"I'm the best there is at what I do. And what I do best isn't very nice is call Apple support to complain about that spinning pinwheel on Safari."
Yeah, it seems like there's some muddled thinking there somewhere. I mean, my back hurts right now. It really hurts a lot. And if I was living in a shack outside of Nairobi, or in a 8,000 sq. ft. McMansion, and I had a backache, it would still be a backache. In fact, there are a lot of countries in the third world where it would be much easier for me to get effective analgesics than it is here, although admittedly proportionally much more expensive.
I was eavesdropping on a cell phone conversation yesterday on the bus -- a woman who worked as a personal care attendant (which is our nice, first world way of saying that she is paid to clean up the shit of other adults) was talking with her boyfriend about all of the hassles involved in dealing with her mother's recent death. She was in some kind of catch-22 situation where she couldn't afford to pay the small fee (like $20) for a death certificate for her mother, which would allow her to access the cash from her mother's small estate, because somehow her own bank account had been frozen while the funds were being transferred from her mother's account (or joint account that she had with her mother, it would seem likely). And she didn't have any paycheck to cash because she'd just started working for a new personal care service, and they were holding up her check for some reason, despite asking her to work unpaid hours that they assured her would be credited to her later on through some padding of her expected future timesheets. It was just one of those situations where you're like "Holy shit, there is a BIG divide in this country between even the low end of the lower-middle class and people who are truly working class or impoverished." Is that a "first world problem"?
I'm with you, heebie. It's stupid. Demanding that people be at all times immediately aware of all the ways they are incredibly lucky -- and that therefore they should acknowledge that their negative emotions are basically unworthy of empathy -- is evidently stupid, and this is a species of that.
Although, if it's self-directed instead of hectoring, there's something to be said for counting your blessings (which is essentially the same thing). I give a lot less to charity than I should, and it's partially due to a failure to really internalize how much of what I have is inessential.
Peter Singer has a point.
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Request to any NY-area people who are able/willing to spend time with Fox News: They are apparently planning to air a story based on the school registration issues discussed here, except they weirdly seem to be ginning up a (nonexistent) immigration angle to it. I would be very curious to know what eventually airs.
Thanks in advance if anyone finds out.
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So, is it symmetrical? If somebody living basically a subsistence existence in a favela goes to a really crazy bailé party, has a blast and gets laid to boot, should they remind themselves how those small pleasures really pale in comparison to the insane level of privilege which accrues to the wealthiest people on the planet?
Counting your blessings is great. I'm generally all for it. My objection is to the idea of counting your blessings as if there is a balance sheet of blessings and trials such that, so long as blessings outnumber trials, one is a jerk to complain about the trials.
Hmm. I think it is frequently a way to cheer yourself up on the backs, as it were, of the "less fortunate third world children with flies all over them" type. I think this is why it often rubs me the wrong way. As Heebie kinda alludes to, there frequently seems to be an assumption of total misery where the third world is concerned. Like, ohmygod, they don't have basic necessities, they have never known joy. I gotta think people in less developed countries aren't thrilled to be portrayed that way. Especially, as Natilo notes, there are plenty of unfortunate impoverished people here who are available to be pitied. (Sorry about your back, dude.)
My back hurt last week, but this week it's better.
3 is correct.
There is also the fact that the experience of suffering is affected by our surroundings. Modest pain in the presence of happy people is amplified, while the exact same level of injury in the presence of people suffering worse is lessened.
8 was wildly pwned by the OP. Hi, OP! I probably skipped that sentence because of the homonym.
"rein"
This is no time to bring up horses, nosflow.
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Goddammit, internet. There will probably be many more from Ark Music Factory and Rebecca Black.
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Further to the point of 12.last: Since environment is a factor in the subjective experience of suffering, those who bitch and moan are performing a socially useful function by depressing ambient hedonia, thereby reducing the perceived suffering of their compatriots. Bitching is a compassionate act.
2: Furthermore, her relationship with the boyfriend had just gone through a rocky patch, she felt like her friends and family were not being very supportive, and she had her own medical issues, like an enlarged heart and other heart problems, that she was worried about and didn't feel like she could talk about with anyone. She was closer to 30 than 40, and still sounded like she was game to deal with a lot of these hassles, but damn, it sounded like she just couldn't catch a break for nothin' right now.
I think this kind of thinking can be useful in the narrow circumstances in which it prompts you to behave differently. I know that I've bitten my tongue and managed to be a bit kinder (or at least not actively *un*kind) on a number of occasions where I've realized that the issue I was pontificating about was not, in fact, as serious as I was making it out to be, and that by making it the topic of discussion I was implicitly suggesting that my pet peeve was a more important issue than my colleagues' or clients' more pressing concerns.
If you're regularly the person in the room with the most social capital, it behooves you to be cognizant of that sort of thing, I think.
Otherwise, I don't think the "but you're so lucky compared to ___" is very helpful. Often it seems to lead toward a bizarrely zero-sum notion of joy, in which a happy or pleasurable experience for you is somehow automatically resulting in pain or misery for someone else. The heck with that.
Actually, I'm going to choose to be grateful for the fact that Rebecca Black did not kill herself.
(This by way of illustrating that hat phrase: "I'm going to choose to be grateful", or almost any other related "I'm going to choose to be [blank]", makes me want punch a hippy.)
As Heebie kinda alludes to, there frequently seems to be an assumption of total misery where the third world is concerned. Like, ohmygod, they don't have basic necessities, they have never known joy.
That wouldn't have occurred to me. I know I don't have the assumption of total misery going on, having spent a couple of years in a reasonably pleasant and well-functioning, but very very very very poor country. But the 'first world problems' line still makes sense -- most things I think of as problems don't involve physical pain or risk of ill-health or injury for me or anyone I care about. (Some do, like a backache. But I wouldn't pull out the 'first world problem' line in that context, because it doesn't make sense there.)
This is the fucking thing you get when you're a kid and you're looking at a plate of horrible congealed food and the adults are all, "Now come on, eat it up, there are loads of children in China/India/Biafra/Ethiopia who would love to have it."
Bollocks is what it is.
I knew a bloke who refused to eat decent food he could well afford out of solidarity with the people would couldn't afford to. Likewise live in a decent flat, buy decent clothes, etc. I said, I'm a champaign socialist. I want everybody on earth to be able to buy a bottle of champaign if they feel like it. What's the point of socialism if everybody still has to live on beans on toast? But he wouldn't have it.
"Momma's little baby likes truffles. Momma's little baby likes caviar" - Charles Mingus
having spent a couple of years in a reasonably pleasant and well-functioning, but very very very very poor country
This appears to be pretty key, and also atypical.
Washing your hands and then faced with the dilemma of opening the bathroom door - that is a first world problem. Your airpacked, germ free existence now threatened by a door handle!!! Touched by OTHER PEOPLE!!!!!! The third world knows how to do toilets in style, if nothing else.
But the 'first world problems' line still makes sense -- most things I think of as problems don't involve physical pain or risk of ill-health or injury for me or anyone I care about.
But what's the point then? "It's a 'first world problem,' so I suck for complaining about it?" "Thank God I only have 'first world problems' unlike those wretched third world people?" As I think more about it, I am even more put off by "first world problem" than I am by more generic exhortations to count one's blessings.
You mean that most very very poor countries aren't pleasant and well-functioning? I think at least bits of lots of them are, in the sense that I'm using the words.
But even if your life isn't constant grinding misery, which it isn't for, e.g., most people in Samoa, the problems you have when you live in a developing country are more likely to involve acute physical danger, or danger of disease, than they are for most of us in the first world. And it's a difference worth remembering -- whatever your first world problems, you're at least overwhelmingly likely to be physically safe most of the time.
most things I think of as problems don't involve physical pain or risk of ill-health or injury for me or anyone I care about.
But of course people in third world countries complain about trivialities, too.
27: No, no, I meant that having lived for an extended period of time in a very poor country (regardless of functionality) is an atypical experience for an American.
29, further: Also possibly the French, the English, etc. Most people from first world countries don't live for extended periods of time in other places, is my understanding.
27 to 24.
26: Well, it's a way of maintaining perspective. Not "I suck for complaining because I'm warm and dry and comfortable and safe," but "whatever else goes wrong, I'm probably warm and dry and comfortable and safe, and even when that's not true for a short period of time, it'll almost certainly be true again soon."
It gives you a baseline from which to evaluate how bad your problems really are.
whatever your first world problems, you're at least overwhelmingly likely to be physically safe most of the time.
Not necessarily. There's a fair bit of the first world that is awfully dangerous.
whatever your first world problems, you're at least overwhelmingly likely to be physically safe most of the time.
Unless you need medical attention in the United States, in which case you might want to consider going to Cuba.
I am even more put off by "first world problem"
There are loads of children in China/India/Biafra/Ethiopia whose languages don't even have an annoying guilt phrase, Di.
Here's my current example: boy am I not enjoying sharing a bedroom with my toddler for the forseeable future. Four to a bedroom while your exciting new addition gets built? Totally first world problem. And yet.
28: Sure, everyone everywhere complains about everything. I guess I don't hear "First world problem" as "So it's offensive of me to complain at all", but rather as identifying the category of problem it is. Unpleasant, maybe, but no one's going to physically suffer because of whatever it is.
32, 33: But would anyone roll their eyes and say "Eh, first world problem" about that sort of thing?
I don't agree with the OP, and I'm surprised that almost everyone is so quick to agree. Haven't you ever heard an impossibly-privileged person complain in such a way that they clearly have no idea how lucky they are? Weren't there a spate of New York Times articles at the low point of the financial crisis where they quoted people complaining they couldn't go to the spa anymore? There's a continuum between them and leprosy victims in Tanzania, and we should recognize that we're somewhere in the middle.
Unpleasant, maybe, but no one's going to physically suffer because of whatever it is.
And that's the part that is giving me added offense -- roughly, the implication that people in the first world don't have problems that cause physical suffering and people in the third world are constantly suffering.
Oh, and my other experience on the bus yesterday was when a trio of young, African-American men got on and proceeded to rap (someone else's lyrics, I didn't recognize them) for the entire rest of the trip. Admittedly, I would have preferred a slightly more conscious style that didn't include quite so much of the "n" and "b" words, but at the same time I was really chuffed. Here are some people, I thought, who are so motivated to celebrate their favorite poetry and music that they will cast all self-consciousness to the wind and declaim for a long time while they go through the otherwise quotidian process of riding the bus. It actually gave me a lot of hope, thinking about how, despite all the shit everyone goes through (and especially young, African-American men), art and creativity and joy find a beachhead to remind us that a better world is possible and will be created by the actions of people just like ourselves. Yeah, these guys had their problems, just like I've got mine, but it was still amazing and beautiful to realize how lucky we are that there are people who can take the dross of life at the bottom of the capitalist economic pyramid and spin it into the golden threads of art and thought. Until we outnumber them!
32, 33: But would anyone roll their eyes and say "Eh, first world problem" about that sort of thing?
No. And yet those are still "first world problems." So rolling your eyes at some triviality and saying "eh, first world problem" is a poor way to categorize the type of problem if the point is simply to highlight relative privilege.
8: No, it's symmetrical in that you're supposed to spend an equal amount of time thinking of all those more fortunate than you, to make of for the schadenfreude.
Oh, wait, being reminded of the misery of others isn't supposed to make you happy. Got it.
There are loads of children in China/India/Biafra/Ethiopia whose languages don't even have an annoying guilt phrase, Di.
I was very entertained by Jung Chang's description in "Wild Swans" of how her mother used to encourage her to eat all her food - "there are starving children in the capitalist countries, remember".
This in 1950s China!
39: What's the line? "The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet."
Living in a rich country doesn't mean your life is free of physical pain, discomfort, injury, and risk, and living in a poor country doesn't mean that you're constantly in pain. But it has a powerful effect on those odds -- you've almost certainly spent much less of your life in physical pain than you would have if you'd been born in a poor country.
Would "Rich (in the global sense) person's problem" be less offensive, as not implying that everyone in rich countries is themselves rich in the global sense?
At this point I am imagining an elderly Indian farmer thinking "well, life's not great, but at least I don't have to put up with constant live amateur rap music on the bus."
having spent a couple of years in a reasonably pleasant and well-functioning, but very very very very poor country
Wait, you were in China?
Isn't the context of the complaint important here? For instance, it would be bad form to complain about your minor problem in front of someone who has a much more serious problem.
If you are completely in public, as on the internet, and you are complaining about first world problems, you might find you self faced with another commenter who has third world problems.
I'm with 37 and 38. Who is this amorphous straw man who is going around scolding people for complaining about their actual problems?
Or consider a person who complains that since they've gotten a little older, they are no longer the most beautiful person where ever they go. This can be a little galling in some contexts.
46 is making me laugh. Except, of course, for the racism inherent in calling Native Americans Indians. That's not funny at all!
41 to 45.last.
Even with that, though, I still tend to think the time for counting one's blessings (or for being reminded to do so) is not while in the midst of a trial. If you count your blessings as a habit, you'll already have perspective when trials hit. But if you try to count your blessings while suffering through some trial, then you just feel even shittier because not only do you have this problem, but you see you are an ungrateful, overprivileged jerk, too.
41 to 45.last.
Even with that, though, I still tend to think the time for counting one's blessings (or for being reminded to do so) is not while in the midst of a trial. If you count your blessings as a habit, you'll already have perspective when trials hit. But if you try to count your blessings while suffering through some trial, then you just feel even shittier because not only do you have this problem, but you see you are an ungrateful, overprivileged jerk, too.
50: This is why I'm so glad that my startling beauty seems likely to remain intact indefinitely. It makes me less irritating.
My experience is that people complaining take any sort of correction badly, especially an ostensibly general "clever" one. Waiting and saying something gently about counting blessings later, maybe.
To respond to even a whiny privileged gripe with concise one-upsmanship is a power play, what's the point. If the apparent complaint has no emotional component, maybe, but I basically dislike people who complain for fun.
Oy, we should all have such problems!
the racism inherent in calling Native Americans Indians
Dothead Indians, not woo-woo Indians. So we're still all good on the racism front.
I take the "first world problems" injunction to be to remind myself of how lucky and happy I am, generally speaking. At least I try to--I think mindfulness is one of my real weak spots.
I don't read it as a denial of valid emotional states or life obstacles.
58: I think feather Indians is the canonical formulation.
58: quite. I can't think of much that would make my bus journey more unpleasant than having three amateur rappers going the entire time. I once had to spend three hours on a coach that had some drunken football players singing the entire time (not badly, from a technical point of view) and it was absolutely infuriating.
Here are some people, I thought, who are so motivated to celebrate their favorite poetry and music drunk and selfish that they will cast all self-consciousness to the wind and declaim for a long time sing interminable songs about feminine hygiene products while they go through the otherwise quotidian process of riding the bus.
Like, ohmygod, they don't have basic necessities, they have never known joy.
Pardon me while I get out the world's tiniest violinist to play for them.
63: They'll be delighted; they've never seen a violin before.
the world's tiniest violinist
Entirely better than having the world's tiniest pianist.
Don't we spend a lot of time on this blog complaining about super-rich people who complain about not being rich enough?
Despite spending a huge amount of money* on all sorts of solutions, we still have rats. In fact, the exterminator just pulled a dead rat the size of a cocker spaniel out of our attic**. This is is a third world problem, no? Does this mean that I'm down with the bus rappers?
* First world, I know.
** I bet attics are first world, too. Rats!
65 should have been phrased, "I cried because I had the world's tiniest violinist, until I met a man who had the world's tiniest pianist."
67: actually, depending on which part of the third world you mean, that's more of a third world solution.
http://www.vietnewsonline.vn/News/Lifestyle/Eat-Drink/9222/Rat-meat-a-taste-of-the-countryside.htm
63: Wait, who are we playing the violin for? I've gotten increasingly confused.
67: There is a Stephen King story, which up until recently was the only Stephen King story I'd ever read, that is one of the reasons I despise rats and that you should most definitely never, ever read.
67 - Tax evasion, ineffectual government, financial-sector metdown, inept soccer teams? Looks pretty First World to me.
67 This is is a third world problem, no?
I think there's a case to be made that California has turned itself into a third-world state.
What several people said. Or: mindfulness of one's advantages is good, but underscoring others' lack of mindfulness is self-aggrandizing and doesn't accomplish much. Or anyway doing so with a dismissive catch-phrase. "First world problem!" doesn't mean "wait, but why not take joy in the unacknowledged good in our lives and think about others whose problems might be more serious!" It means "cry me a river, asshole."
46 ftw.
67: Time for introducing a bad-tempered cat into the household, no? I can't remember what your current dog status is.
You should read the Lovecraft original, DQ! And then watch Willard. It can be a whole little Phirst World Phobic Phun Phest!
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And the NYT paywall has already been defeated with four lines of Javascript.
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I would join in the disapproval of anyone using 'first world problem' as a way to put down another person's complaints, if I'd ever heard it used aggressively like that (as opposed to being self-directed). That'd be really unpleasant.
77: wow, that's significantly more brain-dead than I expected, and I expected it to be pretty brain-dead.
Also it's technically only three lines of JavaScript; the first line is a comment.
You know what I really hate? First world meta-complaints.
78 I feel like I hear it in the context of two first world middle class people jokingly or half jokingly or passive-aggressive-maybe-jokingly scoring points off one another. It isn't the worst thing that ever happened; it's just an eye-roller on the level of, you know, hipsters saying "Bushwick sucks. You can't even get mugged there anymore."
75: We have a very lazy border collie/Australian shepherd mix. The rats don't quite wander over him while he sleeps, but they do seem to come out at night. Still, we're not getting any more animals. I'll raze the house and salt the earth beneath it before we get another cat.
67: Time for introducing a bad-tempered cat into the household, no?
And then a week after that a big smelly dog, and after that a mangy goat, and then when the opinionated music-hall rabbi comes round at the end of the month to take his animals back, your house will seem like a palace and it will put all your first-world problems in perspective!
border collie/Australian shepherd mix
That's Dogbreath! And I admit that I wouldn't expect her to do anything useful about anything much at all. Have you considered supplementing with something in a Jack Russell?
when the opinionated music-hall rabbi comes round at the end of the month to take his animals back
If you could talk him into taking the rats as well, that would solve the problem.
something in a Jack Russell
I hear John Cole has one available.
If you could talk him into taking the rats as well
THAT'S MY JOB SUNSHINE.
What's (mildly) annoying about the "first world problem" thing is that it's a cheap way of pretending to be conscious of ones relative privilege without doing so -- it's trying to ask for both the right to complain and to simultaneously have everyone acknowledge what a socially conscious non-whiner you are. Are you really committed to the belief that your problems are insignificant compared to hunger in the third world or whatever? Ok, then don't complain at all -- some folks manage this. Or, maybe, like most of us, you have both a fair amount of relative privilege and some real and significant human problems, and that's OK.
On second thought, I would consider getting a goat, mangy or not, if it would cut the grass and get rid of the rats. Heck, I'd pay the thing union scale and tenure it after a couple of years. But I won't have anything to do with cats. Or Jack Russell terriers. Or rabbis. A man must have limits.
89: Like most of us here, I have 99 problems, but a rat ain't one.
Also, I don't think I've ever heard anyone use the phrase "first world problem" in real life.
I realise of course that 91 should have picked up on the rabbi references and read "99 problems but a bris ain't one". But it's too late now. Oy.
90: But cats enjoy killing so much, Dutch Cookie. Your house sounds like cat valhallah.
93: we should all have such problems.
The funny thing is that it really doesn't particularly bother me, but I've been strapped for post ideas lately and this flitted across my mind. It's like every post is supposed to express an opinion. Why am I supposed to have so many opinions?
I heard a program on ABC (Australian Broadcasting) about people w/ mental illness getting better help in third world places, because people support them informally. The shopkeeper gives someone some shelter and food and allows the person to be "crazy".
Or, maybe, like most of us, you have both a fair amount of relative privilege and some real and significant human problems, and that's OK.
And sometimes you have not particularly significant problems that you would like to talk about while acknowledging that they are not really all that burdensome.
97: substitute "Warden" for "shopkeeper" and it sounds like Merton College.
97: That, I think, might involve a certain amount of "Oh, look at the happy simple people, treating each other humanely. If only we in the developed world were so caring and open." One of my good friends when I was in the Peace Corps was a NZ volunteer who ran a school for developmentally disabled kids in Samoa, and lots of them just got neglected to death.
For someone who lucks into a good informal support structure, community care can be humane. But where it doesn't work, it doesn't work very badly.
Why am I supposed to have so many opinions?
Even if you didn't have opinions, you'd still be complaining!
The important thing to remember is that the problems of two people, or one Dutch Cookie and a rat, don't amount to a hill of beans on this crazy world.
How many cats do you have now, Ari?
I do deprecate my own problems in exactly this manner. Now, sadly, I'll have to think over whether I should keep doing that. Maybe!
So is it a first or third world problem to complain of chronic neck pain which causes super-annoying headaches and neck muscles so tight it's hard to distinguish muscle from bone by touch? Probably first world if it's from bad ergonomics at the computer, right?
I've never heard 'first world problem' used to describe physical pain, and I don't think it would make sense in that context.
105: Do you grind your teeth / clench your jaw at night? I know, I know, how would you know. Your dentist could tell you? Maybe you have TMJ.
Yes, a "first world problem" is surely a problem that you could only possibly have in the first world, like your iPad not fitting in your manbag. Neck pain, schmeck pain, everyone gets that.
105: Do you grind your teeth at night?
Only if I happen to be reading this comments section at night.
107 cont'd: They sell bite guards for this that are helpful.
That's a really tiny manbag you're toting around there, dsquared. IPads aren't large.
Not that the size of one's manbag is important, of course.
That's a really tiny manbag you're toting around there, dsquared.
You should see his pianist.
109: Someone is wrong in the Unfogged comments section is the type specimen for "first world problem".
I find that I spend a surprising amount of time validating others' right to complain. As in, a friend will say, "Well, I really shouldn't be complaining, my problems are trivial compared to...." and my usual response is, "Just because other people might have it worse doesn't mean that your situation isn't frustrating/painful/annoying." The Oppression Olympics doesn't really seem to help anyone; the key AFAIK is to practice mindfulness in times of joy and sorrow, and not be too attached to either (whether wallowing in them feelings or discounting them).
Then again, I've had A LOT of therapy. Mindfulness therapy, naturally.
"Reign it in"? Where's Nosflow when you need him?
That's a really tiny manbag you're toting around there, dsquared. IPads aren't large.
Maybe the reason dsquared's ipad doesn't fit in his manbag is because his manbag is so full of power tools and auto parts.
Furthermore to nothing, I don't consider the US a first world country.
I really don't like the word "mindfulness". Is that a first-world problem?
Is that a first-world problem?
I don't know.
[in unison] Third world!
I keep posing for photos with people in giant animal costumes. I know, I know, Disney World problems.
105 doesn't sound like TMJ. TMJ is when you can't close your jaw on one or both sides because it feels like something's blocking the two sides from coming together. Often it seems like inner ear pain. In my experience at least. Nothing to do with the neck.
125: Nope, can lead to neck pain and headaches, too. Is also generally really annoying. The bite guards do help.
I had some physio for some similar neck problems a while ago. The recommendation was stretch, stretch, stretch, and then stretch some more. I'm sure you can find lists of safe stretches online [if you trust online physio advice]. The physio and stretching didn't make it go away, but they reduced it to just a minor annoyance. YMMV.
I don't have a manbag or an iPad, you types. That was an example of the kind of problem other people might have (as opposed to the kind of problem The Other might have). I have a Kindle, and pockets. I did buy one of those big cheapo Android tablets, but quickly realised I would get the most pleasure out of it by deleting all the apps except a single Youtube link clearly marked "TELETUBBIES", and leaving it around the house as an emergency baby-calming device.
You will never believe what Eve just did. Yeah, I know: first world problem.
I have a cloying tune stuck in my head. Small world problem.
re: 128
But, I presume also a briefcase or something? Otherwise, unbelievably capacious pockets.
128 - Wouldn't your giant attack raptors also serve as a baby-calming device in a pinch?
Nope, the standard Amazon Kindle 3 fits in the standard suit or blazer jacket pocket.
Pinching generally does not calm babies. Especially by giant attack raptors.
I really don't like the word "mindfulness". Is that a first-world problem?
Inner-world problem.
Perhaps the giant attack raptors could be trained to apply harmless sleeper holds instead of rending flesh with their razor-sharp talons.
137: The raptors in that video were pretty clearly killing the wolves by clamping down on their windpipes.
re: 134
I must just be more of a carrier of stuff then: book [I don't have a kindle], pen, paper, phone, camera, wallet, keys, specs. Not if I was just popping out for a paper, or a pint, obviously.
Perhaps the giant attack raptors could be trained to apply harmless sleeper holds instead of rending flesh with their razor-sharp talons.
Lost World problem.
100: One of my good friends when I was in the Peace Corps was a NZ volunteer who ran a school for developmentally disabled kids in Samoa, and lots of them just got neglected to death.
I have to say, I don't think I could stay friends with someone like that.
No, no, no, not students who were actually in her school, under her care, got neglected to death. Disabled kids who weren't receiving services, which was most of them in the country, often got neglected to death.
And, of course, not her school. She helped set it up, and ran it for a couple of years, but it's still going and she's long gone.
And, you know, even if a couple of kids under her direct care got neglected to death, she was just super fun to hang out with.
145: And she'd usually buy, what with the excess funds not actually going for care of kids.
146: 90 comments is like a lifetime around here.
146: so 56 noted, but I'm ignoring the ban.
You know, if 97-year-old men are your thing.
97 year old men are my thing, you prude. Also, NMM to the Google Books settlement agreement.
While I agree with the OP, this is pretty good too.
it's trying to ask for both the right to complain and to simultaneously have everyone acknowledge what a socially conscious non-whiner you are.
This isn't a good thing to have?
154: There was a New Yorker cartoon that I have failed to find several times on the 'net from years ago that showed a man evidently just arrived at home from work saying something like the following, "What a day, I had to wait to pull out of the driveway this morning, they were out of split pea soup at the cafeteria and now I'm having trouble taking this coat off."
So. "first world problem" is really a phrase in common use? I not only hang out with whiny, self-righteous yuppies but I am one myself, and I have never, ever heard anyone use that expression as a self-deprecating prelude to a complaint. It's pretty damn weird when you get right down to it.
156 -- I don't like it when folks have their cake and eat it to. They should either have cake, or eat it, but not both.
159: Sure for cake, meat on the other hand you can eat, and have, and hold, and whatnot.
Eat it, Tweety. Just eat it. If it's getting cold, reheat it.
So. "first world problem" is really a phrase in common use? I not only hang out with whiny, self-righteous yuppies but I am one myself, and I have never, ever heard anyone use that expression as a self-deprecating prelude to a complaint. It's pretty damn weird when you get right down to it.
I've only heard the song.
158: I'm not sure how often I say it, exactly, but I say or think similar things fairly often-- listening to myself bitching about stuff I'll cut myself off with 'but these are first-world problems. The kids have easy access to potable water,' or something similar.
158: Sometimes I use a variant like "middle-class problems." Or, I tack on "of course, if this is the worst problem I face today..."
"of course, if this is the worst problem I face today..."
See, that one makes total sense to me as appropriate self-deprecation (although there's something to be said for not preemptively discounting your complaints at all). The specific phrase "first world problem" is much more grating to my ears; it sounds like you just really want to let everyone know that you are always -- always! -- thinking of the starving children in Africa.
158: Take a gander: dozens per hour.
Shit, I don't think I even have that many ganders.
There's a conversation to be had about hypocrisy here. It's irritating listening to someone talking about problems they're not actually doing anything about. On the other hand, as between someone who doesn't have any awareness of a problem, and so doesn't do anything about it, and someone who is aware and maybe does something, even if hypocritically little, occasionally, while the second is more irritating, isn't there some value to the lip service?
Sometimes, for variety, I think about starving children in Afghanistan.
Mostly, when I say things like that, I'm talking to myself, trying to remember that I should be doing more and complaining less. If that's really maddeningly ostentatious, I could work on keeping it more internalized.
Yeah, in general hypocritical folks whose hearts are in the right place are what keeps the world tending towards good (and I'm including myself in the hypocritical category).
But there's a certain kind of self-deprecation as reverse-judo self-congratulation that bugs me generally. You're kind of complaining and letting everyone know how awesome and privileged you think you are at once. I feel like "first world problem' is a second cousin to the false-modest Facebook status update. Perhaps I am insane.
The shopkeeper gives someone some shelter and food and allows the person to be "crazy".
substitute "Warden" for "shopkeeper" and it sounds like Merton College.
Substitute "concert presenter and/or RCA executive" for "shopkeeper" and you've got the post-Shine career of David Helfgott. Speaking of pianists.
Eat it, Tweety. Just eat it. If it's getting cold, reheat it.
If someone leaves it lying around, escheat it.
Actually, 154 and 167 are kind of making me love the phrase after all. Also, in the first there was someone named Mosjef, which is a pretty great handle.