It’s my favorite way to hang out online because you actually get to have a conversation instead of just trading one-liners or heart emojis. That said, let's be real—it's definitely losing ground to the newer generation of social media kids.
When I try adding a printer, it runs an automatic search first. If it comes up empty, it gives me the option to look for shared or network printers, but I don't see anything else—no way to manually select a port or anything like that. 🤔
So, I’m trying to hook up an old dot matrix printer (Epson LQ-570 +) to my PC.
I installed a Parallel port card. Everything seems fine there, as I can see the PCIe entry under multi-function controllers in Device Manager along with the new ports.
The problem is, once I actually plug the printer in, nothing happens. It's like the computer doesn't even know it exists.
Is it possible this thing is just too ancient to work? Their website doesn't offer any driver downloads for anything newer than Windows 98, and they claim support is built directly into Windows (after that, there's nothing). Since I don't have Windows XP, I can't even attempt to run it in compatibility mode.
I did find some mentions online suggesting it might be compatible with Windows 8, but I wouldn't bet the house on that being reliable.
Even if there's a compatibility issue, shouldn't the system at least recognize it as an unknown or non-functional device in the Device Manager?
Benjamin Taylor6 said:The real headache is that immoral people often lack the self-awareness to realize they’re being immoral. They genuinely believe their behavior is just standard operating procedure. Just look at Bill Clinton—he built quite an empire through some pretty shady dealings, all while acting like a man of high principle. To make matters even more surreal, his siblings were deeply religious. His brother was a priest and his sister was a nun. How could they not see that their own brother wasn't exactly walking the straight and narrow? Or maybe they just think everyone is entitled to a little "finder's fee." I mean, what’s the actual difference if I were Ken Lay, closing a $100 million deal with some overseas partners and asking for a 2% kickback sent to my account in Bermuda 2? If Sanders closes a similar deal and asks for his cut, what changes? The only distinction is ownership: Ken Lay owned his conglomerate, whereas Sanders never owned the state-run companies. He was just a temporary manager handed the keys based on an election.
But if morality isn't objective, is it that they truly can't see it, or is it just that their moral compass is clashing with ours?
I suspect it’s not even a clash; most of them are just textbook examples, and half the people crucifying them would probably do the exact same thing if they were in their shoes.😁
Just because someone has control doesn't mean they have a moral compass. In fact, a person who has control but lacks ethics—say, a non-criminal psychopath—will likely be much better at manipulating their environment for personal gain than someone who is moral but lacks self-control. Think of an unadjusted person living on the border; they might end up in trouble due to poor social habits rather than actual malice, not because they are inherently evil (I realize I'm oversimplifying here, obviously).
It really comes back to the idea that the morality of an action isn't what dictates good or bad outcomes. Instead, it's about skill and capability, whether you're navigating a physical space or a social one. If ethics actually determined results, religious systems wouldn't need to invent concepts like karma, reincarnation, heaven, or the Last Judgment. If ethical actions had visible, immediate consequences in this life, we wouldn't need metaphysical explanations to bridge the gap between universal morality and real-world experience. Authors of these systems clearly noticed that justice isn't served in the moment; they saw people suffering far more than they deserved without any apparent reason (including small children, who haven't even had the chance to "earn" anything). In those cases, an afterlife doesn't provide an answer, unlike reincarnation, though I'm sure theologians have cooked up some justifications for that too. 😁
So, you're saying that negative consequences stem from a lack of skill—whether that's poor communication, failing to hide criminal activity, bad PR, or just weak personal presentation—rather than the actual ethical value (good vs. evil) of the act itself?
It’s actually pretty pragmatic when you look at it. You took an antagonistic stance toward people, which naturally triggered a specific reaction. It’s the same thing that happens if you slap someone in the face. This is all about interpersonal dynamics—protecting your own interests, communication, and how we navigate social circles. I don't see this as a matter of "good" or "bad" deeds in a moral sense. You could theoretically kill a child in their sleep, and if you managed to get away with it and happened to be a psychopath who felt zero remorse, that person wouldn't treat you any differently because of it. In that scenario, there's no karmic shift. What you're experiencing isn't some cosmic "punishment" for doing something "wrong"; it's just the direct consequence of being a nuisance to someone in public. There's nothing metaphysical about it.
It’s a fair question, but I’d argue that having the ability to assess, predict, and analyze based on experience and intuition can narrow down potential outcomes. It allows you to guess future events with much higher accuracy than just random chance.
No matter how you slice it, I don't see any evidence that good is rewarded with good, or vice versa. The idea of reaping what you sow isn't a functional capability; it’s an ethical concept. Of course, emotional intelligence is a skill, too, but so is psychopathic manipulation. So... for every "bad" person who seems to be winning at life, there's a "good" person just suffering because of them.
I agree that good and evil aren't objective realities, but if they aren't, then talking about sowing and reaping based on ethics becomes pretty meaningless.🤷
Was the world actually better back when metaphysics called the shots? 🤣
Cause and effect are very real, but they aren't tethered to morality. Take a sociopathic manipulator who exploits someone without any blowback—even if the victim ends up feeling grateful—or a slave owner where the victim has zero leverage. Or just some criminal running an illegal trafficking ring in the shadows. The consequences you’re talking about aren't really about good or evil; they're just the results of poor planning, bad foresight, or simple mistakes.
Lisa Morales4 said:Maybe it’s time we let go of our own preconceived notions and finally just make room for the Truth. Because, honestly, she’s the only thing that actually matters.
It’s honestly fascinating to watch people who have absolutely no long-term vision—no concept of eternity or anything existing beyond this tiny slice of time and space—obsess over these meticulously crafted life plans. They spend so much energy calculating every single move, weighing every possible outcome, and trying to navigate some sort of "perfect middle ground" that supposedly balances everything out. But for what? What's the point of all that precision? In the end, we're all just going to be dust anyway. I really don't see the logic in it.
Truth is just a concept invented by people too stubborn to admit they're obsessed with their own limitations. They can't handle the reality of relativity or how finite human knowledge really is, so they assign absolute value to myths, ideas, and faith instead.
rustymaker5 said:Heh, basically the exact opposite, huh? 😁 ...I suppose it comes down to experience—how we choose to process those experiences and how we carry them with us.
The reality is that we have to live life moving forward, while we can only ever analyze it looking backward, which makes it easy to spot all those cause-and-effect chains that led us to where we are right now... the real question is just how much of our own role in everything we've endured we are actually willing to admit...
It isn't about these mental religious projections, but rather just common sense whereyou reap what you sow in the sense that good is returned for good, evil for evil, and so on.
As for emotions, I have to wonder what kind of "real benefit" we're talking about and for whom, because it certainly can't be the same for everyone involved, and I don't see what basis anyone would have to claim rights that end up denying those same rights to others...🤷
Just being contrarian for the sake of it.😁
The point is, all these ideas are just concepts we created, not objective reality.
It's incredibly easy to manufacture cause-and-effect links and interpret them subjectively just to fit the worldview we already believe in.
There's no real evidence for "reaping what you sow" in everyday life. To make that work, you have to pull in metaphysical concepts like heaven or karma. Even pragmatic, non-religious systems like Buddhism or Jainism had to adopt karma just to maintain a sense of cosmic justice; you can't prove any of that through direct observation.
Why would it need to benefit everyone? From an evolutionary or biological standpoint—setting aside metaphysics—utility follows a strict hierarchy: 1. Self*; 2. Children; 3. Immediate family; 4. Extended family; 5. Small social groups we identify with; 6. Larger society, and so on.
Not everything carries equal weight in that hierarchy. The benefit to those lower on the ladder is essentially a reflection of our own; as social animals, we fulfill our evolutionary purpose through communities that aid survival, while our offspring carry our genetic code.
* According to the selfish gene theory, the primary driver isn't individual gain, but rather the preservation of genetic information. That's why there's a measurable evolutionary advantage to self-sacrifice for others based on how closely related they are to us.
No one is particularly important. Nobody holds a role other than the one shaped by a random chain of events. Most people aren't even aware of any "special" purpose because such things don't actually exist unless you invent them through religion. Spiritual unity is just a mental construct without any real weight. Every person we meet and every event we experience is either pure coincidence or the direct consequence of previous decisions and circumstances. Thinking of life as some grand, majestic achievement is just a religious projection. Emotions are natural, sure, but they’re only useful insofar as they provide actual value in a given situation.
Ryan Wilson2 said:To put it diplomatically, I was merely interpreting your comments through the lens of the very first post in this thread regarding this woman. 😁
Men seems like nonsense to me. But if someone actually wants to buy... It’s just as nonsensical to me when people drop a thousand bucks on two or three dates and call it a win. 🤣
I don't know. A con artist charges, and a professional charges. In both cases, the price is largely driven by the market, marketing, and perceived value—not some objective truth, assuming such a thing even exists.
Who's left? Some kind of ascetic saint? Our caves have been empty for a long time now. 😬