Miscellaneous Issues of Little Importance

[John Gaunt]

Perhaps the last page or two of posts could be hived off to a new thread to discuss Billy’s Einstein like abilities at leisure?

[msmob]

Sure, we don't want to dilute Trench's stupidity with someone else's

[John Gaunt]

Sure, we don't want to dilute Trench's stupidity with someone else's

Indeed, the richness of TC’s offerings must be observed in their entirety.

[msmob]

If I agreed with you on everything, I'd fit your definition of a very smart person. I'll stick to being your definition of dumb.

I think you post stupid things and KNOW you are nowhere near being a genius at Maths ... but you can't be THAT dumb if you manage to run a biz or get someone to run it for you ....

You ARE the definition of a guy who doesn't know when he's beaten and wrong ....

[BillyB]

Trench bashing over and over and over and over again is more appropriate, mature, and on topic. Doesn't need to be moved to the garbage pile.

[msmob]

Trench bashing over and over and over and over again is more appropriate, mature, and on topic. Doesn't need to be moved to the garbage pile.

Are you 'jealous', BillyB ?

If the board wasn't called RWD and not daft things 'BillyB writes' - you would assuredly have a thread all of your own :


Edited to add


Oh wait a min...

There's that 'willy waving' thread ..

[John Gaunt]

Trench bashing over and over and over and over again is more appropriate, mature, and on topic. Doesn't need to be moved to the garbage pile.

Trench bashing......
More like the re education of Trench.
Regarding your posts, they come across as, Mine is bigger than yours, more appropriate for kindergarten.

[BillyB]

Regarding your posts, they come across as, Mine is bigger than yours, more appropriate for kindergarten.

Well if yours isn't big enough and you're jealous, do something about it. Make something out of yourself.

Regarding your posts, the overwhelming majority are quoting Trench and insulting him, more appropriate for kindergarten.

Some people here are obsessed with Trench and follow him around. Strange behavior. Do what most normal people do. Give him advice and move along.

[msmob]

Hence the 'willy waving' title ?

Awaiting Billy's responses to JG to end up here - before wondering what BillyB doesn't categorise as 'strange' given the places he tells us he's had fumblings 

[John Gaunt]

Well if yours isn't big enough and you're jealous, do something about it. Make something out of yourself.

Regarding your posts, the overwhelming majority are quoting Trench and insulting him, more appropriate for kindergarten.

Some people here are obsessed with Trench and follow him around. Strange behavior. Do what most normal people do. Give him advice and move along.

How you choose to interpret posts is entirely up to you. Carry on.

[John Gaunt]

Hence the 'willy waving' title ?

Yes, quite. Persons with an inferiority complex concerning that part of their anatomy do tend to project.

[krimster2]

confucius say, "man who has sex problem, will often have solution in hand"

[krimster2]

billy....billy....

why is it when someone begins a sentence with, "true story bro", that whatever follows will have "no collusion" tacked on the end
i'm not sure of your age, so depending on that maybe things are different from my experience, but:

never heard ANYONE call it "ASVAB" but always "AFQT", back me up fellow vets
who would give the test to a 15 yr old?  the test was ONLY available at the induction center, wasn't even available at the "recruiter"
but I'm sure there was "No Collusion"

I dig, why people reacted to what I wrote, I am VERY protective of youngsters both male and female
without context, which is impossible to convey here, I would have reacted the same way to what I wrote
both US and Canada are based on Anglo Saxon culture, which has a large amount of puritanical religious values (Soviet thinking is even worse)
sex is dirty, unclean, debasing...
I COMPLETELY reject that, I am a libertine
if BOG didn't mean for us to enjoy our sensuality, then why was it given to us?

[Bee Farmer]

never heard ANYONE call it "ASVAB" but always "AFQT", back me up fellow vets
who would give the test to a 15 yr old?  the test was ONLY available at the induction center, wasn't even available at the "recruiter"

The ASVAB is a 10 section test.  The AFQT just looks at 4 of the 10 sections.
I always heard it called the ASVAB.

When I was in high school, recruiters would come to the high school and give the ASVAB to 9th-12th graders.  That's 15-18 year olds.  You got to skip stupid classes if you took the test, so I took the test.

The recruiters told me that there was no job in the military that I was not mentally able to do.  (Maybe that was a dig at a skinny kid.)  Contacting parents about getting a kid as a nuclear officer seems suspect.  The recruiters did suggest that I should think about military intelligence, but they never contacted my parents.  I took the test as a freshman in high school, so I would have been 15 also.  Most guys waited until their senior year to take the ASVAB.

[krimster2]

dunno beefarmer

billy's description of  "It had 60 questions that had to be answered in 2 minutes. I finished in 1 minute."
bears no similarity to the ASVAB test I took back in the 70's AT ALL, so color me skeptical, he could answer 1 question per second, really?
I'm sure it's undergone many changes since then
when I was in the MILITARY the ASVAB test was ALWAYS REFERRED to as the AFQT, because the military only cared about the AFQT score derived from this test
hence within the military it was always called the AFQT test
but you would not know this, cuz you weren't a vet
and beefarmer, was asking vets, are you a vet? I know you wanna get in your little "dig" against me
and as usual failed...

and BTW billy, not a test to brag about, it was incredibly simple, there's a reason why military manuals are sometimes published in comic book format
the test was on the level

[krimster2]

“There is a light year of distance between doing well on the ASVAB, scoring in the top 1% and the military wanting you to be an officer in a nuke related field. It just doesn't add up”

on the electronics section, I scored a perfect score 100% correct score, but gimme a break, here’s the schematic symbol of a transistor, which lead is the emitter, here are some electronic symbols, which one is a resistor, could do this in my sleep, after the test, testing officer comes over and is looking me up and down to figure out how I cheated, so I reached into my wallet and withdrew my Novice Class Ham Radio License, and then he left me alone
however, shortly after that, a very jovial NCO came out and said, “hey let’s go over to my office and have a chat"  and he introduced me to the “Army Security Agency", and that’s all I can ACTUALLY say about that.  today, my best friend in Russia had the exact same position in the GRU that I had in the ASA at exactly the same time, I guess our friendship was predestined

SAT and Stanford-Binet are WAY more difficult, this is the simplest aptitude/intelligence test i’ve ever taken in my life, it’s not MEANT to be difficult

when I took the test, the US military was changing from a mixed conscription/volunteer to all volunteer force, so I can see if there were changes, either in the test itself or its availability, now I see it’s even on-line, back in my day there wasn’t this universal access, this change surprised me, sorry for my old fogey info....


billy, me thinks you're fond of telling stories, normally I wouldn't appreciate it, but your cemetery story redeems you, cuz I think that story ACTUALLY happened
please sir, could I have another

 

[krimster2]

“Sex and reproduction are biological, as you stated, but if the root of all sex, or reproduction, were as straightforward and base as you suggest, there would be no centuries of poetry and prose on love, or modern day love songs, let alone religious texts.  People wouldn't leave their partners for less "biologically desirable" partners.



BO reproductive biology is not “base”, it’s actually quite elegant
if you’ll pardon me for saying so, I think your attitude is based on the Judeo-Christian belief that anything that comes from the body is impure and dirty

our form of “romantic love” has its origins in the “age of chivalry”, singing troubadours and the like, going back further in time to the Roman period, and you have QUITE a different popular view of sex

so romance and its expression is a relatively newer western cultural phenomena

also, many animals do “pair-bonding”, I’ve seen geese do this myself

[Boethius]

Reproduction requires no special intellectual or even physical skill.  That is what I mean.  It has zero to do with religion, and you are completely mistaken in attributing to me attitudes I do not hold.

You are also mistaken in your views on the timeline of romantic love.  Ever heard of Eros?  Or the myth of Eros and Psyche? 

Plato wrote about romantic love.

[krimster2]

“Reproduction requires no special intellectual or even physical skill. “

nor does hammering a nail into a piece of wood, anyone can do it, however there are master carpenters and wood working artists, if you get my analogy, but that’s somewhat extraneous to the discussion



“Plato wrote about romantic love”

I assume you’re referencing “The Symposium” have you ever seen the contemporary depiction of that lofty event

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Symposiumnorthwall.jpg


“Pausanias, the legal expert of the group, introduces a distinction between a nobler and a baser kind of love, which anticipates Socrates' discourse. The base lover is in search of sexual gratification, and his objects are women and boys. He is inspired by Aphrodite Pandemos (Aphrodite common to the whole city). The noble lover directs his affection towards young men, establishing lifelong relationships, productive of the benefits described by Phaedrus. This love is related to Aphrodite Urania (Heavenly Aphrodite), and is based on honoring one's partner’s intelligence and wisdom.

yeahhhh, well I don’t know about that...

when you mention Eros, I am assuming you are referencing the deity, what the Romans would later call Cupid, the original definition would be closer to our definition of “lust” and not love

Éros (ἔρως érōs) means "love, mostly of the sexual passion. The Modern Greek word "erotas" means "intimate love". Plato refined his own definition: Although eros is initially felt for a person, with contemplation it becomes an appreciation of the beauty within that person, or even becomes appreciation of beauty itself. Plato does not talk of physical attraction as a necessary part of love, hence the use of the word platonic to mean, "without physical attraction". In the Symposium, the most famous ancient work on the subject, Plato has Socrates argue that eros helps the soul recall knowledge of beauty, and contributes to an understanding of spiritual truth, the ideal "Form" of youthful beauty that leads us humans to feel erotic desire – thus suggesting that even that sensually based love aspires to the non-corporeal, spiritual plane of existence; that is, finding its truth, just like finding any truth, leads to transcendence.[7] Lovers and philosophers are all inspired to seek truth through the means of eros.

I get this COMPLETELY BO, it is EXACTLY my experience
and don’t see how my views contradict this

it becomes an appreciation of the beauty within that person, or even becomes appreciation of beauty itself.

the ideal "Form" of youthful beauty that leads us humans to feel erotic desire – thus suggesting that even that sensually based love aspires to the non-corporeal, spiritual plane of existence

these are exactly my experiences

this is such a broad subject with so much intimate detail, I could never do it justice, and especially on RWD, I hope the few meager bits I provided here are sufficient to show you MY beliefs based on MY experience

without biology we would never "be led" to feel erotic desire the stepping stone to an appreciation of beauty

[Boethius]

No, based on what you've posted, I don't think you get it. 

What Plato refers to (which is in many works) is a love that is immortal.  It rises above physical attraction.

Biology merely gives us the drive to mate.  But it can be overcome, or suppressed (choose your verb), as ascetics prove.

[krimster2]

Krimster Contra Boethius

“is a love that is immortal”

the language of philosophy is so darned hard for me to interpret, the word “immortal” in this context, makes no sense to me

transcendent might be a better word, certainly one I understand in this context, and fits in within what I think Plato was saying

Plato felt that the ideal "Form" of youthful beauty leads us to feel erotic desire
Erotic desire to me is based on an intrinsic desire that is hardwired in us, and relates to reproductive biology, otherwise a beautiful computer or work of art that is reflective of something other than the ideal human form would lead to a state of arousal, it doesn’t for me

I think what Plato was saying is that there is a hierarchy of experiencing love, at the lowest level it’s basically “lust” or sexual passion, and the next level is appreciation of the beauty within that person, and at the next level after that, becomes appreciation of beauty itself, I think what Rousseau described as “being in love with love”

this is to me a fair description of my own experience of love
and to some degree I think this is a universal human experience, which can express itself infinitely, so it never looks the same to an observer

ok, this is as clearly as I can describe my own theory of love which closely parallels Plato’s (I think)
so please provide your critique of it, AND add your own definition, but please make it simple, and not use ambiguous language, and let’s see where we differ

[BdHvA]

If anyone wishes to understand the differences of the types of love. I would suggest 'The Four Loves' of C. S. Lewis.

Written from a Christian apologist stand point it is simple and a clear explanation with basic definitions. Few theologians or secular people dispute the explanations.

[krimster2]

"Few theologians or secular people dispute the explanations."

count me then, among the few...
I love God every bit as much as I love the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny
but my kids loved "Narnia"

[SteveInBoston]

There is a light year of distance between doing well on the ASVAB, scoring in the top 1% and the military wanting you to be an officer in a nuke related field. It just doesn't add up.

Nothing really unusual about that.  In the 80's and 90's the Navy looked for top academic students in high schools to join their Navy Nuclear School program.  It is a full scholarship to university on the Navy's dime and in-turn you had to promise minimum service (6 years?) as a nuclear officer in submarines and possibly aircraft carriers.  During university you had to join ROTC.

After university you are sent to navy nuclear school, submarine school and officer candidacy school.  You have to pass those classes and then start your service.  I had a college buddy who dropped out at the nuclear school stage - he was a new husband and father and couldn't handle the class with the added stress at home.  He was on the hook of re-paying the navy for the scholarship, but I think they forgave the loan after 2 or 3 years of repayment.

I qualified for the program but decided against it.  I took a different scholarship which payed 1/2 my university costs but had no follow-up commitments. 

[krimster2]

“I didn't perform calculus when I was 3 but after taking a test in high school and finishing high in the top 1% in the nation, the military wrote my parents a letter telling them they want me in their nuke program as an officer.”

“True story bro. I was 15 when I took the ASVAB test. Military wrote my parents the letter since I was too young to approach.”





Billy, I was 17 yr old when I walked into the recruiters office
they were loath to contact my parents, I needed parental permission to join the Army because of my age, so they handed ME the form to present to my parents to sign (that was a lively event!).

recruiters are savvy business people, they get promotions/bonuses based on filling their quota of canon fodder, they know from their own experience with angry parents, that not all parents approve of child soldiers, especially when it’s their own children... 
their business relies upon discretion...





“I did withhold certain experiences because some people would just explode”



yeah, I saw that in you, at first I thought it was amusing, but the laughter is beginning to slip away now...

deep down inside, I think you are a very sad and lonely man
if this board helps you, then fine, I don’t have the right to take it away from you, or the desire to
but I see who you are BillyB, and YOU know what I’m talking about