05/06/23 - They were worried that if charges were pressed, they wouldn't get any money out of it.
A blogger covers a case of a newborn dying because he was fed 3 grams of ginseng 4 hours after being born. The next day, he went into seizures. From CT-scans, doctors discovered that the ginseng had caused his capillaries to dilate, causing a brain haemorrhage. He reminds people that newborn infants are very delicate. You shouldn’t feed them random supplements, no matter how expensive it is or how much it’s supposed to be good for you.
Comments agree, “Older people are always making fun of us for scientifically raising babies, saying that they’ve always done things this or that way. Yeah, we just survived it because we were lucky.”
“Never let old people feed your babies.”
“I’ve seen people try to feed newborns tapioca powder, because it’s supposedly good for your skin.”
A horoscope blogger writes, “A client of mine asked for my advice on something today. Her best friend, living in Anhui, is getting married. She’s in Fujian, and has an exam coming up the day of her best friend’s wedding. The exam only takes place once a year. She’s asking if she should go.
I asked her, “Is this actually your best friend, or is it a fake friendship?”
She said, “It’s actually my best friend. When my mom got cancer, it was this friend who helped pull connections to find the right doctor. The doctor was also this friend’s uncle.”
And I told her that she needs to pay this favour back. You have multiple opportunities to take that exam in your life. But you best friend is probably only getting married once. More importantly, she helped with your mom’s cancer. That is a huge favour. She helped you while you’re down. You have to return the favour. You have to at least act grateful, or else what kind of person are you? How would anyone else look at you? How would your other friends feel about you? And you need to tell this entire story to your boyfriend, so that he thinks you’re someone who’s grateful and who pays back favours.
Every single relationship in your life is maintained by profit. If you don’t know the basics of give and take, why would anyone ever help you again?
She said that she’d go, and she’d bring a gold necklace. She thanked me for saving her friendship.
I told her that if I was her best friend and she didn’t come and at least act out a wonderful friendship with me, I would block her on everything and ignore her for the rest of my life. We live far apart anyways. And if you don’t know how to be a decent human being, then there’s no point in keeping you around.
People need to know how to be grateful. You need to keep in mind who helped you and who kicked you while you were down, and how to pay each of those back.”
Chinese Business News reports Warren Buffett’s claim that he never looks at where someone went to school in terms of hiring, tagging the hashtag #is work experience more important or is degree more important?
Comments ask, “But do resumes without a degree whatsoever even make it in front of Buffett?”
“You might not look at it, but HR does.”
Top Story News reports that Buffett claims AI can change everything about the world, except the way people think and act. He claims that people always have a great reason for inventing something. Like how back in WWII, it was very important to invent the nuclear bomb. But for the world 200 years into the future, has that invention brought about any benefits? Einstein once said after inventing the atom bomb that this will change everything in the world, except the way people think. Buffett thinks the same of AI.
Comments say, “For someone who hasn’t created any value and only gotten rich because of opportunism, what he says has no value whatsoever.”
A lot of people are coming forward about sexual harassment by famous screenwriter Shi Hang in China. Under these #metoo posts, a father wrote lengthy replies about how this would never happen to his daughter, because he taught her how to say no and stand up for herself. A former Carnegie University post doctorate in brain imaging writes in response, “Look, you can educate your children about the evils of society, but don’t go into blog posts by victims to show off how awesome you are, how smart you are, how this would never happen to you.
I’ll tell you right now, that children end up victimised not because they were never taught properly by their parents, but because there is a ton of peer pressure, social pressure, and temptation. If you were in her situation, chances are, you wouldn’t be able to outright say no either.
Forget you. Look how many middle managers in billion dollar companies who still hesitate and bow and go along with their boss’s PUA. How many of them are too afraid to outright say no.
How do you know your daughter is that exceptional human being who is braver and smarter than all the rest?
I can tell you that when I went to Qinghua University (Harvard equivalent), there was a male professor who wanted me to go to his office. He even offered snacks. And I told him to his face that I wouldn’t go. And he was a very cool guy, he apologised for coming off the wrong way, praised me in front of other students, and even told his higher ups that I was a smart girl. In retrospect, he was a stand-up guy. My brain just jumped too far ahead.
But when your daughter was 19, faced with one of the most brilliant professors in the best university in the nation, can you guarantee that she’s going to be exactly as direct and brave as I was? What if she fell to pressure? What are you gonna do? Disown her?
Just for the fact that you, as the mother, don’t know how to keep your fucking mouth shut in a discussion thread of victims, and feel some kind of need to soothe your ego wherever you go, what makes you think your daughter has any stronger willpower than you do? If you’re so weak-willed, so easy to get tempted by being able to feel like you’re better than everyone else, how are you going to raise a child who’s going to be immune to flattery from men?
Reflect on yourself.”
Comments agree, “Parents like this have no idea how to express themselves in different situations, how to talk to people, how to treat others. But they still feel like they’re qualified to lecture the whole internet.”
A finance blogger writes, “There are people who married the person they loved and still became successful in life. I’ve seen two such couples in my decades of experience.
The first couple is an ugly as fuck rural guy who learned to code. He was 162cm tall, covered in acne, dark-skinned, and fat. Twenty years ago, code monkeys didn’t make much money. His wife was an office worker in a big company who looked exactly like a lump of dough, also from the backwaters. These two people lived stingily their whole lives and managed to save up 3 tiny, old, broken-down homes and one big penthouse. That’s pretty successful in my books.
The second couple is a combination of talent and beauty. The girl is gorgeous, but she’s got a major temper. She’s 45 now, and her skin is still better than 99% of young girls. Her facial features are beautiful. The guy graduated from Qinghua (Harvard equivalent), looks like Andy Lau, 185cm, captain of the football team, and is super gentle and sweet. They worked 20 years to buy a remote house that was at least big and new, 142 square metres, four bedrooms, two living rooms. This is a heavenly combination of talent and beauty, but both of these people are one in a thousand tier. Do you think you’re the same?
That’s it. Every other couple I know are just making do cause they can’t do better.”
Comments say, “We’re way past the day and age where you can get four houses just by being stingy.”
A relationship blogger writes a quiz, “Let’s test our readers today. You haven’t gotten a marriage certificate yet. You feel like you don’t have a sense of security without a marital house. Your boyfriend says that he has no house quota, he’s not legally allowed to buy a house. His parents say that they can gift a house to you right now—as in, they will wire you 10 million RMB. You can pay for a house in full with that money and write your name on the deed. Then, you can use this house as collateral for a 8 million RMB mortgage. Your boyfriend’s family promises that they’ll pay the mortgage payments. If you want to wait until after you’ve got a marriage certificate before doing all this, that is fine too. What do you think about this plan?”
Comments reply, “Anything this overcomplicated, I just refuse right away.”
“If they sign a contract declaring it a gift, sure.”
“Nah, I’d feel guilty taking that much.”
“Of course not. I didn’t actually put any money towards the house. Even if I wrote my name on the deed, my boyfriend’s family could sue for the house back. But once it’s used as collateral on the loan, I’m responsible for the debt no matter what. I’m not getting a cent and putting myself 8 million in the hole. This boyfriend is way too calculating.”
“The boyfriend’s family paid for the house. Whoever paid has the right to take back the house, doesn’t matter whose name is on the deed. Even if they’re paying for the mortgage, it’s my name on the loan and I’m the one responsible if payments lapse. There’s no free lunch in the world.”
OP gives the correct answer, “I’m glad most people noticed the trap right away. Yup, it’s true, there’s no free lunch in the world, everything has a price attached to it. The correct way to solve this situation is for the boyfriend to put up 2 million and for you to put up 800K as the downpayment to buy a house using your house quota after marriage. Then, use transfers from the bank account that your paycheque deposits into to pay back the mortgage, while the boyfriend’s family helps out with groceries and bills.”
There’s a trending hashtag of #doctor mandatorily reports sexual abuse on a 6-year-old patient. A military blogger writes, “My wife’s hospital had a case of a pregnant 13 year old girl. And although the family insisted very strongly that they ignore the matter, my wife still reported it. In the end, the girl’s neighbour, some 69-year-old perv, got sentenced to 13 years. Didn’t stop her family from making a big deal about how we invaded her privacy though. Apparently, they were wanting to settle it privately and were worried that if charges were pressed, they wouldn’t get any money out of it.”
Comments say, “Mandatory reporting is so important! I’ve heard before of a mother who went to the local town hall to ask for advice, saying she suspects that her kid was being sexually assaulted by the dad. After finding out that if she makes the police report, then the dad would go to jail, and the family wwould lose its income, she gave up. And town hall couldn’t force her to call the cops. Now that mandatory reporting is a thing, kids like this could be saved!”
Is it normal to have such a mercenary view of friendship? Of course in reality that give-and-take dynamic is everywhere — it's hard to maintain a long-term relationship with someone that doesn't have any sense of gratitude. But whatever happened to simply liking someone as a person and having goodwill towards them? Is there no equivalent of an Epicurus who argues that friendship makes life worth living, or C.S. Lewis who argued that the sentiment towards a friend was its own distinct form of love, separate from the romantic sort? The kind of "friendship" being described there seems more like networking in the corporate world (relationships founded on the exchange of benefits) than friendship.
The bit about Buffet not creating value and only being an opportunist is a classic Marxist fallacy. The investor that directs resources to good businesses and away from bad businesses in fact generates enormous value through making productive investments instead of funding boondoggles. Some kinds of investment actively destroy value, so not doing that is a real skill.