World, Writing, Wealth discussion
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Fake it until you make it
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Much of everything, I would say, including people themselves. Can you say that you never tried to describe yourself to a nice woman in glowing terms overstating your qualities? I suppose that Donald Trump would be a perfect example of someone overselling himself.
Michel wrote: "Can you say that you never tried to describe yourself to a nice woman in glowing terms overstating your qualities?..."-:) Me, I hope, no - just not my style, but agree that 'bravado' is a pretty frequent technique whether in courting, selling or writing -:)
It's rampant so buyer beware!
Can't get myself to do it, either, which may be why I do not fancy myself as much of a salesman.
Just how accurate do you usually find advertisements?
Not very, but not as bad as the instructions that usually go with the item. Often in little booklets with very small print and about 30 languages they tell you almost nothing you want to know.
How much do we really know about the stuff we buy? Don't you think everything negative will be deeply buried from a public eye lest impair sales?
Nik, that implies the manufacturer has done proper testing and knows. The usual situation, in my opinion, is they simply rushed to sell and make money and don't know much more than you do, until the complaints and law suits come in. There will also be the examples of "If we do this we can save money" without wondering exactly what else could go wrong.
Ian said, "that implies the manufacturer has done proper testing and knows. The usual situation, in my opinion, is they simply rushed to sell and make money and don't know much more than you do, until the complaints and law suits come in." I often think about this in regard to the vaccines.
At least the vaccines did get clinical trials. Something I bought recently clearly hadn't had serious trials. (I sent it back and got a refund :-) ).
Everything has been rushed, though, with the vaccines. Even though approved, there haven't been long-term studies of their effects on our bodies. I got the vaccines, but I understand why some don't want to.
When I had to decide, the probability of death at my age was over 10%. A clinical trial with over 40,000 people and no obvious problems suggests the probability of trouble is enormously greater by rejecting the vaccine. As for long term effects, if i have a problem from it twenty years on I shall be really surprised that I lived long enough to have them :-)
Ian wrote: "A clinical trial with over 40,000 people and no obvious problems ..."I can't know, of course, but I don't believe they didn't know about coronary muscle inflammation or other side effects, if there are. Assuming regular corporate culture, every pharma developer knew that if they hit the market among the first with a vaccine, their prize would be tens/hundreds of billion USD. What chances are they'd be forthcoming with anything that might cast doubt or imperil the temporary approval? They wanted to show the efficacy and maybe hide/downplay the problems, which started to surface later. Peer review & other safeguards? I'm sure they know how to pass through :)
As it's all risk vs benefit, agree with you that in your age category the benefit looks considerably greater though :)
I haven't seen any details of coronary muscle inflammation, but the good news (from my point of view) is two lots of Mr Pfizer's product has left me with adverse effects as far as I know. Of course I also knew a clinical trial with 40,000 people has a good number with the placebo so very rare interactions may well not show up at all. But I for one have no regrets.
Ian wrote: "I haven't seen any details of coronary muscle inflammation, but the good news (from my point of view) is two lots of Mr Pfizer's product has left me with adverse effects as far as I know. Of course..."Solely for you to be in the know https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/26/fda-a... :)
Glad you enjoy the vaccine.
The inflammation is mostly known for young males
We have massively more data from the live trials UK has given > 90m actual doses to > 90% of over 50s and adverse reactions are tiny in % terms. Much smaller than those in regular population. Also a correlation of adverse reaction is not causation.
There will always be the odd low probability bad reaction. Death from the virus is not exactly a beneficial reaction either. I follow von Neumann/Morganstern, do the maths, and go for the best benefit.probability in the payoff matrix :-)
I read an article today about depression. It suggested that you should smile regardless of how you feel and that your mood will improve. What do you think?
Some times it works, sometimes one allegedly gets caught (Charlie Javice):https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/04/bu...
Wonder what was the discrepancy on twitter's number of accounts in the end
As with almost everyone else, bad or sad things occasionally happen in my personal life. Whenever such things happen and I feel myself becoming depressed, I read the latest Associated Press news reports. It quickly becomes evident that there are many others who have things just as bad as my problems and, quite often, much worse things happening to them. This does not make my issues any better, but it provides the incentive needed not to feel sorry for myself, and instead, take into account all the good and happy things I have experienced.
Last week, I started my employer's mandated on-line seminars. First up was environmental policy.Somehow, safeguarding the environment requires DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion). I have no idea how equity is part of Environmentalism, but they proceeded to back-up their non sequitur by saying that in many third world countries women and girls spend most of their time gathering firewood, getting clean water, and cooking. They never made note of that being part of the normal division of labor in pre-industrial societies. They never mentioned that the male side of that division of labor involves dealing with large, dangerous animals and long hours of hard labor. (Ask someone who grew up on a farm before tractors were common.) And they spoke nary a word about how universal suffrage usually follows close on the heels of industrialization. And once again, I have no idea how we're fighting global warming by advancing industrialization and commercialism to increase equity.
I find this all especially silly because my division builds automated switch gear for large diesel generators. While the rest of the company is going great guns on solar panels, we're keeping the lights on during SHTF by burning dead dinosaurs. For us, reducing our ecological footprint would involve things like increasing the ratio of hot rolled to cold rolled steel in our parts or reducing the transport in our supply chain.
I guess you are lucky or “lucky” to get a “full package” of values under a singular environmentalism. A lot of hypocrisy is everywhere.Speaking of generators - I’ve just bought one as the scent of war became distinct in the air. I guess like in Ukraine, where most businesses and some individuals are armed by them already, enemies would target our grid first thing. I hope I’ll never need it, unless of course I buy a motorhome one day, but that only makes sense if I can travel far, which in its turn means we might need more peace treaties with the neighbors 🕊☮️✌️
I get DEI, but I think it's BS. We all have access to jobs depending on our education, experience, personality, and ability. I was a "minority" when I applied for my first job - before being a minority gave you an advantage. I got the job because I worked hard in college and had good character references. That predicts future job performance.
But what does DEI have to do with Environmentalism?
http://fortune.com/silicon-valley-sta...
Nothing surprising and some of us probably assume that there is a certain dimension of 'fake' in any biz or industry.
Volkswagen emissions scandal is also a big, recent example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswa...
But aren't the example just the reflection of the constant struggle to show only 'great' sides of any product, solution, biz, while omitting to mention any drawbacks, deficiencies, etc, to a point that the entire perception may be misleading? In certain areas governments step in by demanding certain marking like about the perils of smoking or drinking. Some others should be covered by general legislation, but become known only in the course of some scandal.
While discussing 'truth', 'facts' and others, these notions hardly apply to PR and marketing, which focus clearly only on the positive side of things and if it doesn't exist, may even 'create' one at times -:)
So to what degree is everything 'embellished' in your opinion?