What would you do with 500,000NT?

Discussion Open Forum
61

cfimages: People are not generally good. People are generally complex, self-serving, irrational. Mankind has ravaged itself since pre-history. There’s a body count of several hundred million from the 20th century alone. Those regimes, purges, holocausts, wars and all the rest of it were not run by a handful of maniacs at the top. They existed because large numbers of ordinary people visited petty evils upon others. Some had no choice. Others did so with glee. In only two nations in occupied Europe did the citizens rise up against the Holocaust, for instance. The citizens of other nations couldn’t wait to get their Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and any other “undesirables” on the trains to the death camps fast enough. The reprisals against Germans by people in Czechoslovakia or by the Red Army after the War were vicious. Then much of Europe lived under communism for decades. Even in supposedly more enlightened times, after vowing to never have another Holocaust, Europeans looked on limply while Yugoslavia descended into ethnic cleansing and the Yanks finally stepped in and said enough was enough. That says nothing of what happened, and is still happening, on other continents. So no, I don’t believe people are generally good.

I actually think plenty would be opposed to your kind of social engineering, but I don’t think we’ll agree on that.

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As a salaried worker you are guaranteed an income but also guaranteed never to earn more than x. Self employment with a view to floating or selling the company makes it possible to earn a very high income or large windfall but most people fail. What many of these studies don’t tell you is that at least half of the successful entrepreneurs have tried and failed multiple times before they hit on the right idea at the right time.

Although I never got a degree I don’t think it’s helpful when financial writers encourage people not to bother with education - not everyone is created equally. Most people with an entrepreneurial streak don’t need anybody telling them to quit school, they’ve already done it. However I do think there are too many people going into higher education (masters, PhDs or even double doctorates) without any real path or purpose.

In my late teens I was given a sum of money smaller than the OP’s windfall and immediately used it to travel. I did enjoy the travel and I guess I could say it enriched me on some level but I sincerely regret ignoring the advice that was given to me along with the money (to keep it invested in the stockmarket). I have since had other opportunities to travel much cheaper and more enjoyably and that money would have more quadrupled by now.

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Guy, you seem to have a very pessimistic view of the world. I feel sorry for you, as it appears that you have your eyes closed to the beauty and wonder that is everywhere.

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llary: You’re in about your late 30s or early 40s? It seems to have been about 1/4 of its current level around 1992, which was 19 years ago, which would put you at no older than 38, but it’s a little hard to read that chart. That chart also isn’t adjusted for inflation, I believe.

http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/historical/djia1900.html

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cfimages: No, I see a lot of positive things also. I just don’t think people are generally good or bad. As I said, I think they’re generally complex, self-serving and irrational. I don’t believe many people actually have a comprehensive plan for what they do or why they do it. I think they react, and in reacting, they’re heavily guided by biology (hence the bit about self-serving and irrationality). Sometimes, they choose to act differently. Sometimes, they don’t. Sometimes, they can. Sometimes, they can’t. Like I said, there’s complexity.

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GiT, I don’t mean to be funny, but I’d really like to know the ontological rationale for what you wrote above. Or is it just a gut-feeling?

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Oops, I missed that you qualified your statement as business education. Sorry about that. You’re right, of course. I was thinking in terms of the OP’s situation, and he’s interested in an MA in TESOL. My understanding is that the highest paying jobs in this field essentially require that or a very similar degree (e.g., applied linguistics, NOT English literature or even education). Even if he wanted to stay in Taiwan, he’d possibly have the option of teaching at a university or an MOE school. Personally, even if it were all a wash financially, I’d rather teach at one of those places than a buxiban.

Based on statements of various teachers here, it seems that many have the option of taking breaks for months at a time. Otherwise work the year round. In the US, most teachers have a 3 month break. I could be mistaken, but I believe Guy works at an MOE school and gets several weeks off per year plus free airfare.

Tell me about it.

68

I basically get approximately six weeks at summer, and whatever Chinese New Year/winter vacation works out to be.

Teachers in Australia theoretically get 12 weeks per year, in three blocks of two weeks (Easter, mid-year, September/October), plus six weeks at summer. It never works out even remotely close to that though if you have students in the last couple of years of school and/or if you work at a good school.

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jimi: There’s been a fair bit of research into where biology, cognitive science and psychology intersect. In short, I think the issue with humans is that we haven’t evolved nearly as quickly as our world has evolved around us (or rather as quickly as we’ve changed our world around us). We evolved under certain environmental conditions and we don’t live under those conditions anymore. The environmental stimuli we receive now are far more complex overall, though probably less complex in some ways. Yet our brains and those of humans before the last ice age are essentially the same. We simply aren’t adapted to dealing with these changed conditions, and it creates all sorts of problems for a lot of people all the time.

Also, even when we look at less technologically and legislatively/politically complex societies, we see that they were/are pretty irrational and self-serving places to live. Steven Pinker has basically dismissed the notion of the noble savage. People were/are far more likely to die violently at the hands of another human previously in history, or in less developed societies that currently exist (such as those in Irian Jaya/PNG). People do rape and pillage driven by pretty base drives and emotions.

The human animal is a thinker, tool-maker and artist, but he’s also a brute.

Does that answer your question or is that not what you meant?

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Have a read of Edward O. Wilson’s original work on Sociobiology. It’s a bit dated, but expresses many of the ideas Guy was talking about.

I take a very similar view of the world - but it’s not pessimism. It’s just taking the good with the bad. If anything, the evil in the world shows in sharp relief the beauty and wonder that remains. You cannot possibly assert that people are inherently good; despite wanting peace, security, etc etc. most humans are quite happy to throw Jews in gas chambers if given the chance (there are plenty of enlightening experiments on that subject). Inherently evil they are not; but irrational, definitely. And mostly, they’re just looking out for themselves. You can see that illustrated in pure form in the way people drive their SUVs in Taiwan. They’re not actually trying to kill you - they’re just not that bothered whether you live or die.

Actually, it probably is. Junk food is cheap because a lot of the raw materials are produced in countries where people are convinced that - for example - slashing down their forests for sugar cane, beef, or oil palm is “economic development”. A nine-year-old with a calculator could prove that it isn’t, but various well-placed people get new BMWs and big houses out of it, so they make sure the little guy thinks it’s all for their benefit and that big bad environmentalists are trying to take away their birthright. I imagine they also make an effort to ensure nine-year-olds can’t get calculators.

Conversely, a lot of very nutritious vegetables are hard-to-get and/or expensive because the places where they might be most efficiently grown are outside of the US and Europe (poor countries, mostly). Those rich countries use subsidies and tariffs to tip the scales so far in favour of their own farmers - who in any case are producing what distributors want, not what consumers want - that the doors are closed to importers. Some plants are banned outright - for example, it is effectively illegal to sell Stevia Rebaudiana (a sweet-tasting plant) in the US because, presumably, it would upset sugar interests. In the EU, anyone wishing to introduce a new food vegetable must go through a complex approval process unless the item is demonstrably similar to an already-approved one. Hence the very restricted selection of vegetables there.

However, the fact remains that all food is extremely cheap - at the farm gate. Logistics and retailing accounts for 80% of the retail price.

I guess it’s lucky humans are inherently good, eh - otherwise it could all be a lot worse :wink:

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finley: Precisely. I have moments that are purely sublime. For instance, I live in the East Rift Valley and there’s a particular mountain that dominates this region. I see it every day on the way to school and it always looks different – and always amazing – depending upon what the weather is like on that day, how much cloud cover there is (and so what kind of shadows are on it) and so on. I can walk outside my classroom and look in any direction and see a pretty awesome landscape.

Then there’s man-made stuff like certain music, movies, books, etc. that have blown/blow me away. This is, incidentally why I have no real desire for a career. I’m a bit of a generalist and there’s way too much cool stuff for me to want to spend the rest of my life doing one thing. There’s all sorts of stuff I would do if I had a pile of money, and anything resembling work would not be on that list, yet I also realise there are certain ways to get closer to that objective, and investing is one of them. Delayed gratification. I know more than the average person, yet I don’t find it inherently fascinating, so I palm it off onto someone else to take care of for me.

For me, one of the big issues is being self-aware enough to realise one’s limitations as a human being and finding ways to try to circumvent my inherent extreme irrationality as much as possible. Doesn’t always work, but that’s the objective.

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[quote=“finley”]

I take a very similar view of the world - but it’s not pessimism. It’s just taking the good with the bad. If anything, the evil in the world shows in sharp relief the beauty and wonder that remains. You cannot possibly assert that people are inherently good; despite wanting peace, security, etc etc. most humans are quite happy to throw Jews in gas chambers if given the chance (there are plenty of enlightening experiments on that subject). Inherently evil they are not; but irrational, definitely.[/quote]

Are they willing to do it, or are they just brainwashed into believing that “the other” is less than human? No one really knows how many Germans knew about the gas chambers - some sources say it was common knowledge, others say no more than 10% of the population. Who do you believe? Same thing today - there are approx 1.5 billion Muslims in the world and best estimates suggest that less than 10% support al Qaeda and terrorism.

Evil often looks a lot larger than it is.

Bush started what was basically an organized terror campaign against Iraq with the support of 70 or 80% of Americans? Does that make Americans evil? Of course not. Most were more or less brainwashed into believing Saddam was responsible for 9/11 and gave support accordingly. The rest of the world, which wasn’t brainwashed into believing that was 80% opposed to it.

People ARE basically good. Flawed, mistake making, confused, easily led yes, but basically good. Without 10-15 years of propaganda from the powers that be, most Germans would likely happily have lived with Jews. Without years of propaganda from the Republican party and Fox news, most Americans would know that the vast majority of Muslims don’t want to kill all Americans, and in fact share a lot of the same values and beliefs.

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[quote=“cfimages”][quote=“finley”]

I take a very similar view of the world - but it’s not pessimism. It’s just taking the good with the bad. If anything, the evil in the world shows in sharp relief the beauty and wonder that remains. You cannot possibly assert that people are inherently good; despite wanting peace, security, etc etc. most humans are quite happy to throw Jews in gas chambers if given the chance (there are plenty of enlightening experiments on that subject). Inherently evil they are not; but irrational, definitely.[/quote]

Are they willing to do it, or are they just brainwashed into believing that “the other” is less than human? No one really knows how many Germans knew about the gas chambers - some sources say it was common knowledge, others say no more than 10% of the population. Who do you believe? Same thing today - there are approx 1.5 billion Muslims in the world and best estimates suggest that less than 10% support al Qaeda and terrorism.

Evil often looks a lot larger than it is.

Bush started what was basically an organized terror campaign against Iraq with the support of 70 or 80% of Americans? Does that make Americans evil? Of course not. Most were more or less brainwashed into believing Saddam was responsible for 9/11 and gave support accordingly. The rest of the world, which wasn’t brainwashed into believing that was 80% opposed to it.

People ARE basically good. Flawed, mistake making, confused, easily led yes, but basically good. Without 10-15 years of propaganda from the powers that be, most Germans would likely happily have lived with Jews. Without years of propaganda from the Republican party and Fox news, most Americans would know that the vast majority of Muslims don’t want to kill all Americans, and in fact share a lot of the same values and beliefs.[/quote]

People could always do their own research. People could always ask a few questions. Easy cop-out to say they’re brainwashed.

Regarding Germany, not so. Anti-Semitism has a very long history in Europe. What makes the example of Germany especially horrible was that Germany wasn’t a society of uneducated peasants. At some level, I can understand and accept what happened in Cambodia (though not entirely). Broader Germanic culture (i.e. the German speaking people inside and outside Germany itself) at that time was highly educated and had produced an enormous number of intellectuals, artists, etc. (many of them Jews). The German people should have known better. I don’t believe for a second that they didn’t know what was going on. They were willingly complicit.

On the other hand, the Danes and the Bulgarians (and no one would regard the Bulgarians as having been more advanced culturally and intellectually than the Germans at the time) knew damned well what was happening and took a stand.

Actually, I don’t even believe nations such as the U.S.A., U.K., Canada or Australia didn’t know what was going on.

Read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89vian_Conference

They knew damned well what was happening in Nazi Germany in 1938 and they turned a blind eye. You’ll note also that the international press was present. That they all later wagged their fingers at Nuremberg was complete hypocrisy.

The only country willing to really address the issue was the Dominican Republic.

So no, again, I don’t believe people are basically good. Evil requires footmen, and there are always plenty to be found.

People in different parts of the world don’t share the same beliefs otherwise they’d obviously have very similar societies. If/when we get to the point where there’s one world culture, then we can make the claim that people basically share the same beliefs.

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Not going to do any more german / jew discussion. There are credible sources for both pov.

On societies, of course culture and traditions mean there are differences, even within countries but the underlying basis is similar. The coming together of family and friends, ritual and religion, feasts and celebrations, sports and play, music, art etc, are basically universal. Different forms sure but similar desires and motivations.

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I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree then.

Anyway, I’d like to hear more from llary.

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You’re almost exactly a decade off :slight_smile: I was actually given a few k in UK stocks that happened to do very well over the past 10 years. Unfortunately at the time I didn’t see gifted money in the same way as earned money and sold them almost immediately.

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So what happened? Did the OP blow it all on booze and hookers?

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I’m still earning it!

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[quote=“trubadour”]I’ve an idea, but wondered what you guys would do.
For the record, I can see only two options: take a year to get a masters or take a year to travel back home, overland. Quick pro of the former is a possible future in employment. Downside is giving money to a university. Quick pro of the latter is, you know, “my kingdom for the road”… A drawback is, well, the romantic, ever appealing, ‘home’ illusion; not to mention the ‘on the road’ fantasy.
500,000NT is about 10,000GBP, 20k USD
Any other ideas!?[/quote]

I’d definitely spend it…

80

I plan to have twice this amount saved up (or more) in 2 years which will allow me to travel (6 months or so) and still have more than enough to get set up in the US for a teaching degree.