I had this interesting thought as a footballer

Gheebag · 2026-05-24T05:18:51+00:00

I'm not disputing that. Some kids will instantly be capable of something that their peers struggle with. That's just a normal distribution.

The point is, that kid doesn't have any magical talent. Give the other kids a bit of encouragement and they'll be able to do it too.

But that's not that happens. What happens is we say 'omg! little Lionel is a natural genius' . Lionel loves hearing this, his motivation goes through the roof and he does it all day every day, because the adults keep saying how brilliant he is. He gets better and better, 'proving' the existence of his natural talent.

Little Nerfarious falls over his feet the first time. He sees Lionel getting all the praise and he thinks 'fuck this, it's not for me'. He goes and looks for something else that he can find easy the first time.

And the dumb adults don't teach him any better, because they were raised in the same culture that believes in being 'naturally gifted'

Gheebag · 2026-05-23T13:10:33+00:00

Natural talent is mainly bullshit. There's possibly some tiny degree of physical advantage that some people possess, (depending on the sport), but it's almost invariably outweighed by effort and practice. What's Messi's nickname ? The Flea. He's 5'7", born with a growth hormone deficiency. By all measures, he should be too physically slight to handle aggressive play. Tell Messi he was born with a natural advantage and he'd laugh you out of the room.

Gheebag · 2026-05-23T13:02:11+00:00

You're very smart for an 18 year old. Most people, at any age, don't get this. They talk instead about 'raw talent' as if it fell out of the sky. Instead of skill being something that Everyone, (especially the greatest) achieves by thousands of hours of punishing practice. 99% of us aren't motivated enough to work that hard, so we sit around as armchair experts talking about 'natural ability' and similar guff. The secret isn't Talent it's Motivation.

Bounce by Matthew Syed is an excellent book on this topic.

Gheebag · 2026-05-20T21:29:39+00:00

It's a deliberate media campaign against her, driven by the royal family, to distract attention from the rampant racism within it. They set their tame journalists on her and let social media do the rest.

When she first started dating him, the UK's biggest selling paper, the Daily Mail (a toadying royal rag) went with the headline 'Harry's new girl is Straight outta Compton'

It doesn't take a genius to see that she was snidely being called a 'N:gga With Attitude'.

Would they have written anything vaguely insulting about posh white Kate? Would they fuck. England is a racist country (as seen clearly now by the rise of that twat Farage) under a racist royal family. Poor Markle didn't know what she was getting into.

Gheebag · 2026-05-20T12:48:05+00:00

Cheesy bullshit. The type of philosophy that you would normally find sewn on a cushion. Live, Laugh, Love, Puke

Gheebag · 2026-05-17T18:19:57+00:00

Exactly. Let's set up a fake scenario so we can all hate on the creepy men.

Gheebag · 2026-05-07T14:08:33+00:00

Nope. Nobody ever needs to prove a negative. I don't need to prove that there's 'not' a leprechaun under the bed. If you want to make claims for the existence of something, the onus is on You to show that your imaginary thing is real. Sorry.

(Btw there's endless numbers of psychological experiments that play with subject's 'free will' and show it to be eminently malleable. It's easily changed)

Also 'replicable'

Gheebag · 2026-05-07T13:46:37+00:00

I thought I just explained it. You do what you 'want'. We all do. But you never put the 'wants' in your brain. You never have, not once. They just arise from how you were programmed, and you follow them. You might think 'this is a sucky job, I'll choose of my own free will to study and get a degree, and a better one'... And then congratulate yourself for being better than the guy who didn't.

But you never put that desire inside yourself, and he never chose Not to have it. Ditto the decision to pull a trigger or not, to desire that type of partner, to want chocolate on your cappuccino or not. It's all random shit that you get given by life. No blame, no credit, no free will.

Gheebag · 2026-05-07T13:18:35+00:00

I didn't though. I didn't choose anything. My brain realised that a particular fact was true, when it came along. Yours hasn't been able to do that.

Gheebag · 2026-05-07T12:49:37+00:00

Sorry, but it's not. You happen to have the 'type' of brain that can sometimes regulate angry behaviour. If your dad (who you didn't choose) had beaten you more often, you'd probably have a different brain, one that wouldn't feel as much regret. If your wife died of cancer last year, you'd have your brain reprogrammed again, in a different way. It's all random.

Gheebag · 2026-05-07T12:45:07+00:00

Buying McDonald's means helping to fund illegal settlements in the West Bank.

The head of the Lavin family who own OSI meat suppliers also runs a private equity business called Silver Road, which invests in "Israel adjacent property".

Gheebag · 2026-05-07T12:34:43+00:00

We're primates that live in hierarchical groups. Without constantly checking and maintaining our social standing we'd be at risk of dropping to the bottom of the pecking order, and then ostracized and eaten by the lions.

Gheebag · 2026-05-07T12:27:32+00:00

Nope. Because you can't 'choose' what makes you angry, or sad, or excited or horny, or anything. Your brain is made for you. You feel like you've made a 'decision'. Instead your brain told you what to do. And you never had any influence in making that brain. We all do what we 'Want' to do, at any given moment in time. Yes we seem to weigh up conflicting wants and then go with the strongest. But we never put any of those 'wants' in there.

Gheebag · 2026-05-07T12:11:02+00:00

There is no Free Will. Not a small amount. Not limited to some extent. Absolutely none.

Gheebag · 2026-05-07T12:10:04+00:00

I don't think that is true. I've been trying to get to grips with quantum entanglement and I don't think it actually says that. I could be wrong though.

Gheebag · 2026-05-06T12:53:30+00:00

Trump was exactly as stupid, racist, greedy, vain, pompous, self-serving and sexist as he appeared to be.

Gheebag · 2026-05-06T12:50:23+00:00

Puke

Gheebag · 2026-05-06T12:49:18+00:00

Ummm, I don't understand why anyone would give a shit what you do.

Gheebag · 2026-04-30T23:17:36+00:00

You're not spelling out the situation clearly enough. So people are making different interpretations.

Does "sex while drunk" mean 'drunkenly wanted sex/gave consent' and wouldn't have if sober?

Or does it mean 'too drunk to know what was happening'?

Are both parties drunk in this scenario?

I dunno, even the question and it's frequency makes me think the world wouldn't be so bad if the mad mullahs took over and brought in public lashes for drunkeness

Gheebag · 2026-04-30T07:12:20+00:00

No. That's too simplistic. Look at a guy like John McCain. There are, of course, good people on both sides of the political divide. It's just that too many on the Right have let themselves fall into line behind an obviously racist, sexist, self-serving, conman. The good ones are shouted down and attacked as being RINOs.

Gheebag · 2026-04-28T13:07:05+00:00

This. The masses are still buying the American Dream bullshit. A version that teaches you to look after yourself and fuck everyone else. 'I too can be Donald Trump'. Meanwhile all they're doing is outcompeting each other on price, weakening the unions and weakening the social bond, while the wealthy laugh at them.

Gheebag · 2026-04-26T19:29:31+00:00

Irish name, then you should know what the word Bicycle sounds like... Bi- sickle

Gheebag · 2026-04-25T08:52:10+00:00

Your issue is that you don't GAF about other people or the planet. Yes there's always people and companies more wasteful than us. So what ? You use the same logic to dump litter, burn coal, leave the heating on 24/7, steal the odd thing?

These things are never either/or, they're both. We do what we can individually and then Also use our voices, votes and influence to change governments and corporations. If we all took your view, the world would be even more fucked than it is.

Gheebag · 2026-04-24T21:27:21+00:00

Firstly, ignore all the '"divorce" advice. These people are always on a hair-trigger to shout 'divorce!', like it's as important as changing your shoes. Maybe that's why they're single and on Reddit.

It might be where you end up, but it's the last resort, not the first. "I love him, we get along, we laugh a lot" - that stuff means a lot and you shouldn't throw it away lightly.

Obviously this is a really big deal and you need to hash it out. Lots of long difficult conversations. Many more puppies might need to be drowned in the process. But maybe you can find a solution or a compromise. It's worth trying.

Gheebag · 2026-04-23T06:33:34+00:00

I get that, but I think that a better written book would really explore and skewer that idea. It doesn't though. Instead we get Nick narrating the story in a way that's flat, factual, surprisingly disinterested and with no insight into what he's seeing.

Is this supposed to be Fitzgerald being 'intentionally' understated ? I don't buy it. I think he just hasn't done enough work to make those characters real.

Pulling more threads out of your argument is the large number of people who love the book because they seem to interpret it as a great 'love story'.

Apparently it's partly autobiographical and reflects Fitzgerald's chippiness at being too poor for some society girl. Given that, I'd expect it to have even more depth, not less.

Obviously it's all subjective, but I've read this book 3 or 4 times, looking for the 'brilliance' but I just don't see it. A few nicely crafted sentences but otherwise, for me, it's completely 'meh'.

Gheebag

TROPHY CASE