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Serious questions and musings

Matt N said:
Apologies for bumping this thread, but I have a serious question this afternoon that I’d be interested to know people’s perspectives on.

Recently, I applied to a graduate scheme. It’s a “technical graduate scheme” with a consultancy firm who work countrywide, and it encompasses a number of different areas, including cyber security, business analysis, AI, software development and data analytics, amongst other areas (I put my main interests down as data and AI, but being a CS graduate, I feel I could give a number of those other areas a good go as well).

The nature of the role isn’t the point of my question, though. The application form asked me whether I would be willing to work on projects involving defence. I put down “Yes”, not really thinking that there would be any reason for me not to work on defence projects. However, having said this to someone later, they said that that could potentially give me an advantage over others in the application process, as “many people would say no to that”.

This got me thinking; in some of the recent debates on here regarding ethics seeping into the theme park industry (e.g. Puy du Fou, Saudi Arabia), I’ll admit that I’ve been very keen to depoliticise things and separate the parks from the politics. While I find the whole camaraderie of politics fascinating to follow and discuss (as evidenced by my many contributions to the UK Politics thread), I’ll admit to not holding overly strong political leanings or overly entrenched ideology, and I don’t really govern my life via politics to any meaningful degree.

With this in mind, my serious question is; if I don’t hold strong ideological stances on matters like this and don’t govern my life by politics, does it make me morally corrupt? Does the fact that I put “Yes” to working on defence projects without really thinking about it in the job application form, or that I don’t have a strong objection to the idea of visiting Puy du Fou, or visiting Saudi Arabia to ride Falcon’s Flight, make me a bad person or mean that I have no moral compass?
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I am, at times, a sanctimonious bird, but even I appreciate that it's possible to hold two conflicting thoughts in your head at the same time.

You're not morally corrupt. Many people disagree with war, or defence, but still admit that it is a necessary evil and someone has to do it.

I have worked with some of society's most disdained and dangerous individuals. I have humanised those whom many would see as true monsters. I still consider my morals intact, and that my professional actions were for the greater good.

I do not agree with many of the actions taken by the "defence" sector, but I'm aware that the ultimate goal morally checks out. Allegedly, peace and security.

Ultimately, we all have to keep a roof over our head and food in our mouth.

Whilst I disagree vehemently with your stance on problematic parks, it doesn't surprise me. As a cisgender, white, heterosexual and heteronormative person, you're unlikely to be harmed or threatened by extreme right wing fascists, or the Saudi Arabians. You have the literal privilege to not care or be bothered by it. I do not believe for one moment that you are morally corrupt or a bad person for being lucky enough to be in this position.

The fact that questions like this weigh so heavily on your conscience shows that your heart is in the right place, and that you mostly have your head screwed on. Acknowledging and appreciating the problems can sometimes be enough.

You're not denying that either of these two future attractions are problematic, you're not pretending as though there isn't an issue. You've just weighed up your position and come to a different conclusion.

I don't personally agree with your conclusion and I don't understand your reasoning behind this conclusion. I think you're misguided, but I still have the utmost respect and time and appreciation for you. Those are my conflicting thoughts.

You can love and hate something in equal measures, at the same time, and that is human... And goose.
 
It's a personal choice @Matt N and one that only you can make. It certainly doesn't mean that you do not have a moral compass if you choose to work in defence.

I know several people, especially around Bristol, that work in the defence sector (public or private), and to be honest if you are working in computer science or aerospace and live in the south west a large amount of job opportunities available to you will be in that area. However that doesn't mean you'll necessary be designing bombs - there's a very diverse range of roles available. Depending on how you look at it, you could actually be saving lives with the stuff you end up working on. Or it might be related to peripheral defence activities not related to actual combat.

On the other hand my other half - who has an engineering maths degree - made a decision quite early on that a defence career wasn't for him and he has had a very succesful career so far in sectors such as civil aviation and precision manufacturing. Occasionally he has turned down an interview for a defence role that would have been a good career move, but there was always something else that came along in a more 'comfortable' sector for him and he has not really been disadvantaged.

In short, I don't think there is a right or wrong here, you just need to ask yourself what your personal thoughts on the matter are.
 
Random thought of the day, but how can a single substation in west London bring down the UK's biggest airport and cause chaos around the world that will last for days?

You would think UK critical infrastructure would not have a single point of failure like this.

Assuming the cause is completely innocent, it shows bad actors how they could easily replicate such chaos in the future.
 
If nobody minds me bumping this thread, I’ve got something on my mind that I’d appreciate some opinions on. I trust the folks of this site to give me unabashed honesty!

Some of you may remember a few months back that I mentioned in the “I Feel Happy!” thread that I’d discovered that a good friend of mine from a group project at university shared my interest in theme parks, and we had a lovely long conversation about them. I was really excited to discover that someone else I knew in real life shared my interest to at least a certain extent and didn’t find it weird, not to mention someone I’d developed a nice friendship with anyway through our prior group work!

After that, we messaged a bit on WhatsApp. We talked about a mix of academics and also a bit of theme park chat in there as well (for instance, I chatted to her a bit about the Universal announcement, and I also sent her some pictures and thoughts from my trip to Blackpool in April and we chatted a bit about that). She seemed to respond to me with genuine enthusiasm!

However, the thing I’ve been thinking is that she last responded to me on 13th May. Since then, I have sent her quite a few messages that she hasn’t responded to or even read; I make the total number of messages around 30, although I should add that some of those are a “multiple messages in one thread of discussion” kind of deal, so I make the number of “occasions” more like 16. And one of those occasions was when I accidentally sent her something intended for our family WhatsApp group, so that shouldn’t really count…

It recently occurred to me that there might be a reason why she’s not responding to me, so I tried Googling it and the internet resoundingly told me that she was trying to tell me to shut up by not responding and that I was an awful human being for messaging her… which has since made me feel terrible. So I guess the question I’m wanting to ask is; am I awful? Have I come on way too strong and inadvertently put her off me?

I feel I should also clarify a few things:
  • My friend does have some prior form for not being the most responsive to messages in general. There have been a few occasions in the past where I sent her a few messages in a row over a period of a few days to a week or two and she would respond to one and say something like “I’m so sorry I missed your messages; I’ve had such a busy week” or something along those lines before responding positively to me. It was never previously for this long, or for this many messages, but she has previously had periods of unresponsiveness, particularly after we stopped being in a project group together.
  • None of the messages I sent were what I would call malicious. I was genuinely just trying to be helpful and send her things I thought she’d find helpful or that she’d be interested in. I did send her some theme park-y things (e.g. some pictures and thoughts from my trip to Paultons in June), but lately, I’ve mostly tried to keep it to academics, telling her about important announcements, seminars that are running or job openings that I thought she might find useful.
  • She has never explicitly told me not to message her or even sent me any kind of signal that she’s not interested in talking to me, as far as I can tell. She’s always seemed interested and enthusiastic whenever we’ve talked in the past.
  • I have another university friend from the same group project who I chat to about the same sort of academic things I’ve sent this friend at a similar, if not greater, frequency, and he always seems to respond positively and has never inferred that I message him too much. During our dissertation period, we meet in person every 2 weeks when the uni requires us to check in and often message in between.
So I guess the question I’m wanting to ask is; have I been a terrible person and exhibited awful behaviour here?

I mean well and merely want to be this person’s friend, but I feel terrible and I’m fully prepared to be told I’m an awful person. Please don’t hold back if you think I am; please be completely honest with me.
 
No, you're not a bad person and you've done nothing wrong. People can just blow hot and cold. One day they are really enthusiastic and then the next day they can lose interest. People can do it in friendships/relationships sometimes too. Also, some people find it energy sapping to regularly be replying to direct messages (I'm one of them). Try not to take too much notice of the situation. If they start messaging you again then message back etc but otherwise just crack on with your life and don't worry about it. People come and go all the time, especially at college/uni etc.
 
Thank you both for the honesty. And for giving slightly more measured responses than Google gave me!

This is why you should never rely on the likes of Reddit and Quora to solve your moral dilemmas… the internet convinces you that everyone has a hidden agenda, and is doing things like giving you “the silent treatment” because you’ve done something to upset them, because you’ve behaved abhorrently or because they want to send you an implicit message! In the real world, I don’t think anyone is that passive aggressive… my friend certainly never gave off that impression, anyway!

I’ll try leaving her be for a bit and let nature take its course. She might want to talk to me again in the future if I give her a bit more space, or she might not.

I do have a tendency to info-dump a bit on people who seem interested in things I’m interested in, and I accept it’s not one of my better qualities even if I mean well (which I do!). I do hope I haven’t repelled her or anyone else on that basis, but I would understand if I have.
 
I suspect they probably just found it a bit overwhelming. I know I would if somebody kept messaging when I hadn't replied yet.

I'd say in general if you've sent one or two messages to somebody then wait for a reply before sending anything else. Give them time, people have busy lives.

In this case, maybe they'll come round in due course, or maybe they won't. I'd just move on and forget about it. They'll come to you if they want to
 
I have a really good friend who often doesn't respond to me for long periods so I know it's hard. They don't even do it on purpose, they just forget to respond and there is still chance of this being what has happened here. Honestly I'd just leave it for a bit and then maybe drop them a message asking how they are or something.
I've had times when I've sent them multiple messages and usually although they find it slightly irritating it is by no means the end of the wold. As someone who doesn't have a lot of friends I have had a previous tendency to get excited by someone sharing an interest so again I understand the want for responses.
I think perhaps there's a chance they haven't come to understand you yet which is fair. Even if they have found it overwhelming as some have suggested there's a good chance that you'll be able to explain that you weren't doing it intentionally.
 
@Matt N I'm a bit late to this, apologies, I think a lot of what other people have said is right, but also aren't you both uni students? Is it possible she's just busy with her summer break and not focussing on her phone?

I find it upsetting when people don't match my text energy, but I learned (eventually) not everyone has the same interest in texting, and not everything is in result to me or my actions. Sometimes people are just busy, sometimes they don't have anything to add, sometime they mean to reply but forget.

Like others have said, I'd leave it for a bit - if she wants to she'll get in touch. If she does, great, maybe you can have a chat about it and work out a way forward. If she doesn't, it wasn't meant to be - don't lose hope, you'll find other friends. I say this as someone who took until their mid forties to find people who tolerate my incessant wittering over text.
 
Alix said:
@Matt N I'm a bit late to this, apologies, I think a lot of what other people have said is right, but also aren't you both uni students? Is it possible she's just busy with her summer break and not focussing on her phone?

I find it upsetting when people don't match my text energy, but I learned (eventually) not everyone has the same interest in texting, and not everything is in result to me or my actions. Sometimes people are just busy, sometimes they don't have anything to add, sometime they mean to reply but forget.

Like others have said, I'd leave it for a bit - if she wants to she'll get in touch. If she does, great, maybe you can have a chat about it and work out a way forward. If she doesn't, it wasn't meant to be - don't lose hope, you'll find other friends. I say this as someone who took until their mid forties to find people who tolerate my incessant wittering over text.
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Not only that, but we’re both busy with dissertations. And her last message to me said that she was having issues grappling with the ethics approval for hers. So I guess that’s definitely plausible!

I’m definitely going to leave her be for at least a bit and see what happens, and am feeling overall more relaxed about the situation than I was when I posted the other day. To be honest, it’s been a busy couple of days with my dissertation and I haven’t had much time to ponder it!

I was most worried, if anything, that I’d behaved really abhorrently and needed to apologise to her to clear the air. In reality, I was just excited after our chat back in April, because someone who shares both your professional interest and a non-professional interest doesn’t come along every day, but I was worried that that wasn’t how it would appear on her end.

If anything, my post from the other day is proof that I’m a professional overthinker at times. I like to tell myself to follow the rule of Occam’s Razor (the possibility requiring the least wild assumptions is the one that’s most likely to be true), which in this case should lead me to believe the simplest possibility; that my friend simply hadn’t seen the messages I sent her. But in practice, I find that hard to follow and my mind likes to send me down the roads requiring many wild assumptions, particularly where a side dish of reading the internet is involved!
 
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@Matt N - It’s also worth noting that people will use WhatsApp’s muting option to compartmentalise different parts of their life.

Your friend might simply not feel she has the capacity to take on mental load from anything other than dissertation and 100% essential comms. And as such, all other chats and groups are muted until a time she can focus on it properly.
 
When I was a young, all my mates started to to get phones. It was 50/50 if someone had credit and days could go by without hearing from them. Now, I doubt credit is much of a thing. Especially with communication via WI-FI.

I joined Towerssteet™ when the big split away from (name redacted) happened. I enjoy being part of this community. The one thing that amazes me, Is just how much people know about the industry. How things work, what going on around the world and so on. But on alot of the threads in general discussion, that level of analysis can get to over baring for me, so I stay away. I do not have that level of enthusiasm for the subject and don't feel confident to join in. Especially with my poor writing style. I can imagine she maybe feeling something similar. If she is doing her dissertation, the pressure could be getting to her means she most likely doesn't need to engage with that, right now.

We live in age where communication is instant, which means reply needs to be instant. We aren't allowing people to stop and think. I struggle with over thinking my self. I am trying to find ways to block that out. It's hard. Especially when you work on your own and spend a high amount of time in the house alone.
 
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Not quite the usual serious question but googling is not helping me.

Do I need a letter to take my chimp out of the country? I've been told by a friend I do, but I've never been challenged before. Her dad will write one if it is needed, but seems a bit odd?

Does anyone know for sure?
 
Judge Judy Eye Roll GIF
 
Following my flippant answer some moments ago...the general advice is yes.
We always used to get letters of consent for trips abroad for kids in voluntary care, but googling via yougov, yes you do, you probably won't be checked, but a letter of consent will cover the monkeys arse, as it were, just in case.
 
Best I can offer is that when I went to Canada with my dad but not my mum... in 1994.... I got pulled aside on my own at Toronto passport control and interrogated for five minutes with no guardian or chaperone, because they refused to believe that it was possible for a child to travel with only one parent.

And people wonder why I hate commercial air travel (despite loving aircraft) to this day.
 
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