What are things that everyone ought to understand, but many don't?

Why can't people just attend to themselves and those around them and then mind their own damn business?
defines political animals as those who live together for some common function. specifically, he writes that “animals that live politically are those that have any kind of activity in common, which is not true of all gregarious animals. of this sort are: man, bee, wasp and crane” (Aristotle, 1955, 1.1.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.540...s political animals as,(Aristotle, 1955, 1.1.

A critical Analysis of Aristotle's Account of the Political Animal


Before the internet, I thought I would die from intellectual starvation. This forum may not be the best one for me, but some of you are intellectual and a pleasure to share ideas with.

Coming from the Enlightenment some of us enjoy believing we can create a better world by learning and sharing what we learn with each other. True this is not a trivial pleasure but when Jefferson wrote of our freedom to pursue happiness, he was paraphrasing Cicero and Greek philosophers who thought happiness followed gaining knowledge and wisdom.
 
Now I see people in poor physical condition or doing something that shouldn't be done and I want to stop them and tell them how important good health practices are. 😄 Yeah, like people are really to appreciate that.
Yes! It breaks my heart to see an overweight person jogging. They are ruining their knees! I want to stop them, but to attempt to do so would be to accost them, and we mustn't do that. :(
 

is assuming you know me
No, I was questioning you and looking forward to your reply.

My reply means I believe we should teach our children how to do this.

I think when a parent can not meet the child's needs, the child learns to want nothing and ask for nothing, even if what is wanted is something to eat. I believe this reality is very harmful. I think we might create a better reality if we understood the destructive force of poverty and never knowing security.
 
Oh really... my friend and I hate the site of a young person standing alone on a corner with a table full of huge bags of oranges, hoping to sell them. There they stand in the intense heat and cold, and there is no way they are paid minimum wage. What they are doing is the desperation of poverty and that is pretty abominable to me.
I was sincere when I said your sheltering of homeless people was admirable.

Desperate people are easily exploited, sad to say. I don't know how much street corner fruit sellers are paid, but in Mexico, Central and South America, street hawkers are a common sight - and not just in high-tourist areas.

Many jobs are performed outdoors, or mostly outdoors, and all are punishing during extreme temperatures. I feel sorry for anyone who works outdoors when the weather is lousy.
 
You are an honest person. To wish illness and death on others is not something most people admit to.
I said that in sarcastic anger to the person I had quoted who was griping endlessly about all the extra money smokers and obese people supposedly cost the government. I was a smoker for 25 years and I've had a weight problem since a week after I quit smoking, so I've always fit one of those categories.

I actually had a person say, to my face in a Sunday School class, after I had admitted I was a smoker, "The only good thing about smokers is that they die young."

I know sarcasm is not always easy to recognize in print, but even at face value I wasn't saying I was looking forward to anyone's death but pointing out a fact that the overall cost to the health system in smokers vs non-smokers is not what most people think and the holier than thou people who work out everyday and eat nothing but kale still get sick sometimes and are going to die some day just like the rest of us and it's that end of life care that is a whopping percentage of total life health care costs.
 
I know sarcasm is not always easy to recognize in print, but even at face value I wasn't saying I was looking forward to anyone's death but pointing out a fact that the overall cost to the health system in smokers vs non-smokers is not what most people think and the holier than thou people who work out everyday and eat nothing but kale still get sick sometimes and are going to die some day just like the rest of us and it's that end of life care that is a whopping percentage of total life health care costs.
This!
 
I said that in sarcastic anger to the person I had quoted who was griping endlessly about all the extra money smokers and obese people supposedly cost the government. I was a smoker for 25 years and I've had a weight problem since a week after I quit smoking, so I've always fit one of those categories.

I actually had a person say, to my face in a Sunday School class, after I had admitted I was a smoker, "The only good thing about smokers is that they die young."

I know sarcasm is not always easy to recognize in print, but even at face value I wasn't saying I was looking forward to anyone's death but pointing out a fact that the overall cost to the health system in smokers vs non-smokers is not what most people think and the holier than thou people who work out everyday and eat nothing but kale still get sick sometimes and are going to die some day just like the rest of us and it's that end of life care that is a whopping percentage of total life health care costs.
Thank you, Della, for setting me straight!
 
No, I was questioning you and looking forward to your reply.



I think when a parent can not meet the child's needs, the child learns to want nothing and ask for nothing, even if what is wanted is something to eat. I believe this reality is very harmful. I think we might create a better reality if we understood the destructive force of poverty and never knowing security.
I agree and one of the major contributors to poverty is already impoverished people bringing children into the world when they cannot afford to care for them. If you cannot afford to care for yourself don't have children.
 
I agree and one of the major contributors to poverty is already impoverished people bringing children into the world when they cannot afford to care for them. If you cannot afford to care for yourself don't have children.
Can you be more specific about which groups of people you believe you're so superior to?
 
Going with the OP's question, 'what are things that everyone ought to understand, but many don't'...

If I don't join in to other's conversations, does not mean I dislike you or I feel
the subject isn't worth discussion.

During my working life, I rarely joined into 'chit-chat'.
Most people saw this as 'he's a Cold Sort or a 'Bah Humbug' type.
Some of us just have a hard time dealing the basic types of conversations because we never
really learned how to express ourselves.

Sometimes I wonder why I joined a discussion forum.
Guess I wanted to give it another try at connecting with people.

So far, it's been worth the effort.
 


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