StreetCowboy

every guy i know that has come to thailand has left with yellow fever... and now either come to thai all the time to look for a thai gf or have an asian gf back home!!! must be saying something about western women???

Don't understand... Western men come to Thailand, meet Eastern women...

must be saying something about.... daschounds; elephants' african ladies; south american boys...

No; I think maybe it is saying something about Western Men.

Or Maybe its saying Eff-all about Eff-all but I think its saying Eff-nothing about Eff-nothing

SC

Rather than quoting Streetcowboy, I'll just say I agree with most of what he says.

There are many people, myself included, who don't work well in a large group. Very often these are the creative people who come up with new ideas to build things. I would fit many computer nerds into this category. They can be highly valuable for a firm, but they might not fit into the diplomatic needs of the company to get things done without irritating potential customers. A good manager understands this and fits those people into a separate niche while separating them from the diplomatic salesmen.

But there's more to it than that. We need to learn to accomodate the wicked and spiteful; the morally bankrupt; the ignorant, prejudiced and incompetent - because otherwise we are throwing away the bulk of our resources. I mean let's face it: if we only worked with people as intelligent as you and me, we'd be down to 97% efficiency straight away!

My colleague is a hypocrite. He doesn't realise it, and he would be so offended if I were to point it out that the damage to the section as a whole would be worse than the muttonous mumblings amongst the staff from his hypocrisy (I don't by this mean that I am in any way better - it is far easier to see others;' flaws than your own....) SO I need to learn to work with his foibles. If he were an axe-wilding psycopathic maniac, I would need to come up with some scheme to get the most out of him while avoiding exposing our team members to unacceptable risk.

EDIT: I am not sure, in retrospect, why I started out on the below digression - perhaps on the topic of tolerance of others' foibles...

I am always surprised by the posters that seem to think that violence can solve a problem "If he said that to my wife I'd give him a good biffing!"; I suspect ther posters that put forward such views are either

A) American: Have they learnt nothing from VIetnam?

English: So many of the English people I meet are indistinguishable from normal human beings that I am appalled when I met the loutish thugs which epitomise foreigners' perception of the English, almost to the extent that I am moved to nationalism (God forbid!) But we have to remember that they are family, and treat them with love and forebearance accordingly...

SC

What the 'xxxx' is this all about?

Will please someone explain, it`s been a long tiring day.

Simply it's if you tell the truth in a Thai court of Justice they ain't going to believe you unless you have proof.

And even then, you're on a hiding to nothing, because not only do you have to show that it was true, but you also have to show that it was in the public interest that the infromation was made public.

The Accused says "Mr X, the holder of post Y, is a corrupt official and a villain.

Mr X sues for defamation.

Accused: Here is the evidence - see- it is all true

X : But you have harmed my earning potential and cut me off from bribes from foreign contractors, who had previousl believed me to be the most upright citizen in Thailand

Judge: He has a point. That is a lot of money to lose out on.

Accused: But it is in the public interst that this information is made known to the voters

X: Why? who gives a toss what they think?

Judge: He has a point. Their votes are 500 baht a head, regardless

Accused: But we never said that he was any more corrupt or villainous than any other official in Thailand. We merely said he was a traitorous lying weasel who would sell his own grandmother for a second-hand Mercedez.

Judge: You have a good point there. We find you innocent of the charges placed against you, and we find that X is liable for the free advertising that you have provided.

On the secondary case, that your advertising was misleading, we find you not guilty. On the teriary charge, we find you liable to pay road tax on the Mercedez

SC

The truth needs no translation. maybe but in law you have to have the proof to back it up.

Sometimes, the truth does need translation

sic means 'exactly as written',; it comes from the latin sic: thus

as in "the truth needs no translation. maybe (sic) but in law...' where the 'sic' is intended to imply 'I know "maybe" should have a capital, but thus was it written in the original quote'

Sometimes, the truth does need translation for the gentle reader who may not be as well-educated or as intelligent as those who walk amongst us. Remember that a lot of the non-native English-speakers on this forum are poorly educated and here only by nature of unfortunate disparities in the balance of trade... actually, here we are straying from the realms of lexology and grammar, about which I know little, to economics which is one of my weaker subjects; what is the collective noun for betes noirs?

SC

Nope....

That greenie stung my heart.

Was that not a satirical greenie then?

Isn't it rude to answer a question with a question?

Is it?

I feel really guilty about that; it's an in-joke shared with two other blokes, one of whom for sure doesn't read this forum.

Nope....

That greenie stung my heart.

Was that not a satirical greenie then?

I think it was ironical; you'll need to test it with a magnet...

I'm a busy man, and clicking on a button takes way too long. Why can't I just blink left eye for a plus and right eye for a minus? Don't computers have cameras now? I'm told mine does.

If gratification were any slower than instant, I couldn't arsed to wait.

--

Initially it was just the greens, the reds came later (am I right?). After the introduction of the reds, there's been a noticeable reduction in the use of the 'jerk' emoticon. I don't know about the rest of you, but seeing that emoticon always spoiled my appetite for the evening. I'm relieved to have to view less of it.

EXACTLY! The reputation has reduced the need for irritating posts comprising a single emoticon. FOr that alone, Jongthing's sufferings seem justified. Actually, JingThing's sufferings are warranted in their own right and require no justification. Its like schadenfraude without the german

Not only that, sometimes I mean my post to be insulting. Sometimes I spend a little time and thought in being creative in my insulting. Shouldn't that be a plus and not a minus?

The thing is that the people being insulted will give you a plus, because Eff-wits like that won't realise it was meant as an insult, while the rest of us will give you one because we appreciate the wit

SC

Edit: Half doesn't begin with an F; my apologies

I feel we have lost so much with the passing of Frankie Howerd, and I regret that I paid so little attention when he was alive

For the sake of pedantic clarity, the two notes are not related.

true story.. i know a guy that moved in with a male looking thai girl because he went broke and she now pays everything for him. (still broke 8months later)

He has no friends left and he hates her. Good way to save money... his 2000$ left to his name are not moving much.

Is "male looking" like bird spotting?

SC

GUESTHOUSE: You've got a classical education

Am I right in thinking that the Homo in Homo Sapiens means Man

(unlike in homosexual or homogenised milk, meaning "similar, or, for the readers of this forum, 'same-same"

so could we describe ilyelol's mate's lady as 'homoscopic' ?

Innovation - your route to expanded wordpower...

Oh for want of a hyphen!

-

So I think that there is a consensus that our crawl should include a beach bar and a british (as in isles, not crown) country pub. But which one? Perhaps we could suggest a pub on the West Coast of Ireland, or remote Cornwall, or the Outer Hebrides, that could provide inclement, hearth-warming weather, rich real ales, idyllic sandy beaches and top surf?

SC

Perhaps we should also look to the world of fiction as well; I suggest perhaps we include the bar in the first star-wars film, and miss out all the pubs in Trainspotting...

At my last place of employment, there was a newly appointed manager who as it turned out was from the old school who thinks "stereotypes and generalisations are important" ...HR was aghast at their error. Anyway, some gentle hints and counselling were instigated but when it became apparent that his output was nowhere near what we wanted coupled with his inability to fit with the corporate culture, the gentle hints became a full scale strategy as to how to get rid of this square peg. HR (who was terribly embarassed at having created this problem in the first place) cleverly arranged a small reorganisation so that this square peg reported to an Indian senior manager. We got the square peg's resignation 2 weeks later. The local CEO revealed much later that he would have instructed HR to do same even if the square peg's outut had been outstanding because there is no excuse given the man's education.

Moral of the story: it is more important to know who are the ones who generalise and stereotype.

I think a lot of gentle readers will have missed the point of this story... That people are made to suffer for their opinions by people who are prejudiced against those that think differently from themselves; you may well find that the reason the gentleman in question tendered his resignation was on the basis of the persecution and witch hunt by the thought-police and PC HR, rather than the ethnicity of his superior - or even those irritating facets of his superior that conformed to the resignee's stereotype of a person of that ethnicity.

Let me explain by way of an analogy.

Mr X (that name was not selected to indicate any ethnicity or religion) dislikes racists, bigots and Nazis. His employer believes that we should treat everyone equally, regardless of their views, and therefore assigns him to work for Adolf Boot-Boy. Shortly after, Mr X resigns, saying "I cannot work for someone who spends such a fraction of his day shaving his head" whereas in fact he is fed up with having people in his office who cannot do their work because of their Ku Klux Klan masks, but he does not want to be branded intolerant, and ever since he started, his authority has been undermined by people criticising his viewpoint and his own character.

Sadly, racism and gender discrimination are not the only ills that befall our society, but luckily, they are relatively easily addressed.

Let us hope that we address them from a pro-active, thoughtful and long-sighted perspective, rather than with reactive, knee-jerk ignorance.

SC

Where is Notthenation when you need it?

SC

Ah yes guys but you also forget - the negative mark may be nothing to do with the intelligence of the responder and his ability to respond

The negative mark may well be attributed for the ignorant manner the information is delivered rather than not agreeing with the content.

In which case I would say justified.

And how exactly would one determine what the intent was?

I would suggest by the level of personal insult contained in the post?

That seems discriminatory against those amongst us with Touret's Syndrome

SC

COuld I get a Touret's Licence please?

wow !

just read through the whole thread after being away for a couple of days and noticed that not one member of admin or the moderation team has passed any comment on the debate in hand.

usually on a subject as hot as this you get someone from either group popping their head in now and again to give their two satangs worth or to pull things into line, but not this one.

i will leave it open to the rest of the forum to decide on their own interpretation of such actions or as the case may be inactions.

Maye they're interested in the opinions of the proletariat. THat is more important in a co-opted dictatorship than a democracy, since the only alternative that the proletariat has is revolution (or, in the case of the customers of a business, voting with their feet and their wallets)

I get confused by the multiple threads on this topic - I am as guilty as the next man (unless someone else posts between us in the next 30 seconds) of wandering off topic and addressing the digressions of previous posts, and also taking into account the broader context of foral debate, rather than responding only to what was said in the specific quote or thread - See? I'm bloody doing it again....

SC

And in another digression: Is it you that always writes "wright"?

RITE A ritual

WRITE Make meaningful markings on paper

RIGHT Correct; universal privilege; dexter-side or starboard

WRIGHT One who makes things

we could go on, taking into account English pronunciation with

WIGHT ghost

WHITE Reflecting all colours equally

RIOT Disorderly assembly or taiwanese parliament

...Again, I say Quality & NOT quantity.

I'm with you on that, but I'm an alcoholic. The CAMRA buffs and wine-tasting cheeseaters can stuff their real ale and their vintages, its no substitute for quantity.

I must express my thanks for the "intelligent among us" quip; in fact, there could be all kinds of minorities stalking the earth unknown to us naive and innocent normal people - I feel that almost warrants a thread of its own' I'll race you to the pub...

I think the reputation system could be improved - I also think it would be worth counting positives and negatives separately, so that the fact that a poster was the subject of a hate campaign would not impact on his reputation-based priveliges - some of the fora I subscribe to make certain content available only to members over a certain reputation, to encourage constructive posting of information - admittedly, those are slightly more specialist fora, with less banter - less bantic fora, you might say

SC

PS Thanks for the flattery; whenever I try to say something like that, I always feel it sounds obsequious, but luckliy I'm so arrogant that I think it sounds respectful when you say it; anyway, so normally I make do with a nod and a polite smile, which does not come over well on the internet. So I use the GREENBUTTON instead. And similarly, the Red, instead of posting a "TWIT" comment when the person is clearly a rhyming top hat.

IN fact, when this Reputation was first introduced, I thought it was a recipe for puerile bickering, but, following the recent debates, and having seen how it can be abused, I am minded more and more to say it is a good thing, and it is up to the user to abstain if he suffers from abuse. As I said above, I know about these things...

As our long-suffering friend will have to learn (he likes to suffer, anyway....) its not what you've got that's important, but the spirit in which it is given, and regardless of his balance, he can still see who has appreciated his posts. I do check that,, to try and see which posts have been appreciated, and which have been too obscure and obtuse...

I see you still have the avatar of the Whiteboard that talks to you? I think that could be misinterpreted as being impolite and provocative - offensive even, Abusive to the gentle reader; not everyone devotes as much effort to finding subtle humour and humility in others' posts...

SC

Update - 897 days alcohol-free

Well done!

OK guy's don't know if l want to look now.

oooops, sorry about baring all, spell check is great but doesn't sort out my meaning.

I wasn't sure if you were being deliberately Frankie

SC

I sometimes have trouble remembering why I stopped, and if others don't remind me, I need to remind myself...

Writing it down helps...

SC

Some of the avatars used on this site are incredibly misleading,

Some are farang pretending to be young Thai girls and staying in character

Others show military photos or names which are equally deceptive,

Have you been sending Pms thinking they were beautiful women. Only to find out they are hairy arsed builders?

Do you recall the fashion a few years back for low-slung jeans with no waistband, and specially tailored panties for showing off a ladies' builders' cleft?

SC

Edit: At the time I referred to them as plumbers' pants, but builders' briefs would be more appropriate - though less feminine, I suppose

We have in the main here 2 posters who by their own admission are 'controversial' and 'boundry pushers'..........yet do not have enough steel in their backbones to accept a simple method for forum members to express their disapproval at some of the posts they distribute......... if the disapproval is earned or not does not appear to be part of the objection.......(or is it)...... the simple process of voicing disapproval is apparently childish......why?

Firstly, I have never participated in this childish reputation system. It also appears that I have not been victimised by it (yet). This may be due to my recent decision to reduce posting.

Secondly, I have plenty of steel in my backbone & as such, a simple 'push of a button' does not represent a comment of any description. Any fool can simply choose a green or a red...& for any unknown reason. As Inspector Morse once said, "Allowing the pages of The Sun to pass before your eyes does not amount to reading, Lewis."

It takes effort to truly reply to a comment & this idiot function (reputation) helps to remove this aspect of the conversation/thread.

Remember that we have to write for an audience that includes not only the "intelligent who walk amongst us" but also the living dead and non-native english-speakers and non native-english speakers. In many cases they (we) find it difficult to put into words a compliment that matches the original post, and we don't want t clutter up the thread with pages of "Hear Hear" "Quite Right!" Top Chap!" - while the equivalent, when we were struggling with an expression of condemnation, would probably earn us a brief holiday in communicado, or worse, Coventry.

I think where one of our fellows went wrong was in drawing attention to the tool, and also with suggestions for abuse of some of the other 'social' features of the forum

SC

Got to laugh, never read profiles, just wanted to see who JT's bad guy's are. Unfortunately it doesn't reveal who gives red or greens. So looked at 2 forum members who l think have an attitude problem and had a good laugh. If the mods have looked at these 2 guys it's obvious to most they are <deleted>, one guys occupation, which if it were me l would not reveal tells all. Don't ask me why, just say l have known a few.

JT. In your case you have shown to all from your incredible input to the forum that what comes from these eeeeeer people, sorry can't use the right word cos l was suspended before, has nooooo baring in the thoughts of ' normal ' people here. It's people like yourself that make a forum enjoyable and not those with a big chip on their shoulder problem.

If you click on the word "Reputation" at the TOP RIGHT of their page (not immediately below where the picture should appear) you will get the whole sad and sordid history in reverse chronlogical order (I'm not sure if this link will work, but by way of example I'll show you mine - Oo err that's a bit Frankie Howerd http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/user/60794-streetcowboy/page__tab__reputation)

You need to be careful with your spelling - "baring in the thoughts of normal people" is a revolting and offensive fantasy which I do not believe normal people would entertain - I think (I hope) you meant "bearing on the thoughts" - apologies for the pedantry

SC

PS I have a shoulder problem that makes balancing a chip difficult - no seriously, I do; I've got a doctor's note for it and everything

....There are some obvious choices for the 'intelligent' people among us;

...

Sorry; I posted the reputation before I properly digested the comment above; I had misinterpreted it as meaning "...obvious choices for us intelligent people..." whereas it should really be read as "..for those intelligent people hidden in our midst..." - I mistook your (quite justified) paranoia an xenophobia for arrogance.

DO you really believe that intelligent posters stalk the earth? and aliens? and catholics?

A frightening thought, but all possible, I suppose

SC

<br />

<br />That sounds a bit fruity.  Are you a friend of JT's?<br /><br />SC<br />

<br /><br /><br />If you are looking for a date, look elsewhere. <img src='http://static.thaivisa.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /><br />

Maybe I should take my tent down to the back of Nana Plaza

SC

That reminds me of the joke that ends with the pope saying

"I thought I told you yesterday to pick up your sleeping bag, take down your tent and eff off out of here"

You danced around that issue quite nicely, Streetcowboy.

I noticed how hard you tried not stepping on anyone's toes. You must have had experience in the UK under the PC police. .

Before I start this post, I'll preface that I bear no ill-will to the individual concerned, and indeed almost consider him a friend - albeit an annoying one, like the donkey in Shrek.

I was not really aware of some of my prejudices until they were enflamed by a poster on this forum; and I realised that the reason I held that prejudice was because of an irritating feature of the stereotype which turned out to be reasonable generalisation for that group of people. And where individuals do not exhibit those characteristics, I often do not even notice their membership of that group of people, although obviously, I can imagine that ill-considered drunken innuendo could easily wear thin late in the evening, so perhaps I should be grateful that I am not a sociable drinker...

SC

On a slightly different note, I think that what was referenced as "Stereotypes" in the early posts were in fact preconceptions. A stereotype would be a generalisation applied to all members of a group; in the prelude to war, the participants had preconceptions regarding the Japanese army, US Industrial capability - single systems, albeit large and complex ones. A stereotype would have been "I'll go over and give him a good kicking. Japanese soldiers are all lightweight midgets" when in fact, some Japanese soliders would have been former sumo wrestlers and substantially greater in bulk than the average.

We stereotype Japanese industry (to avoid falling into the same error as I mentioned above, I think I must mean Japanese industrial companies) as well organised and efficient, but the back street workshops that comprise the large fraction of Japanese manufacturing companies (though only a small proportion of the total national manufacturing output) are as disorganised and no more progressive than their peers elsewhere. I often work with Japanese companies, but when it comes to procuring mechanical plant produced by small companies, even they prefer to do business with (in my experience) British companies - who, to be fair, subcontract a lot of the work to companies from other countries.

SC

You danced around that issue quite nicely, Streetcowboy.

I noticed how hard you tried not stepping on anyone's toes. You must have had experience in the UK under the PC police. .

The fact that the indiginous majority are predominantly idle half-wits does not mean that they are all thus; and to ignore them in favour of the richer seams of talent in the minorities would be a mistake. But on the other hand, the fact that the minorities are under-represented in the recruits, despite being over-represented in the promoted staff, suggests a flaw in the recruitment process.

I considered the possibility that it reflected a flaw in the promotion process, but it is easier to have a robust "promotion by merit" process than a robust "recruitment by merit" process, since you have longer to learn about the merits of staff than applicants.

The trouble is that if unless you are careful to use non-inflammatory language, someone gets incensed, and then you end up fire-fighting on irrelevant issues.

Its always prudent to pour oil on troubled waters...

light blue touch paper and retire to a safe distance

SC