soalbundy

Courage, determination and empathy for others is sorely missing these days (guilty as charged). This young women showed all these qualities instead of falling into depression and feeling sorry for herself, well done little fighter, hope you get to walk again.

If we just consider the quality of life as human beings then technological progress isn't so important. Tribes in the Amazon jungle have never heard of unsustainable debt, unemployment, hunger, fear of homelessness etc. These days in the so call technological civilized world there is rising poverty, homelessness, unemployment, living from pay cheque to pay cheque and fear. The exponential rise in technological progress is leaving the majority behind, AI, quantum computing etc. are the domain of a few scientists when most don't even know how their cell phone works, the vast majority (including myself) are like apes in a zoo playing with the toys our zoo keepers have given us. Human capabilities such as art, craftsmanship in wood, stone, metal and cloth manufacture, skilled farm work, innovation in design are dead or dying (the pyramids had to be built by aliens, the Mayan stone buildings had to be made by a pre-ice age advanced civilization because we can't envisage human ingenuity anymore). In Denmark there is a museum showing examples of stone age artifacts of such beauty and perfection it is difficult to imagine how they were made. When Oetzi (the frozen mummy found in the alps) was found the sewing on his leather garments was so precise that at first it was thought this was a modern man who had frozen to death many years before. Considering the modern age we live in I think of the book 'Brave new world', it's becoming a complicated dystopian nightmare where the book 'Animal farm' may soon become a reality. Incidentally regarding Thai capabilities. I worked for a German auto company who sent car kits to Thailand for them to assemble. One day my company changed the design of the air-con unit, they sent the new designed unit with the old kits, the Thai company reported back that the engines wouldn't start because the engine computer didn't recognize the air-con unit and they asked the German technicians in Germany if there was a way to re program the computer. The German technicians reported back after a weeks consideration that it couldn't be done and they would fly the old air-con units (at great expense) to Thailand. Red faces all round when the Thais reported back "not necessary, we have reprogrammed the computer ourselves, all working fine now"

There was a clinical study done in London in a carefully controlled environment for people suffering from depression, it helped some long term and many short term. In Israel it was used for terminally ill patients who had extreme death anxiety it was found to help all of those in the test. I have never used it myself due to lack of opportunity. Interestingly it seems that LSD, magic mushrooms, etc don't enhance brain activity, they reduce it to the extent that all filters are removed so that one sees 'reality' for what it is, just a manifestation of consciousness. The cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman has, after using mathematics in the evolutionary game theory and computer modelling, hypothesized that perceived reality isn't the truth, it is consciousness and agents of consciousness manifesting a 'reality' that ensures our survival, a survival of conscious agents, which only perceive that which is necessary, everything else is filtered out.

I don't think the Western style of economics can be held up as a shining example either though, unsustainable national debt and kicking the can down the road until the currency is debased is leading us to frightening pastures. Thailand won't be spared recession, it's in the same roller coaster going downhill and is reliant on countries who are already in recession, it will come here just a little later.

Arrogant, entitled, bad tempered with a short fuse, so yes a short stay in the monkey house before being deported would be an appropriate punishment, assault, especially committed against a woman, is a serious crime.

Cum convicts stick together.

Do Swiss men have a problem with anger management? One would have thought the news concerning his compatriot recently would act as an alarm bell, only kick Thai women in the dark, void of witnesses and tell them you're British.

Probably long gone.

The fish got its revenge.

That's the work of the devil.

I bet he has an Irish grandmother.

God gave us air-con.

Oh what a tangled web we weave.........

From an acorn grows a mighty oak tree. He is a very unpopular man.

Every house, boat, car and jacket seems to have one, they get nervous if they can't see the star spangled banner.

Just a cock and ball story

I agree, they've certainly got a lot of balls.

A major hissy fit, all that hidden testosterone want's to get out and express itself after years of suppression.

Yes Mr. Spock it's blotting paper but it's not blotting paper as we knew it at school.

He made the mistake of using a zebra crossing, it acts like a magnet for some drivers and you are easily seen. I've even seen police cars weaving around people crossing, nobody stops.

What about the mind harm?

Scientists examine cause and effect, nobody wants to listen to them if it affects profits, the technocrats can offer solutions as long as it doesn't mean a big cut in greenhouse gasses. It's an unfortunate situation, our civilization is built around fossile fuels, it just isn't possible to suddenly make rapid reductions and yet by waiting the solution (and damage) will become ever more expensive with the possibility of there being no solution. Expect more, millions more, climate refugees to Northern regions. Alaska and Siberia have a brilliant future in front of them, Asia and Africa not so much.

Probably something like, "two new 'warm brothers' (German saying for gay) for the workers" but that was the way our office was. Other departments were more correct and boring. I needed information once from the engine designers, I walked into their office with my company pass attached to my jacket with a paper clip because the official plastic clip had broken. The young man I spoke to was horrified, he kept telling me to get the correct clip, he barely listened to my questions, his eyes kept resting on the paper clip. When I got back to the sanity of my department I was delighted to hear an engineer ask another engineer (both in their 60's) from across the room, 'What's your password Walter" (he was working on the other guy's computer) "Oh, errrm, I can't say that out loud, I'll come over to you".

What about carpet munchers? Probably not eh, one would have to say "she isn't like other girls". You can't say a woman is fat any more in Germany, she is 'voll schlank' or 'full slim' what a lot of rubbish.

She should have kept quiet and hired a Thai thug to give fatty a good kicking.