quote
follow
|
04-09-2015 Yes, badly translated Chinese/Mandarin/etc. can be very funny. Having spent many years around Chinese martial artists and having traveled to China I was always happy for the English, because the Chinese is impossible to guess at, but often it was bizarre.And once I was lost in Beijing, and couldn't even know if I was walking in circles or not because the street signs were impossible to distinguish. One I saw at a restaurant was "Homely food served here". When I was a software engineer there was a project to redesign and develop hundreds of thousands of lines of code written in Japan. Often asians cannot pronounce the r sound in English, resulting in things like "flied lice" instead of "fried rice". This code had references in English that were spelled the way they might say it, using l instead of r everywhere, like in "splite" instead of "sprite" for the skeletal graphic characters in the game. It was hilarious to read every day. I had a martial arts instructor whose English was somewhat questionable as he primarily learned it as an adult here in the States. My fave line when discussing training was "Let leg do job of leg, and hand the hand job." And just as misunderstandings go, after some time in China, I needed a haircut and went to a Chinese barber. Neither of us spoke the other's language, so I put my thumb near my finger to indicate how much I wanted cut off. The barber smiled, nodded his head, and started cutting. Unfortunately, the centimeter or so that I indicated for the trim he understood as how much hair to *leave* on my head, resulting in the shortest haircut I have ever had in my life barring being 2 years old. --- > Edited 04-09-2015 01:36:41 |
|
04-09-2015 @IrinaKonglish trumps Chinglish [img] |
|
04-09-2015 Dear Irina,I hope you continue learning Spanish. Ultima Hora, one of the most important newspapers here, published the story about Igor Protsenko and thatВґs how I read about him. I like reading your blog with the quotes and comments. Clearly the people who contribute in the blog are intelligent and funny too. Your English is flawless , and above all, you put your thoughts into words beautifully. Yes,beautiful and intelligent. Lethal combination. For you men could walk on broken glass with their bare feet.Please be safe there. |
[ link ] |
05-09-2015
Thank you for the kind words. I'm learning Spanish in bursts I do - then I don't - then I do again and so on. Still better than nothing. |
|
04-09-2015 Estimado Kirk: Promover el antinatalismo es muy difГcil especialmente en paГses como el nuestro donde el poder e influencia de la Iglesia CatГіlica y las iglesias evangГ©licas son muy fuertes. Hablar de antinatalismo significa ir contra la corriente y uno paga un precio muy duro. Una vez le dije a mi madre que ella cometiГі el crimen de traerme a este mundo. Ella respondiГі que le pidiГі a Dios tener hijos y especialmente hijo varГіn. Mis padres llenaron su vacГo existencial al traer hijos a esta prisiГіn. Ellos tampoco pudieron soportar la presiГіn social. Nuestros padres son vГctimas y pero los hijos son mГЎs victimas que ellos.Entiendo que los seres humanos estamos programados para reproducirnos y lograr de alguna forma la inmortalidad. Queremos ser recordados en el tiempo y de esa forma lo logramos pero a un precio terrible. Los seres humanos somos muy irracionales, inteligentes pero irracionales. La influencia social es muy determinante. Nos manipulan y lavan el cerebro desde que venimos al mundo por medio de la familia, la escuela, el colegio, los clubes, etc. Si dices que eres ateo o que simplemente no eres miembro de alguna iglesia; entonces la gente te va a ver como a un bicho raro. En un ambiente machista las mujeres sufren mucho porque se les dice que su misiГіn es ser madres y traer hijos. Hijos para este planeta matadero. MГЎs carne de caГ±Гіn. Algunas veces creo que el machismo es mГЎs culpa de las mujeres. TambiГ©n las Г©lites necesitan que las masas engendren hijos porque necesitan esclavos y el crecimiento econГіmico segГєn ellos depende de eso. Todo esto estГЎ relacionado con la religiГіn y el fГєtbol ya que son necesarios para mantener a las masas tranquilas. Sin embargo creo que hay que promover el antinatalismo a mediano y largo plazo especialmente para la gente joven. Por esta razГіn el blog de Irina y de otra gente que toca estos temas son muy importantes para abrir los ojos y las mentes y los corazones tambiГ©n. |
|
04-09-2015 @Raul Yes, I agree, religious thinking and pressure from social institutions that benefit financially from population, and population growth, are a fundamental obstacle to compassionate AN. Indeed, as you mention, the change has to come with young people, for both knowing that young people can affect change and be ready for it, and because with childbirth and rearing it is something initiated by the young.I taught school, both university and high school, for part of my life, and even with a captive audience, the best I could do was to hopefully get some of them to actually think and challenge their assumptive beliefs, even with their still partially developed minds. I am not convinced that schools will be the best way to bring the fairness and truth to the masses, based on my experience. To anthropormorphize nature, it has been very clever to make non-procreation a difficult task. It will be interesting to see if it has made human beings smart enough to determine their own fate, to eliminate their own imposed suffering. How to achieve it, or how it will come about, is still a great mystery to me. One element that might be interesting is to study the psychology and associated environmental factors that have brought current ANers to where they are. Why am I AN? Irina, you, other posters and bloggers and YouTubers? Is there something we can learn about how we came to this universally simple but elusive truth about man and his predicament? What I see, unfortunately, is a doubling down of prayer and other irrational conclusions about how to fix things, maybe for a lack of perceived alternatives, a bit like prehistoric man sitting alone in the dark in a thunderstorm with the cry of wolves all around him. I really appreciate your views written in Spanish, I had to look up at least four or five words! I think there is definitely a lack of AN literature written in Spanish, and so much of South America *needs* access to these ideas but cannot find them through the host of natalist propaganda. --- > Edited 04-09-2015 19:33:29 --- > Edited 04-09-2015 19:36:00 --- > Edited 04-09-2015 19:41:48 |
|
05-09-2015 Dear Irina,I have a question. Do you think that when men oppress and rape women is because all the misery and wretchedness of our human existence comes from women, I mean because women give birth? I wish you strength of mind. |
[ link ] |
05-09-2015
I think they do so because they can. Women exploit, manipulate, cheat and betray men. If they were the physically stronger sex and had stronger sex drive, they would rape men. In other animal species it's also pretty simple: whoever is stronger takes advantage of the weaker. Animals rape members of other species. There's no rhyme or reason in any of this. |
|
05-09-2015 Dear Kirk: So you are a teacher. That´s a tough job, tough profession. In the teaching profession you must have had a lot of troubles for trying to make students think clearly. Antinatalism is very well thought and clear but there is a little big problem, we humans are inhuman, irrational,broken,diseased and weak creatures from birth until death. Dangerous too.Sometimes I think antinatalism is only for the upper classes because they limit their offspring but the masses breed like rabbits and that also is related to history,specially in our case. You see, from 1864 to 1870 Paraguay fought a war against Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay,that is, the War of the Triple Alliance. The male population was practically annihilated and only women,children and old people survived. That was followed by a series of revolutions, coup d etats, a war against Bolivia from 1932 to 1935. Clearly the motto was to breed at all costs with the support of the state and the quacks in black robes of the church. Also we are brainwashed into thinking/believing that we should be eternally thankful for coming to this world, that life is a precious gift, that God is the only who/which can take away a life and all the evil and injustice are tests that we must endure and suffer because it is the plan of God. I know AN means to have a compassionate feelings toward our human fellows but we humans are so mediocre (I do not exclude myself),selfish and arrogant that I regard AN as a lost cause. ANers are cursed by much thinking, much reasoning. ANers are unfit to fit in this planet. Definitely, I don’t think there is much literature in Spanish about antinatalism. Well maybe one that comes to mind is Fernando Vallejo,the filmmaker and author from Colombia, whose antinatalist speech Irina posted from Youtube. His books La Puta de Babilonia and Peroratas are full of truths nobody wants to hear or read. |
|
05-09-2015 This is what people push, this mindset is the problem!https://scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/11902279_772716789505362_8960906845123720228_n.jpg?oh=cab0a3173ee66c5effeafc13c46d08cd&oe=5660F3C0 |
|
07-09-2015 Dear Irina,Thank you for answering my question. I know men start wars and other types of violence; men rule in politics and religion. We are often told that women are the weak sex but we forget that womenВґs violence is underestimated. I remember my mother beating or mocking me ,my female teacher beating my fingers with a ruler at primary school,or my female cousins forced to kneel down before a crucifix in the house because my aunt thought they misbehaved. ItВґs true that if women were the stronger sex they would rape or kill men. No doubt about that. This reminds of Carmen Villalba, the leader of the Paraguayan PeopleВґs Army (the guerrilla- EjГ©rcito del Pueblo Paraguayo) who was sentenced to 15 years in prison plus 3 years for security for the kidnapping of a very wealthy businessmanВґs wife. She was arrested by the police in the city in 2002 and in order to avoid capture she threw hand grenades at the Comisario (chief of police). Months ago she was again sentenced to another 7 years because she threatened a female warden in El Buen Pastor prison with a knife. It is said that the prison guards are afraid of her and the inmates follow her orders. She is considered to be involved in a bomb scare against the Palace of Justice in 2009, to carry out a riot in prison. For that reason she was moved to be housed in a police headquarter. Not a very submissive woman. I wish you the best of luck. P.D. Is it true that a third of the gas consumed by the Europeans come half from Russia and the other half from Ukraine? |
[ link ] |
09-09-2015
No, it's true that men are more aggressive and violent, every statistic on crime proves that without any doubt. There are exceptions everywhere of course, but they remain exceptions. What I'm saying is that men do what they do because of who they are, much like rest of the species. There's no special reason behind these primal instincts. You're born stronger, with more testosterone that fuels aggression - and you've got a recipe for violent behavior. When you're born easily overpowered by the other sex - well, you probably won't be displaying too much open aggression if you want to survive. Men take advantage of women because they can. Or at least, they could in the past very easily. Today with laws and all - not so much in many countries. Ukraine needs gas herself, we're merely transporting Russian gas to Europe. |
|
07-09-2015 Dear Irina,I have another question. I read in your blog you are a psychologist.Will we,specially children, become more and more immature because of the growing use of the Internet and the social networks? Are human beings becoming more and more unable to react,more mechanical? P.D. Is water safe in Ukraine? |
[ link ] |
09-09-2015
Raul, I don't think 'mechanical' is the right word, Internet today is pretty advanced, we're able to use it to communicate almost like we would in real life. There's some concern that people lose their real-life social skills, so to say, they experience difficulties in communicating in everyday life because they're now used to the virtual equivalent. But the best way to tell is to conduct experiments of course. Here's just one somwehat relevant: http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/social-media-affecting-teens-concepts-of-friendship-intimacy-1.2543158 |
|
25-09-2015 I'm afraid of syringes, hidden in the sand, dropped by drug addicts. That's why I'm afraid to go to the beach. I remember the news on the radio when I was a schoolboy, about several cases of infecting with AIDS on Crimea beaches because of that. Like "Six cases of getting injured by the nails for the season, three of which caused AIDS infecting" or something like that. There's also broken glass sometimes. At least, you can always find the old green pieces of it, polished by sand.And this year I found 20 Hryvnas bill on the Primorsk beach. |
Comments to A day on the beach in this little town