# Is life fair?



## Highschool Pariah (Dec 11, 2009)

Today, in class we were asked if life was fair. The teacher expected everyone to say no, because that is what the general consensis(?) is right? When I raised my hand to disagree, she(the teacher) didn't even let me debate my point.
... and that got me thinking, do *you* think life is fair? (why or why not)


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## napoleon227 (Jan 17, 2010)

Maybe you have a different definition of "fair".

As the deal-making guru Chester L. Karrass put it "You don’t get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate!"

But I'd like to hear your perspective....


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## Ben (Aug 23, 2009)

Why do you think life is fair?


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## NotSoRighteousRob (Jan 1, 2010)

life is not fair, in any regard


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## Highschool Pariah (Dec 11, 2009)

Random things happen that may seem unfair, and this is where I beleive that many people get the impression that life is unfair. Hmmm, how can I express this... Sure a few of us will receive what we deserve and a few of us will recieve what we don't deserve, but we all possess this risk to recieve these unforseen rewards, as much as the next. No one is preditermined to have more "luck" than the next(ignoreing religous views). Anyway that is just my view on random events.

Talent is born with you as well as being result from hard work. Hard work being fair and deserved, and the risk of being born "superior"(can't think of a better word) shared equally among births.


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## Just_Some_Guy (Oct 8, 2009)

Life is characterized by imperfection, impermanence, dissatisfaction, old age, sickness and death. These are facts. To deny them or pretend that the world should be any other way borders on psychological illness. Life is also full of joy, satisfaction and fulfillment. Learning to enjoy the latter group while in the midst of the former is the unique challenge of being human. It seems to me that the categories of "fair" and "unfair" are contrived by a limited and highly anthropocentric sense of judgment that is divorced from how things actually are. Seems like another rendering of the meaningless "half empty or half full" argument.


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## napoleon227 (Jan 17, 2010)

EmotionallyTonedGeometry said:


> It seems to me that the categories of "fair" and "unfair" are contrived by *a limited and highly anthropomorphic sense of judgment* that is divorced from how things actually are. Seems like another rendering of the meaningless "half empty or half full" argument.


Whoa. You _rocked_ that answer brother. Nice!

Let me humbly "attempt" to put this in other, simpler terms. Perhaps "fairness", like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder. It is a relative term, and therefore your question, HighschoolPariah, can't truly be answered because the answer depends on your perspective, rather than on any absolute "truth". Therefore, any answer given is more or less meaningless.


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## AgentSH (Feb 1, 2010)

She wouldn't even let you debate the point? That is totally unfair.


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## Just_Some_Guy (Oct 8, 2009)

RighteousRob said:


> life is not fair, in any regard


Nor is it unfair.


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## napoleon227 (Jan 17, 2010)

One of my favourite quotes (and proof that you can find wisdom anywhere):


I returned, and saw under the sun, 
that the race is not to the swift, 
nor the battle to the strong, 
neither yet bread to the wise, 
nor yet riches to men of understanding, 
nor yet favor to men of skill; 
but time and chance happens to them all. 
~Ecclesiates 9:11


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## Mythestopheles (Jan 5, 2010)

I think of it as, Life isn't fair in most senses of the word. However, that's mainly because of society, and people being different. So I guess, life may not be fair, but hey it's all we have.


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## Sily (Oct 24, 2008)

Life is not fair to many people. I refer to those born with half a brain, blind, mentally ill, born into poverty and having to eat dirt for meals, burdens so heavy they kill themselves, some are abused as children, etc. Some are dealt a bad hand right from the start and some become CEOs and steal billions from investors.

Some lives to me, seem to be very unfair.


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## Lucem (Dec 2, 2009)

AgentSH said:


> She wouldn't even let you debate the point? That is totally unfair.


the irony is delicious.


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## murderegina (Jan 7, 2010)

Life is anything you want it to be. Your reality is your perception, and a good attitude will make life fair. So, if you believe it, then it's true. But from a general standpoint, no I don't think it's fair. But you can't blame the world and the unknown for our problems regardless. It's up to us to seek the good out. Or whatever that may be, and if you fail then you fail. And you try again and so forth. Life isn't fair, get a new outlook. 


(although this is ALL way easier said than done, and I don't even do this myself, to be honest.)


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## Nearsification (Jan 3, 2010)

No. It could be fair.


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## murderegina (Jan 7, 2010)

NearsToys said:


> No. It could be fair.


Agreed. I think as a whole the population of the world has been given the tools, and capability to make things fair. All we're lacking is the empathy to drive us.


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## mutton (Jan 21, 2010)

murderegina said:


> Agreed. I think as a whole the population of the world has been given the tools, and capability to make things fair. All we're lacking is the empathy to drive us.


 To me that sounds like a very human-centered thing to say. Humans cannot control life no matter what tools they are given (unless one of those tools were god-like powers). That's part of why it will never be fair: a lot of it is just chance.


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## Linesky (Dec 10, 2008)

I'd say life's not fair (which is an agreeable statement), but this shouldn't stop you from living it. If it does, you're not trying hard enough, and therefore you're missing out ;O
I find it easier to accept such a statement than to try and find a way to say life is fair or could be fair. In my eyes, it isn't. In most other people's eyes (correct me if I'm wrong), it isn't. Which is why I'm starting from the bottom. This interpretation means -something- in ourselves is telling us that's the way it is, and whether this is all that there *really* is to it or not, we need to (learn how to) live with this idea because it affects us. One way of dealing with it is surpassing this perception.


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## NotSoRighteousRob (Jan 1, 2010)

the only fair thing about life is that we are all going to die eventually. other than that it is so random that you can not expect anything to have any real balance


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## Tophat182 (Feb 16, 2010)

I think that life is generally fair. In the modern world, or at least America, self-made people are an every day occurrence. If you try hard enough, you can make whatever future you want.


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## Ungweliante (Feb 26, 2009)

_1) Life is unsatisfying.

2) The cause of being unsatisfied is being deprived of the tentacle.

3) To find satisfaction, we must find and accept the tentacle.

4) The way to the tentacle can be found in the Necronomicon._


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## Liontiger (Jun 2, 2009)

Life does not possess the quality of fairness or unfairness. It simply is.


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## Mythestopheles (Jan 5, 2010)

Lightning said:


> Life does not possess the quality of fairness or unfairness. It simply is.


Very true.


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## darkstar13 (Feb 8, 2010)

Life is unfair only to those who only see the mountains but not the green grass that grows on it.

When someone says, "Life is beautiful", many agrees.
When someone says, "Life is fair", many disagrees.

Isn't fair a synonym of beautiful?

It's all about perspectives.


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## IamOpening (Nov 18, 2009)

I believe that we all create our lives with our thoughts. What you focus on is what comes into your life. If you focus on sadness, you will attract sadness and negativity. If you focus on happiness, happiness and positivity will be yours. Although there are things that happen to us in the beginnings of our lives that may be negative, we still have the ability to change how we feel about those occurrences. And, since most of us cannot completely control our thoughts, when negativity arises, we can control how we react to such negativity. If someone tells me they do not like me, I can either take it personally (which I probably would) or I could see it as that person projecting their own feelings of negativity onto me, therefore not disliking Me, but disliking something within their own self. This may seem overly idealistic to some of you, but this idea (or in my mind, this fact) is the reason why I believe life is fair. If you wish for further explanation, I will gladly oblige.


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## darkstar13 (Feb 8, 2010)

edn4792 said:


> I believe that we all create our lives with our thoughts. What you focus on is what comes into your life. If you focus on sadness, you will attract sadness and negativity. If you focus on happiness, happiness and positivity will be yours. Although there are things that happen to us in the beginnings of our lives that may be negative, we still have the ability to change how we feel about those occurrences. And, since most of us cannot completely control our thoughts, when negativity arises, we can control how we react to such negativity.


I agree. It's all about what you focus on that makes you say if life is fair or not.

The fairness of life is correlated to our degree of happiness or satisfaction.
For me, happiness is a decision (although I oftentimes admittedly decide to be unhappy with my life).

(Hi Eric, we have the same name):crazy:


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## Femme (Jul 12, 2009)

EmotionallyTonedGeometry said:


> Life is characterized by imperfection, impermanence, dissatisfaction, old age, sickness and death. These are facts. To deny them or pretend that the world should be any other way borders on psychological illness. Life is also full of joy, satisfaction and fulfillment. Learning to enjoy the latter group while in the midst of the former is the unique challenge of being human. It seems to me that the categories of "fair" and "unfair" are contrived by a limited and highly anthropocentric sense of judgment that is divorced from how things actually are. Seems like another rendering of the meaningless "half empty or half full" argument.


If you were to write a book, I would sooooo buy it on amazon.


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## Lucem (Dec 2, 2009)

Fairness is a judgement statement and thus requires a conscious mind and a system of evaluation.
So life cannot be inherently fair or unfair, only our own systems of evaluation can determine it as such.


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## IamOpening (Nov 18, 2009)

darkstar13 said:


> I agree. It's all about what you focus on that makes you say if life is fair or not.
> 
> The fairness of life is correlated to our degree of happiness or satisfaction.
> For me, happiness is a decision (although I oftentimes admittedly decide to be unhappy with my life).
> ...


Hey, Eric, what a great name you have. :laughing:

Also, I identify with sometimes choosing unhappiness. Oddly enough, it can feel good to be sad once in a while.


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## nikkii (Feb 3, 2010)

Life is fair and it's unfair you when the battles you can win its about winning and never letting your self keep you down when something in life becomes unfair.


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## Litchi (Dec 2, 2009)

Life is not fair always ,, but sometimes it happens


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## Linesky (Dec 10, 2008)

Lightning said:


> Life does not possess the quality of fairness or unfairness. It simply is.


Pretty approach, very Zen. XD


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## snail (Oct 13, 2008)

I can't imagine how anyone could consider it fair unless one uses the loophole and applies the "we are all dealt a random hand with equal potential tragedies" approach. 

It isn't about perspective. There is an objective right and wrong, and sometimes that wrongness is allowed or even glorified. Sometimes people are harmed for things they can't control, or are disadvantaged from the start, not given the same opportunities. You tell me... Is life fair for this girl? 
UnNews:Saudi woman flogged for being gang raped - Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia

If it's all a matter of having the right mindset, I would hate to have a mind so twisted that it would find fairness in such perversions of justice.


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## Highschool Pariah (Dec 11, 2009)

snail said:


> I can't imagine how anyone could consider it fair unless one uses the loophole and applies the "we are all dealt a random hand with equal potential tragedies" approach.
> 
> It isn't about perspective. There is an objective right and wrong, and sometimes that wrongness is allowed or even glorified. Sometimes people are harmed for things they can't control, or are disadvantaged from the start, not given the same opportunities. You tell me... Is life fair for this girl?
> UnNews:Saudi woman flogged for being gang raped - Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia
> ...


Hmm, never considered the fairness of human decision. Got to think about this one...


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## napoleon227 (Jan 17, 2010)

snail said:


> I can't imagine how anyone could consider it fair unless one uses the loophole and applies the "we are all dealt a random hand with equal potential tragedies" approach.
> 
> It isn't about perspective. There is an objective right and wrong, and sometimes that wrongness is allowed or even glorified. Sometimes people are harmed for things they can't control, or are disadvantaged from the start, not given the same opportunities. You tell me... Is life fair for this girl?
> UnNews:Saudi woman flogged for being gang raped - Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia
> ...


I agree with you Snail. I have to turn away sometimes from reading stuff like this because it turns my stomach and makes me very angry. But no matter how much WE hate it, it is still obviously "fair" from someone's perspective. It's not about having the "right" mindset, as you suggest. These people obviously don't share our "objective" concept of right and wrong, but it is still a matter of perspective, and I understand that you have to shut off ALL sense of feeling to try to understand what I'm saying.

You said that you "would hate to have a mind so twisted that it would find fairness in such perversions of justice." I agree with you on that as well. Such is the *power of religion* to inflict extreme cruelty on others and justify it. But that is a topic for a different conversation. One I've noticed we both avoid.


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## Marino (Jun 26, 2009)

"Fairness" does not exist. The very concept is a fantasy constructed by the moral mind that filters perceptions and and has no relevance to reality. This is the origin of disappointment and suffering: expecting an illusory construct of the subjective mind to actually apply to the external objective reality. 

Life is a series of self-sustainable physical, chemical and biological processes. Are these processes "fair"? The very question is obsolete.


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## Ungweliante (Feb 26, 2009)

Marino said:


> "Fairness" does not exist. The very concept is a fantasy constructed by the moral mind that filters perceptions and and has no relevance to reality. This is the origin of disappointment and suffering: expecting an illusory construct of the subjective mind to actually apply to the external objective reality.


Perceiving the external objective reality as unchanging, and clinging to this unchanging nature is part of the origin of suffering. Otherwise, we also suffer because we do not take responsibility for our own happiness. This means seeking to understand the true nature of the world, as well as acting upon it in the spirit of altruism, with constant diligence.

Are fantasies bad, if they do not cause pain? Do they cause pain? Are they a mark of childish nature, or an emotional construct to keep happiness and inner positivity intact?



Marino said:


> Life is a series of self-sustainable physical, chemical and biological processes. Are these processes "fair"? The very question is obsolete.


Depends on how "fair" is defined :wink:


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## whyerr (Jan 10, 2010)

Depends.
Looking at the very beginning: no one asks you, whether you want it. Here, you have it! Live it!
I know only one thing - it's always easier to complain and blame.


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## Daimai (Feb 14, 2010)

Life is way too random and way too filled with chance to be fair.


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## zwanglos (Jan 13, 2010)

Life used to be nasty, brutish and short for our ancestors.

Then came the concept of government. Now life is nasty, brutish and long.


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