Exactly.

And the deck is not stacked. I think we are both happy where we are, and intend to proceed toward in the near future.

_________________

Honestly, if we perfectly divided up the worlds resources equally I suspect we'd individually have next to nothing at all and global population would plummet as the human race would be crammed into the earth at 30 degrees on either side of the equator.

_________________
"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

Maybe so.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Was this posted in the wrong thread?

CH usually means Curious Hair around these parts

No.
Its a reference to another thread.

_________________
"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

Oh.


Must have missed that one. CH and JORR almost always agree

_________________
"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

We have a hockey section?

i think its new...

_________________
the world will always the world. your entire existence is defined by your response.

PRUNE!

_________________
Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

Ike, if Zell offered you a $150K a year job, plus you got to smoke dope with him on his Lincoln Park house rooftop, go to use his 'friends' services and spent 3 weeks with him on a Euro Motorcycle trip, would that work for you?

_________________
"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

I'm in! But only if Randy Michaels is coming and bringing a few hot interns.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

A man should be judged by what he declines, not what he accepts.

_________________

Seacrest + Lord Chesterfield. = MATCH!

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Busted

_________________

MY LIFE FOR AIUR!!!

_________________
Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

This thread is funny.

Here's my advice: Try, just try, to step out of the social construct that you have been accustomed to your entire life...

Let's say everyone in the current world was thrown on an island. We all had to struggle for resources. Do you think that Sam fucking Zell would be one of the remaining survivors? Of course not. That alone tells you that we abandoned survival of the fittest thousands of years ago.

So, now, let's suppose that we agree that "survival of the fittest" in the sense of physical prowess is no longer relevant, and we have constructed our own social darwinism that relies on intelligence and hard work. Do you really think that the world's current "leaders" would be the ones to assume the positions of power? Of course they wouldn't. Most of them can barely dress themselves and sure as shit wouldn't know a day of hard work if it slapped them in the face.

If you agree with both of the above points, then you agree that "hard work" and "intelligence" is a social construct that is a result of how our current power dynamic is designed. And who is it designed by? It's designed by those who are currently in power (and not those who are capable). If you are seriously going to tell me that most millionaires are smarter or more capable than the entrepreneur who makes his living hassling people on the corner for a shoe shine, I would tell you you're probably brainwashed. Everything you know, everything I know, and everything we know as a society is a complete construct of history and history's winners. People who preach about social darwinism or working hard or how they are somehow entitled to the Earth's resources or the house they inherited via their last names are idiots.

I can't wait for the responses to this post which oversimplify it and accuse me of villifying people for giving their modest labor fruits to their children. It's so simplistic, it's comedic. Step out of your shell and look at the bigger picture.

_________________

Wanna work in a steel mill for 3 months?

_________________
"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

There is absolutely nothing new in your post.

Thanks for the summation of what has already been said though.

_________________

Mercy. Let's stop pretending that what we're talking about here is that if you work hard you're guaranteed success.
I would argue that the truth is that your chances of success are greatly increased by hard work.
You can still run 5 miles a day, eat right and sleep your 8 and still die of a heart attack at 35. But I'm sure we agree that your chances of dying of a heart attack are greatly diminished by the steps I outlined.
You can work 10-18 hours a day busting your ass and there's no guarantee of success but I would say that your odds are greatly increased by this work ethic. Of course, intelligence, opportunity and luck play a factor as well, no question.
Zell is a boob. His comments are arrogant and ignorant, which ain't easy to do, but with a few key words changed I would agree with the general philosophy.

_________________
"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

It's too bad that you took that stance on this thread, Seacrest. For once, I actually respected your opinions on this thread.

_________________

_________________
Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

I agree that Zell is a boob. As for the rest of your thoughts...

We haven't even defined "hard work." Again, the term itself seems to be a construct of the ruling class. Back when I was in high school, I worked with an old guy who was the "hardest worker" I'd ever seen. He happened to work for the local highway department. He busted his ass patching roads to the point that I almost worried about him (he'd been in the same position for 30+ years). He also couldn't read or write because he hadn't been raised reading or writing. If you put him in a clerical position filing paperwork, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have been as "hard working" as he was doing manual labor. Is that because he lost his hard-working ability? Of course not. It's because he wasn't comfortable with the task he was asked to do. What defines "hard work" in an office position? Someone who files papers fast? Someone who is thorough? None of it means getting ahead, and unless Darkside or anyone else can provide some sort of statistic showing that hard work is proportional to success, I have a hard time believing that the two are related in any way whatsoever.

_________________

I correctly pointed out that all you posted had been covered already. My stance on, and in the thread hasn't changed. Despite your attempt to shame me.

_________________

When we're saying hard work, in my opinion, we're talking about someone who goes to work every day, doesn't take bullshit sick days, works to the peak performance required of the job, just nose to the grindstone kind of stuff. HARD WORK can be filing, answering and transferring, and clicking keys on a keyboard. It can be working 12 hours in 100 degree heat, it can be working 40 in an air conditioned office.

This whole thing is getting silly and turning on semantics. Hard work is obviously ambiguous.

It's obvious that the guy putting in his time, working to the peak performance required of the job, even going "above and beyond" has a greater chance at "success" (more ambiguous words!) than the guy who comes in late, takes 6 of his 10 sick days a year to play nintendo, and half asses his way to do what I like to call just enough to not get fired (thanks Peter).

_________________
"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

I get what you're saying. And we could probably agree on some sort of definition of "hard work." All I'm trying to point out (as JORR or someone already pointed out - happy Seacrest?) is that hard work, however we define it, is probably a relatively poor indicator of actual "success." Political savviness and people skills probably play a much more prominent role. If we're okay with that, then okay... I just think we should stop pretending that there is this "nose to the grindstone" attitude that gets people ahead. If there is any correlation at all, I'm pretty sure it's not as strong as a lot of other factors. Sam Zell is a penis, and so is a good portion of billionaires. I have absolutely no stats to back it up, but I would guess that the majority of billionaires were given their fortunes and did nothing to earn them other than being born to a rich family.

_________________

Nice summation.

_________________
There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

Sorry DS, hard work is ambiguous.

As someone that made my living for a number of years doing serious manual labor, I thought that I would be hard pressed to ever work harder.

The transformation to white collar work was and is still, a struggle. I can spend a couple of months working on a client and often end up without them. To me, that is often harder then my former task driven world that always had a number of tasks that were finished daily.

_________________

Can't say I plowed through all 9 pages but from what I did read this mostly nailed it. What I haven't seen though is a mention of ethics. Working hard and smart is not enough. Success must also be achieved ethically. Michael Madigan may work hard and smart but building his wealth by bankrupting the state is morally reprehensible. Zell did the same thing by wrecking the Tribune.

_________________
"I honestly don't see a good bet on the board here."