So this is something I don't quite understand. Has Russia always sort of been "hollowed out" as a kleptocracy? Is this the way their culture is normally? Or is this an aberration? — frank

Do you have the patience to wait
Till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
Till the right action arises by itself? — Lao Tzu again

(how would one become both sides of a conflict? — Tom Storm

So long as becoming single-minded isn't something that can be attempted and failed, and you're allowed to only say it occurred after you see the result, then it isn't a real method. — Judaka

How does confronting a difficulty allow you not to experience it? — Tom Storm

Wanting to avoid the health risks of smoking and wanting to smoke are logically consistent with each other, within the mind. The contradiction is in the incompatibility of these two desires in the real world. One isn't split between wanting to avoid the health risks of smoking and wanting to smoke, one wants both, they just can't have both. — Judaka

In cases like this, it is simply unthinkable for anyone to have seriously attempted something like quitting smoking, and never once resented their contradictory desire to do the very thing that they're trying to quit. The very thing that thwarts their efforts every time, what possibility is there that anyone wouldn't at some point wish it would disappear? — Judaka

If it's so simple, is everyone who fails just weak-willed and a fool? How can failure deserve anything but derision when the solution is something a 6-year-old could come up with? — Judaka

practical themes in motivating us to conceptualise problems by their fixable components — Judaka

Fixable factors represent things like habits, routine, thought patterns, attitudes, methodology, education and any category typically characterisable as actionable. — Judaka

In the universe the difficult things are done as if they are easy.
In the universe great acts are made up of small deeds.
The sage does not attempt anything very big,
And thus achieves greatness.

Easy promises make for little trust.
Taking things lightly results in great difficulty.
Because the sage always confronts difficulties,
He never experiences them. — Lao Tzu

Wherein there is a difference lies the answer to your question. The open minded liberal tends to be open minded and liberal about prostitution as long as it's "them" that's doing it. — Baden

… I want ev'rybody to be free
But if you think that I'd let Barry Goldwater
Move in next door or marry my daughter
You must think I'm crazy… — Bob Dylan

But Trump said he did, so people believe it. They believe it even though it has been explained over and over again that the VP doesn't have the power to do this. — GRWelsh

An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning: another instance of the fact that the future lies with the youth. —  Max Planck

He is quick, thinking in clear images;
I am slow, thinking in broken images.

He becomes dull, trusting to his clear images;
I become sharp, mistrusting my broken images.

Trusting his images, he assumes their relevance;
Mistrusting my images, I question their relevance.

Assuming their relevance, he assumes the fact;
Questioning their relevance, I question the fact.

When the fact fails him, he questions his senses;
When the fact fails me, I approve my senses.

He continues quick and dull in his clear images;
I continue slow and sharp in my broken images.

He in a new confusion of his understanding;
I in a new understanding of my confusion. — Robert Graves, In broken Images.

Why should we talk about the history of this conversation? — Srap Tasmaner

what I call the "reality warping" effect of Trump — GRWelsh

You all diligently buy nothing but certified organic or biodynamic food then I assume? — Isaac

I don't care what you personally do (unless perhaps, you're wanting to make the argument that no-one is hypocritical in this respect?) — Isaac

By all means disagree — Isaac

Would it? — Isaac

It's just hard to engage with you because every argument you present quickly morphs into all of your arguments. We start out changing an oil filter and end up taking apart the whole car.
— Srap Tasmaner

Fair point, I'll take that on board. — Wayfarer

Prayer is a sacrament for you, not for me. Obviously my will is always done on Earth as it is in Heaven. And I already know what you want and the answer is going to be "No." except when you happen to want what I will. But you like to assuage your feelings of helplessness and even pretend to get your Mother Mary to ask me for for you. But really, all you need to say is 'sorry', and 'thank you' and even that is for your own comfort, not for my benefit. The Creator needs nothing from his creation. — God

All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs. — Enoch Powell

But, then, am I to conclude that the mentally spatialized universe is somehow located in my mind? — charles ferraro

It was a publisher who coined the phrase “without fear or favor.” That publisher was Adolph Ochs, who promised readers when he acquired The New York Times in 1896, that it would be his “earnest aim to … give the news impartially, without fear or favor, regardless of party, sect, or interest involved. — Google

But its conflicts can be recognized and subsequently guarded against. — Mww

I understand in individual cases actual democracy can be inconvenient — Baden

Your claim was that the fundamental driver was uncertainty of fatherhood. But apparently social bonds of mutual trust and fidelity are more important. — Tzeentch

Is there not a difference to you, between stopping and starting again, and stopping and never starting again? — Metaphysician Undercover

Stopping is like dots at the end of the sentence, or the fading out of the music as the end of the song. You can't be sure that the story has ended - yet. And "yet" can be postponed indefinitely. There's a nice complication. Arguably, the end of a narrative is always, in a sense, arbitrary. — Ludwig V

Interesting how your can theoretically pardon yourself. Very ethically sound. — Benkei

You have no proof. — frank

It’s also weird you’re calling it unresponsive to the situation like there is some objectively correct way to respond to situations. — Darkneos

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. — Shakespeare

I think you’re mistaken. I said I behave same no matter where I go, that “same” being who I am which is considerate. — Darkneos

I act the same no matter where I’m at, same with others, so how do they explain that. — Darkneos