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I find a lot of people phrasing their decision in such and such a situation as if they had principles. But when you really think about the alleged principle, can you really put it into words? Is it really a principle? Something you will stick to?
Maybe it's just me, but I'm not going to swear I won't lie; how can you say you're never going to lie, unless you're lying? You wouldn't lie at a job interview? I'm not talking about lies that are a risk to your employment, things they may find out are false and then not hire you or fire you or sue you. I'm talking about, lies that benefit you. You wouldn't make them if they were safe and you could pull them off? If not, is this still out of habit, fear, upbringing, or do you really believe it is, most accurately, a principle?
Your employer asks you what you think about marijuana legalization. You gonna have that debate and risk getting stereotyped? You know 95% of employers or more will condemn you if you even think about marijuana legalization, so wwud? Principles anyone?
Bottom line, for what principles are you willing to actually screw yourself over? Do you have a principle that you'd risk your job over? Your loved one(s)? Your career? Your limbs? etc.
What makes you sure it's a principle?
Please share your thoughts. I want to hear about your principles, because I'm afraid I might not have any.
 
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"foppery and whim"
That's my principle.
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If I were to do a job interview I would most certainly lie here and there if it increased my chances of being hired. The lies can't be too huge though; Like if it's a job interview for, uhm, something that has to do with economics and they ask me if I have the right education and I say yes when I don't. They would of course ask me for papers and stuff to prove it but I hope you get my point.
If it were for, let's say, a pizza hut and I were to do the dishes and they ask me if I've done it before I would probably say yes even if I hadnt because everyone knows how to do the dishes.
For your example about the marijuana legalization I would keep my mouth shut and go with the obvious, even if I did think it should be legalized.
A principle to me is just common sense in most cases and if the lie doesn't hurt the company but increases your chances of getting hired - then lie!
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United States24770 Posts
Just about everyone has principles of some type. Everyone has limits to those principles. You are bringing up an interesting topic, but I think you can do more to illicit an interesting discussion.
A mere list of what we consider our principles will in most cases do nothing more than show us how we aren't as good at understanding our own principles as we think we are.... but so what?
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I remember going to my first job interview.. I fucking lied like a ton, and i got the job.  When you go for a job interview, and they ask you such questions its not about which side your on.. its more of how well you could come up with reasoning to support your answer.
About my principle? "Don't be a pain in the ass".. although I would easily break it for a million dollars.
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United States47024 Posts
On November 19 2008 03:16 micronesia wrote:
A mere list of what we consider our principles will in most cases do nothing more than show us how we aren't as good at understanding our own principles as we think we are.... but so what?
This.
Sure, we can't follow our principles to the letter every time, but so what? Principles should be situational. They should guide our actions, but they shouldn't define them. Someone who follows their principles blindly every time is an idiot, since he's not really engaging in any higher thought process when making a decision at any given juncture. Humans are rational beings. Just as they possess the capability to form principles, they possess the capability to discern when those principles are appropriate.
IMO having principles that you follow some of the time is still better than not having principles at all.
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Telling the truth is not my principal, and I don't think it's anyone else's either. I end up being a very honest person anyway, because that's just how I deal with things, but I will lie for the betterment of myself and friends. It's just not very often that happens, except like when, someone who hasn't talked to you in months asks "how are you?" I'll almost always say "oh, alright, you?" because I'm not about to dump all my problems on someone and ruin a conversation that could have made us both happy. But I always tell people who know me well that I'm miserable On the flip side, I find that if you lie to people, especially in a professional environment, you just end up screwing yourself over later. "Are you a go getter?" "You bet I am!" and then you're suddenly asked to do 5 million things and you're miserable.
As I said in the other thread posted like... one week ago ( http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=82041 ), I feel like principals under a general definition don't mean anything. Everyone is hedonistic, principals are just what try to help guide us to happiness, but will always have exceptions.
Basically, my only principal is to evade pain, and build and maintain pleasure. And yes, I would pretty much risk anything for that, except that usually losing loved ones and limbs means a lot of pain/loss of pleasure too.
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My only principle is loyalty.
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btw.. did anyone realize the owner of this blog just got banned? LOL
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Taken from ban thread:
Reason: this idiot got a thread closed where he asked for a ban on gay marriage on TL (fuckin stupid) and then he hassled me with this retarded gimmick via PMs
Hahah :D
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On November 19 2008 03:39 dinmsab wrote:
btw.. did anyone realize the owner of this blog just got banned? LOL
Yeah a 30 day temp ban, checked right after I opened this thread.
Apparently he got banned for suggesting that TL ban same sex marriage on the website(???), or making some thread about that and PMing the mods after it was closed, ect.
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United States47024 Posts
On November 19 2008 03:46 Fontong wrote:
Apparently he got banned for suggesting that TL ban same sex marriage on the website(???), or making some thread about that and PMing the mods after it was closed, ect.
I'm assuming that it was supposed to be a joke.
Website Feedback isn't the place for jokes though.
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On November 19 2008 03:20 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On November 19 2008 03:16 micronesia wrote:
A mere list of what we consider our principles will in most cases do nothing more than show us how we aren't as good at understanding our own principles as we think we are.... but so what? This. Sure, we can't follow our principles to the letter every time, but so what? Principles should be situational. They should guide our actions, but they shouldn't define them. Someone who follows their principles blindly every time is an idiot, since he's not really engaging in any higher thought process when making a decision at any given juncture. Humans are rational beings. Just as they possess the capability to form principles, they possess the capability to discern when those principles are appropriate. IMO having principles that you follow some of the time is still better than not having principles at all.
I agree.
Although having principles that you follow sometimes only is as good as having no principles.
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I buy my music instead of downloading it. I usually download a couple of songs from a certain band to see if I like it then go buy their album. Of course if I only listened to really trendy crap I wouldn't need to do this.
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Valhalla18444 Posts
On November 19 2008 03:52 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On November 19 2008 03:46 Fontong wrote:
Apparently he got banned for suggesting that TL ban same sex marriage on the website(???), or making some thread about that and PMing the mods after it was closed, ect. I'm assuming that it was supposed to be a joke. Website Feedback isn't the place for jokes though.
it was really dumb and yeah jokes don't belong in website feedback
so i closed it and he PM'd me this, entitled "You closed my thread"
And called it stupid. Why do you say my thread is stupid?
States ban gay marriage, why not web sites? Your web site doesn't even seem to have marriage. Doesn't this concern you?
What's stupid?
to which i replied, "don't hassle me"
so he asks who he should talk to instead:
Alright I'm sorry to bother you. Who should I contact regarding this thread closing?
and i say, "no one, it wasn't funny just drop it"
so he just can't resist sending me this:
To many people on TL it's a legitimate issue and judging by their beliefs I can't see why they wouldn't support a gay ban on TL. I'm not saying the debate is won but surely it's one we can at least allow.
so yeah, fuck this guy. he is dumb as a sack of bricks and he gets on my nerves
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I would've banned him at the 'who should I contact' pm. HURR I DEMAND TO TALK TO YOUR MANAGER
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On November 19 2008 04:10 FakeSteve[TPR] wrote:Show nested quote +To many people on TL it's a legitimate issue and judging by their beliefs I can't see why they wouldn't support a gay ban on TL. I'm not saying the debate is won but surely it's one we can at least allow.
LOL... at least we know who won the debate
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I'm actually pretty glad this dumbfuck got (temp) banned. I was tired of his stupid blogs. Especially the one about Tika. God.
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I only believe and worship the flying spaghetti monster, any other god is just a cheap imitation.
The flying spaghetti monster approves of gay marriage.
Also back on topic, I don't believe I have any true principles. If I am in a job interview I would say what I need to say to get hired. I wouldn't kill a child a suppose, but I doubt that's really a principle, that's kind of a given. Then again if I were faced in one of those war scenarios where they arm 8 year olds with guns and send them at you, I am not sure what I would do. I think I would probably shoot it. but who knows, seems pointless to think about that. When a situation rises it will test your principles and the limits of them.
None off of the top of my head though.
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Netherlands6142 Posts
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What if she's about to press a button that will cause the deaths of millions of innocents, and if you hit her, you could save them all?
What if she was ugly?
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On November 19 2008 06:30 Chef wrote:
What if she's about to press a button that will cause the deaths of millions of innocents, and if you hit her, you could save them all?
OSHI-
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On November 19 2008 05:22 Rayzorblade wrote:
I'm actually pretty glad this dumbfuck got (temp) banned. I was tired of his stupid blogs. Especially the one about Tika. God.
its hard to not click a blog isn't it?
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What are you gonna do for post 10,000, Travis? :o
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On November 19 2008 07:01 travis wrote:Show nested quote +On November 19 2008 05:22 Rayzorblade wrote:
I'm actually pretty glad this dumbfuck got (temp) banned. I was tired of his stupid blogs. Especially the one about Tika. God. its hard to not click a blog isn't it?
Yeah it is hard  I have no discipline or sense of time management whatsoever...
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Principles are retarded.
Too me it sounds like a fake attempt to have integrity.
I mean, you decide, from now on I do this and don't do this.
Then a situation comes where you know you should break this rule, but this stupid principle is holding you back.
Just do what's right, no need to put burdens like this on yourself.
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Ehhh, well the flip side of it, is that not everyone defines principals that way. Like when someone refers to a person as a "man of principal," they're generally saying that despite the temptation of personal gain, they abstain from corruption. Perhaps it's out of a respect that the person wants other people to follow suit, and remain uncorrupted when they could screw a collective that he is a part of, but it could still be called a principal, because it's a steadfast rule that says don't be a part of the system's corruption just for your short term gain.
But then you could say "well, I don't think that's really a principal, so much as it is just long term planning and trust (prisoner's dilemma thwarted)," and I might very well let you have that distinction.
But then consider this: In the cold war, the only thing that seemed to be preventing the US and the USSR from nuking the fuck out of the other one, was something called MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction), which meant that if a nuke was on its way to one of them, the other would fire nukes back, even though the destruction of millions of innocent lives of the other did nothing to save the lives of their own innocents. In effect, it was an irrational conclusion, which one could call principal. If you kill me, I will make sure you die too, on principal, even though it doesn't help me at all.
So could you deny that that is a matter of principal too? I'm not so sure that I could, even though earlier in this thread I tried to disregard principal.
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I'm not sure the relevancy to this thread given the direction it has taken from a largely vague topic, but here is my general principle/moral in life:
I do not act based on "right" or "wrong", but do whatever I want as long as I know I am not hurting anybody. And only if they righteously so should be hurt by what I do, not simply their own petty whims that cause them to feel so. Only if it actually does cause trouble do I refrain from acting. Not to say that I am cold-hearted or anything though, cause I try and help everyone I can. But I am not afraid to act for my own fun or gain if people simply think that what I'm doing may be wrong.
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On November 19 2008 07:03 Chef wrote:
What are you gonna do for post 10,000, Travis? :o
most likely won't know when it happens
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EPT
