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The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

nytimes.com

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Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#251

Post by pound »

sologoub wrote: post #210
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure these solutions would work. Institute free universal healthcare paid for through the tax system, spend money on empowering women and helping families with children (including family planning), and make education free up to and including college. To finance it, tax the rich, dismantle 4/5ths of the US military and stop fueling wars overseas. But that's called socialism and is (unlike actual treason) treated like…

You can’t force people to accept treatment in US. While these might slow growth of the homeless population in dire need of medical help, it won’t prevent it. To have no homeless, you have to have both resourcing for housing/medical, but also be willing to use force to compel those unwilling to get treatment/be housed where they have little choice. That’s a very tough leap to make. The choice part never made sense to…

You can force someone if that person is dangerous to self or others (mental health treatment).

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#252

Post by PurpleBoxDragon »

closeparen wrote: post #222
ptaipale wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Related: Rich Kids Study English "New data shows that students whose parents make less money pursue more “useful” subjects, such as math or physics." https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/college...

Yes. The liberal arts are “the objects of study worthy of a free person” as opposed to a wage slave. The public university system was meant to make these aristocratic pursuits available to the masses. Until costs exploded, it worked.

Even if it was free, the ability of the non nobles to provide for themselves as they don't have a family to live off of is something they really should take into account when pursuing a degree. And one can always earn two degrees in 4 years, one for the aristocratic pursuits, one so that retirement is possible.

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#253

Post by BeetleB »

projektir wrote: post #30
mrb wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a practical thought experiment that might help you: picture yourself many years from now, on your deathbed; would you have more regrets of having gone down path A or B?

My issue with this thought experiment is that I'm not convinced that one's thoughts at one's deathbed have a lot of value. Being lucid at one's deathbed is already a positive situation that might simply not happen under some circumstances.

I think you're taking it too literally. Let's say you are 60 years old, in perfectly good mental health, and are diagnosed with a terminal illness and will not live longer than a few months.

I rarely do this exercise, but it has been helpful at times. It's a lot simpler to do if you're older (late 30's or higher). You can look back at your pursuits over the last few decades and can actually see things like "Oh, I've been learning new programming languages for so many years now. How useful has it been?" If I extrapolate for another decade or two, will I be happy at age 50 or 60 with the outcome if I continue with these activities?

I have many more pursuits than I can do in this life. When you're younger, you usually don't limit your options because you feel you have a lot of time. When you're 40, you can easily say "I've been doing this for 20 years. If I don't change/prioritize, I'll soon be at 60. Is this stuff worth doing at the expense of other pursuits?"

This year I ticked off two bucket items. I had been putting them off for too long. IMO, it is worth thinking that way.

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#254

Post by commandlinefan »

axiom92 wrote: post #163
commandlinefan wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> could be simply called "class differences" Yeah, seriously. My family has been American for at least four generations. I can tell by looking in the mirror that I'm at least 95% European, but I have no idea from where - before about my great-grandparents, there isn't much genealogy to follow, and for the most part that's because most of my ancestors were trying to keep a low profile and avoid having any records that…

> I'm at least 95% European, but I have no idea from where Try 23andme?

My wife convinced me to do one of those this year actually - not 23andme, maybe ancestry.com? It's the one where you spit in a tube and mail it in. The results came back 98% Caucasian, northern Europe, and a lot of other stuff that looked like they just randomly made it up to make me feel like they really did something. I told one of my (Mexican) wife's (Mexican) friends that the results confirmed that I'm the whitest white guy in town and he said, "I could have save you $200 and told you that!"

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#255

Post by [deleted] »

ptaipale wrote: post #122
spyckie2 wrote: post #47

The harsh reality of 1st or 2nd generation Chinese is that while many of us went to the top universities and grew up with a modern, 1st world mindset, we can't escape the fact that our financial and family background is from the developing world, and we live in both worlds at once - our mindset is modern, but the issues and problems of the developing world are still very much things we have to deal with. I first enco…

That experience is not restricted to "3rd world". I think what you describe could be simply called "class differences". Even what we now call 1st world countries had incredible poverty some 60 years back and it's not so long back, even if the face of poverty has recently changed from lack of opportunity to lack of achievement. Up to 1980's, in the Finnish welfare state where I grew up, you would see men who slept in…

[deleted]

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#256

Post by BeetleB »

mrb wrote: post #202
adrianN wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not very practical, as you don't know how the future will turn out. If they start a startup and succeed they'll likely be happy about that decision. It's very hard to figure out expected outcomes for actions, and it's not very productive to think about worst-case (or best-case) outcomes.

I don't think I explained myself very well. You don't need to predict the future. You just need to estimate the amount of regret you would have by NOT doing something. Living a fulfilling life is about minimizing regrets. People regret not trying to initiate relationships with potential soulmates. People regrets not trying working on a business idea that could have been very successful. People regret not spending mor…

>Living a fulfilling life is about minimizing regrets.

While I very much agree with your advice on thinking of how you'll feel on your deathbed, I would be careful in your phrasing. People often make poor decisions about the future because they are overly concerned with whether they will regret a decision or not. You will find many who believe that focusing on regret will get in the way of life satisfaction, and it is a perspective worth considering.

For me, it makes sense to make some achievable goals (relationship, career, hobbies/activities, etc). Then start paring and prioritizing. Without the latter, I will always have more things I would like to achieve than is possible, and will always have regrets - it's rather pointless.

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#257

Post by 40acres »

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #89
40acres wrote: post #2

I've been struggling with dream fulfillment vs. pragmatism for weeks now. The dillema is this: I only have a finite amount of time on the weekends and after work -- should I work on this side project idea that I want to turn into a start up or dedicate the time to study for interviews and secure my future with a high salary. Its been gnawing at me for weeks now and I think after reading this I've made my decision.. m…

weeks!? ...

Haha, actually now that I think about Ive been stuck in this rut for a year. But the past few weeks have been really intense.

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#258

Post by DoubleCribble »

ChristianBundy wrote: post #231
DoubleCribble wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won't map because of our national obsession with crime and punishment . I'd bet dollars to donuts that it's far cheaper to put a drunk in a homeless shelter AND give him treatment (AlAnon, etc) than it is to lock him in a cage with a herd of sociopaths. But the Prison Industrial Complex has got to look out for its own, after all.

> a herd of sociopaths I agree with everything you said except for this. The idea that many/most/all prisoners are violent or sociopathic is a myth propagated by those who stand to benefit from the prison industrial complex. Prisoners are human and prisons are inhumane. For another take, here's the IWW IWOC[0]: > Incarcerated people are legally slaves as per the 13th Amendment which abolished "slavery and involuntary…

I wasn't making any claim to the tendencies of many/most/all prisoners. My point was that putting non-violent petty offenders in jail/prison puts them in the path of a concentration of sociopathic people, those who really should be kept out of society.

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#259

Post by biztos »

mywittyname wrote: post #248
biztos wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the issue with brown shoes?

"When in town, don't wear brown" is the adage. I'm not British, but I've worked for several British companies and this topic has come up in conversation when I complimented someone on their black shoes with a Navy suit, as it's a combination that I never thought to pair (I hate black shoes). My understanding is brown shoes are considered to be sporty or informal Britons. It's something you'd wear to go hunting or on…

Interesting, thanks! My only dress shoes are brown, so that should help me stay out of fintech at least. :-)

Re: The Bitter Regrets of a Useless Chinese Daughter

#260

Post by Markoff »

sturgill wrote: post #241
genghisjahn wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My parents didn't have a lot of extra money for things, so I rarely asked for the moon. I only asked for things I thought they could provide. But when they couldn't (not enough $), they couldn't and that was how it was explained. "I know you want this, I want you to have it, but I can't." As a child that is disappointing but understandable. For my children, when they ask for something I'm rarely not able to buy it fo…

"We can't afford that" was the default phrase growing up. I didn't push back, but I also didn't really learn (so to speak). Every one of my siblings (myself included) followed a similar pattern: as soon as we started making money, we bought what we wanted (because we finally could). We were only really taught that "no" was because one couldn't, not because one shouldn't. My social experiment with my own children is s…

somehow this reminded me my father, we were pretty poor until my parents got divorced and necessity forced my father to be successful in his field, so nowadays he is living in opposite extreme despising cheap things even when it's not rational and difference between top notch product and cheap/budget it's negligible

he had new door installed including electronic peephole and I fail to understand single benefit of having camera instead of peephole -viewing angle it's worse, visibility in darkness it's worse, frame rate it's inferior and you have to occasionally charge the battery (it's really just cheap phone in different package with external camera), so he paid 5-10 times more for inferior but modern looking product. same could be said about his smart watch which cost like 4-5 times of my watch, but functionality it's pretty same, some even worse, especially battery life, he need to charge his watch every other day if he dare to use them, half of the time it's just more convenient to wear his old analog watch, while i wear mine 24/7 and charge battery once in 3-6 weeks and don't use my watch as some thing to show off

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