“Let go, or be dragged.”
It’s simple, yet so meaningful.
It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness, that is life.
I find that this is particularly difficult for conservative, “pull yourself up from your bootstraps” types to understand. Some people think poor people, or those who have fallen into misfortune, were makers of their own tragedy. While it may sometimes be the case, I believe that more often than not, these people were just unlucky enough to born at the wrong place, at the wrong time, into the wrong family, neighbourhood, or country.
There are poor people inventing incredible things every day, but nobody around them has the power nor connections to make anything out of it. I watched a video of people who made a bike out of wood that could carry half a tonne, down an unpaved road at relatively high speeds, while metal bikes in developed countries have ratings for people under 150kg. But because those poor bike-makers were born where they were and had to toil in order to survive, day in and day out, there was never enough time for them for make their inventions a product to be produced and sold to the masses. Yet somewhere, there’s a conservative prick saying these people are lazy or aren’t smart.
First thought that came to me as well. Thank You Captain Picard…
This could have also been said by any speedrunner in a game with even a single RNG event.
What you do when you don’t have to, makes you who you are.
I used to think of myself as a complete pacifist, but these words haven’t left my mind since I heard them:
You think you’re better than everyone else, but there you stand: the good man doing nothing. And while evil triumphs and your rigid pacifism crumbles into bloodstained dust, the only victory afforded to you is that you stuck true to your guns.
Of course this only applies to defense, never to offense (especially “preemptive defense”), but I can’t really argue against it.
Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.
Housing can’t be both affordable and a good investment.
Variation of this: Poor people rent, that’s how they stay poor.
In my language it goes : “Alone you go faster, together you go further”.
I like that one!
“It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness. That is life.”
-Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Making fun of the weak (poor, minorities, etc) is easy because they can’t fight back, that’s why the best comedy is the one that upsets the powerful.
Some of the 1970s comedies in the UK haven’t aged too well in this regard.
Never do anything you would be afraid to explain to the paramedics.
Hurt people hurt people.
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I call it The Subtle Art of Shutting the Fuck Up.
Narcissist: Yes. Yes. And, Yes. LOUD NOISES ensue
I’ve found that every time, the less I speak, the wiser I sound. And I don’t mean that in the “better to stay silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt” sense—though that’s true too.
I’ve gotten far more mileage and respect by letting others dominate conversations, then dropping one or two sharp questions or comments that show I’ve been paying close attention and actually understand what’s going on. That says more than any deep dive into minutiae ever could—especially when those tangents usually reveal more about what I don’t know than what I do.
I just started a new job, and the kickoff meeting was today. I put that strategy to use—barely said a word for 45 minutes. I probably looked like a dud hire. But by the end I think I came off as the smartest motherfucker in the room. I doubt I actually was—I’m probably the only person there without a four-year degree—but perception is a hell of a thing.
Having had to work with people, manage people, hire and fire people. I would say that having a higher education does not equate to a persons level of smartness, knowledge, or intelligence in any reasonable way.
Maybe, but I figure if every single one of them has a degree, the odds have to be in their favor that at least one of them is smarter than me. And if not, well I just proved how dumb I am by thinking that. QED.
That said, you’re right, too many places hold that degree in too high esteem. It wasn’t important for the first twenty to twenty-five years of my career, but now I’m finding it really puts a ceiling on how far I can go. I’m working under tech leads who have fifteen years less experience than I do. Have to see if I can get hired internal from my contract (which takes special waivers for non-degreed folks) and then advance internally.
It was so bad, when my last contract ended, I had two managers invite me to apply for openings with them and my resume was auto-rejected by their hiring system.
If more people on this planet would make these considerations we would all be so much better for it.
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As long as we keep trying!
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apparently
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i really wish it didn’t
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no time like the present
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I come to ask myself these questions more and more. However, people thinking I’m dull and uninteresting is a downside… or is it?
