"I’ve dated every profession you can think of from doctors to electricians and unemployed guys."
That's a lot of guys. Can you shed some light on why all those failed?
"My time for having children is running out."
Realistically, time was running out in your early 30s (where female fertility starts to nose dive). After 40 and you are seriously rolling the dice (assuming the ovum even gets fertilized, there Downs, aneuploidy, etc.)
Reading these comments I realize now that despite Boudin's recall, places like SF -- dominated by leftist ideology -- still have a long, long way to go before bottoming out and smelling the coffee.
Divest I see as broader than defund, particularly in that it can involve an organization removing non-financial backing (i.e. officers) from some project. But, sure, close enough.
Western-like in the sense of its institutions, elections, rule of law, economy etc. Not that these things are western by nature, just that people tend to associate them with western countries.
The legitimate government of China that's lasted for thousands of years is currently effectively exiled to Taiwan. The CCP is a new usurper/colonizer/occupier.
Those three words mean three different things and are not interchangeable. The CCP cannot accurately be called a "colonizer", because, regardless of its faults, it's not exogenous to China.
Unless she is a terror, telling your wife that her shirt doesn't look great isn't exactly a profile in courage.
It's only when the stakes get much higher (e.g. life-time earning potential, self-esteem) that you will lie completely and earnestly without a second thought. And because the stakes are real and it is essential that the audience for your lie believes you, you will first have to lie to yourself, to get rid of those subtle tells that the human brain has evolved to detect.
So, when you say that there is no possibility that the disparate social outcomes of various ethnic groups has a genetic basis despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, you will be lying, but it won't feel like lying because the first person you fooled was you.
So I wouldn't over-think the lying stuff.
Btw, have you considered that maybe your wife -- in fact, a lot of people -- want to be lied to? So when she asks you if she looks old and tired and your reply, honestly, in the affirmative, perhaps you're improving your life, but are you sure you improved hers?
Lies to “protect people” only serve to protect yourself from a challenging but useful conversation.
Nobody wants to be lied to. My wife doesn’t have to ask “do you really like it?” because she knows if I didn’t I would say so. She can rely on me giving her an honest opinion about anything. (Of course whether or not she cares about my opinion is beside the point)
Imagine you cooked for someone and they didn’t like the food, would you rather they lied to you and say they loved it? Or were honest?
I challenge you to give me an example where you’d prefer to be deliberately misled by someone.
I wish more people would discover the power of this technique.
But ultimately, this is a fool's errand -- people who say they don't lie are almost always lying. Given how much of our brains have evolved to evince the hidden intentions of others, the result of this cat-and-mouse game requires lying to oneself first so as to more effectively convince others.
Just look at any conversation about "equality." Through their revealed preferences you can see that almost no one really believes in it but for their socioeconomic well-being they managed to convince themselves of it.
People will say "we moved for the schools" because they don't have the intellectual integrity and moral courage to say "we moved to avoid Africans and, to a lesser extent, Hispanics". The proliferation of BLM signage in these same areas is simply a testament to the arising false consciousness, as is the scorn they heap on the poorer members of their own cohort who cannot afford to avoid the Diversity Strenf they claim to cherish.
What an unfortunate way to go through life.
TLDR; how do you plan to not lie to your kids when you can't stop lying to yourself?
That's a lot of guys. Can you shed some light on why all those failed?
"My time for having children is running out."
Realistically, time was running out in your early 30s (where female fertility starts to nose dive). After 40 and you are seriously rolling the dice (assuming the ovum even gets fertilized, there Downs, aneuploidy, etc.)