The golden rule.
Yeah the Golden Rule didn’t work out so well for Brian Robert Thompson…
How did the golden rule come into play for him?
Luigi Mangione treated Brian Robert Thompson exactly how Brian Robert Thompson treated others. Treat others the way you want to be treated, lest others treat you the way you treat others. Luigi Mangione judged Brian Robert Thompson according to the Golden Rule. Right or wrong, Luigi Mangione’s actions were a direct and terrifying application of the Golden Rule.
Brian Robert Thompson murdered approximately 40 human beings every single day. And for that, he became a victim of murder himself. The Golden Rule put him in his grave.
Luigi: “I don’t want to be killed, so I won’t kill anyone.”
Also Luigi: kills someone
That’s not the golden rule. And where is it established either of them murdered forty humans everyday?
Approximately 68,000 Americans die from health insurance denials of medically necessary care every year. United Healthcare’s share of that comes to about 40 people per day. And yes, it’s the company killing those people, not the CEO directly. But Brian Robert Thompson gleefully gloated and took credit for the huge profits that resulted from UHC’s industry-leading rates of care denial. If he can take credit for the profits that resulted from those deaths, it is entirely reasonable to place the moral culpability for those deaths on his head. Did he ever kill someone with his own two hands? No. But neither did Osama Bin Ladin (at least on 9/11.)
And Luigi certainly acted according to the Golden Rule, you’re just not seeing it from his perspective. His version of the Golden Rule was, “if I ever kill thousands of innocent people, feel free to kill me.” And if, in some bizarro world, Luigi somehow ends up with the blood of thousands on his hands, then by the Golden Rule someone would be justified taking him out as well.
You don’t have to agree with Luigi to understand his motives. From his perspective, his and Thompson’s situation were entirely different. Luigi killed one man, Brian Robert Thompson killed thousands. From his perspective, Luigi killed as an act of righteous vengeance against the wicked, while Thompson killed for profit. And if we judged him according to the Golden Rule, someone would be justified in killing Luigi if he ever killed thousands in the name of profit.
If his motives were genuine, which I say like that because his act has been called into question, his version of the golden rule wouldn’t be the golden rule though as much as it is classic mutual exchange, and even that would be generous to say, not just because of the fact that Healthcare, both in its public and privatized forms (with all forms having their respective issues, since they’re all made to equalize people), is a contract, everything being implied in the beginning and established to work how it does for each client (challenging the assertion it’s the scam people make it out to be, especially as it abides by the law which in our age is hard on scams), but also because he had a whole list of targets as a part of the evidence against him, with the one victim being a minor cog in his own machine, however ethically questionable he or UnitedHealth have been, going to show how premature and generalized the sympathy is towards him.
It’s not gay if it’s in a three way?
With a honey in the middle, there’s some leeway.
I wish that’s what it was.
$20 is $20
Which one?
“Treat others as you would treat yourself” or “he who has the gold, makes the rules?”
The first one.
People forget that it implies you’re merely a good model or reference point for how you should treat others, and that it doesn’t work when it comes to subjective interests or interactions where what you’re doing regarding someone else is circumstantial.
The “rules for thee but not for me” mindset should be avoided, but circumstances should not be ignored. The other day, I was asked “you don’t like being banned for being violent, why would you ban someone else for being violent” and it’s just messy.
Why?
I think it has worked pretty well so far. You should never follow a rule strictly, it isn’t law after all. But as a rules does it work. The few times I didn’t follow it when I should did it bite me in the ass later.
A good example when it works in my favor to follow the rule: I am always on time or a bit early and all my friends who usually are late when meeting other friends are never late when we meet up, especially when it isn’t a group meet up.
Having weighed all the times the gist of it made sense versus all the times the gist of it didn’t make sense, I have found the latter happens more often for me. It is often synonymous with shifting burden, where you can’t do so much as use discipline without it being brought up. It is also often synonymous with projecting one’s interests onto someone else, since you are using yourself as a model. In this way, it is anti-negotiative.
Understandable, but I can’t really talk for someone else than my self. My example was about me being on time and therefore most do the same because it was something I felt was mutual. I would never tell them that they need to change for my sake, if I would then it would be for our relationships sake. How can I tell someone I wish them to be on time if I am not?
And ofc it is about interest, I want a harmonious relationship regardless what kind of relationship it is, to be respected then I need to respect the person back. It isn’t like I walk around and think about this haha
But you did make me curious and I am still curious, so far can I only assume what you refer to.
I think we are talking about different things. To me is It not meant to be used against someone but to better yourself and understand consequences of your own actions. It is mainly said to kids like you said. But it sounds like you hear it a lot in arguments which is not how I think it should be used.
Circa 2012 my boomer parents had me job hunting in person AND hand-writing the cover letters. It got me two jobs so maybe it wasn’t the worst advice, but i would spend every day driving around and penning half a dozen letters for employers that, a lot of the time, weren’t even hiring.
Anyway, that (12 years ago) was the last job hunt i’ve ever done, it’s been nothing but networking and freelancing ever since
Don’t believe anything you read on Wikipedia.
That infuriates me. “Oh but anyone can edit”. Yes, but see for how many seconds your stupid edit will last. It’s the single most rich and accurate encyclopedia humanity has seen, ffs.
Does anyone still say not to trust Wikipedia? They did so in the beginning and it certainly didn’t have to turn out trustworthy so that was good advice for a few years.
Now we see it’s the most trustworthy encyclopedia, and my kids’ teachers qualify it as “an encyclopedia is not an original source “, which is correct and a valuable distinction. They recommend it as a starting point but don’t allow citing it, as is correct.
People on Lemmy refer to it as NATOpedia.
Teachers should be using Wikipedia as an opportunity to teach skepticism and following sources. I wouldn’t allow Wikipedia to be used as a cited source, but as a starting point for finding other sources on a topic.
If you’re a quiet dedicated employee your value will be recognized and rewarded.
Yeah, that doesn’t work well anymore. Gotta be a noisy dedicated worker, and be willing to move jobs a few times to start seeing the rewards
Yeah, that doesn’t work well anymore.
It never did.
I put that into practice and just got promoted last Halloween! Let people know that you’re smart and interested in how your job works.
rewards mostly come from job hopping. Raises at every place I’ve worked arent callibrated to inflation, so your 4% raise that the boss thinks is so great is closer to 0-1%/
Working hard will get you far.
This works as long as you apply some level of thought to it. Digging a ditch with a spoon is hard work, it’s unlikely to help you get anywhere.
Depends. For someone else? Maybe not. On yourself? Definitely.
Work hard studying and exercising. Self improvement I’d important, and its not related to job opportunities, but rather mastering the art of living.
Something along the lines of “don’t ever go to bed angry at each other.” Like, yeah, you should try to work it out, but if you fucked up real bad, don’t push it. Sleep on the couch.
Besides couch is superior to bed, those nights when I can’t get sleep in the bed the couch provides. Couch best. Even the cushions are for some reason nicer than pillows. Should definitely consider moving to the livingroom.
Start an argument. Live your dream.
Or getting a better bed
Alternatively, sometimes a good night’s sleep is good for everyone to clear heads and calmly tackle their issues the next day with fresh perspectives.
Also helps with work emails…
Never send an angry email the same day, and always send it to someone else for reviews. Also never put the recipients in the box until you’re ready to hit send.
Sleeping on the couch isnt gping to bed, though…
Correct, it’s going to couch.
So, they technically didn’t go to bed angry
you wont be alone everyone finds a lifelong partner.
Calling that advice is like the opposite of a modern fortune cookie.
“Find a job doing what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.”
I used to love software. Then all the Lumberghs took over.
I mean, I 100% agree with this one. If I’m going to be at work eight hours a day, five days a week, I better damn well enjoy it.
I’m a software dev, too, but have always left companies / teams soon after a Lumbergh took over. That was always a very good career move for me, and I am almost always pretty excited to go to work.
Plus, Lumberghs will be there for things you don’t enjoy as well. That would just make it harder, at least for me.
Before I post this, I apologize for the content length:
Yeah this one hurts, because I’ve heard it all my life yet in MOST situations when I research a job and think “Hey that could be alright!”
There’s always some nasty hidden majority of it that seems to exist solely to make sure nobody enjoys doing it too much. Like there’s some misery quotient to be filled. Misery must be some kind of profit currency as a means of doing business…
As a hypothetical example: You like working with your hands and think assembling widgets or tools might be your thing. You romanticize taking pride in your work and imagining the end user being happy with your efforts.
But you find that once you get there, you’re a slave to some Taylorism machine that demands infinite widgets in increasingly unrealistic timespans or else. And you never see the finished product. They also ban music and glare at you like criminals the entire time.
Or perhaps you envision that hardworking but noble slice-of-life-anime vibe, where you and some cool co-workers run a coffee shop and you’re determined to earn a reputation for the perfect brew… except it’s just you, by yourself, and a long line of grouchy jerks, and some machine is there yelling at you if you’re not doing so many transactions-per-hour and your manager is displeased because you aren’t selling two-coffees-and-a-plastic-tumbler per customer or something.
Less hypothetical: People tell me I’d make a great teacher. Yeah, I don’t need to elaborate on those realities. (God bless you, teachers. Seriously.)
The education system is also just a human conveyor belt at this point.
Where are the jobs that are “just okay” or “fine”? What happened to the humble honest living? It seems like everything can fit under David Graeber’s "Bullshit Jobs" checklist anymore.
With job satisfaction it seems either 1:100,000 odds like “career actor” or “beloved artist” or something, or you’re just in the soul-grind machine that takes a perfectly human craft or interaction and forces it through a filter of spreadsheets and “KPIs” and “metrics” and “management” that makes everyone want to stop waking up.
That wasn’t too long, and it was interesting. Your posts don’t need to be efficient either. ❤️
Hey that’s very kind of you. Thanks! :)
Sometimes a topic hits me and I end up using Lemmy as a writing prompt haha. I’m glad if it resonates with people though. One day I’ll start a blog even if people don’t really bother with those much anymore. :p
Hope you’re having a fantastic one!
How’re your TPS reports coming along?
In our next union agreement “only one unified timesheet ever” is a demand we’re putting forth.
And you know for us to put that in the deal and see what it’ll cost us in return, we’re fucking fed up.
I feel like that’s the same as a TPS report.
Sounds like somebody has a case of the “Mondays”.
Hobbies always change when they become a job because it transitions from well thought out, interesting and creative projects to mass production and monotony.
As a hobbyist you have the ability to discover and work on unique, novel projects, without stress but professionalism is about consistency and speed.
Usually by running the business you can dedicate some time and resources to the fun and novel stuff. Thats how I run mine at least, as a woodworker. I don’t crank out high grossing trendy stuff day and night but take the time to explore new ideas and get creative with it. That and using handtools instead of power tools.
I find a lot of resonance in this comment, but my experience is striking out in 3D art.
Thankfully I’m friends with the client and it’s not a hard deadline but I’m a month over on a sculpt because I have to learn new techniques, particular to this model, and I feel the need to get it right the first time because it reflects on me.
I know I’ll get faster with experience but I’m asking myself if doing this professionally from a for-hire standpoint is going to make me loathe it in the long run, because business is all about faster and more and more and faster. I’m considering making my own work to sell as 3D printables or games in the future while I keep the lights on by slinging coffee or something…
Do you mean you used to like writing software by yourself, on creative projects that you were passionate about?
I’d say the tasks and role of your job should at least be enjoyable enough to not hate it but what I think is even more important (and makes me enjoy my job) is the work climate, being appreciated by colleagues / customers / management, and a sense of purpose.
You’re totally right. I just want to be in a position where I’m not “face of the house” and actually get to talk with coworkers once in a while.
Jobs these days seem to love putting people by themselves. I don’t even mind being by myself with a task where I can listen to music or something, but with whiny customers? Nightmare.
The coworkers on the other side of the building who weren’t about to snap had something in common: They worked beside someone else occasionally, who wasn’t their boss.
Before that, I was in a retail situation where I would have a cool coworker, in a small space, otherwise empty store, getting things done. But the manager would squawk at us about “hearing a lot of talking” and “that doesn’t sound like work.” Absolutely psychotic and I have no idea how I put up with that behavior.
Buy GME
nono, MOASS is coming soon™
I mean… If you bought at $350, yeah, but anything less than $60 before the split is still positive.
Yeah, that tends to be the case, when you buy things for less than they’re worth now you are making profit, thanks for taking the time to enlighten us.
What? A buying stock in a company based on selling used media in an industry that is transferring heavily into digital? Thank god they have Funko Pops to save the sinking ship. GME is a meme stock because it’s like Bitcoin or that banana duct taped to a wall. It’s worth a lot to investors but not a lot to society. Actually I’d say the banana is worth more. If push comes to shove, I can eat the banana.
It’s worth a lot to investors but not a lot to society.
Man, why does this seem to be where ALL the money is at anymore? =\
Find what you love, and then figure out how to make money on it.
It worked for me, but not my spouse. Sometimes you just need to find something you’re happy enough doing to make the income.
Yeah, finding a career that is acceptable and pays enough to afford the lifestyle you crave is a balance. Usually that advice comes from people who love doing something that is coincidentally also highly paid.
Also, loving something and being actually good enough at it to make a career out of it are also two different things
I always thought that was really dumb. After hearing stories from people then “find a skill in demand that sounds like a fun challenge” is a way better approach. I went for software but mech/civil engineering, carpentry, electrician and architect would all also be great choices.
Depends what part of the process you like. Some people like to be very meticulous in their hobbies, and somewhat of a perfectionist. That rarely exists in a professional environment, where everything is based on getting projects out the door, on schedule and on budget.
I actually like banging out projects quickly, so the professional life of my hobby suits me well (woodworking). I love pounding out big mortises with a sledgehammer, planing big boards and watch chips go flying. I hate fiddling with joinery and slowly fitting them for 10 minutes (slowly learning how to do them faster). For other people, joinery is their favorite part.
I love sleeping.
~2004. My highschool civics teacher told the class that real estate was always a good investment because it only went up. I didn’t really trust him at the time though.
Real estate can be a good investment, even pre 2008 crash. What can be dangerous is over leveraging. A primary residence isn’t really an investment, still worth buying though.
He was just echoing the same sentiment lead to all those house flippers. He was a wealth of conservative BS and that was just one of his thinly veiled prosperity gospel moments.
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The wealthy are buying up properties either to rent out or if they’re Chinese, to move their wealth to places their government can’t take it from. They absolutely own propriety, but not with the intent to flip.
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I mean, if you had money at the time and bought a house in one of the larger cities or their suburbs, you would probably be loaded by now, even though you would regret it for about 5 years after the crash
You have to be loaded to be loaded? Got it.
This “teacher” also would complain about wellfare queens who had children just to claim more benefits, that the best thing that could happen to a country is to be invaded by the US because they’ll rebuild afterwards and that every Union but teacher’s Unions were obsolete today, among other things.
Go to a four year college so you can get the best jobs.
Oh wow that’s a good one! There was a time where it worked out great the vast majority of the time. Not so much now, definitely aged like milk
Nah, that advice is still correct. The 4-year degree provides a huge benefit over not having it.
It’s just that a lot of people don’t realize just how much shittier not having a degree in 2024 is compared to not having a degree in 1974.
So while the baseline has gotten worse, and the actual benefit of college has shrunk, it’s still easily worth the 4 year commitment and the tuition/opportunity cost.
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Now I make 230
Yeah the break even point is like the early 30’s, even among people who are killing it in either path.10 years of $100k+ in your 20’s won’t be able to build up enough of a buffer against $200k+ after 30, when retirement ages are around 60.
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The 4-year degree provides a huge benefit over not having it.
For average lifetime earnings.
So for some it may not provide a big help.
There’s also a lot of things that people ignored from this advice. No one said get literally any degree, art majors have been the source of unemployment jokes since before I was born. No one also said take 5-7 years or more to get the degree either.
Counter-point: not everyone is cut out for a four-year degree*. Some people are better suited for trade schools. My wife worked at a university and saw a number of students that were attending just because family wanted them to, but their heart wasn’t in it. Often they’d drop out with student debt and no degree to show for it.
*or at least when they’re young
a number of students that were attending just because family wanted them to, but their heart wasn’t in it
There are probably an even higher percentage of those in trade schools or entry level trades roles. You can’t compare the worst outcomes in one category with the best outcomes in another, and should instead compare medians.
Skip the line with a blue badge at amazon (not financial advice)
Ages like milk…
Drink a full glass of milk at every meal. Otherwise, your bones will turn to pudding and you’ll get kidnapped at the mall because you’ll be too soft to put up a fight. Or whatever scare scenarios Big Milk pushed in the US in the 80s and 90s.
Now everyone’s drinking nut and oat milk because of health reasons and also drinking the milk of another mammal is kinda weird.
Because drinking “milk” from nuts and oats isn’t weird?
People have been drinking animal milk for thousands of years so the weird ones are those pretending some heavily processed industry process isn’t weird.
“Milk” from nuts and oats is just a word. Call it oat juice, oat extract, make up a new word and call it oat zligbab. The actual thing being drunk is not far from the realm of things we already drink and eat. Getting hung up on it being called “milk” is a superficial and disingenuous argument against it.
If you want to compare the extremes of industrialized processes, are you familiar with commercial dairy farming?
it’s water pressed through oats/nuts to add a little flavor, not from a nut teet.
I mean, with advanced enough genetic engineering, we might be able to make nut teets a thing…
Then do not compare that to milk. First guy used the comparison.
It’s called oat milk because it’s a nut-based beverage deliberately designed to mimic many of the properties and uses of actual cow’s milk. It’s not like oat milk is literally just juice pressed from oats. There are a whole series of steps, added ingredients, and chemical processes meant to make the resulting product as interchangeable for cow’s milk as possible.
Damn, guess we all have to stop calling it peanut butter then 🙄
I unironically agree.
It’s used in the same way for the same recipes. Yes, production-wise it doesn’t have much to do with animal milk, but culinarily it’s similar. Do you feel as strongly about the fact the “vegetables” as a grouping doesn’t make any biological or production sense either?
People drink it as an alternative because it has similar gustatory properties, so yes it very much is something that can be compared to animal milk.
Nut milk is just nuts and water, you can make it yourself super easy.
Drinking the milk of another mammal after you were weaned is freaking weird and unique to humans and unnecessary and bad for the environment and isn’t done by a significant portion of the world’s population.
drinking milk has no impact on the environment
those are impacts from production. once it’s produced, drinking it has no impact at all.
but I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that your link relies on poore-nemecek 2018, which ignores the fact that LCA studies cannot be combined. it’s bad science.
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how can you prove that?
those are impacts from production. once it’s produced, drinking it has no impact at all.
High speed doesn’t kill anyone, it’s the sudden deceleration that does.
if we stop drinking milk, and it continues to be produced, the environmental impacts will not cease. if we stop production, it will.
There’s a significant amount of processing going on in nut milk production. Yes you can make your own which is true for a lot of foods but the stuff you buy at the store is heavily processed.
Just because we’re the only mamal that does it doesn’t mean anything because we’re the only mamal that does a ton of stuff that doesn’t make it weird. It is definitely terrible for the planet but not sure what you mean by a significant portion of the worlds population. I’m pretty sure cheese is in almost all cultures or are you just saying straight milk.
Straight milk, lactose intolerance isn’t as much of an issue with cheese so it’s eaten all over the world, but drinking the milk itself is done by a minority.
I love milk but I do agree with you. Whenever I actually stop to think about it, the concept of milk is pretty damn weird. I feel the same way about eggs
Sounding like a vegan before they’ve realised
I’m not against veganism and I’d probably be at least a vegetarian if lab grown meat was more widely available. I have celiac though so my food options are already limited so I don’t want to limit them further
So you are against clothes? Anither thing only humans do.
Or dentistry.
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Not the person you’re responding to, but I think that the argument “we shouldn’t do X because no other animals do it” is a bad argument in general and overall weakens your position. Because there are plenty of things that humans do that animals don’t do that are good (like developing and applying vaccines for example).
There are plenty of other valid and good reasons to promote dairy alternatives (such as health or environmental reasons).
In this case it very much is a good comparison because it’s something all other mammals do until they’re weaned and we used to act the same way until domestication. In the grand history of humanity, drinking milk is an anomaly.
Dining milk isn’t unique to humans, contrary to clothings and dentistry like someone else mentioned to try and back the exact same point you tried to make, it’s the fact that some of you can’t accept to stop drinking it and need to get it from other mammals because of lobbies that is unique.
The unique things about our species are some of the things that make life great
any predator would eat the mammaries of a pregnant or nursing prey animal
You know what also isn’t done by a significant part of the world? Eating insects. But im not gonna go and call their eating habbits weird just because it’s not something I grew up with.
It’s called being tolerant and accepting of others culture.
The ability to digest animal milk is literally a genetic mutation that was useful enough to have spread to about 40% of the world’s population. Milk is an amazing source of nutrients and before food was as secure as it is now it was a lifeline during long winters.
You can talk as moral as you like about your personal preferences but the genetic record clearly indicates that our ancestors needed animal milk to survive. And in today’s society with pasteurization making cow milk safe even in the midst of a H5N1 epidemic in cows it continues to be an amazing source of nutrients, giving a near complete baseline of nutrients for an individual’s diet. There’s a reason schools push kids to drink milk every day and it’s not just the dairy lobby
Your said so yourself, the genetic adaptation is present in a minority of the population and these days it’s not necessary in the vast majority of the world since the nutrients can easily be found elsewhere.
Yes, the reason why it’s pushed in schools is very much the dairy lobby. When Health Canada created the most recent food guide they got rid of the industry’s influence and instead focused on science… Well, dairy is pretty much gone, they only say small quantities of low fat dairy can be part of healthy eating habits.
https://food-guide.canada.ca/en/
Guess who was pissed? The dairy industry because it needs the publicity and getting removed showed Canadians that we were just fooled by marketers.
How does the majority of humans manage to survive without drinking it in school? 😱 Wake up, you’ve been had by a billions dollars multinational industry.
the genetic adaptation is present in a minority of the population
Yes a minority of the world population, but it is present in a majority of the American population (about 70%)
How does the majority of humans manage to survive without drinking it in school?
My point about the schools is that kids often have craptastic diets, be that due to poor parenting or just kids being picky eaters, and milk rounds out the diet and fills in the gaps since it’s such a great source of nutrients
Wake up, you’ve been had by a billions dollars multinational industry
Bro I just think milk and dairy tastes good (plus it’s full of good nutrients and pretty dang healthy) and you’re being weird about pushing your personal preferences on others while making vague moral judgments.
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why are you trying to destroy an ethnic minority’s cultural foods?
heavily processed
Always great to put that into arguments. It doesn’t really mean anything but it sounds dubious.
Making things requires a process‽ Can’t explain that!
Points for the interrobang! :)
I mean soy milk has been around since the 14th century.
Processing and industrialization is something that’s happened to most things in our food chain, including actual milk.deleted by creator
No other animal does what we’re doing here either. Weird isn’t necessarily bad
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Cats will do it? Or you mean no other animal goes to get it? Because livestock will deffo grab a boob even if it’s not mom’s.
But it’s not industrialized by other mammals would be absolutely true.
Cats will drink cow’s milk, and then shit catastrophically everywhere within nine feet of the sand box except in the sand box. Kittens drink mama cat’s milk, then when weaned no more milk ever.
Little snake eyed bean toed fluff cheeked lactose intolerating quadrupeds.
This is the most hilariously written PSA against the whole “cats and a saucer of milk” trope holy crap LOL.
I don’t know where that nonsense started but it’s definitely not beneficial to the
Little snake eyed bean toed fluff cheeked lactose intolerating quadrupeds.
My cat loves mozzarella cheese. It’s the one human food she begs for. She’ll turn up amd wait around while I’m making chicken soup because she knows she’ll get a morsel or two of boiled chicken, but she won’t cry at me. She cries for mozzarella when I’m making a pizza.
If she gets her snout around any cheese I’ll be washing the ceiling.
Mine also loves mozzarella! No matter how much I try to be quiet, any time I open a string cheese, he’s there in 2 seconds.
My grandpa told me “always call your boss sir, and respond “yes sir”, youll be promoted real quick.”
First day at my first job my boss tells me “by the way you don’t need to call me sir, just Brian”
Its actually insane that the world that boomers lived in was that simple.
That advice could also be harmful to your career. Being subservient like that will make sure that your boss will never see you as an equal as e.g. a potential successor
They didn’t. Some Boomers are also in the “just Brian” camp.
Dutch has a formal and informal 2nd person word (think “you” vs “thou”).
I have an intern who will not stop using the formal version, and it feels super awkward. I keep telling her to stop it, but she said she always uses with older people…
She’s 23, I’m mid 30s. Ouch.
You do those shenanigans in french too.
Super complicated with SO family though uhg.
Do you mean je vs u? Could you tell me more about which would be appopriate in settings like a police control, a shop or a campsite? I’m learning dutch but still trying to grasp those things :)
Welcome to dutch, where there are more exceptions than rules, and the natives just ignore the rules anyway!
In general, “Je” is by far the most common form. Children use “u” with adult strangers, adults are generally only expected to use it with people in authority positions, but that’s becoming more and more rare. It’s still polite to use “u” with strangers, but nobody will be very upset if you don’t, unless you’re addressing a judge, mayor or your boss’s boss.
Some people address their grandparents formally, but most don’t. It’s still considered polite to use it with much older people, like 30+ years older, but hardly will be upset if you don’t.
Quite a few companies require customer-facing jobs always use “u”, to be respectful, but even that is getting less. My city sends me letters with “jij” nowadays.
Thank you, that’s definitely good to know!
sounds kind of like je vs vous in french, not quite the same but used in a similar way
Funny thing, we actually call the calling someone jij tutoyeren and calling someone u vousvoyeren. This comes from the French.
German here, we have the same thing (du vs. sie). Our rules may be slightly different than dutch but probably similar enough.
Police: definitely formal unless the officer is someone you know privately.
Shop: usually formal though some hobby-related shops (think GameStop or board games) might prefer informal.
Campsite: probably informal
As a general rule of thumb: informal is used with first names, formal is used with last names. Think about which name you would use in English and go with that. If in doubt, use the formal version or ask.
Thanks, I’m a German native speaker myself - I tend to use je vs u in Dutch similar to the German du und Sie, but as the other replies indicate that seems to be a bit too formal in Dutch :)
I speak both german and dutch, and in my experience germans tend to use ‘sie’ in way more situations than the dutch. In my experience, germans also place more importance on titles (dr. Prof. Ir., etc), and older people can get riled up if you don’t address them with their titles, although it has gotten less.
In the Netherlands, I usually start with ‘u’ if I don’t know the older (60+ y.o., I’m late 20s) person yet, but I do listen if they tell me not to. Also the situation is important. For a job interview with someone clearly older than me, or if it’s a suit-and-tie sort of place, I would go formal. I agree with the above about the police/shop/campsite, altough most shops are also informal in the Netherlands.
Is that why Dutch people often get it wrong when to use “Du” or “Sie” if they’re speaking German? Because from my perspective that happens a lot.
I would assume so
At least she doesn’t help you cross the street. Yet.
“Is your lunch soft enough? Should I cut it up for you? We have a blender back in the kitchen if you want?”
Fun fact about English, “you” was actually the more formal one. But since we don’t use “thou” anymore, and most people know it from old-timey speak and church, we think of it as more formal today.
Well, people in the past talked MUCH more formally than we do.
If I talked to my grandfather in 1400 the way I talk to my husband today, he’d probably disown me.
Fun fact about Dutch: The informal is ‘jou/je’ and de formal is ‘u’, the last one, however, is pronounced like English ‘you’, the former is pronounced like old-time-english thou.
Sir Brian of Work
Unless you are in the military or a sex dungeon, I wouldn’t use “sir” these days. It’s a bit odd in everyday life as culture has changed, haha.
Last time I was in a sex dungeon I called my dom Sir Loin… turned out to be a Miss Steak
This is comedy gold where the heck is the recognition over here, can we get some recognition for this comment up here please!?
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Lump that in with the ‘apply in person’ crowd too.
Just walk in with your resume and and ask to see the manager so you can shake their hand…
sir doesn’t sit well with me either for work positions, I say it to be nice sometimes, but not because you’re my boss. and if someone calls me sir, my response is " I’m not your sir, just call me …"
just call me …
Maybe?
That’s how I see it too. It’s like a whimsical anachronism referencing a more formal era.
just call me …
Al?
If you’ll be my bodyguard, I can be your long lost pal!
“If you love something set it free, if it comes back it’s meant to be.” Nearly cost me the best relationship of my life because I was a dumb, impressionable kid that believed in wise sounding words. If you love something, hold on to it. Work for it. Don’t let it go just to “see if it comes back”.
Same could probably be said for just about any seemingly wise sounding sayings.
I think it’s more about control than sending what you love away.
“Set it free” means let your love interest choose to stay or leave on their own, don’t try to keep them caged.
Depending on what you mean, it’s possible that your love you regret letting go of wouldn’t have lasted even if you had held it and fought.
Though if you mean you took that saying and thought it meant you needed to push your love away to see if they returned, then yeah, that’s not a great strategy.
Could have also meant just not working to maintain it. “Let it go” could (foolishly IMO) mean “stop feeding it”.
Yeah, the latter is how it was explained to me. Like, literally break up with the person you love to see if they’ll fight for you to take them back. Or push them away and wait a few years to see if they magically reenter your life or something. Crazy, I think some people believe they live in a hallmark movie
Ah fuck, that’s a rough lesson to learn the hard way. Like so obvious in hindsight, but if you needed to learn it, you needed to learn it before you could see that.
I installed a gravitic emitter in my belt that makes it feel like she has to walk uphill to approach me. Let’s see just how much she loves me, and if it’s statistically significant in its difference between how much she loves approaching the cat.
