“The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions”: 30 Times People Wanted Nothing But Good Yet It All Ended Badly, As Told In This Online Group
Researchers have not yet figured out who exactly first said the famous phrase: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions," but almost all of them agree on one thing - this sentence is damn true! For thousands of years that humanity has existed, there have always been people who sincerely wished to benefit others - all or only partially. The concept, as always, was nothing but wonderful, but the results were much worse.
This happens at all levels, from, for example, Thanos, who, in order to implement a truly brilliant and outstanding idea of solving the issue associated with overpopulation in the universe, chose the most unsuccessful means to achieve it, up to your neighbor, who, in their frantic desire to improve their surroundings, comes into conflict with those around them. In fact, doing good deeds is not that easy.
When a few days ago in the AskReddit community the user u/WorldsBiggestNarcist asked readers the question: "'The road to hell is paved with good intentions,' what is a real life example of this?", they probably didn't even expect such popularity. Now the resulting thread has over 36.2K upvotes and almost 15.6K various comments, where the given examples are immediately and heatedly discussed. In other words, all the signs of a viral thread are present.
Out of pure good intentions as well, Bored Panda has collected the most popular, interesting and unexpected examples and stories of the original thread in this brilliant compilation, so all you have to do now is to scroll it to the very end, upvote the narratives and ideas you like best, and of course add your own real-life or historic examples in the comments below. And we, on our part, genuinely hope these good intentions will bring no less good things to readers this time!
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My parents thought that if they brought us kids to church every week (Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and **all** day Sunday), had us go to private religious schools, and made us volunteer for religious organizations, we'd stay out of trouble and be as zealous as they are. As soon as each of us could, we ran away and never looked back. One of my sisters won't attend a funeral if its in a church!
They shouldn't teach religion until you're 18. Then they should tell you about all of them, and you can choose to believe what you want, or not believe.
Going to private religious school for middle and high school is what did it for me. I'd say about 90% of the students I was in class with ran from all religion as soon as they possibly could.
That never works folks. Religion can be a good tool, just remember it's a ruler, not a hammer 🔨
What kind of good tool is this? Be good otherwise the "good" god will punish you? Goodness based on fear? Not for me.
Load More Replies...If you go to church four days a week for twenty years, that's the equivalent of going once a week for eighty years. If people say you abandoned religion, tell them it's that you just finished early.
When my son was younger, he'd ask me questions about religious things he'd see on tv (documentaries or shows). I'd tell him what I believed and also what other religions/cultures believed, then I'd ask him what he believed. I never persuaded or punished, I made it clear that it was always a personal choice.
Zero tolerance in schools. Now the bullied kids are being punished.
I knew someone who was punched in the face in school. No warning, someone just walked up to him and broke his nose. He was suspended for a week. He still has breathing problems 20 years later.
Ah, yes, we used to have this in my English boarding school in the early 1970's, it was called Rugby, or if the pitch was too frozen, British Bulldog (look it up) in the Gym, no overt public violence, but the level of damage was astonishing - think broken arms, legs, wrists, noses and on one occasion an almost complete severing of someone's testicle .... - it was ' character forming' apparently. One upshot of this regime was to turn us into extremely fit, fast, and on occasion very, very violent young men, but with manners and kindness when required - basically slightly screwed up but ideal for the military or academia, which is where many of my contemporaries decided to go to ; me, I went into the wild and whacky World of catering via a slight segue to the French Foreign Legion - interesting times ....
Load More Replies...Yeah in Elementary school I was bullied in 3rd grade. When the principal finally talked to me about it, she just said “You’re not being bullied, just targeted.”
Load More Replies...If someone comes up and attacks me I’m not going to sit there, I’m going to defend myself. Not with a weapon, not enough to kill them. I’m not throwing the first punch.
I’m being bullied in school right now and they still won’t do anything. Better than me also getting punished but it sucks
In middle school (year 6-8 if not in US), I was bullied relentlessly. Ever single instance was reported to faculty. Eventually, the principal (32F) got fed up and called me into the office and said "boys will be boys." The next day I beat the snot out of the bullies and was almost expelled. Schools all do victim blaming.
Load More Replies...We had something similar in my highschool - started to strike back, since I got in trouble anyways it didn't make a difference if I broke somebody's arm in self defense or do nothing
I used to be a high school assistant principal. Bullying is a terribly complex issue to deal with and it's rarely easy. Some kids are truly innocent, some not so much. Some cases I dealt with: Girl reports verbal bullying from a group. Turned out she has been aggressively sexualy harassing a member of that group and friends were trying to protect their friend from her advances. Smart kid keeps on getting physically bullied because he keeps on verbally bullying much larger and stronger kid. The smart kid was on a quest to insult and humiliate another kid and got smacked for it. The smacker gets suspended and the smackee starts up again as soon as the smacker gets back to school and gets trash canned. Suspensions all around and some serious counseling time with Mr Smart Mouth. Reported bullying that ended up being collections for an overdue drug debt. If you're getting bullied record it, screenshot it, keep a log with times, actions, and names of witnesses and then report it.
Ummm, not really. Just tell an adult, they will come and solve the situation, and you'll be allright in the end. Follow the education system for more lifehacks. /s
Zero Tolerance. If, as a kid in school, you are assaulted, and. In. Self. Defence. Strike back, you are seen to be as much at fault as your assailant, and will be suspended, or expelled. Some schools have taken this to the extreme where you will be punished for reporting bullying, or assault because, "you must have done something to deserve it". And no, it doesn't make sense. At all.
Load More Replies...I had the chair pulled out as I went to sit down, still have back problems 40 years later
In every War, even the most righteous ones, there were members of the “good side” that were rapists, sadists, plain old vile.
Yes, sadly war crimes were also commited by Allies, US and USSR triops on Nazi Germany during WWII
I read Aliens instead of Allies. And I read it like 4 times
Load More Replies...Both the "good side" and the "bad side" are entirely comprised of that often horrible group - the human race. "Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to." - Mark Twain
Read 'Achilles In Vietnam' for an insightful, harrowing look at war and the undoing of character.
Rape is an egregious weapon of war, as are the other indignities of human rights. Not only is it used to demoralize the enemy, but it is also used as a form of genocide (impregnating the women of the enemy nation.) Rape is BOTH sadistic and vile, even though there are other instances of sadistic and vile atrocities. It makes me shudder just to think about it.
Sadly rape wasn't recognised as a war crime for a very long time.. in some instances it still isn't
Being on the right side of history does not necessarily make one a good person
The invention of social media.
When Tom was working at Friendster, I genuinely believe he wanted to build something that allowed people to socialise and communicate in a new and modern way.
On paper, early MySpace is a brilliant concept that made a lot of people realise the potential of the internet.
This concept was that mutilated and turned into what social media is today. Quite possibly the single most socially damaging invention that ever happened. Far away from bringing people closer together, it has turned into a tool that is tearing people further apart, making them feel more disconnected with society than ever- and instead of democratising discussion, it has put even more power into the hands of the elite.
I'll give you a hint about when the rot started. His name is Rupert Murdoch - his company Newscorp bought MySpace. That man has done more damage to modern society than any of the usual go-to's for evil.
I worked at MySpace just after the sale. At orientation on day one, our trainer asks us, "who are our customers?" Everyone was saying variations on 'the users" and she kept shaking her head until someone said "the advertisers." Bingo. "Never forget, our customers come first."
Load More Replies...I find it more pulled back the curtain. People you have in your life shows their true colours and you can decide if you want them in your life or not. If you don't want them in your life but not want to hear their opinion on controversial topics, you can mute them and still be friends with them on FB.
It's out of control, especially because they literally ignore reports of vile content and block often totally absurd things which don't break any rules and it's not possible to reach live person there, but as autistic introvert I have to disagree, I was totally alone for years and even when I knew some people before that, I felt even more lonely than alone because I didn't have any understanding with them and it changed only after I met other autistic introverts on social media. Including my boyfriend, despite we attended same events for years before we met on FB, we would never knew each other without internet. And I know many other people with similar experiences.
I don’t know why you got downvoted by someone, I’m autistic too and agree. Social media has its downsides, but it’s the easiest way for me to communicate and has kept me from being completely isolated during the lonelier periods of my life. I also feel like it tends to make people more understanding of me, due to how many different kinds of people others encounter online.
Load More Replies..."Never joined. Never will". Yet here you are triumphantly telling everyone that. Strange. Bored Panda IS part of social media.
Load More Replies...It's high school social dynamics but global scale and doesn't end when high school does.
I dislike most social media, but it does offer access to a great many viewpoints if you avoid trolls.
It is. Basically any worldwide site where people can talk / upload content is social media.
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The introduction of non-native species as a means of solving an environmental problem.
One of the biggest mistakes our government made was bringing those little bastards to Aus, even now typing this I look out from my room and see them hopping around in the rain.
Load More Replies...Just add this spider to get rid of these ants… and then some birds to get rid of the spider… and some bigger birds to get rid of those birds… hmm, this seems oddly familiar… oh well.
There was an old woman who swallowed a fly.
Load More Replies...Cane toad - Mongoose - Norway Rat. If these are not native to where you live and you have them, at some point in the past, sugarcane was an industry where you live.
Asian ladybugs in North America. They have no predators, they are everywhere, and killed our own ladybugs. I hate them so much. In the fall, my house is covered with them. I find them inside all winter long. I flush them in the toilet or put them outside when it's super cold.
Not an environmental problem...but an Englishman didn't like the song of Australian birds, so he imported a pair of each if his favorite songbirds from Englag. Have him to thank for blackbirds, starlings....and the list goes on. Obviously he never sat quietly enough to hear our beautiful birds, or maybe he was deaf to anything except what was home to him
Squirrels were introduced to Central Cali as cutsie little animals that people could feed and observe.
The introduction of Kudzu for erosion control. It has become invasive and girdles and kills plant life above ground without establishing proper roots, therefore causing soil erosion.
GOATS GOATS GOATS. The good thing about goats is that they are domesticated animals and can be rounded up at the end of the day and taken back to the farm or wherever they are being kept. Unlike wile animals that will just grow and spread.
When my husband and I visited my cousin in Georgia, we were amazed by the sight of it and asked my cousin about it; we'd never heard about it and we had just seen miles and miles of it. We're from Canada.
Google: Kudzu is a group of climbing, coiling, and trailing deciduous perennial vines native to much of East Asia, Southeast Asia, and some Pacific islands, but invasive in many parts of the world, primarily North America.
Load More Replies...I knew a guy that saw a kid trip into the street, since a car was coming the guy grabbed the kid by the arm picked him up and dropped him on the sidewalk. The car missed the kid but clipped the guy and broke a couple ribs. The car kept going. The mom of the kid who wasn't paying attention only saw the guy drop the kid on the sidewalk, she proceeded to accuse him of kidnapping and started hitting him. This was on a busy NYC street corner. He didn't have medical insurance and had to use a free clinic which he couldn't get to until hours of questioning by the police. He had to walk there on his own. He missed his classes and his teacher didn't buy his story saying it wasn't realistic enough, he was not allowed to retake an exam he missed. He was already suffering from social anxiety and questioning if he had enough self worth to keep going.
Doesn't pay to do the right thing anymore. Has not for a long time truth be told. Everybody is so fucken sue happy thinking it will net them millions in cash.
The kid not getting injured or killed looks like a win to me. People are awful, but isn't it worse to know that you could have done something and didn't?
Load More Replies...Both clinics and police stations keep records - records that are quite detailed as to time. He should have gotten copies and presented them to the school if it didn't believe him.
That’s sad. No one else on the “busy” street stopped when this all happened to help the guy and act as a witness on his behalf to the mother? The kid never said a word?
I want to believe in Karma so much, but unfortunately, I have learned there is no karma. Throughout history, too many horrible people prospered, and so many great people suffered, and it is the same today.
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Lobotomy
Surgery to fix the mentally unwell
It sounds so good: no more reliance on medication, you’re good from now on.
But it didn’t work.
The outcomes were awful and it was frequently done without any sort of consent
It all could have been shut down fairly quickly if people were honest about what was happening, but careers and money was at stake….so many unnecessarily suffered
You said it wrong .. uggh . . . "I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me, than a full frontal lobotomy!" Just sayin' . . . Loses something when even a tiny part is missing ..
Load More Replies...Rosie Kennedy. At her birth, the anxiety ridden, celebrity fawning nurse refused to deliver little Rosie without doctor present. She forced her hand into birth canal and held the baby there for 2 hours. Rosie suffered from lack of oxygen. She had trouble controlling emotions and some intellectual issues but could care for herself, communicate, and socialize . When she was 23, a quack doctor convinced Joseph Kennedy his new lobotomy procedure would make Rosie acceptable to polite society. Nope. She was robbed of everything that made her Rosie. Unable to care for herself, she was committed to psychiatric hospital.
OMG I have never heard that story that is one of the most horrendous stories I have ever heard. How did either of them get away with that.
Load More Replies...When the Soviet Union under Stalin are the first ones to say 'This is no way to treat a human being', you know you gone done f****d up!
Also ECT, burned out chunks of my mother's memory and personality but didn't address her depression even slightly. Hateful, just hateful
At the time it was first discovered it appeared to work, and it was pushed by governments as a quick solution. Soon many doctors saw and reported extreme negatives (it did take nearly 10 years for the first studies about the negatives to come out) and very few would do it, but the politicians liked the idea of a quick solution, and it took a while until it was banned. It started off as the best of science, before we learned the true outcomes.
I'm American with strong Portuguese roots. I felt that 😁
Load More Replies...My mom’s uncle was part of The Death March of Bataan. If you’ve never heard of it, keep it that way. Those who survived were incredibly traumatized, and military doctors thought that a lobotomy would help them get over the trauma. When I was a kid, we visited their house frequently, and Uncle Stanley was always the exact same way: he had a comfy armchair in their living room, facing the front windows. He would sit there, motionless, staring out the window, but in a weird way, like his eyes weren’t focused on anything. When we’d arrive, Auntie would approach him from the side, speak loudly into his ear, and point in our direction. “Look, Stanley! It’s Betty and her kids! They’ve come to visit, say hello!” She’d repeat that several times, eventually he’d slowly turn his head, but only to follow her finger, not looking at us. I was a quiet kid, and would often just sit with him in the living room and talk to him even though I was pretty sure he couldn’t hear me. It was heartbreaking.
Once upon a time, I found a wallet on the beach.
Having lost my own more than once, and not having it returned to me, I am aware that it is a stressful life event.
So, my first thought was how to return it quickly.
Looking through the contents, the owner was from out of state and there was no contact information other than the drivers license. Aside from that, only a few credit cards and some cash.
Not knowing how long ago the owner had left, I thought let's just sit here for a while and maybe he will return looking for it since it is the first thing I would do.
After a couple hours of fun and sun we needed to move on; my next best idea was to turn it into the local police station which we found easily enough just down the street.
What I thought would be a quick in and out turned into a full on interrogation session during which I was, at one point, accused of theft/robbery.
It was a bizarre experience, to say the least, which wasted an hour of our day.
Something similar happened to me. I found a wallet in a hotel car park early one morning so went in and handed it to reception. However they said they couldn't take it so I had a look to see if there was any ID and found a work pass with an email address. Emailed the guy explaining I'd found his wallet and told him I'd be in work till 4 so call me to collect it. Calls me about an hour later and then starts grilling me about how and where I found it. He wasn't aggressive but you could tell from his tone that he thought I'd taken it rather than found it. Yeah, makes total sense I'd take it and then contact the owner to say I had it.
Why would the thief walk straight into a police station with their loot? How could they possibly have suspected OP?
bc some people are morons, and probably wanted an excuse to make an arrest to make themselves look good for a promotion
Load More Replies...My gf found a purse (lady's wallet, not a handbag) in the street and we managed to track down the owner and she came to collect it. Unfortunately someone had had away with the cash that was in it, but her bank cards were still there. I am still not sure whether she thought we had taken her cash. Understandably my gf is now a bit reluctant to pick things like that up again. We did manage to reuninite a phone with it's owner though.
Same happened to me - only the owner even had the original pin sheet from the bank in there too. Stupid b*** first expected me to bring it to her and when I told her where to meet, she treated me like a thief when I handed it over. A couple of years I later lost my wallet in a train and got a guy calling my insurance company to contact me asp. Met up right away and I was so happy and thankful - even still got the money in it! Felt like karma coming back to me.
Load More Replies...In the mid Sixties I went to The Ideal Home Show at Olympia London. I found a wallet containing over a hundred pounds. It equates to over £2,300 in todays money. I was only about 11 at the time and handed it over to someone at the Lost and Found desk. Never heard another word about it. I hope the owner got it, but I have my doubts.
I don't even like reporting things to the police on the phone, because they grill you and ask for your contact info. This one time, I thought I heard my neighbor scream in pain late at night. I thought 'it's probably nothing, but if I don't report it, and he ends up having had a horrible accident or been attacked, I'm going to feel awful', so I called it in. I don't know where the breakdown in communication happened, between me and dispatch or between dispatch and the cops, but they knocked on *my* door and started asking questions.
There's rarely a situation that the police can't make worse. Best not to get them involved.
Load More Replies...Wow, I have a postitive one, we found someones wallet with all the papers inside. Luckily I found his car in the parking lot, and we left a phone number, because we had to leave. He was nearly in tears, when he get back everything.
Well, I thank the people that found my wallet and called me before I even knew it was missing. That’s happened on a couple occasions in my life and I’ve when I had my roommate’s rent money inside.
Most moral panics?
Stranger Danger: convincing people in the 1970-90s that hundreds of thousands of American children were being yoinked into random cars by evil strangers each year, while downplaying and underfunding the resources that could actually help decrease child abduction.
Child abductions not only never came anywhere near those huge numbers, but it was and still is nearly always a custodial issue or a very close family member. Teaching people to be wary of kidnapping is great; directing all their fears toward vague spooky strangers and not helping people learn how to *actually* prevent kidnapping is kinda s**t.
1980's : Don't tell anyone anything personal about you (name number address) don't talk to and do not accept anything from strangers 2023 : Let's order food that a stranger delivers to us and have them call us when they arrive and then we can order another stranger to come pick us up from home and take us someplace and make small talk while we're riding about where we are going and why!!
...and now wannabe influencers are exploiting their own children on social media. Have you seen the children's videos on YT? Kids are doing highly scripted playtime, forced gaiety, nervous laughter, promoting sponsored toys and gear. Ugh.
Load More Replies...I saw a video once with a lady teaching her kids 'strange behaviour' over 'stranger danger', seemed a really good way to alert kids without over scaring them
I still remember in elementary school being worried about "Chester the Molester". He was some shadowy figure just waiting (or lurking around the playground) to abduct wayward kids. No one ever talked about "Uncle Mark" being the one to look out for.
Federal statistics say that 85-90% of reported rapes and sexual assaults are perpetrated by someone known to the victim.
Not to mention the entirety of "don't tell anyone your name, where you live, etc." and now there's "checking in" constantly on Facebook.
And now kids can't play outside unaccompanied anymore. We had so much fun playing outside together.
I was raised with Stranger Danger. Learning that and watching a movie about a real abduction that happened when I was 7, made me terrified of strangers. The boy dies in the movie. I wouldn't go on field trips that were in Toronto because I was terrified I'd be abducted. True story.
Purity culture and the *I Kissed Dating Goodbye* book/movement. It was a response to hookup culture and the "free love" movement of the 60's and 70's, and all of *its* downsides and dangers. But it left people with no idea how to have healthy relationships, sexual dysfunction, and worse. (Not to mention, a net *increase* in STIs and teen pregnancy, as they never learned how to protect themselves and mitigate risks.)
I don't like the word 'pure' being used for virgins, or for abstinence. It sends a negative message. It implies that you're 'dirty' if your not. Having sex, not having sex, there's nothing wrong with either. It's about what you're comfortable with.
Even if you believe in abstaining from sex until after marriage, this notion can still be harmful. Now those who get assaulted are suddenly classified as "dirty," and have to fight feelings of worthlessness piled on top of all the other [poop] they have to deal with.
Load More Replies...I think it's perfectly nature and healthy to explore sexuality.
I think the "free love" movement had more to do with troubles people are having today with healthy relationships, etc..
STI is very dangerous. Even when it not kill you, it will make your life in much pain
Those parents who solve all their kids issues and don't make them "stress" about consequences of their own actions. Their kids just turn into inept and entitled adults who still act 15 for decades and not only have a harder life for themselves but make life miserable for everyone around them too.
Edit:
1)yes it's bad to go too far the other way, raising a child is a balancing act, I get that, but ignoring a child isn't usually from good intentions while spoiling them often is and that was the prompt :)
2) if this sounds like it happened to you, I promise you that you can get yourself out of the cycle. It sucks and it hurts and it's unpleasant, but you can do it if you want to. Get ready to fail, and then keep trying anyway. Persistence will be a new skill, and you will be bad at it. And that's okay.
You didn't do this to yourself, you don't need to feel shame. Digging yourself out however is something you'll be doing yourself, and you can take pride in every step you make it the right direction.
Doing your kid's homework for them. Homework is there to reinforce the lesson, if they don't do it themselves they don't learn. If they can't do it then that is an indicator for the teacher that they haven't grasped it
It's me. I was raised by extremely overprotective parents. I didn't realize how much of an idiot I was till I moved out. I'm 35 now and definitely behind, but I'm trying. I will never stop. Most of my adult life has been a continuous struggle, but I'm not broken by it.
Or protecting children too much from reality in young age, like pretending that death doesn't exist, and then they get deeply traumatised when someone close to them dies and are unable to cope or show empathy while being expected to deal with it while the adults cannot support them during the tragedy because they're occupied with grieving and dealing with the situation. Parents do yourself a favour and explain about sickness and death as early as possible while nothing bad is going on and the children have your support while dealing with the inevitable trauma this will cause. You cannot protect them forever. And the later it comes, the harder it gets for them. A child can learn to accept and incorporate the reality of death into their knowledge and build ressources to deal with it when it happens as long as you support them in the process, but an adult who never did that until it's too late will crumble and fail.
This was one of my anxieties when raising my daughter, was I doing enough for her was I doing too much for her, did she have enough independence or too much. You hope you get it right but now she is an adult I can see where I went wrong.
Much like what is going on now mostly in Fl. kids don't have to know about slaves or slave labor or slavery or the mistreatment and murder of native Americans. Jesus, protecting kids from their own history is not protecting them. No teaching of CRT in elementary schools, banned forever. I t has never been taught anywhere but in college. a theme to scare white parents. DeSantis, trump,, southern governors, etc. people need to get a grip.
This post actually hurt to read so I just wanted to say that there are other reasons for trouble being an adult and blaming the parents doesn't help. They are only one aspect of a child's life and they alone do not create their child's future. Mental illness has a huge role in this sometimes and also the child's experiences outside the house. No hate comments please. I just wanted to let people in a similar situation know it's okay and it wasn't your nor your parents' fault and you're doing great I promise. Not everyone can be the desired competent, confident, and successful adult and that's okay.
We judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions.
I kind of believe in “show me you love me, don’t just tell me you love me.” Or explain your intentions to me if things go awry.
Load More Replies...I think the point of this, which at its face value seems obvious, is that we develop a dissonance between expectations for ourselves and others often creating a much higher standard from others than we hold ourselves to. It’s almost a subtle form of paranoia. We expect our intentions to be good and therefore don’t expect skepticism from others. Yet, when others perform the same action, we tend to automatically be skeptical. Then we develop subtle resentment for being thought of skeptically while we also develop subtle resentment for not knowing the other person intention. All by doing parallel actions. This is usually indoctrinated and reinforced into us by mass media, whom we never seem to question the intentions of when it comes to judging such similar actions. Yes, it sounds circular because it is. Benefit of the doubt, belief in the good of people and that most people aren’t bad, not preparing to be victimized, paying attention to subtle cues and listening to our gut can solve this
I rarely ever ask myself my intentions, I just assume I'm a terrible person because the action or feeling I had could negatively impact others if acted upon. And so I don't do anything because I don't want to hurt people, but I do get myself hurt from feeling like an awful person for wanting or thinking stuff that can hurt others. It's the most often reason why discussions happen in my life, because I feel awful about being a bad person and I feel like a monster. I cry and self hurt and then people in my life get concerned and it ends up with them defending my actions while I can't accept my hurtful feeling towards others as normal.
Haiti did not have cholera. A disastrous earthquake hit Haiti in 2010, after the earthquake humanitarian forces from the UN arrived to help, and the Nepalese contingent reintroduced Cholera to Haiti. This epidemic has since infected approximately 850,000 people and killed over 10,000.
Who has said it wasn't brought on by the relief workers? It was documented and caused the WHO to change policy on jetting emergency workers from one area to another without a wait period and medical vetting first.
Yeah, so? Did you forget the topic? It's a perfect example of people wanting to help but causing unintentional harm instead.
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Load More Replies...My husband still remembers the idiotic UN handing out malaria pills during the war in Bosnia. Still don't get why that organization is even allowed a platform
For example : https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=211434286 and https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1198743X14641343 and https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22510219/ and there are many more sources. This has been known for a while now. It's sad because they where here to help not to cause harm.
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George W Bush admin created subsidies on corn to promote the production of ethanol to be used in fuel, etc. Better for the environment and so forth. Couple of downstream effects:
1) Ethanol in fuel lowers the fuel efficiency, so you have to buy gas more frequently (more of an inconvenience, but that's why fuel with no ethanol is usually slightly more expensive).
2) Corn sold for other purposes than ethanol didn't qualify for the subsidies, so there was a strong financial incentive to sell to ethanol produces instead of for food. This drove the price of food corn (and food that uses corn-derived ingredients) up, affecting poor people the most.
3) The financial incentives were so strong that farmers were buying up cheap land in areas that were very unsuitable for corn production or switching away from crops that would grow more easily if they couldn't afford more land. In western Kansas, corn needs to be heavily irrigated in order to grow. There is an enormous aquifer that stretches from South Dakota to the Texas panhandle. Increased irrigation combine with a years-long drought drained the aquifer to the point that the city of Hays has to truck their water in.
Edited to add line breaks.
Edited again to say thank you for the awardsand the likes, kind strangers!
People also forget that Bush did this as a compromise with Democrats who wanted it, and it was pushed by groups like Sierra Club who had been taken in by special interests groups manipulating enviro groups (Happens more than you think). Many Republicans were against this at the time, and voted against it (though against it bc they wanted that subsidies for natural gas exploration). It was a case of bad science and enviro groups getting manipulated again by special interests groups, and in the end was worse for the environment.
There is SO MUCH disinformation in the USA about ethanol fuels. Ethanol is not a scam as (mostly the right wingers) think. Replacing 10-15% of oil-derived products with alcohol -theoretically- from food waste, of course save for legislative mess-ups makes the engine run cleaner and produce less toxic oxides (CO2 and NOx). Biofuel has even a higher octane number. If the engine is set up correctly it can provide the same power as gasoline. Most newer car engines are tuned to run on 15% ethanol, using a lower percentage will wear the engine without any advantage. F1 cars are tuned to 10% ethanol. Pure gas makes sense only for pre-1990s cars that are designed to run on leaded.
The ability to run on ethanol fuel depends on having an engine management system that is able to cope with a change to the charactaristics of the fuel. If you don't have that, then the engine must be retuned to run on a different fuel. The bigger issue with older cars is that the engine components cannot handle ethanol. Fuel hoses can crack and split - I had this on my classic even with E5. Ethanol also forms ethanoic acid when mixed with water, and as it is hygroscopic (it absorbs water) it will do this if it sits for any length of time. Ethanoic acid will corrode the float bowls of your carburettor. You will have a job to find ethanol free fuel anywhere in the UK, but E5 is fairly easy to get, with E10 now being the most common.
Load More Replies...And it's all gmo corn!! Same for soy - unless you go find the non-gmo ones...
Also lots of fossil fuels used to produce corn. There isn't enough land to produce it as a replacement fuel and feed people. If anyone had looked at the big picture science it does not make sense.
A man named Dr. Spock wrote a handbook for childrearing. It was widely circulated and well received. Many of our parents likely got their childrearing advice from this book.
In it he recognized that babies throw up a lot and therefore recommended newborns be laid on their stomachs to sleep. Unknowingly, this would result in the accidental smothering deaths of thousands of newborns. A huge number of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) cases can be laid at his feet.
To this day the back to sleep campaign is still fighting to update parents on what we now know: newborns should sleep on their backs until they can reliably roll over for themselves.
The recommendation for prone sleeping arose out of observations in neonatal intensive care in the 1960s. It was found that premature babies with lung issues did better being placed on their stomachs, as that position improved the blood flow to the lungs-it was identical to the situation with the covid pandemic where the sickest patients were put into the prone position. This then made people think that if prone sleeping helped premature babies, it must also help normal babies. Unfortunately, that turned out not to be true. In the UK, a famous TV presenter, Anne Diamond, lost a baby to SIDS in the early 80s. She started investigating and found research from Australia showing back sleeping was safer. Just 4 months after her baby's death, she'd made a documentary about it and that triggered a national public health campaign to promote back sleeping-she undoubtedly helped to save the lives of innumerable babies over the years.
I remember being told my baby should sleep on his tummy. But I could see he was uncomfortable so I let him sleep on his side/back.
Load More Replies...My 5-month-old started rolling over early at 2 months, but seem to do it especially when she was sleeping. This resulted in me literally not sleeping for more than 2 to 3 hours a night for an entire month because I kept getting up to go flip her over just to have her automatically roll herself back to her stomach. My husband found me sobbing on the floor one night at around 3:00 a.m. about how the baby was going to smother herself, and forced me to go to the pediatrician just to hear from him that it was okay, otherwise I think I might have had a complete mental breakdown (was definitely headed there from lack of sleep).
There's a product that keeps babies from rolling over when they are too young. It has clips that attach to a sleep sack that prevent the child from being able to roll. Maybe it could have relieved some of your stress? It's really hard when you're a new parent and sleep deprived. https://www.amazon.com/Nurturally-Baby-Anti-Roll-Support/dp/B085117HFL
Load More Replies...Oh God my Dad read this c**p when I was born and would "according to my mom" play his orchestra flute while I was in the crib at full volume scaring me awake every time. Soothing music was one of Spock's recommendations which sounds pretty nice but playing Bartok at full freaking volume didn't really work all that well 🤣
He adds to the huge number of men using faulty science to tell mothers how to raise their babies killing them in the process. Boobies are dangerous and filthy, here, take a bottle with a porous tube from rubber that cannot be sterilised and will cause your baby die from poisonous mold instead of just washing your boobies properly. And because we can't admit we were wrong, use this bottle now with the unfortunate form that will let your baby drown if you follow the instructions. Oh and breast milk isn't scientifically measured, here, take this mixture of flour and sugar instead, much better to let your baby starve to death. Oh and when you're at it, tightly wrap your baby so it can't move at all times, not just swaddle it occasionally to calm it down as the midwife sais, if it's calming, just do it aaaall the time. Why not?
And it's not just babies, they invented a lot of torture devices to 'help' the female body in general that no women would have made that way, like really bad menstrual products that harmed the vagina and harmful undergarments.... Time's are getting better now but back them were really dark times.
Load More Replies...I think the dangers of a baby vomiting and asphyxiating in its own vomit while on its back are far less than the risk of SIDS/suffocation from sleeping on its stomach. I don't have sources or statistics to cite, but I imagine if organizations are trying to promote back-sleeping with no objects/blankets in the crib, the chances of suffocation are far higher than those of asphyxiating on vomit. Plus, I also imagine that one could simply not lay their baby down for a nap/sleep if one has fed it recently. If anyone has better facts, please correct me :)
Load More Replies...This is scary. At the time when my parents had my older sister they said to place babies on their stomachs to sleep. Fortunately nothing happened to my sister.
While none of us died, to this day my siblings and I can only sleep on our stomachs. I once asked my mom if we were put on our backs or stomachs as babies and she confirmed we were laid on our stomachs to sleep because at that time that's what they thought was safe for babies.
I always put my babies on their sides with a pillow to prevent them from rolling over. I always credit that with saving my oldest daughter's life. She was 3 months old and had just been fed at 11pm and after winding her she started to fall asleep so I laid her in the crib on her side. A while later I woke up and I couldn't hear anything but just felt like something was wrong so I went to check on her. She was vomiting. If she had been lying on her back she most probably would have choked to death on the vomit and I wouldn't have known until I woke up in the morning and found her dead. Instead, as she was on her side, the vomit didn't choke her and I'm convinced it saved her life
I was told as a young mom, to put them on their tummy. No problems. If my child vomited on their back, how would that be different? BTW, I'm 65.
I always had issues with the psychological advice. But the physical stuff (with a few exceptions) was pretty close.
I recall hearing that the person behind the 'like' function of Facebook legitimately just saw it as a nice way for people to show others what they like, or a way to positively react on things - it turned out that it had/has a huge negative impact on social congnition, such as teenagers, especially girls unfortunately, developing depression.
Since the abysmal performance of American schools has been in the news recently, "No Child Left Behind" and it's replacement "Every Student Succeeds Act"
America has never had really good public education, but it used to be serviceable. NCLB came in to try and create some milestones and accountability. Instead it made the problem worse. ECSS came in and tried to address it's problems, but changed the stuff that wasn't the problem and left the bad parts unscathed.
Taken all together 57% of highschool GRADUATES can't read at a 7th grade reading level and over a quarter are functionally illiterate.
Well one big statement is false, the second paragraph. Back in 1971 the US was ranked 3rd in the world in Math and 5th in reading (and top 10 in every educational category). Why 1971? because that was the year Nixon created the US Dept of Education, to "fix" education so America would be number 1, and instead we went downhill, education became heavily bureaucracitzed, and more. Also its 1/3 of High School graduates read at a 7th grade level or lower, mostly inner city public schools where the numbers is over 50%, because we neglect those schools.
The US Department of Education was created on October 17, 1979 (not 1971) - five years after Nixon left office - under Jimmy Carter. Assuming that your other figures are correct, as one who was a public school teacher during this era yours is not the onlt explanation for them. If the percentage of low reading-level high school graduates increased, it was at least partly because many of those low level readers formerly used to drop out of high school and so were not previously included in the statistics for high school graduates. Is it a good thing that they stayed and graduated? I think so. Of course you're absolutely right about the neglect of inner city schools. I taught in several. However, wherever I taught, I never in those forty years noticed the degree of bureaucacy expanding beyond needs or the US Department of Education having much effect on anything, which was my complaint about it.
Load More Replies...And now there are politicians removing books from libraries because they don’t like the subject matter or a tiny bit of content within the books. Weirdly when an individual requested that The Bible be removed due to the homophobia, sexism, racism and bigotry that are in there, it was deemed incorrect to remove The Bible from libraries. Balanced information / knowledge for all is required, even the stuff you find a bit icky.
Truth. I worry about politicians that censor books and curate information.
Load More Replies...We keep putting more funding into athletics while starving the arts and music.
A big problem is the effort/funding that goes into schools varies a lot by the income of the people living in the area. “Nice” neighborhoods have good schools that perform well and “bad” (poor/minority) neighborhoods are not only left behind, but forgotten.
It's true. I went to one of the best public high schools in the country. Which just happens to be located in one of the wealthiest areas in the country. I wasn't smarter than the average student, I just had way more opportunities than the kids who went to school in less prosperous areas. Growing up where I did gave me advantages that I benefit from even now as I'm pushing 50. I guarantee that if all students were given the same privileges, this country would have many more successful adults. I wish there was an easy way to fix this problem. ALL kids deserve a quality education.
Load More Replies...What? I have my grandmother's and mother's school records and some books. Subjects included rich and well considered lessons in music and art, classic literature, Latin, poetry, maths, amazing lessons in history, as well as gardening, mechanics and carpentry. Saying America has never had really good public education is a blatant lie.
It isn't a lie. A good public education entirely depends on where you lived, your socioeconomic status, and race. Yes, there were, and still are good education systems in the US, but they are found in wealthy, white areas. A vast majority of the US has never had a good public education.
Load More Replies...I remember being in middle school when the passing grade was lowered from 70 to 60. Come my senior year, and I was cringing at how so many students could barely read when asked to read out loud...and they still walked across stage when we graduated.
I read at a college level in middle school but still can't read out loud lol.
Load More Replies...I believe the "No Child Left Behind" act was a huge mistake as it focused on lowering standards and didn't challenge the better students. Which resulted in them losing interest in school and not being challenged.
A post about the abysmal public education system that misuses the word "it's". 🤦♀️
Federally backed student loans. Once money was guaranteed, colleges jacked up tuition and continue to do so, with no end in sight.
Once the money was guaranteed *state governments withdrew public support for universities, thereby putting the burden entirely on students. There, I fixed it.
Indeed. The university of california (uc) system used to be free for state residents. Governor ronnie reagan was convinced this would result in the "educated proletariat" unwilling to take jobs they felt were beneath them and demanding of higher salaries. He put an end to it the same year he closed our mental health hospitals and residential treatment centers. Then he launched a propagana campaign blaming the disadvantaged as lazy, scamming "welfare queens" and insisted offering any help whatever would make them forever dependant on the state. He cut all social programs. Made foodstamps and section 8 housing unattainable. The public bought it. It took 40 years and homelessness at crisis levels before we earnestly began to address the issue and untreated mental illness. Tuition however, for a cal uni continues to skyrocket. My niece recently graduated from UC Riverside, $40,000 in debt.
Load More Replies...I once asked my credit card customer service rep. if they could forgive my $1763 debt, ‘cause I was a little short that month. After she stopped laughing, she asked if I would please repeat the question after she put me on speaker phone. (Didn’t work with my mortgage either.)
Also, state governments started raising tuition to drop their support in order to help balance the budget.
The invention of plastic!
The modern world wouldn’t exist without plastic. It hurts the environment, but also allowed for amazing scientific advancement that has undoubtedly helped the human race. I think “overuse” of plastic or plastic for convenience is a better idea.
And we now have biodegradable plastic for disposable things now. But heavy gauge plastic is used in most electronic items, in your cars, etc.
Load More Replies...It's in our blood now, broken down small enough in soil and water, to ...then get into the food crops, we eat the food, microplastics in out blood. Maybe not everyone's blood, but in time, probley. I wonder what the person who invented it thought it would be used for, and how...probley rolling over in their grave
I'm more salty about that fact that nobody seems to want to find alternatives to begin with, let alone, recycling is a scam anyway, since there's no "easy" way for it to be processed, so it all goes into the landfills anyway.
Sheltering your kid from every possible problem.
Why, so you can look more fierce when you attack Tokyo?
Load More Replies...We are currently making this worse and worse. kids should not be afraid but keeping them away from the world does not help them.
A company in a town I used to live in “employed” a lot of people from the local disability support center, these people had mental disabilities such as Down syndrome and this company “employed them” to come in a few hours a week and “work” - and by work I mean little tasks that gave these employees lives a sense of meaning, purpose and structure. Things like folding pamphlets and stamping papers and they would be paid a small amount for their time, not minimum wage but enough for them to be absolutely thrilled with their “pay” from working.
The government made some changes so that these people HAD to be paid minimum wage (I assume to avoid people being taking advantage of), I am sure they had the best intentions but this company, and many others could not afford to pay all of these people minimum wage and so they had to cut back to only letting 1-2 people work instead of all of the people who were benefiting from “working” for them initially.
It was really sad especially because these people did not understand why they were not allowed to work anymore.
where I live the govt pays 2/3 of the salary to meet min wage. That way stores can afford to hire them to do things like stock shelves (they tend to work much much slower), but also saves the govt a ton bc it keeps them active and not in govt expensive runs programs during the day
We've had a problem in Australia with the national disability insurance scheme having major cuts. Now a lot of disabled people are not able to get the support they need to be able to work or study. So now a lot of disabled people have had to quit their jobs and some have had to have family members stop working so they can care for them.
Load More Replies...As a disabled person, I have to put my two cents in. Giving a disabled person something to do is great and all, I understand it gives them purpose and makes them feel better about themselves but the fact-of-the-matter is, THEY ARE BEING TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF. We fight for prisoners who are forced to work for pennies on the dollar so why should disabled folks be paid less than non-disabled folks. If the companies want them to really feel like a productive member of society then pay them a real livable wage.
I absolutely second your point, J. Maxx! I also think it's sometimes not easy to draw a line between (productive) work and occupational therapy. Are a handful of flyers a person with disabilities folded with the full help of a normal-paid employee something a company makes profit with? I do NOT say a person with disabilities doesn't deserve equal wages. But you can't also say that the company in this example or how Sonja explained is exploiting disabled folks. Or why would you think so?
Load More Replies...This is one of those things that is a fine line of good intentions vs taking advantage. Too many places took advantage and it ruins it for all the ones that honestly want to help people.
Good! It's about time that scumbag businesses are stopped from exploiting the disabled for pennies per hour! They are not subhumans and deserve to be paid just as much as anyone else. This business you speak of was taking advantage of the disabled.
Exactly! My brother works for an organization that places people with disabilities in jobs. There are many employers who are just looking for cheap labor and don't see them as real people. It's awful.
Load More Replies...So here's the thing.. they were paid... but like 25c an hour. It was very much taking advantage of them! (https://adap.ua.edu/uploads/5/7/8/9/57892141/2013_adap_news_june_21-_some_disabled_workers_paid_just_pennies_and_hour_-_and_its_legal.pdf)
Working conditions for some of the poor. I found out a lady was working at the Lighthouse for the Blind but that they put the bussed in people in the back where they had no a/c, just a fan blowing on them in over 100 degree weather. I reported the company but nothing was ever done.
I have trouble believing the company couldn't afford it. I'm guessing they just didn't want to lose any more of their profits.
Thomas Midgley A Great scientist. He help to get rid of the problem of petrol causing 'knocking' in engines.... By adding lead to Gasoline Then he turned his endevours to reducing the amount of Toxic and flammable gases used in Air con and refrigeration systems....... and invented CFC's
Thomas Midgley "came up with the non-brilliant idea of adding tetraethyl lead to gasoline --despite lead being known as a toxic chemical-- to solve the problem of engine knocking, that is when fuel burns unevenly in the engine's cylinders of an automobile causing noise and potential damage to the engine's cylinder walls and pistons." He knew it was poisonous, bu went a head with it anyway. It's estimated he cause the premature death of 1.2 million people.
And naturally, since they added “something” to gasoline, they had to charge more. And when they discovered the dangers of the additive, and stopped adding it, they had to charge more. Makes sen, right?
Well, adding lead meant compression ratios could be higher - and IC engines get more efficient that way. Better mileage, more power, what's not to like? Then we had to take the lead out, but all cars by then had been built built expecting certain octane ratings - so other chemicals had to be added to replace the lead - and they were more expensive.. But remember - canned chili WITH beans costs less than chili WITHOUT beans. So they must have a negative impact, right?
Load More Replies...Simon on Blaze did a very good video on this guy. Absolutely awful how his refusal to admit any wrong led to the deaths of so many. (https://youtu.be/W__9jrnF6s8) The crazy thing is Karma seems to have got him but good - in 1940 he contracted polio and the same year he was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences, he strangled himself in his bed trying to use the elaborate pully system he had invented to help him move out of bed.
My mom called my Christian university (that 17 year old me attended by my parents behest) to inform the school that I was smoking weed, drinking, and having sex. She thought because it was a Christian university, they would put me into a counseling program to get me “back on track.” The school told me to pack my bags, leave immediately and they rescinded the 80% scholarship I obtained, causing me to owe the full 100% for that semester which I’m still paying off a decade later.
- Edit: this comment is getting a lot of traction so I figured I’d add another nugget. After getting kicked out of college, my 18th birthday was the next month. My parents somehow (my dad is a tech nerd so he could hack any account I had) found out that I was going to have a party at a friend’s house to celebrate. There was alcohol and weed at the party. Low and behold my parents called the state police and alerted them of the party. I and 3 other friends got arrested that night. Most charges were dropped or expunged eventually.
- Edit 2: thank you to everyone for your responses! There’s too many comments and dms to reply to so I will answer some here:
- For those saying I got what I deserved or my mom was justified - It takes 2 to tango. My choices played a role for sure. This story was a response to the prompt about good intentions going sideways. My mom had good intentions when she alerted the school of my activity. She didn’t want me to get kicked out and still be paying for it years later but that’s what happened. I don’t claim sainthood in this scenario. I broke the rules knowingly.
- How did my mom know about the partying/sex? I visited home for a weekend and she went through my bags while I was in the shower. She found condoms and a bottle of liquor. She already knew I’d been smoking weed here and there for a couple years at this point.
- I said my dad “hacked” my online accounts to discover I was throwing a party. Excuse my lack of intelligent tech vocabulary there. He had a program or software where he could track key strokes to then discover passwords to my accounts or something along those lines. Similar to what they used to monitor the computers in my high school.
- How is my relationship with my parents now? It’s great. I have forgiven them completely. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel some resentment now and again. Their choices (and mine even more so) made my life very difficult. At my lowest point, I made a plan to kill myself. All of my dreams and potential seemed crippled by debt and a lack of gainful employment opportunities. I lived in a town (technically a village) of 300 people in rural north east, USA. Thankfully, before I was able to harm myself too badly or permanently, I had a “mystical” experience. During that experience, I saw my situation, my parents, myself, and reality from a perspective that was not my own regular waking consciousness. I saw that I could choose to perpetuate pain and suffering by holding onto anger, hate, and resentment for my parents and myself for the choices we made. I saw it was possible to feel joy, to forgive, to repair, to heal. My life didn’t instantly become better the next day, but my perspective shifted to where I wanted to repair the damage that was done. “Anger is the 2nd wound your enemy inflicts upon you” was very applicable in my situation. I could let the anger and hurt dictate what my life would look like or I could choose to cultivate joy, come what may. Holding onto anger and resentment was another form of allowing my parents to control me. The real “power move” is to forgive. To release the hold your “enemy” (for lack of a better term) has over your life through your unhappiness. Behind true forgiveness is where we find freedom. Much love, Reddit.
OP is a far better human being than I am. I applaud them and admire them. I don't think I will ever be able to forgive my mother for a childhood of beatings and abuse, but I'm cognizant enough to recognize in others the ability to forgive, and I am jealous XD
I think the difference here is that OP's parents truly tried to help and thought the school would help them, and probably apologised profoundly for their mistakes, while yours were just horrible people. So I think you should cut yourself some slack. I don't really think that you are a bad person for not forgiving a person who hurt you and made no attempt to make things right. I think you should work to move on and let go for yourself, leave it behind in the past, but some things should not be forgiven. Some people don't deserve to be let back into your life and that's what forgiveness truly means. But those are the people you should let go completely, which means to leave them behind and put the memories into perspective. I wish you the best of luck in doing so and a beautiful life full of contentment
Load More Replies...I might sue my parents for libel and slamder so THEY pay for the college loan
Are children responsible for their debt in the US (I assume this is from the US). Many years ago I managed to get overdrawn on a child's bank account and there was nothing the bank could do to recover the money as they are not allowed to lend to children.
When I was a senior in high school (1970), the group I partied with drank, smoked weed, had sex, and consisted of the top 1% of the smartest kids in a 3600 population of students. I graduated from the #1 public university in the country, had a very successful career, and the others followed the same track. So go figure. It's the person, not the drugs or sex, that determines where you go in life.
If you were under 18 when the college kicked you out, you probably are not responsible for paying the tuition. At that age, you are unable to enter a legally binding contract in most states. See a lawyer about getting back the money you've been paying them.
I came to comments to write that - how someone not legally adult can be responsible for that?! It wouldn't be legal in developed countries.
Load More Replies...I don't understand how they kicked you off, but expect you to pay for the semester they didn't provide.
Nope, you're going to get hurt again, and you're leaving yourself wide open for it. At least you'll be used to it by now.
On a personal scale trying to help a really drunk person. I'm a woman and talkative and I started talking to another woman at a bar who was really really drunk. She told me her friends deserted her so I said she could hang out with me and my friends as it was my birthday (to keep an eye on her and because she seemed fun). Then she started falling off of chairs and spilling drinks so I encouraged her to get a cab. She started crying how everyone hates her as I was helping her outside but agreed to go home. I got a cab, paid for it because she was a mess, and all of the sudden she got really violent and ended up kicking me in the face trying to get out of the cab because she 'wasn't done'. She pushed me and told me to f**k off but ultimately sat back down in the cab crying.
We had already exchanged numbers so the next day she texted me apologizing profusely and asking if we could stay friends. I told her I appreciated her apology but no thanks.
I will always try to help people where I can but that turned me off from going above and beyond. Plus, you can rarely rationalize with really drunk and upset people.
I lost a long time friend because of this sort of behaviour. I was going through a lot of my own issues and eventually I just couldn't handle her problems anymore. I feel terrible for her, but she refused to get real help and was just an emotional vampire. That was a little over ten years ago, and as of this past year, she is still behaving this way and has lost every single one of her friends because of it.
Sounds like several similar experiences I've had trying to 'do the right thing' in the past... the response to "I can come pick you up from the police station and take you home" was met with verbal threats (was on the phone) of physical harm, as they took the offer to mean I assigned blame to them for the fight (???) - Also tried to steer someone towards 'check yourself before you wreck yourself' actions, and got a full 'this is why you suck' speech in return; various times I tried to support someone, and they spat in my face saying they 'didn't need pity!!!' (even though they'd literally ASKED for support 2 seconds prior), etc. etc.
You could just stick with going above and beyond for sober people.
The D.A.R.E program
Need more info. Edit: Thanks for all the information!
It pushed agenda that all drugs are bad, never do any drugs. Pot is a 'gateway' drug that is readily available to kids and doesn't ...usually ...cause bad trips. So kids think if the DARE program lied about the horrors of pot, then they lied about all the other stuff. Would have been preferable to approach each drug and drug class as separate issue.
Load More Replies...The D.A.R.E. officer at the grade school where my wife taught was busted for cocaine.
Anyone old enough to remember that commercial with the egg in the frying pan. " This is your brain on drugs" . Man that was funny 🤣
It really irritates me when these lists include contextless entries that no-one outside of the USA is going to understand.
As an 80's kid in HS, just sitting through all those stupid anti-drug assemblies with people going "You don't need drugs/alcohol to be cool" just made us not want to be boring-dweebs like them. And what the hell ever happened to all those people we were told about that would be coming up to us and offering free drugs ? Talk about a disappointment !!!!
When will these people realise that telling young people not to do something pretty much has the opposite effect?
What a dismal failure that ended up putting millions of nonviolent kids in jail, and wasted billions of dollars and destroyed so many lives.
I don't know if anyone else remembers this, but in the 80's 1st Lady Nancy Regan wrote a song for this campaign. It was called "Just Say No". It became part of the music education curriculum at my elementary school. I can still recall how to sing it. It starts "Just say no. Just say no. Just say no no no no no if you agree." "Just say no. Just say no. Just say no no no no no emphatically." It goes on to say something about abusers being losers. I'm surprised it wasn't a chart topper! ;)
Good 'ol Nancy Reagan who thought it was a good idea to have Drew Barrymore be the spokesperson for her campaign.
Load More Replies...I participated in the DARE program in grade school. Didn't prevent much.
The beginning of any political journey I suspect
He had good intentions towards HIMSELF and getting more money and clout for HIMSELF...
Load More Replies...Evidently there is big money to be made campaigning. Why else would deadwood like pence or nikki haley be in the race for 2024? How is kari lake still "running"? paying for frivolous lawsuits and recounts while living the good life?
I still say if the DNC hadn't f****d up & shut out Bernie Sanders, Trump would NEVER have won. Yes, we should eventually have a female president, but it never should have been Hilary. I only voted for her because there was no way in HELL I was voting for Trump. My grampa, bless him, was a lifelong Republican, but HE would never have voted for Trump.
300+ million citizens, more than half of whom could (theoretically) be elected president. Yet every 4 years, it's "Vote for candidate A because candidate B is even worse. It'll never happen, but suppose every voter had one vote. It could be cast for or against either candidate. To be elected, the candidate would have to get a net vote over zero and greater than his/her opponent. I would gladly have voted against Trump without having to vote for Hillary.
Load More Replies...I think people get into politics to try to make changes to the system that they believe in and think are right. Then they get corrupted and rationalize that playing dirty is what they have to do to stay in office and they need to stay in office to try to further their agenda (which to them is a legitimately positive agenda that will do good for people).
Keeping on trying to help someone so desperately that you lose sight of your own actions and end up hurting everyone around you by neglecting your own health and becoming overly defensive of that person, even insulting and attacking others for them.
This can happen too fast when you fall in love with a bad person
Avoid allowing the *wants of others to take precedence over your *needs. It is the essence of codependency. It's toxic.
It's not that simple always, and wanting to help others doesn't make you a bad person. It does sometimes open you up to abuse tho.
Load More Replies...This... omg. it's easier to be groomed when you're empathetic, and I don't mean dumb; I understood my ex's history growing up with horrible parents and I forgave him when we had dialogue and he made a breakthrough (i have a nursing and psychology background)... nope. He went right back to mommy, Gaslighting, projecting, and abusing. I'm now stuck dealing with my narcissistic abuser on a daily basis for another 14 years while he vomits his toxicity onto our shared 4 year old daughter. Don't do it. Don't let a "nice guy" gaslight you into thinking they're wanting to be better. People with NPD rarely get better, bc they p**n off their feelings of responsibility and remorse for their actions onto a scapegoat... that way they have no personal repercussions for their actions, and no incentive to get better. RUN!
Persephone ... I'll find resources for you to make your escape.
Load More Replies...Humans make mistakes. Not everyone will learn from them. I'm old and I m still screwing up life😊
ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ Ayyye, 7 decades of vocabulary building, character enhancing activities over here.
Load More Replies...Qualified immunity
How was this anything other than asscovering for cops from the begining?
Because sometimes, the grey area that cops have to operate in can bite them needlessly
Load More Replies...People giving up all their rights because they believe it will solve problems
Ben Franklin had something to say about that. To paraphrase, he said those who would give up their freedom for a little safety deserve neither freedom nor safety.
Probably a reference to the NSA and extra-judicial killings of American citizens post 9-11. It's ironic that some people get all worked up over masks, vaccinations, and keeping their guns. Meanwhile the U.S. government can watch any of us at any time for any reason and all the guns in the world won't stop a drone strike. And no one is saying a word because it makes them feel safe.
Do you really think the US government would drone strike its own soil? (Yes they would) If it would, then every thinking, feeling US citizen should own at least 1 gun.
Load More Replies...We currently have members of the public in the UK applauding a forever tightening tory policy on erosion o civil rights, particularly around right to assemble, protest etc.
We also have members of the public gluing themselves to roads, shutting down motorways, airports and generally interfering with everyone else's daily business. There has to be a line drawn somewhere, and please don't take that as my supporting the bloody Tories.
Load More Replies...Not gonna yo downvote you, but please, reas a little bit.
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The opioid crisis. Initially it was highly restricted and doctors hated prescribing it because they KNEW how addictive it could be. Well here we are.
I've been a physician for 4 decades, recently retired. I've seen the opioid prescribing pendulum swing back and forth. I condemned the opioid boom of the late 90's and early 2000s for making them much too easily available. I knew it would cause addiction and death. But now I see too many cases where significant traumatic and post-operative pain is treated inadequately, leading to a LOT of suffering and hesitancy to get needed procedures.
I am also going to add that cutting addicts off cold turkey, addicts that the medical community created by over prescribing, is causing things to be worse. 80% of heroin users started with prescription pain meds. Opiate withdrawals are horrific and the vast majority of people cannot go through them and will then turn to herion, and then they slide even further into the abyss. The medical community should have taken responsibility for their part, and provided addicts with more programs to help people overcome their addiction including evidence based programs, tapering plans, more detox clinics, and MAT (medical assisted treatment) like Suboxone and Methadone. They should also have more education on how 5o prescribe them responsibly and use them for adequate pain management in patients who need it for example like you mentioned. But, nope, they keep contributing to the problem by not taking accountability and going to the other extreme, pushing people to turn to dangerous street drugs and like you mentioned, causing people in legit pain to suffer. Hopefully we can really learn from this
Load More Replies...I have had a total of 13 orthopedic surgeries and 2 more on the horizon. Four of those surgeries were total joint replacements. I'm only 51. My connective tissue is deteriorating at an alarming rate and no one knows why. I'm in constant pain but I manage with a cocktail of meds that rely heavily on opioids. Am I addicted? Oh hell yes!! Am I an addict? Far from it. I know there is a problem with opioid addiction and that there are people who need help. I know there needs to be a certain amount of regulation. But I'd really like to spend my energy worrying about the best way to take care of myself and not on worrying that I won't be able to get the meds I need to function. I've suffered a handful of panic attacks in my lifetime and every one of them was in response to fear of not being able to get my medications. Like I need that stress on top of everything else???
Profits before People! And the government has a HUGE cut in profits from illegal drugs & firearms!!
Tylenol? You have to be prescribed Tylenol in the UK?
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Harry Frederick Harlow(scientist)
He wanted to prove that humans cannot survive without love and affection.
He needed an animal that was sufficiently humanlike and he settled on rhesus monkeys. Harlow's research went in a really dark direction.
Harlow wanted to prove the importance of early social interaction in social development, and the importance of family and love, but his cruel methods ended up causing some of the monkeys to engage in self-mutilation or starve themselves to death. He raised the monkeys from birth with as little love and affection in isolation chambers for up to 24 months. They became empty shells of living animals.
You cannot unsee the video footage of this experiment, so please think twice before researching this one
There are videos of these tests and they're gut wrenching. I'll forever be scarred by watching this c**p
"Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection" by Deborah Blum provides more depth on Harry Harlow and the background of the experiments and what was learned. Previous research psychologists thought that children were attached to their mothers because they provided food. Harlow provided evidence of the importance of maternal touch in infant development the parent-child attachment relationship. The book goes on to state that Harlow and his research team did try and rehabilitate the monkeys but in many cases, it was not possible.
Love and affection aside, putting a person or animal in an isolation cell for 24 months would drive any of them insane. Imagine spending all of your time with nothing to occupy your body or mind.
Yet how many inmates are in solitary confinement today, and we somehow expect them to have "learned their lesson" if they get through their sentence and are released??
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Story:
My uncle took me and my brother in because he wanted us to get a good education. My mom and dad agreed as they knew that my uncle would be able to give us a better shot at making something of ourselves. My uncle's intentions were good.
However, my uncle's wife made our lives hell. She basically mistreated us and my uncle was unable to do anything about it. So his inaction made him complicite.
Even through the hardships, my brother and I still managed to get an education, but my uncle's reputation was affected negatively. Family members don't see him the same way and his wife is really disliked (to put it mildly).
It started with good intentions, but it didn't end well for my uncle.
**Edit**
Hey guys, I appreciate all the comments and perspectives shared. I'm not sure why this post has gained so much attention, but maybe it's because it resonates with a lot of people.
In conclusion, I want to say that what my brother and I went through as teenagers shaped us. My uncle's wife may have believed she was inflicting pain, but in retrospect, she was unknowingly instilling resilience in us. Sometimes when you think you're hurting people, you're inadvertently teaching them the skills that will contribute to their success.
What we went through definitely contributed to our success at different stages of our lives:
-- In university, it gave us the motivation to work hard and excel as we knew it was the key to financial independence and freedom from family influence (including from my uncle and his wife).
-- As adults, it has helped us handle the challenges of work and business and achieve success.
-- Additionally, it has taught us about the kind of women we really don't want to associate ourselves with. I will never be with a woman who mistreats my family. It's not even an option, nor is it negotiable.
"she was unknowingly instilling resilience in us." ← This is what Stockholm Syndrome looks like
I empathize. I lived with my Dad's brother for a while and they did the same thing. I became a convenient excuse for my cousin's bad behavior. My aunt hated me and my uncle did nothing about it.
During one of china's extreme dry seasons (think of their dust bowl period) Mao ordered the killing of birds to prevent bird eating seeds and so increase agricultural productivity
instead what happened is that birds that feeded on plants pests were killed making the situation even worse and resulting on the death of millions
a bad dry season, deforestation, missuse of pesticides and a war against nature under his belief that conquring nature was the way to inprove agricultural yield and so the welbeing of their citizens
stupid uninformed decisions even if semingly rational to a layman resulting in one of the biggest human and ecological cost disasters
we still making such decisions from time to time, sometimes for profit on the belief that such will benefit all and sometimes for genuine good reasons
Mao was an idiot. A very charismatic idiot (they are the most dangerous ones). Never believe "the savior". The one person who knows how to rule everything. No problem has one easy answer. Solutions are often complex and imperfect and need the thinking and compromising of many.
Wow, you are very correct. He had this brain dead idea farmers who didn't have any crops because of the blight could mine instead. So the government suddenly informed the farmers he would be coming around to inspect their progress and they had no mines and of course no metal, so they melted down their farm implements so show all the wonderful metal they had magically procured- which of course made everything even worse.
Load More Replies...Until ~1950s the preferred lawn was not grass... it was clover. Clover and native grasses are low maintenance, drought resistant solutions to having enjoyable yards. THEN a pesticide company experimenting with new ways to kill things realized their latest product killed everything but grass. So they pushed an advertising campaign to get America to plant grass instead.
This makes me think of Yellowstone and the wolves. People continue to act surprised that nature knows exactly what it's doing and doesn't need our help.
A lot of old programs centered around weight and eating disorders just led to kids being more conscious about being judged about their weight despite the intentions of wanting to prevent bullying or healthy weight. It did not even matter if it was anti-anorexia or wanting to decrease obesity. Also in my school they showed us pro-ana sites with like a ''beware!'' message and I also could not help thinking that this talk was the only reason I knew they existed.
Currently the focus is more on eating healthy instead of weight. Still has some pitfalls, such as orthorexia.
Obsession with ‘good’ and ‘bad’ foods. Sometimes seen as extreme clean eating…
Load More Replies...The key drivers of obesity are poverty, UPFs and lack of access (particularly financial access, but also skill and facility access) to fresh foods. The processed food industry is fuelling obesity for profit, and the general public is paying for the fallout through strain on the health services, chronic ill health, and being forced to be carers for sick relatives. to anybody who thinks that people can't be forced to be carers, there are around 800k unpaid carers in the UK that are under 18 FFS.
Giving kids everything they ask for.
As a kid I got everything I wanted and nothing I needed. I got a pony for my birthday (seriously), but my parents never really took care of me or taught me how to take care of myself. Money became like an emotional currency for me as I got older. Like if my boyfriend was going to yell at me all the time, the least he could do is buy me things. It took a while (and counseling) for me to see things differently.
Somalian piracy. It all got started because white collar criminals from Europe were illegally dumping toxic waste in the water near Somalian fishing waters because it was cheaper to do that than dispose of it properly. This not only killed the fish those villages needed to survive but also resulted in miscarriages, stillbirths, and birth defects. Eventually a bunch of the fishermen decided they’d had enough and, knowing that no one else was going to protect them, motored out to the dumping boats and took the crew hostage, demanding reparations. Thing is, they made a LOT of money from that. Like, crazy money. Word of that started to get around, and a lot of men fighting in the militias against petty warlords decided to desert and start their own pirate crews to make bank. Suddenly the pirates weren’t just fishermen going after the criminals who were killing their children - now they were greedy mercs going after any boats unlucky enough to enter their territory. The irony, however, comes when white collar criminals in Europe (sound familiar?) realized that by dropping a few thousand bucks to set up a crew with a boat and some AK-47s, they could stand to make millions back. Sponsoring pirates was an amazing investment in terms of return. Soon most pirate crews were picking their targets based on Intel provided to them by European sponsors. If anyone wants to know more, read Blood Ransom by John Boyle. Amazing book.
I'll poke a little at my fellow leftists here.
Plastic bags.
Back in the late 90s there was a huge push for people to stop using paper grocery bags because of the amount of trees being cut down for paper.
Unfortunately, it turns out the logging industry can be pretty sustainable (though not entirely faultless!) and plastic bags are unrecyclable and so thin that reuse is uncommon. Instead contributing to massive amounts of plastic pollution in the environment.
Another example is the protest against hunting white tailed deer. Unfortunately we killed their natural predators, and hunting is an effective way of keeping their population at sustainable levels.
Deer eat 5 pounds of vegetation per day. They breed at 6 months. Usually have twins. They are so numerous that they destroy entire ecosystems in a single season... stripping vegetation needed by insects, killing slow growth saplings like oak and walnut, trampling habitat needed for ground nesting birds, amphibians and reptiles. They cause 200 fatalities, 10,000 injuries, and $1.2Billion in damages yearly.
The worst part is that if deer are left to breed out of control, with all of their natural predators hunted to extinction, not only will they destroy the environment, they'll eventually overburden it themselves as a species and they will start to starve and die off after much suffering. There is NO good side to removing the natural predators of deer. "But we need to leave some deer for the human hunters!!!!" was the WORST and most short-sighted, self-centered argument ever. Most hunters will hunt bucks for trophies and thus kill a disproportionate number of bucks. And there aren't enough human hunters to make a dent in the unchecked deer populations in the first place. It infuriates me on several levels to know that wolves have been hunted to extinction in many states and are STILL allowed to be killed.
Load More Replies...Interesting note about saving the trees: 4 million acres of trees cleared yearly ...for coffins. Yep. Our funeral industry wiping out forests to make boxes that will be crushed under 2 tons of dirt. Roughly 39,788 trees every year, or almost enough for 2,000 houses.
Protest sport hunting of native predatory animals such as wolves.
'Helping' someone by enabling them in their self destructive behaviours. Sometimes you help someone by denying them what they say they want.
Sometimes the best way to help is to step away or be brutally honest with them.
Boundaries... they need to see 'em in action before they can develop their own.
Load More Replies...Student loans.
Tech school. Fast track to the workforce in higher paying job without staggering student loan debt. You can always work toward a degree part time.
@Old Roadie. Student Fees. Coming to A tech school near you....
Load More Replies...I want to learn, and continue going to school! Nothing is more important than knowledge! Huh? Wait, wh- GODDAMMIT! I don’t HAVE $50,000!
Adobe Flash
I think this is more ironic than anything; OP is trying to get help with their flash, and the program itself is hanging up and asking if you want to close the page with the help instructions on it.
Load More Replies...I feel like dynamite is a pretty great example, he literally just made it for mining and was so horrified by people using it on other people he made the Nobel peace prize.
Different guy, same idea- Fritz Haber. “The man who killed millions and saved billions” by discovering how to take nitrogen out of the atmosphere to use for fertilizer. He also was instrumental in creating the atomic bomb, I believe.
This is a person that is niave to say the least. If it does destruction some one some where will figure out how to use it kill people. Take for example a gun, I know every one here will disagree but guns do NOT kill people, people use guns to kill people. I can not tell a gun, a bomb, a tank, a car or anything like that to kill someone. It will NOT do it on it's own it has to have help. Taking away these things will NOT stop the killings only change how people accomplish it.
We require people to be licensed to operate a vehicle, and the vehicle has to meet certain safety standards. A six-year-old can't put a tank in his pocket and shoot his teacher. No one's going to check into a Las Vegas hotel room and kill fifty-some people with a knife.
Load More Replies...Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasing dictatorship in the 1930s
I think that history misjudges Chamberlin. Without the appeasement buying enough time for Britain to rearm, the country would have found it´s self woefully unprepared for the coming war with Germany and the world today could well be a very different place.
There was a twelve month gap between signing Munich Treaty and the start of WW2 and even less time to the seizure of Czechoslovakia, that’s a very short space of time in military build up terms. Appeasement was used throughout the late 30s to attempt a diversion of Germany’s course, during that time the British didn’t accelerate production and in fact it was the Germans used that time to build resources outside of the Treaty of Versailles. It gave Germany time to build up hardware and train forces whilst our leaders tried to avoid conflict. Chamberlain ensured we were unprepared, wonder why the Germans pushed all the way to the channel with relative ease? The Allied nations had not prepared nor anticipated superior tactics and equipment. Chamberlain was and is fairly judged, he bowed to the rich, powerful classes and he failed to prepare our forces. Misguided at best, woefully inadequate at worst.
Load More Replies...Another famous appeaser was Alfred the Great, who appeased Vikings by paying the Danegeld until able to fight back
Trying to rescue too many cats.
Depends on how: paired with a neutering and vacciné program, it can allow an acceptable number of stray cats to live their own lives
This person is getting downvoted by "cat lovers", I suppose, but if you are a real animal lover you wouldn't downvote! You CAN own too many cats. Google animal hoarding - it's disgusting, and sad, the animals are kept in kennels a lot, not fed enough, not looked after well enough (because there are too many for one household). There's always a limit to how many pets one person should own, because you simply can not give them the care they need.
The guy that came up with the pesticide that later on got used in the concentration camps comes to mind. Edit: I might be wrong but I'm too lazy to check (not too lazy to browse reddit at work tho).
It's Bayer, and the substance were Zyklon B ( Édit: Bayer, the corporation that owns thé Roundup today. Seems they'll never change sadly)
Profits before People! Agent Orange - wonderful big pharma produced and used...
Did you know that cyanide is used as a catalyst whilst preparing tobacco?
Henrietta Lacks, aka Helen Lane aka HeLa. Google it.
Such a problem. She should have been more informed of what was happening and at the very least she and her family should have been compensated a LOT. But it also has helped so many people....
Load More Replies...Anti-bullying day is the world's biggest load of woke BS. One day. But go ahead, be mean the other 364 days. Don't ever invite anyone to share your lunch table. Don't practice empathy. By the time you get to bullying, you've lost. You're locking the barn door after the horse is gone. It's just a bs day to make people feel like they are doing good, but they are NOT.
Right now, reusable plastic bags are just becoming absurd. Legislation was passed that limited single use bags, so now they make thicker bags with more plastic and label them as reusable. But then they get used once (for like online ordering) and getting them recycled or reused is next to impossible because stores don't want to and people are lazy.
In the UK you have to pay for plastic bags now, its only 10p but it has reduced the amount of carrier bags being used and the amount ending up in landfill has decreased exponentially
Load More Replies...Any religious fanatic.. Take taliban for example. Most Taliban is verily believe following their leader ensure them to heaven. They believe on leaving any worldly thing toward their mullah teaching. Never in their mind that actually they has been misleaded very far
Henrietta Lacks, aka Helen Lane aka HeLa. Google it.
Such a problem. She should have been more informed of what was happening and at the very least she and her family should have been compensated a LOT. But it also has helped so many people....
Load More Replies...Anti-bullying day is the world's biggest load of woke BS. One day. But go ahead, be mean the other 364 days. Don't ever invite anyone to share your lunch table. Don't practice empathy. By the time you get to bullying, you've lost. You're locking the barn door after the horse is gone. It's just a bs day to make people feel like they are doing good, but they are NOT.
Right now, reusable plastic bags are just becoming absurd. Legislation was passed that limited single use bags, so now they make thicker bags with more plastic and label them as reusable. But then they get used once (for like online ordering) and getting them recycled or reused is next to impossible because stores don't want to and people are lazy.
In the UK you have to pay for plastic bags now, its only 10p but it has reduced the amount of carrier bags being used and the amount ending up in landfill has decreased exponentially
Load More Replies...Any religious fanatic.. Take taliban for example. Most Taliban is verily believe following their leader ensure them to heaven. They believe on leaving any worldly thing toward their mullah teaching. Never in their mind that actually they has been misleaded very far
