Клуб - Темы для дискуссий

Наши темы 0. Universal questions for discussions 1. Business, work and money 2. Men, women, sex and marriage 3 Communication, friends 4. Psychology, strategies, stereotypes 5. Politics 6. Religion, belief, justice 7. Dreams, magic 8. Languages, reading, self-development, teachers 9. Miscellaneous 10. Communication Games

Real-Talk-Club The rules We usually fallow preliminary prepared questions, however those questions are just a start point for our conversation and there is no need to follow them strictly. If we have interesting ideas inspired by the conversation, we discuss them. Try not to speak too long and not to repeat over and over what you have just said. Let others speak too. Do not interrupt interlocutors unless they start to misinterpret you, or repeat things already said, or speak way too long. There are no forbidden topics! It is forbidden to forbid topics! You don't need to be politically correct but try to be polite, friendly and supportive of people. Do not demotivate. Those who speak better usually speak a little more. Rules are not laws and sometimes can be broken. Общение максимально приближено к реальному. Нет необходимости говорить по очереди, как это часто предписывается в других клубах. Нет необходимости строго следвать заранее предписанному плану, что тоже часто в других клубах предписывается. Тут царство свободы слова. Язык - не цель, а средство общения. Тут не столько языковая практика, сколько обмен жизненным опытом. Делимся интересными идеями, говорим сами, даем другим говорить. Можно говорить и о религиях, и о любви, и мировых заговорах и обо всем, к чему мы не равнодушны. Переходить на личности можно, критиковать можно, но мы стараемся оставаться дружелюбными и в критике своей. Нельзя затыкать собеседнику рот, мол тема слишком противоречивая, слишком приватная, слишком неспокойная и так далее. Запрещено то, что запрещено разумными законами РФ.

LinguaMap

0. Universal questions for discussions

THAT THING (Integral Algorithm)

1) What emotions, memories, images, thoughts come into your mind when you hear about THAT THING?
2) What good is in it; what bad is in it?
3) How can you use (master) it; how can you defend yourself from it?
4) What is the key thought that helps us to understand THAT THING?

Mastering THAT THING

1) The mind map of THAT THING… It consists of… Its interface and implementation, “restaurant” and “kitchen”…
2) How can you master THAT THING? Levels of craft...
3) How do you use THAT THING?
4) How do you defend yourself from THAT THING?
5) What are male and female strategies in dealing with THAT THING?

1. Business, work and money

В начало

Can we create our own business?

1) What is more natural for you: to build your own hierarchy to head it, or to enter an already existing one and make carrier in it?
2) Is everybody able to create his (her) own business?
3) Do we need start capital to start new business? Do we need special education?
4) Is it enough to be motivated? Is it necessary? Can we motivate ourselves?
5) Is it necessary to believe in success? Is it sufficient?
6) Will institutes teach you how to become an entrepreneur? Can professors teach you things they don't know? Will anybody ever want to teach you how to become a master?
7) Can a gentleman be a businessman?
8) Is it a good business strategy to offer a society what the society needs most of all? Or is it the only good strategy to satisfy already formed demands?
9) From what should we start? From producing, from selling, from creating one's image, from making relations?

Can money make you happy?

1) Do you earn money mainly for wealth or for respect or self-respect?
2) Can the real value of a person be measured by money he (or she) makes?
3) Does big money make our life simpler or more difficult?
4) Do you prefer to work to gain what you want or would you prefer to get everything without efforts?
5) What is more important for you, unlimited consumption or creative work?
6) How much money does your favorite art demand? How much do people of other professions need for doing the work they love?
7) Does money corrupt?
8) Is it possible to make everyone rich?
9) Is it important for you to be richer than your neighbors?
10) Can the richness be measured by possibility to not think about money at all?
11) Is money a universal tool for resolving all kind of problems?

Advertisement

1) What is more important today, high quality of the product or just advertising and public relations?
2) What is the main target of effective advertisement, consciousness or the unconscious? Is it good to manipulate the unconscious of buyers?
3) Do good things need advertising?
4) What way does annoying, aggressive, everlasting advertisement affect our society?
5) Would you wish to ban the television advertisement?
6) Must the advertisement of tobacco and alcohol be banned? What about medicine?
7) What do you think of spam? It is legal. Is it immoral?

Do you want to start your own business?

1) Will you prefer to build your own hierarchy to head it or to enter an already existing one?
2) Do you think that business means easy money and additional free time for oneself?
3) Is it possible to earn big money, or can big money be only made?
4) Doing our business should we be socially responsible? Do we have to worry of ecology, of comfort of our workers, of our clients' comfort and so on?
5) Can a fair gentleman be a businessman? Is it is impossible to be both, what would you prefer?
6) Don’t you think it is dangerous to be a rich man?

Chiefs and Subordinates

1) Do you like to be led, to obey? Do you like to lead, to command?
2) Does being subordinate mean one's inferior social status? Does it mean being inferior?
3) The salary of a boss is usually higher than the salary of juniors? Should it always be so?
4) Do you always try to control the work of your staff, or is it only the result what interests you?
5) Do you allow your chief to interfere with your work?
6) Do you try to do everything by yourself or do you try to pass everything to subordinates?
7) Isn't it risky to give your subordinates all means of management and control?

The Crisis

1) Is it a play of forces of nature or is it being done deliberately by some group of people?
2) Don't you feel that the media promotes the crisis?
3) Who is responsible?
4) What should be done?
5) Isn't it your personal responsibility?
6) The Great Depression coincided with the uprise of fascism? Was it just a coincidence? Is there happening something similar today?
7) What is awaiting Russia?
8) What is awaiting the USA?
9) What is awaiting you? Do you have some special plans?

Entrepreneurship - Responsibility and Guilt

1) Are poor people poor because they deserve to be poor?
2) Is it a duty of society to support the weak?
3) If some misfortune has stricken a person, can we say that that has happened because of the wrong way of life he (she) had chosen?
4) Acknowledging your foolishness isn't the only way to become smarter?
5) If a person excuses his (her) mischance by circumstances, does it mean that he (she) looks for excuses instead of looking for opportunities?
6) Are we responsible for others or are we responsible only for our own lives? Are others responsible for our life?
7) Spending your time for the benefit of the society isn't a betrayal of your own interests and interests of your family?
8) Isn't it the only real way to contribute to the society, to become successful himself (herself)?
9) Workaholics are sons of toil or are they those who, because of their laziness, ready to do eternal stupid work instead of thinking, how to improve their lives?

Entrepreneurship and Comfort

1) Does having successful business mean comfort for everybody?
2) If someone has successful busyness and still feels uncomfortable, does it mean that something is wrong with him?
3) Can a poor person be happy?
4) Can a hungry man have spiritual needs?
5) If you want to have a good family, do you need a lot of money for that?
6) Whose work is more difficult, specialists' or entrepreneurs'?
7) What would you prefer, comfort of success? What would an advanced person choose?

Entrepreneurship and Freedom

1) Is it right that there is no possibility in our life but to be either master or slave?
2) Can a person, who spends eight hours a day on work he (she) does not like, be considered a free person? What about three hours a day? One hour a day?
3) If you work for somebody else and not for yourself, can you be considered a free person?
4) Is being free your right or your duty? Neither right, nor duty?
5) Are entrepreneurs real masters in our life? Who are real masters?

Entrepreneurship and Status

1) Does an employee deserve to be respected? He is a subordinate person, isn't he? Why did he choose to be a subordinate and not a master?
2) If somebody agrees to work for small salary, does it mean that he does not deserve respect?
3) Entrepreneurs or specialists, who are the real experts in our life?
4) Due to whose efforts our society makes progress?
5) If you don't create your own business, does it mean that your world outlook is wrong?
6) If you are so clever show me your money. Is it a correct proverb?
7) Must we respect a person for what he (she) is doing, or don't only real results deserve respect?
8) Can a real value of a person be measured by salary he (she) earns?

Image-making

1) To make our positive image should we present our real advantages or does the image have nothing to do with the reality?
2) Will people appreciate your degrees if you don't present them?
3) Must we be modest, unpretentious, retiring?
4) Is it wise to declare your merits in open way, like that: I am a great master of conceptual, logical, and motivational analysis?
5) Who are better image-makers, men or women?
6) "Woman" is a brand, isn't it? What about "man"?
7) What qualities of a man or a woman will be demanded first of all, intellect, beauty, strength, successfulness, belonging to elite, inner freedom?..
8) Should we rely upon our own prestige and authority, or is it better to use already promoted brands?
Example 1: I am smart because I have created my own programming language.
Example 2: I am smart because I have a big number of diplomas and I am a recognized NLP practitioner and expert?
9) What should we do to become an expert in image-making, to read special books or just to act as we feel?
10) Which respect is more valuable, respect of thousands of stupid people or respect of some intelligent ones?

Money and self-respect

1) Do you need to earn money to prove others and yourself that you can do it? What matters more, wealth or respect and self-respect?
2) Can the real value of the person be measured by money he earns?
3) Do you prefer to work to gain what you want or you would prefer to get everything without efforts?
4) What is more interesting, pleasant, honorable and unlimited consuming or creative work?
5) How much money does your favorite art demands? How much money do you need to do your favorite work?
6) Do people need money to start their own business?
7) Does money corrupt?
8) Is it important for you to be richer than your neighbors?
9) Is money a universal tool to resolve all kind of problems?
10) Which respect is more valuable, the respect of thousands of stupid people or the respect of some intelligent ones?

Money and comfort

1) Does big money make our life simpler or more difficult?
2) Do you prefer to work to gain what you want or you would prefer to get everything without efforts?
3) What is more interesting and pleasant, unlimited consuming or creative work?
4) How much money your favorite art demands?
5) Does money corrupt?
6) Is it possible to make everyone rich? Will it be possible to find a parking place for your car then?
7) Is it important for you to be richer than your neighbors?
8) Can the richness be measured by possibility not to think about money at all?
9) Is money a universal tool to resolve all kind of problems?

Rich Dad, Poor Dad

Kiyosaki is becoming popular, but what do we want ourselves?

1) Do you want to never work and to have a lot of money, never feeling ashamed for such a situation?
2) Do you really want to have a lot of money? It is dangerous to be rich, isn't it?
3) To which of "The Four Cash Flow Quadrants" would you prefer to belong?

~Employee?
~Self-employed?
~Employer?
~Investor?

4) Let us talk about other opportunities

~Do you want to belong to elite, to be one of those who write laws and print money?
~Do you want to be a free artist?
~What about becoming a gambler? (roulette gambler, stock market gambler, cards player)

He (Robinson Crusoe's father) bid me observe it, and I should always find that the calamities of life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind; but that the middle station had the fewest disasters and was not exposed to so many vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind.

Work and motivation

1) What do you work for?
2) Is it possible to be happy at work, or is happiness possible only after the work?
3) What is work for you first of all, the movement to results or a joy of the process itself?
4) Do you prefer to build your own structure (hierarchy) to head it or to enter a hierarchy which has already been built by somebody else to make career in it?
5) If you were given only one day of life remained what would you do? One month? One year?
6) Do you prefer to work in collective; or is it more comfortable for you to work alone? Why?
7) Imagine you can work two hours a day as a simple worker. Would you take that opportunity?
8) Do you try to adjust yourself to work or try to find work more suitable for you?
9) Alcoholic or workaholic, or sexaholic, what is better, what is worse? Where else can we get our drive and kaif? Where else can we "get off"?
10) What is more important for you, money or freedom?
11) If your work is not interesting for you but you are still working, can you be called a free person?

Work and self-organizing

1) If your productivity should become a little bit lower, would anything terrible happen? What terrible thing can happen in that very case?
2) Can you afford yourself to take your time for all what you do? Do you ever hurry?
3) Can you work nonstop without getting tired, like your heart works?
4) Having come home do you ever forget about your job?
5) Some religions (like Christianity or Judaism) require from you not to work one day a week. Do you obey that requirement?
7) If you are lying in bed making your plans, can it be called working?
8) If you don't want to work right now what will be your choice? Will you try to force yourself or will you wait till readiness to work has come by itself?
9) What is more natural for you, making agreements with yourself or direct ordering yourself? What are advantages and disadvantages of each of these strategies?

Work and social status

1) If someone works overtime, does it mean that he is not competent enough to finish his work in time?
2) Can we measure the social value of a person by salary he (she) gets?
3) What is the cause of unemployment? Peoples’ unwillingness to work? Laziness? Something else?
4) Who are workaholics? Are they laborious people? Are they lazy people, who prefer to do a lot of primitive, but simple work instead of thinking and planning their own lives?
5) Can we call a person who most of the time does unloved work a free person? Does he (she) deserve to be respected?
6) What determines the social status of a person, if not the results of his (her) work?

Working and Studying

1) Are working and studying the same for you? Should we take them apart or should we intertwine them?
2) Should studying be something like work or something like a play? Which way of studying is more effective?
3) Do institutes give us real specialties? What do they give us apart from diplomas?
4) Who do institutes train, servants or masters? Who would you prefer to be?
5) Does it pay its way, the time people spend to studying foreign languages?
6) Do you prefer to organize your studying by yourself or to find a teacher (a coach) who will do it for you?
7) How can we use the time in transport?
8) What profession will become the most demanded in the nearest future?

Self-presentation

1) What is your uniqueness? Do you need to be unique? Hope, you are not too shy or too modest to answer this question.
2) What is more important, form or content? Interface or functionality?
3) Is modesty a virtue? What about immodesty?
4) What is written on your banner?
5) Is it necessary to be clever, rich, beautiful, being properly dressed? What is more important for women? What is more important for men?
6) Are you a busy person? Do you have free time?
7) When you meet new people how do you present yourself? Do you show WHAT you are or WHO you are? Do you show your social status, your personal status or your games and your interests? Diplomas? Position? What else?
8) Is it natural and sufficient for you to be an employee?
9) Nonverbal communication: what is important for us in it?
10) Voice, diction, manners… Do we need to work on them?
11) Do you have your personal site? Do you need it?
12) Should we manipulate people trying always to get from them what we need? Do you like people who behave like doctor House?
13) How can we become not afraid of people and begin to communicate?
14) Is sexual freedom necessary for self-presentation?
15) What do we need to learn for effective self-presentation? Do we need psychological knowledge, auto-hypnosis, something else?

How to motivate someone to buy something

1) On what emotions should we base our motivation, on positive or on negative?
2) Is it easy to sell something really new or is it better to sell a little improved things?
3) What is easier to sell, fish or a fishing rod?
4) On what should we rely, on marketing researches or on our own intuition?
5) Is it possible to sell things people really need? Need and demand are not the same, are they?
6) To what part of people's mind should we appeal, to rational or irrational?
7) What is more important, design or content?
8) Some people want to get rid of money, don't they? Should we take that fact into account?
9) Can intelligent people be successful sellers? Or is it necessary to become manipulators for that?
10) "Many people buy our products!" It is the main winning argument! Is it an argument for you?
11) Should you feel any respect to the buyer?
12) Sometimes you see uncleared snow in front of private shops. How can it be so? Why don't the owners of the shop always hurry to clear it?
13) Should you show a buyer that you are interested in him?

Competition and cooperation

1) Is it OK to wish somebody defeat? Competitors always do it, don’t they?
2) Some people believe that only misery of being a loser can motivate people to become better. Do you agree with that? Can you name other possible motives?
3) Is it a good idea to discourage people? If you compete with people you will always do it, won't you?
4) Do you try to compete in our club and not to support somebody? Do you try to be supportive? Do people like those who are supportive?
5) Should ideologies compete?
6) Why do capitalists demand from governments of other countries to support competition in their countries?
7) Who are more competitive and who are more cooperative, men or women?
8) Does such a thing as a self-made man exist? Don't you think that men can make themselves only if they are supported?
9) Should we give understanding to everyone or should we exchange (“sell”) our understanding for something?
10) Do men support women? Do women support men?
11) Who are more cooperative and who are more competitive, Westerners or Russians?
12) Elites that compete with their own people lose their respect. Whole states and their citizens lose their respect because of that. So nobody is really respected nowadays. Do you respect Obama for instance? Do you respect Americans?
13) Do you like the situation when nobody is respected?
14) Is money respected?

2. Men, women, sex and marriage

В начало

Men and women

1) Why do people say that women are mysterious?
2) Does women's mind really differ from men's?
3) Who is stronger? Who is more beautiful? Who is smarter? Who can easier make money? Who is a better driver?
4) Women can do everything men can, can't they?
5) Who loves whom more? Who needs whom more? Men or women?
6) Do there exist mutual dependences? Is it good when one depends on another? What can be done with it?
7) Is it OK if one needs and has nonmarital relationships?
8) Why do women live longer lives?

Family

1) Who needs who more, men or women?
2) Who is the main one in families today? Who is usually a householder? For whom is it natural to be?
3) Does the equality between men and women exist nowadays?
4) Must there be equality in every concrete family, or is it naturally for every couple to have a contract of their own. So to say, "I want to be the muster here; and, if you don't want me to, try to find somebody else".
5) Do we have to discuss our problems with each other or is it better to avoid hard talks and try to understand each other instinctively?
6) Who should manage the family budget, a wife or a husband?
7) Who, men or women, need children more? Is it OK to say: "If you need children you will have to take all care of them, because I don't need them."?
8) What can be done in a typical situation when one of spouses needs sex while the other one doesn't need much of it?
9) What do you think of adulteries? Is it natural or must it be punished?
10) What is your attitude to polygamy? Is it normal? Is it appropriate for you?
11) Does the institution of family come to decay?

Friendship, love and marriage

1) Can there exist just a friendship between a man and a woman? Do you have such friends?
2) Can there be a love without sex?
3) What should we do in case of unanswered, undivided love?
4) What should you do if you are loved but you don't love her (him)?
5) Should we ever let ourselves fall in love? Is it in our power to control our feelings?
6) Can one fall in love intentionally, by one's own will?
7) How can we endear others?
8) Does marriage mean the end to all sexual adventures?
9) Does marriage inevitably lead to routine and boredom?

Sex, marriage and adultery

1) Is it normal to have only one sexual partner for all your life?
2) Do sexual relations always lead to troubles?
3) Is it possible always to find or create something new in sex? Do we really need to invent something new?
4) What can someone do if he or she needs sex (more sex, different sex) but the spouse does not want it?
5) Do men have the right for adultery? Do women?
6) What do you think of swingers?
7) Could you forgive your spouse for adultery?
8) Do you think God considers our marriage sacred? Is adultery really a mortal sin?
9) Do you really need her (his) fidelity? Why do you need it?
10) Who are happier, the married or bachelors (bachelorettes)? Probably the divorced are?
11) Are families always created for upbringing children?

Sexual freedom or morality, what should we choose?

1) The only principle we ought to follow is that one: live your life and let others live theirs. So, sex is a good thing providing it is safe. -- If people don't restrain themselves and others, the society will go to debauch and collapse.
2) Sex is beautiful, wonderful and so on. -- Sex is dirty and disgusting.
3) One can find in sex extreme, transcendental and transforming experiences. -- Sex leads to emptiness and self-destruction.
4) Sexual need is one of basic needs. It must be satisfied. One can't do without sex. -- Sex is allowed only in family and only for bringing babies. If someone needs wantonness, it's only his (her) own problem.
5) Communism has collapsed because people didn't have sex, so they didn't want to protect the system which deprived them from their basic needs. -- It was wantonness what destroyed the communism.
6) We should try everything. It is natural to try homosexuality, because homosexuality is natural. Homophobia is destructive for the society. -- Homosexuality is a perversion, so it should be banned, and homosexuals must be punished.
7) It is better to practice sex from the age we have sexual need. -- The later you start with sex the better.
8) Nudism is natural. -- Nudists are people preoccupied with sex. What they need is everlasting lewdness.
9) Pornography is a harmless entertainment, creativity and sexual education. -- Pornography must be banned because it is offensive and dirty.
10) Puritans are losers, impotents and people with hidden hatred to everyone. -- Puritans are normal and spiritual people. Puritans are saints.
11) Love between young people and elderly people is absolutely normal and natural. Youngsters need experienced partners. -- Such kind of an intimacy is a rape or, at least, an attempt to a rape. It's the worst of crimes.

The Family

1) Who needs who more, men or women?
2) Who is the main one in the family today, a husband or a wife? What is natural?
3) Does the equality between men and women exist nowadays?
4) Must there be equality in every family, or is it naturally for every couple to have a contract of their own? May someone say, "I want to be the muster here; and, if you don't want me to, try to find somebody else"?
5) Do we have to discuss our problems with each other or is it better to avoid hard talks and try to understand each other instinctively?
6) Who should manage the family budget, a wife or a husband?
7) Who, men or women, need children more? Is it OK to say, "If you need children you will have to take all care of them, because I don't need them"?
8) What can be done in a typical situation when one of spouses needs sex while another one doesn't want it?
9) What do you think of the adultery? Is it natural? Must it be punished?
10) What is your attitude to polygamy? Is it normal? Is it appropriate for you?
11) Is the institution of family coming to decay nowadays?

Violence, Horror, Erotica, Porn

1) Sex and violence, how did it happen that such opposite things are associated one with another?
2) Why do people like to watch horror films? Don't they have enough horror in real life?
3) Must sex in mass-media be banned? Must violence be banned?
4) Do you like movies that don't have erotica at all? Do you like erotic movies? Do you like porn?
5) When we say negative words about porn, don't they reflect our attitude to sex itself? What is your attitude to sex and porn?
6) Have you ever seen good porn? Would you like to?
7) Can you imagine yourself being an actor in porno-movies?
8) If you could switch off your sexual needs, would you do it, because it could give you some freedom? Would you want to increase your sexuality?

Isn’t feminism a crime against humanity?

1) Who is a better worker by nature? Should being handicapped by nature be compensated by society?
2) How does he pay for his advantages? How does she pay for hers?
3) Should the work of mothers be paid? Should the work of solders be paid? Should somebody be forced to do his (her) gender work?
4) A male child (of 18 years old) was sent to war. There he was killed. If you only have voted for party that accepts the laws that make it possible… If it only has been done with your silent consent… Doesn’t it make you responsible for his death?
5) Was it OK, what happened on Titanic? Was it men’s duty, to give up their lives? Should women have been grateful to men for their sacrifice?
6) Who should get pension earlier?
7) So called “mother capital”… What do you think of that?
8) Unemployment… Wasn’t it created deliberately against men?
9) Violence and rape, who suffers from it more, men or women?
10) In case of divorce, who should the children stay with? What about alimony rights? Do those rights have a right to exist? Have those rights been created for children’s sake?
11) Women’s body is a fetish and a kind of religion. It’s not the same about men’s. Why?
12) Who are better lovers? Who are given more sexual gifts by nature?
13) Why do women live (much) longer life than men?
14) Why does contemporary feminism exist? Does it come from women or from men?
15) Is father responsible for a child he did not plan to have? Does he have a right to save his child from an abortion? Does a fetus have any right at all?
16) Mother did not tell her husband, that “their” child is not his child. Is it a crime? Must there be a special sentence for that crime in Criminal Code? Crimes against men, why are they not considered to be crimes at all?
17) If a woman commits crime, is being a woman an aggravating or mitigating circumstance?
18) All laws are written to protect women and suppress men. Isn’t it a matriarchy? Then how did it happen that almost all leaders are men?
19) Are men responsible for women? Are women responsible for men?
20) Women don’t respect common contemporary men. They think that men must be better, don’t they? Will women’s disrespect ever make men better?
21) Does feminism lead to better life for women? Do women suffer from feminism any way?

Boyfriends, girlfriends

1) Is it a good idea to have sexual relation before marriage? What do you think of extramarital relations?
2) Except for sexual exitement, what do we need friends (girlfriends, boyfriends) for?
3) What age is the best one for finding new friends?
4) How many friends would you like to have?
5) Is a street a good place for making acquaintances? If it’s OK, how can it be done?
6) Where can we find new friends? What about our club?
7 What about giving an ad in Internet, in a newspaper?
8) Is it better to look for new friends by oneself, or is it better to wait till someone finds you?
9) Isn’t it dangerous to meet with a stranger at home?
10) Is it difficult to say to a girl (to a boy) “I want you”?
11) Do there exist effective ways of seducing? NLP, pheromones, something else?

Alimony

1) -- Children don’t have to suffer, so alimony must be paid by a parent who leaves the family.
1) -- Only if a parent does not support a child he or she may be sued. It’s up to him (her) to decide what his (her) child needs.
2) -- Alimony is created to support children.
2) -- Alimony is created to punish men.
3) -- Men must help women and their children, and so women don’t have to be grateful for men’s support. If men don’t want to help women, they must be forced to do that by law.
3) -- Mutual dependence exists between men and women. And you always have the right to hear thanks for your support and expect to be supported back by other side.
4) -- One quarter of a salary is not a big sum of money.
4) -- If we take income minus taxes and cost of living, and minus money invested into a business (education, work), it won’t be 25 percent it may be more that 90 or 100 percent.
5) -- A child is a burthen. The one who suffers from having to live with a child must be compensated by one who enjoys a happy life without a child.
5) -- Having a child is happiness, so the one who is deprived from that happiness must be compensated.
6) -- Sex is a bestial joy, men, not women, want to have sex, and as a result of sex women inevitably have babies they would prefer never to have. So men are guilty and must be punished.
6) -- No sane person would ever say such things.
7) -- Contraception is never safe. Men and women are equally responsible for her unwanted pregnancy.
7) -- Women are more responsible. The semen can easily be stolen from a man (it is not even considered to be a crime), so men don’t have any means of safe birth control, so men should not be responsible for unwanted pregnancy.
8) -- Women should have rights and should not have responsibilities. It’s her body and it’s up to her to decide whether to abort a baby or not.
8) -- If men have duties they should also have rights. Abortion must not be committed without consent of the father. It must not be committed at all because a baby is a human being who wants to live.
9) -- Family is a woman and her children, and men are not always necessary for normal family.
9) -- If both parents want to have a divorce it’s up to them to decide who will pay who, but no one have a right to kick another spouse from the family if that another one had been responsible. If not there must be a court decision for that.
10) -- It is more natural that children stay with women.
10) -- Why is it considered to be so? The practice shows the opposite.
11) -- Women always try to keep the family, so if divorces happen it is all because of men’s guilt.
11) -- On the contrary. Men usually propose and women almost never. They very often refuse to men. Those are women who usually demand divorce, not men. Alimony provokes divorces.
12) -- You can’t separate a mother and a child, so a father is the one who has to leave in case of divorce.
12) -- Your children may be taken from you (or you may be taken from your child) only if you are a slave. Our society supposes that men are slaves. It’s terrible!
13) -- If divorces happen it is because men are bad.
13) -- Big percent of women plan divorce subconsciously even before the marriage. She wants her child to be entirely hers and she wants money, not a man.

The U.S. Constitution: Amendment - Slavery Abolished. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Thus the only way that Alimony could therefore be legally justified is as punishment! But, punishment for what? What is the crime?

The International Labour Organization's Forced Labour Convention of 1930 defines forced labour as "all work or service, which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily."

Uncommon relations

Some of those relations seem to be very strange, queer and suspicious. We usually dislike some of them. But why should we dislike them if they don’t interfere with our life? Or do they?
1) Young man and mature woman
2) Young woman and mature man
3) Polyamory (multipartnered relationships and families)
4) A boy of fifteen or younger and a woman. A girl of fifteen or younger and a man. Love without sex between them. Sex relations between them.
5) Homosexual relations and marriages
6) Incomplete families
7) Swinging
8) Prostitution as an avocation and fun or as a destiny
9) BDSM-relations (sadism, masochism and so on)
10) Striptease
11) Nudism
12) Virtual love without trying to meet in the reality
13) Asexuality

Love

1) Mothers love unconditionally. It is “pure” love. Fathers love “conditionally”. What love is the “highest” love?
2) Should we love ourselves unconditionally or conditionally?
3) Does “to love” mean to want to get something from the one you love? For example, Mermaid wanted to get immortal spirit from her Prince. Was her love selfish (griping, sordid)?
4) Does “to love” mean to want to give? Why should we give somebody something, if we don’t expect to be paid?
5) Is love altruism or egoism?
6) What is the difference between love and friendship?
7) Can there be love without sex? Can there be sex without love?
8) Can we live without any need of love?
9) Who needs love more, men or women?
10) How does love affect us? How does it affect you?
11) Can we love many people at the same time?
12) Where and how can we find somebody for friendship or love?
13) What shout we do in case of undivided (unanswered) love?
14) We are responsible for those who we tamed. N'est-ce pas?
15) Is it worth to be jealous?
16) Is it worth to try to stop someone who wants to leave?

Talking about sex

1) Should intimate life be concealed? Why yes? Why no?
2) Is it true that only lonely and not satisfied people speak about sex?
3) Sex for health. What do you think of it?
4) Is it good to pretend that everything is fine with you even if it is not so fine at all? Is it good to deceive yourself?
5) Is it normal to discuss questions like “How to become a goddess of sex”?
6) Aren’t whose people fools who think of sex they have had in terms OK or not OK? Better and much better are always possible in this realm, aren’t they?
7) Is love the ultimate solution for all sexual problems or are love and sex different realms?
8) Would a wise person always try to make sex more diverse and interesting?
9) Is sex worth of big efforts? May there be different things even more desirable and not so expensive and not so unsafe?
10) Some western people make their own porn and then share it with their friends. Sometimes they even publish it in internet. Aren’t they crazy? But why?
11) By the way, what makes sex so attractive?

What do women feel towards men?

1) How did the attitude to men and women changed throughout the history?
2) To love men women have to respect them. Feminism denies that men are better than women in any way. So men have nothing to be respected for and nothing to be loved for, don’t they?
3) What should women do if they have been taught not to respect men?

~Should they forget about love?
~Should they become lesbians?
~Should they damn feminism, feminists and their doctrine?
~Should they try to find reasons to respect and love men?
~Should they consider everything being OK and try not to worry about anything?

4) In what are men better and stronger than women? They can easier carry heavy objects. What else can they do better than women? What a men’s responsibilities in our modern world?
5) How will the situation develop?
6) Who is interested in belittling men?
7) How can the situation be cured? Can there be any real solution?

Men, women and all kind of stereotypes

1) Who should and who shouldn't, who does and who doesn’t, and why…

~ make court, be gallant
~ propose
~ be inferior
~ give in, give way, concede, comply, step back
~ protect, defend

2) Who is the giver and who is the taker in man-woman relations?
3) What one may expect to get in return?
4) Who is stronger? Who lives longer lives and why?
5) Around whom should the family be built?
6) Who (a man or a woman) should be the breadwinner? Who should be the a housewife (housespouse)?
7) What is man's work and what is woman's?
8) Should boys and girls be given the same toys?
9) Who needs sex more? Who needs more sex?
10) What is to do if one wants sex and the other one doesn't?
11) Who needs children more?
12) What is to do if one wants to have children and the other one doesn't?
13) Should men allow themselves to wear flamboyant cloths?
14) Should men allow themselves to express their feelings and even cry?
15) Should men allow themselves to complain?
16) Does anybody have a right to be a loser?

Men and women, who needs who and what for?

Imagine… We have as much money as we need, so everything is done for us by itself. Nobody is going to attack us, and we don’t need any protection. So, we have some questions now…

1) What do we need men for?
2) What do we need women for?
3) What do we need children for?
4) Does there exist something that is given to men by nature and not given to women? What are men’s advantages?
5) Does there exist something that is given only to women, except for their ability to bring children and nurse them? What are their advantages?
6) Do men need those women who don’t need men?
7) Do women need those men who don’t need them?
8) If a woman has shown you that she doesn’t need you, will you try to build any relations with her?
9) If a man has shown you that he doesn’t need you, will you try to build any relations with him?
10) Is the opposite sex doesn’t value your sex, what can be a solution?
11) Should we teach the opposite sex to be human? Is it possible?
12) Should we choose homosexuality? Why don’t we accept that solution?
13) Should we choose asexuality or sex without any love?
14) Can those solutions be combined?
15) Are those questions important? What way will understanding influence your life?

Is sexism the only normal way of thinking?

1) Women and men are different. Don't you agree with that?
2) Women are superior to men in some aspects. For instance, women bring children. Don't you agree with that?
3) Women can be superior to men in some other aspects. Can you name them?
4) Taking into account that women are superior to men at least in one very important aspect, there remain only two things to presume: (1) Men are superior to women in other aspects and so both genders are very important and presumably equal or (2) Men are superior to women in no aspect at all and so they are inferior creatures. Are there any other ways of thinking?
5) The only humane presumption is that both genders are very important and valuable. And so, men are better than women in some aspects as well as women are better than men in some other aspects.
6) In what areas, do you thing, men are superior to women?
7) Can a woman respect men as men if she believes that men are inferior creatures?
8) Can a woman love men if she does not respect them?
9) Can a man have self-respect as a man if he believes that there is no superiority of his sex (while females are obviously superior in some very important aspects).
10) Can a woman love a man who does not respect himself?
11) Who needs do destroy male's self-respect? Is it done nowadays? For what purpose is it done?
12) Is feminism good for women?
13) Do you really believe that feminism is all about equal rights?
14) What can we say about people who believe that feminism is about equal rights?
15) If someone group of people have more rights and less responsibilities it is obviously unfair. Isn’t it?
16) Can a society be fair if some its members have more rights and more responsibilities at the same time? ...

Do we want feminism?

What about duty of men to defend women? What about duty of men to defend their country?

“Men defending women - thing of the past only needed in working class circles. In middle class and upper class circles this is not needed at all and many women these days can defend themselves. As for defending the country in the future that will be done with drones; and as I said why can't you have women tank drivers and fighter pilots? Why should only men risk their lives? Over here most middle and upper class people are incapable realistically of defending their country or a woman, they are wimps with a brain. Look, if our own Queen can train as a mechanic and repair vehicles to help the war effort, what is anyone else's excuse? Here we had a then royal princess training to do a working class man's job, and she actually did it. She actually volunteered to do it.”

1. Is feminism a punishment for women?
2. If yes, should we punish women for feminism with feminism?
3. Is there need of men's job in our world?
The world is build of air conditioners, political correctness a right grammar, isn't it? Or is it build of concrete, oil and harsh work?
4. Killing people is a very easy thing if it is done with drones. So that is how it should be done. Killing is like playing computer games. Every woman can do it, cannot she?
5. Elites don't need to learn harsh reality of our life. It is for common people. Why not?
6. Women do not need to be women and men to be men. Unisex is the best way of existence. Why not?
7. Even a queen can play a miner for some time. This her work equals to the work of miners, so miners should not complain about their difficult life.

Are you a feminist?

1) Are you a feminist?
2) Why is feminism for equality only for women? Why is it called feminism and not “equalism”? Can there be equality only for a part of the society?
3) Do you think that men and women don’t have equal rights now? Who is privileged?
4) Do you know laws favoring men? Can you name laws favoring women?
5) At what age should men and women get pension?
6) What about army and draft?
7) Do you agree that men are worse than women?
8) Why girls are more successful at school?
9) Should the behavior of men be controlled? Should men's sexuality be constantly restricted by women?
10) Were women oppressed by men throughout the history? Must men compensate to women their suffering throughout the history?
11) Should men run after women?
12) Should women be saved first? How do you like the Titanic story?
13) Should we protect only women from domestic violence or should men also be protected?
14) Who are better workers?
15) Who is paid better?
16) Is there any prejudice in our society against men or women?
17) Should paternity fraud be considered a crime? And how severe should be the punishment?
18) What about election rights? Suppose majority of women vote and send men to wars. Men die. Women have majority and again send only men to wars. Is it democracy? Why not?
19) Why do men drink vodka? Why do men smoke? Is it because of their defective nature? Can there be other explanations?
20) Is feminism for equal rights or does it have different aims?
21) Are you a feminist?
22) How does feminism affect women?
23) How does feminism affect men?
24) What do we have to do with it?

3 Communication, friends

В начало

Internet-communications

1) Everyone says that internet is very interesting! But what is so interesting in it for you?
2) Do you meet new people in internet? Do your virtual acquaintances ever become real? Do you want them to?
3) Do you use ICQ or other programs of that a kind? Do you visit chats?
4) What do you think about sites like OdnoklassnikiRu?
5) Do you play internet-games?
6) Do you write in forums and blogs? Do you read forums and blogs?
7) Do you have your own site where you meet people and communicate with them?
8) Don't you feel sometimes that the virtual life becomes more important for you than the real life?

Hello, how are you?

Name - club - job - languages - free time - topics - traveling - politics - never asked

Name

~What is your name?
~What does your name mean?

Club

~How long have you been visiting this club?
~Do you know other English clubs?
~Do you know other Moscow clubs?
~Do you have an idea of creating your own club?

Job

~What is your occupation?
~Don't you plan to begin your own business?
~What are your life plans?

Languages

~What languages do you speak?
~Do you communicate with native speakers?
~Do you communicate via Internet?
~Why do you study English?
~Do you need English for your job?
~How do you study English?
~Do you think everyone can study languages by oneself?

Free time

~What do you do in your free time?
~What sports do you like?
~Do you have pets?

Topics

~What are your favorite topics?
~What books do you read?

Traveling

~Have you been to other countries?
~What do you think of Russians in comparison with foreigners?

Politics

~How will the situation is Russia develop?
~What would you improve if you could?

Never asked

~What sexual practices are most interesting for you? Which of them would you like to practice?
~What do you think about your death, waiting for you?
~How do you affirm yourself in this life?

Communication

1) Why do you communicate with people?
~ To relieve your feelings?
~ To share your opinions and concepts? Do you really think somebody needs them?
~ Are you yourself interested in somebody's opinions and concepts?
~ Do you want to show how clever you are?
~ Do you want to show that you are a rough guy and can make others to listen to you?
~ Something else?
2) Who is more sociable, communicable - men or women? Why?
3) What subjects touch you most?
4) When did it happen, the last time, when you had a really interesting conversation? What was it about?
5) Do you communicate via Internet? What do you usually talk about?
6) What do you read?
7) Do you write? What do you write about?
8) What are advantages, sociability gives a person?
9) Can one develop sociability intentionally? How can he do it?

Communication 2

1) Do you like to make new acquaintances?
2) Do you like to speak with strangers? Will you tell a fellow traveler things you would never tell your friends?
3) What is the most comfortable distance for you? How quickly do you prefer to become closer?
4) Is it a good idea to make acquaintances outdoors?
5) Do you like to communicate via ICQ, Skype, telephone?
6) Do you like to speak with somebody via Internet when you know that you will never meet him (her) in real life?
7) When you speak with a friend (a stranger), what do you prefer, serious discussions or talks about nothing?
8) Is it a good idea to talk with a close friend about your problems? And with strangers?
9) Is it a good idea to talk with a close friend about your successes? And with strangers?
10) Have you ever been shy of your good deeds? Isn’t it better never to talk about what a good guy you are?
11) Do you like to communicate with people who like to fib, exaggerate, play popular or famous persons?
12) Do you like to communicate with a person who never lies, who never exaggerates things?

Home clubs net

1) Those are always successful who know how to study and how to communicate, aren't they?
2) Would you like to have more acquaintances?
3) Do you ready to pay special attention to improving your communication skills and self-presentation?
4) Do you want to improve your learning facilities? Are you interested in speed reading and speed languages acquisition?
5) You come to our club; it shows that you are interested in improving your English. Are you interested in communication in other languages? In Russian?
6) Would you like to join the net of clubs, where people visit each other to have interesting discussions?
7) Where would you prefer such meetings to be held?
8) What kind of clubs would you prefer, commercial, half-commercial, free?
9) Are you ready to become a leader or a host (the one who meets guests)?
10) What kind of things would like to discuss in such clubs?
11) What forms of communication could you suggest for such clubs?

Communication: some pieces of advice and some questions

1) We should avoid reproaching others, shouldn’t we?
2) What should we do if someone reproaches us?
3) We should avoid complaining.
4) What should we do if someone complains about something?
5) We shouldn’t talk about our problems?
6) What should we do if someone starts talking about his (her) problems?
7) What do you think about conformism?
8) Should we take care of self-esteem of others?
9) Don’t talk about your interests, talk about interests of others!
10) Praise people.
11) Don’t criticize people. If you have to criticize someone begin from praising.
12) Before saying something think how it will be accepted.
13) Don’t show someone that you depend on him.
14) If someone shows his (her) dependence on you, keep away from him!
15) Never show anyone that you are hurt.
16) Never show anyone your disrespect.

Matthew Chapter 18

18:15. But if thy brother shall offend against thee, go, and rebuke him between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee, thou shalt gain thy brother.

18:16. And if he will not hear thee, take with thee one or two more: that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may stand.

18:17. And if he will not hear them: tell the church. And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican.

18:18. Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven.

Bad habits

1) Why do people smoke? Why do people drink? Why do people use drugs?
2) Why do people use bad words?
3) Why do people overeat?
4) What makes people gamble?
5) Why do people have promiscuous sexual relations?
6) Is going to church a kind of a bad habit?
7) Is overworking a bad habit?
8) Is not having money a bad habit? Is not having time a bad habit?
9) What can we suggest to someone who wants to get rid of a bad habit?
10) Why some people don’t want to get rid of bad habits? Can we motivate those who don’t want to be motivated?

How to communicate - Games

1) Very common topics
2) Three universal psychological questions
3) Associations
4) Dream symbols
5) Coaching
6) Taxonomy
7) Forbidden topics
8) Court
9) Marriage
10) Mafia
11) Titanic

How to communicate - Mistakes

1) Pulling the blanket
2) Hiding in illegibility
3) Self-censorship
4) Fear of mistakes
5) Being not supportive
6) Shallowness
7) Keeping distance
8) Hiding emotionality

Internet discussions

1. Do you prefer emotionally touching deep topics or do you prefer neutral and safe talks not really touching your soul and mind? Do we come here to study English or to share our ideas?
2. Is Internet a proper place to have debates? Do you try to prove your point of view or do you prefer political correctness?
3. Do you feel comfortable when people try to teach you how to live? Does advice mean assault for you?
4. Do you always try to follow given topic or is it sometimes better to talk about everything what comes into your mind?
5. What can be a reason for a ban? When is it appropriate to say "if you don’t obey my rules I will ban you"?
6. Is it appropriate to interrupt the speaker? And what if he talks about things that are already clear and returns to the same things over and over again? What if he misinterprets your words?
7. Should there be the rule of two (three, four, five) minutes for each interlocutor? Should people talk by turn?
8. Should everybody have the same time or should active fellows who have what to say talk more?

4. Psychology, strategies, stereotypes

В начало

Happiness

1) Do people have the same needs? Do needs of different people vary?
2) Can we become happy just by moderating our demands? Is it difficult for us to moderate our demands?
3) What do you think of that attitude? "Now I am working very hard, so right now happiness is hardly possible; but when I get what I need, I will be happy!"
4) What do you need for happiness? Imagine: you have got what you have always needed; will you become happy?
5) Do you believe to people who say that they are happy and have everything they need? Isn't it just a role of a happy person? Why do we need to look happier than we are in reality?
6) Can we be just happy? To feel happy do we need to compare our lives with those of others?
7) People of the past lived in very harsh conditions. Were people of the past unhappy? Could people of today be happy in harsh conditions of the past?
8) Do big ambitions and demands show that a person is strong and so deserves everything? Or is the need of special conditions just a kind of an atrophy of ability to be happy?
9) If a person is unhappy, does it mean than God does not love him (her)?

Conflicts and guilt

1) Is it true that in any conflict both sides are always guilty?
2) Should I consider any conflict to be mea culpa (my guilt)?
3) By what criteria can we decide who is right and who is wrong?
4) Do you try to understand your opponent? Do you want him to understand you?
5) Can you say to your opponent what he thinks in such words that he will agree that he is understood right? Do you sometimes do that?
6) Are people always aware of their motives? Are they responsible for motives they are not aware of?
7) Should we always forgive people their debts, as Christians suggest? Is it so even when someone does not recognize one's debts?
8) Will unresolved conflicts mean something in the afterlife world?
9) Do you want bad people to go to hell and to pay for what they have done?

Are you happy to be Russian?

1) Does Russia deserve to be respected? Yes, it does, because it has nuclear weapon?
2) Do you really need to respect your state? What do you think of those who do need? Of those who do not need?
3) Why do you need to be a part of a great nation and its great project? Or is it only your private life what matters for you?
4) What is and what could become Russia’s national idea?
5) Will Russia ever be accepted by the world community? Does Russia really need it?
6) Can Russia become a superpower once more? What must be done for that?
7) Do you have lots of friends?
8) Do you like your city?
10) Are you happy with your life?

Can you be a psychologist to yourself?

1) Do you want to be a psychologist to yourself? Isn’t it cool to have a psychologist every moment you need him and for free?
2) There are three universal questions to begin self-exploration. Do you ask yourself these questions? Which of them most frequently?

~Why can't I do better what I am always trying to do better?
~What do I want in my life?
~What am I doing and for what? Whose plays am I playing?

3) Can you suggest other universal questions to begin self-exploration?
4) Working with problems can sometimes deteriorate problems? Is it worth to take a risk?
5) Isn't it better to be always positive without asking too many questions?
6) Can the deep exploration make our life less enigmatic?
7) What is more effective, reading books or thinking by oneself?
8) Is it possible to become a psychologist without reading psychological books?
9) Can institutes make real psychologists?
10) Creating your own business. Isn't it the best way to become a real psychologist?
11) Businessmen, taxi drivers, sellers, journalists, writers, teachers... Are they real psychologists?
12) Are so professional psychologists real psychologists?

Circumstances

1) Here we see some life strategies. Which of them is the best one? Do other strategies exist? What is your main strategy?

~To go where the circumstances are better
~To adjust oneself to circumstances
~To alter circumstances
~To change one's attitude to circumstances
~Just to wait till everything will change to better by itself

2) Do you prefer to do what you can do easily, or to overcome difficulties and hardships?
3) Do occasions exist in our world; or do all things have their causes (reasons), sometimes unknown to us?
4) Should we adjust ourselves to the inconsistent world; or should we adjust the world to our needs?
5) Does everything depend on us? Can we improve our IQ, for example?
6) Do we have to believe someone who says that he would be successful in any circumstances?
7) The one who does not want to work will always find excuses, won’t he? The one who want to work will always find possibility, won’t he?
7) Do you believe our thoughts can directly influence our world? Or is it schizophrenia?
8) Should we help talented, gifted people? Or just the opposite: should we help those who are handicapped by nature or by circumstances?
9) Does everyone have one's own gift? Are all people endowed equally by God, by Nature?

What motivates us to conflicts?

1) What makes people conflict? Is it only the results or do people enjoy the process itself?
2) May some people need negative emotions, not even being aware of that need?
3) Is it true that in any conflict both sides are always guilty?
4) If you don't intend to conflict but your opponent does; can you avoid the conflict?
5) Can it happen so that nobody wants to conflict; but yet the conflict occurs?
6) Life without conflicts is boring, isn’t it?
7) Every literature book is built around its conflict. If our life is the art it should have its conflict, shouldn’t it?
8) Should we always forgive people their debts, as Christians suggest?
9) Will unresolved conflicts mean something in the afterlife world?
10) Do your ready to fight God?
11) Should the hell exist in the best of the worlds?

Hippy, what should we take from them?

1) Make love, not war! Is it a good principle? If it is good, why people don't follow it? Do you follow it yourself? What about making love? What about making war?
2) Don't worry, by happy! Do we need to have ambitions, goals or is it better just to enjoy our lives?
3) Do you like long hair and simple dressing? Have you ever dressed like hippy? Why was it condemned by society?
4) Do you like rock-n-roll? Why was music so important for every one of hippy?
5) Meditations, mysticism, vegetarianism... Does all that lead to self-development or to losing the contact with the reality?
6) Was sexual revolution a way to freedom or was it only the beginning of libertinism, wantonness and degradation?
7) Is it a good idea to stop to compete with people? Is it possible to stop to compete?
8) Are drugs the absolute evil or is there something positive in them?
9) Would you like to travel by auto-stop, to live in communities?
One edited text from Internet:

Hippie fashions and values had a major effect on culture, influencing popular music, television, film, literature, and the arts. Since the 1960s, many aspects of hippie culture have been assimilated by the mainstream. The religious and cultural diversity espoused by the hippies has gained widespread acceptance, and Eastern philosophy and spiritual concepts have reached a wide audience. The hippie legacy can be observed in contemporary culture in a myriad of forms - from health food, to music festivals, to contemporary sexual mores, and even to the cyberspace revolution.

Leadership

1) Do you want to be a leader? The desire to be a leader, where does it come from?
2) Is leadership benefits of position, or is it hardness of work?
3) A ram or a thunderbird (storm-petrel)? There is a flock and there is a ram walking firs in a meadow with very sweet green grass. There is a storm sea and a thunderbird soaring in the wind all alone. Who of them is a leader? Who do you like more and why?
4) Isn't it wiser never to be a leader and always try to be in the middle? Isn't it better to be ready to accept any position?
5) What do people like more, to obey or to command? What is more natural for you?
6) Do you want to be a leader in our communication club? It's quite possible. You are welcome.
7) Are you ready to give up your position to someone who can work better than you?
8) Can leaders influence the history? Who provides the progress?
9) If someone became a president of a state, does it mean that he is a strong and smart person?
10) Who usually becomes the center and the heart of the company?
11) Can a person deliberately develop a leader character? Is it possible to teach others how to become leaders?
12) What does the word leader mean for you now? Do you still want to be a leader?

Manipulations

1) Is it right that any communication is a manipulation? But then what do we need the "word" manipulation for?
2) Can Gypsies hypnotize people? Have you ever seen in your life hypnosis like that?
3) Do you agree that trance is a very common state of mind; and so it can be easily used for making people do what they don't want to?
4) What do you think of NLP?
5) Does the media successfully manipulate people? Does the media successfully manipulate you?
6) Can we motivate people without manipulating them? Are there other things in nature except carrot and stick (whip and gingerbread, as Russians say)?
7) People like to be manipulated, don't they? They don't want others to try to communicate with their rational sides. If they want you to manipulate them, will you still try to communicate with their rational minds?
8) Love is a trance, isn't it? Would you advice people never let themselves fall in love?

Openness and Reticence

To be an open person means to be communicative, sincere, and honest. Don't we miss something?
1) Is it a good idea to always say the first thing that comes into your mind?
2) What kind of people do you like more, open or closed?
3) When do we need to be reticent, insincere or diplomatic?
4) When do we need to be open and sincere?
5) What troubles can needless or excessive openness cause to?
6) To what consequences can unnecessary or excessive reticence lead?
7) Is it a good idea to talk to a friend (a stranger) about your problems?
8) Is it a good idea to talk to somebody about your successes?
9) Who are more sincere, men or women? Do you agree that women are better liars, but are also more sincere?

People, be open!

Let us discuss some controversial suggestions:
1) Naturism is normal so it must be propagandized. If you are not a nudist, you are a neurotic.
2) We don't have to be shy even if our bodies and souls are not perfect. Perfection is not for everyone, not for ever; and we have to remember it.
3) We don't have to try to look better than we are in reality. Trying to look better, we lose more than gain.
4) Closed people are always neurotics. Psychoanalysis works only because it makes people become open, become nudists, so to say.
5) It is not necessary for a psychoanalyst to be an expert in psychology. It is enough for him to understand the mystery (sacrament) of undressing.
6) If you are not open with others, you will never be open with yourself. All problems come from that. Become open; and your psychological problems disappear by themselves.
7) Kitchens also must be open, if we want to have healthy food.
8) All the evil comes from secrecy. Governments have no right to keep secrets.
9) If you play chess against somebody and tell your rival your plans; it won't help him.

Psychoanalysis

1) Why do Americans visit psychoanalysts while Russians almost never do it?
2) Do you think that psychoanalysis could help you?
3) Is it a sane idea to discuss the most intimate thoughts, desires and fears with friends? Do you discuss your life strategies with anybody?
4) Don’t you fear that psychoanalysis may become destructive for your soul?
5) Do you have a need to understand yourself? Do you try to?
6) Do you try to understand others?
7) Are you ready to pay money to psychoanalysts?
8) Have you ever red psychoanalytical books? Do you read them?
9) Have you ever tried to puzzle out your dreams?

Psychologists

1) Do we need to discuss our problems with somebody? Pros and contras, please.
2) If we choose to discuss, whom should we prefer, a professional, or a good friend, or just a stranger?
3) What is more effective, psychoanalysis or search for the truth?
4) Can the church substitute a psychologist?
5) Can "help" of a psychologist deteriorate your situation? Can you give some examples?
6) How can someone tell a good psychologist from a bad one?
7) Do you know somebody who is visiting a psychologist or somebody who used to visit him (her)? Do you know somebody to whom a psychologist really helped?
8) Why do Americans visit psychoanalysts while Russians almost never do it?
9) Can psychologists resolve their own problems, such as creating businesses of their own?
10) If you have a problem with foreign languages, for example, can a psychologist help you with it?
11) Should we change our life or should we patiently adjust ourselves to circumstances?

Supermen

1) Is it normal that the strong always uses the weak?
2) Does a strong nation have a right to exploit a weak one?
3) Do genetically strong nations exist?
4) Does being good and kind mean being weak?
5) Are moral and conscience only inventions of weak but sly creatures?
6) Do societies need natural selection similar to one that exists in wild nature? Don't we spoil our society by supporting the weak?
7) Is it the only way to make society more successful - to become successful by oneself? Do you know other ways?
8) Should we worry about public interests? Isn't it our duty to worry only about ourselves?

To understand or not to understand?

1) Would you like to be able to read other's thoughts? What are the pluses and the minuses of that ability?
2) Would you like others to be able to read your thoughts?
3) Do you want to understand yourself?
4) Do you try to find the cause of causes of what is happening? Is it some kind of craziness, trying to find the essence and the sense of the life?
5) Do you like smart men, smart women? Don't they irritate you sometimes?
6) What is more important in our life, being smart or being rich? Can there be an antagonism between these two?
7) Who would you like to marry, a rich or a smart man (woman)?

Do you like people? Do you love people?

1) Do you like people? What about children, men, women? Do you love them?
2) Are people good by nature?
3) Is everything is determined by upbringing, or there exist people who would become strong and good in any circumstances?
4) Should we force people to be good?
5) Do you like leaders?
6) Do you like the obedient?
7) Conscience, fear, sympathy… Which of them prevents people from committing crimes?
8) Do you like those who like to help others?

Gurus

1) Do we need gurus or teachers? Should we try to find some one?
2) How do you react to people who call themselves gurus?
3) How can we distinguish between a teacher and a cheater?
4) Are you ready to pay money to a teacher? How much are you ready to pay for unique knowledge the guru can provide?
5) Gurus often teach us to believe in money. What do you think of that?
6) What do you think of Kiyosaki, Anastasiya, Dianetics, Scientology, NLP, yoga, Zen, Orthodox Christian Church?
7) Why do people need sects?
8) Sects and religions, is there any difference between them?
9) How can we save someone from a destructive sect, from a guru?

Is it dangerous to study psychology and explore our life?

And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

1) To really understand things means to understand Good and Evil, and for that you will have to participate in their confrontation. Is it not dangerous?
2) Being stupid is a kind of self-protection and self-defense. It’s also a means of attack and offence, isn’t it?
3) If you understand people and things too well, people will be afraid of you, won’t they?
4) If you are too smart, people will probably try to punish you for your superiority, won’t they?
5) If you see how disgusting it is to be an idiot, you will never have some advantages idiots have.
6) Right conclusions may lead to wrong ways of living. For example, it is a right thought: our time is precious. Is it not? What will be the conclusions? Are they as right as the right premise?
7) Instead of studying life, isn’t it better to study how to earn money to buy a good apartment?
8) You began to feel the real joy of knowledge and then suddenly stopped the exploration of life, how will it affect your karma?
"See here, Jonathan," said his father, not unkindly. "Winter isn't far away. Boats will be few, and the surface fish will be swimming deep. If you must study, then study food, and how to get it. This flying business is all very well, but you can't eat a glide, you know. Don't you forget that the reason you fly is to eat." Jonathan nodded obediently. For the next few days he tried to behave like the other gulls; he really tried, screeching and fighting with the flock around the piers and fishing boats, diving on scraps of fish and bread. But he couldn't make it work.

Why do people lie?

1) Do people who never lie exist in nature? Is it possible not to lie at all?
2) Is it natural for you to lie in critical situations?
3) If you never lie, at least, you are original. Isn’t it an argument never to lie?
4) Is it comfortable to live with somebody who never lies? Do you want to be one with whom it is comfortable to live?
5) Is it comfortable to live with somebody who never afraid to tell the truth and doesn’t care too much about your reactions on it?
6) What do you think of imposing the truth?
7) If someone’s lie is a kind of art, should it be respected? Can you give examples of such a lie?
8) What do you think of stupid, primitive, routine lie?
9) What is worse, to lie, hiding one’s eyes, or to lie impudently and boldly?
10) Are Russians relatively honest people?
11) Who are better liars, men or women?

What is lie?

1) If you try to lie through your body-language (to play a self-confident person, for instant), should it be considered a lie?
2) If you have already deceived yourself, should your words be considered a lie?
3) If you don’t even try to deceive anybody and just make people to accept your lie by force, should it be considered lying?
4) If you don’t lie, but only embellish the reality, is it lie or not? Is the makeup a kind of lie? What about the plastic surgery?
5) If you don’t lie, but only show the best sides of the reality, is it lie or not?
6) Can someone, who never lies, be a good seller?
7) Is it a good idea to tell the truth to an enemy, to a bureaucrat, to a boss, to a patient?
8) Do we damage our karma by lying?

Greed, laziness, cowardice

Greed

1) What are you ready to exchange your freedom for?

~ For money?
~ For knowledge and education?
~ For universal knowledge of how to get any knowledge you need?
~ For your social position in future?
~ For good deeds which will come back to you sooner or later in that life or in the afterlife?
~ For accomplishment of your mission in that life?
2) Is freedom the ultimate value? What do you need your freedom for?

Laziness

3) Do you work on improving yourself?
4) Do you work on your career?
5) Do you try to understand people and life?
6) Do you work on creating your own business?
7) Do you work on other projects?

Cowardice

8) Are you ready to try all sex experiments that are interesting to you or are you afraid of opinions of others?
9) Can you say to everybody everything you think?
10) Do you fear your boss, your spouse, somebody?
11) Do you give up to aggressive people?
12) Can you be open and not be shy of yourself, of your body, of your mind?

Positivism

Let's talk about one's ability to deal only with positive sides of the reality.
1) Do you think it's a good idea not to see your own disadvantages? Why not choose that positive perception of yourself?
2) Not all people are perfect. Let's not pay attention to their bad sides?
3) Don't try to overcome your disadvantages. Do try to improve your positive sides. What do you think of that suggestion?
4) Do not conflict, make friends!
5) If you don't understand that you are miserable, you don't suffer from your misery.
6) Be positive if you want people to love you!
Sex, power, money, et cetera…
Sex, power, money, gambling, foreign languages, drugs and other kinds of kaif and drive
1) Men or women, who needs it more, who enjoys it more, who suffers from it more?
2) Should we foster and encourage our love to it? Should we diminish, soothe or abolish it?
3) How can we foster or diminish it?
4) What about excessivenesses and deviations?
5) What do you think of and about people who are extremely interested in it?

Self-actualization

…called also self-fulfilling, self-fulfillment, personal fulfillment, use one's potential, accomplishment, realization, completion, success…

1) What is self-actualization?
2) What will make you happier, life for self-fulfillment or life for pleasure?
3) How can we find our destiny? Does it exist?
4) Is society interested in your self-actualization? Will it help you? Will it hamper your struggle?
5) Were Stalin and Hitler successful in their self-fulfillment?
6) What is the better way of self-presentation: a genius-loser or a very successful mediocrity?
7) Can one succeed in his self-fulfillment if he (she) is alone and nobody cooperates with him (her)?
8) Is it our fault if we don’t have co-operators or friends?
9) If you have to choose between being honest and being a winner what will you choose?
10) Is everyone really unique?
11) What is your main life-project?

Psychologists and their problems

1) We have as many opinions as psychologists. Is psychology a science?
2) The typical style of self-presentation for them is that: I am a clever man (woman), because a great science stands behind my words. Is it fair?
3) They have no permission to give advice. And why not?
4) They should try to explain things that their clients don’t want to see. Is it a comfortable role to be a psychologist? Isn’t it more natural to kick away (to give a boot to) all ignorant people with all their ignorance?
5) They must be smarter than you and keep psychological distance. They mustn’t be emotional. Do you like it?
6) What real things can they do except for talking?
7) Sexual relations with clients are forbidden for them. Why something should be forbidden at all?

By the laws or by the notions?

1) What is the difference between laws and “notions” (codes of the underworld)? Are the notions the only real laws or are they only myshadows of real written laws?
2) Having to choose between the law and the justice, what will you choose?
3) Does such a thing as rightness (fairness) exist in nature or is it only an invention of human imagination? Is the world fair?
4) Can anarchy exist?
5) Is there any principle difference between court, tribunal, mob law and lynching?
6) Should we distinguish between “ours”, “allies” and “aliens”, “strangers”?
7) What would happen if the real laws should become the written laws?
8) What makes society to write laws it doesn’t want to follow?
9) Should a civil servant (officer) be rewarded (paid) for not following stupid and cruel written laws?
10) What is the real state? What real institutions make people prefer notions rather than laws?
11) How many real states do we have in our state?

Being clever is the stupidest choice in the world, isn’t it? Do you want to be clever?

1) If you had to choose between to be clever and to be rich, what would you choose?
2) Do you want to be very sensitive? Why do people usually choose not to be?
3) Are you always ready to accept the truth? Are you ready to admit that you are not right when you are not right? Why do people usually prefer not to do it?
4) Are you always ready to support people with your attention and understanding? Why do people prefer not to do it?
5) Do you want to be intelligent and to have all self-restrictions typical for intelligent people? What are disadvantages of that?
6) Are you not afraid of being alone when nobody is able to talk about things which are interesting to you?
7) Do you want to have your own system of values which is not shared by the majority? To what consequences can it lead?
8) Do you want to communicate pretty much and discuss very private things with others? Or do you think the intelligence doesn’t depend on that?
9) Do you want to free your sexual and power instincts? Do you want to have adventures that will inevitably follow such liberation?
10) Do you want to love people even knowing that they do not love you? Or do you think love and hatred have nothing to do with the intelligence?
11) Are you ready to spend long hours for thinking about things when answers have already been given to everyone?
12) Isn’t it better to think about money and not about how the world is built?
13) Do you want to participate in the war between good and evil? Or do you think it is not necessary for understanding of the essence of things?
14) Do you want to try your own ways and not already well known ones?
15) Do you think people will forgive you your understanding their motives?
16) Don’t you think people will try to punish you for your superiority?
17) If you happened to be miserable, do you want to understand it?

Do you want to be charismatic?

1) Will you like always to be in the center of very strong and deep attention?
2) Do you like to provoke people and invent adventures?
3) Would you like to use symbols of power which hypnotize majority of (stupid) people? Do you like to have a very American and very successful appearance?
4) Would you like to enjoy respect you don't deserve?
5) Will you try natural but not standard and therefore very risky behavior? What about telling people the truth?
6) Would you like to try all possible and impossible sexual experiments to liberate your sexuality? Or do you think this has nothing to do with charisma?
7) Are you ready to destroy your enemies or adversaries ruthlessly? Or do pity, compassion, sorrow and remorse hamper you?
8) Are other people interesting for you? Or do you never subsidize others with your interest and attention?
9) Why do you think you deserve unique attention?
10) Are you the one who gives exams or the one who always takes them?
11) Do you share or hide secrets of your magic? Or do you never think about such a stupid and childish thing as “magic”?
12) Would you like to be a hypnotist?
13) What is better - to be a very successful mediocrity or a genius-loser?

Some very controversial principles of effective behavior

1) Everything is permitted. You mustn’t only be caught. You mustn’t only get in troubles. There is no crime but stupidity.
2) Never worry about your karma.
3) Care about nobody but yourself.
4) Do only what you want to do.
5) Regret about nothing. And then, why do people regret?
6) Never brake. And then, why do people brake?
7) Never react on things which have nothing to do with your own business. And then, why do people DO react?
8) Never do things for free.
9) Distinguish between things which are good for people and things for which people are ready to pay.
10) A man must be like one who is accepted. (As Nikulin once said about his character Balbes)
11) Never believe, never fear, never ask.
12) Be present in everything you do.
13) What other principles of effective behavior could you suggest?

Keif-orientations

1) Do you live for drives? Or are you an absolutely sober person?
2) Who is closer to you, Dionysus with his bacchantes or Apollo with his muses?
3) Is it good to be a workaholic?
4) Is it good to be a gambler? Is it good to be a businessman? Isn’t it like being a gambler?
5) Is it good to be a sexoholic, sexoman, sexonaut (a person who explores the outer limits of sex)?
6) Is it good to be linguaholic, linguaman, linguanaut?
7) Can Tantra be a religion and a way do God?
8) Can psychedelics lead to anything good? Can psychonautics of any kind lead to anything good?
9) What do you think of nondrinkers (teetotallers)? What do you think of those who drink never, nowhere and with nobody?
10) Would you like to be forever young and forever drunk? This question is not about alcohol only. Would you like to go from one drive to another for all your life?
11) Can there be a drive without frustration and happiness without dissatisfaction?
12) Is there something really precious in our lives? Isn’t any good thing only a prize for the victory in some game we have invented not to be bored? It’s like being a fan of football club, isn’t it? Does it really matter what club wins in football?
13) How do you fight your boredom?
14) Do you always want to find new things of are you ready to search for drive developing ultimate sensitivity and understanding doing the same things over and over again? Can one sexual partner be sufficient for all the life?
15) If you have your keif-orientation you will probably find a friend, won’t you? Friends are always for sharing mutual keif? Aren’t they?
16) Do we choose our keif-orientation or does our nature do it for us?

Happiness, freedom, success

What makes you…
1) Happy?
2) Successful?
3) Strong?
4) Free?
5) Rich?
6) Powerful?
7) Sexual?
8) Interesting?

What is your life?

1) School?
2) Factory?
3) Church?
4) Mental hospital?
5) Stadium?
6) Theater?
7) Book?
8) Something else?

The day has gone…

1) What have you discovered?
2) What have you done?
3) Have you had fun?
4) Have you become stronger?

Success and happiness

1) Rank your values: success, happiness, bliss?
2) Do you distinguish between those three? Do those three usually go together and make friends?
3) Would you like to have stronger emotions? Would you like to be more sensitive?
4) Do we need too much positive emotions? Do we need to avoid negative ones?
5) What would make you happy?
6) Is it important to you to do better than your neighbors?
7) Can money make you happy?
8) Do you feel you are a rich person?
9) Can good sex make you happy?
10) What makes people successful?
11) Do elites steal success from common people?
12) Are elites evil?
13) Is it your duty to be successful?
14) Are you immortal or are you sentenced to death by the Nature itself? Does it make you happy or unhappy?
15) Is life for you a game or survival?
16) Are you free? What part of your time do you spend on thinks you really like to do?
17) What do you need to improve in your life?
18) Does your happiness depends on happiness of your country?

Psychopaths

1) How do you understand the word “psychopath”?
2) Are psychopaths necessarily selfish? Are selfish people necessarily psychopaths?
3) Is it bad to be selfish?
4) Psychopathy, selfishness and need to attract attention. How do they correlate?
5) How much attention do we need to attract?
6) Psychological problems and psychopathy. Can there be problems without psychopathy? Can there be psychopathy without problems?
7) Is it bad to be a deviated person? Why?
8) How do you like this strategy: If you are suffering from an inner conflict which you are not able to resolve alone, bring your trouble to the public attention and discuss it?
9) Is it better to go to a shrink (analyst)? Is it better to discuss it with friends?
10) Is our global world neurotic, as Fromm once suggested? Is it even psychopathic? Or is it basically healthy?
11) What kind of psychopathy became a “norm” nowadays?
12) Are we hated or loved? If somebody feels presence of hatred, is it a kind of mental hallucination?
13) What about feeling of being loved?
14) Is something wrong with you if you feel that the life is revolving around you?

5. Politics

В начало

Democracy

All governments call their power democratic; but can anybody tell us, what the real democracy is?
1) Democracy and slavery (servitude), can they coexist?
2) The government governs the media. The media provides the power with any results the power wants on election. So, whether the real democracy is possible at all? Isn't democracy only justification to every evil deeds for any evil government?
3) Has democracy ever worked? Is it working now anywhere?
4) Freedom of speech and freedom of entrepreneurship? Are they really good things?
5) In fact, even in so called democratic countries the power is passed as an inheritance; isn't it?
6) Compared with democracy, does monarchy have its advantages?
7) Can there exist any alternative to democracy nowadays?
8) Can we decide by voting who is right and who is wrong? If the majority should decide to call donkeys horses, would donkeys become horses?
9) Can democracy work in any business company? If companies can do without democracy, why should we consider democracy the only way of ruling?
10) Is a referendum a democratic procedure? If yes, why dictators like Hitler or Saddam Hussein so willingly used it?
11) Can unpopular but necessary arrangements be undertaken in democratic countries?
12) Has the freedom of speech any value in states where the power can easily ignore all kind of speeches?

Moderalism

Let's discuss its principles (they are opposite to the western ones)
1) Our needs must be moderated and we will be happier with the minimum we have.
2) Poverty can’t be eliminated but people are able to cope with it.
3) Being in conflicts is a normal and healthy state of people and nations. Find enemies and fight them.
4) Rich people are deviants, destructors, degenerates. We mustn't tolerate the existence of rich people. They are enemies of the nation and of the whole mankind.
5) Majority can't restrict themselves, so it must be restricted by constructive minority.
6) Deviations must be forbidden.
7) Democracy can't exist, there should be established a dictatorship of a constructive minority.
8) The universal way for all nations does not exist. Every society should have its own way of development.
9) Science can't give us answers to main questions. We have to do it ourselves.
10) Progress doesn't make our life more trouble-free, but it does destroy our environment, so...
11) The weak mustn't be supported - such support leads nations to degeneration.
12) Russia should become a leader of moderalistic revolution.

Here is a link to very controversial materials of Александр Бурьяк:
http://moderalism.narod.ru/

Russia and the West

Now we are proposing some controversial statements. Please, comment on them.
Is it so?
Is it about you?
Do you like this situation?
Who is better? What are advantages and disadvantages of our style of life?
Why did we choose our way?
1) The West is at work upon producing, consumption and strengthening its positions. -- Russia is always experimenting. It used to take after Germany in time of Peter the First, after France later. Now it is trying to become America. Will Russia ever succeed to become America?
2) Having to choose between conscience and law, Russians will choose conscience. -- Westerners will prefer law.
3) Russians work to earn their free time. -- Westerners use their free time to earn money. They plan to live eternal and rich life after getting retired.
4) Russians would choose collectivism, cooperation, dedication. -- Westerners would choose individualism, competition, defending their own interests.
5) The marriage for Russians is a love affair. -- For westerners it is some kind of a business by a contract.
6) Russians are friends who violate the rules of friendship. -- Westerners are enemies who seldom or never violate the rules of war. That is why their community is more stable.
7) Russians see their happiness in creative work. -- It is high level of consumption what makes westerners happy and self-confident.
8) Russians try to find the truth and the truth for them is an absolute and universal solution of all problems. -- Westerners practice psychoanalysis and never are absorbed with questions of truth and real justice.
9) Russians are open. -- Westerners are reticent, reserved.
10) Russians choose between monarchy and anarchy. -- Westerners choose democracy.
11) Not like westerners, -- Russians never try to choose effective leaders. In Russia those become leaders, who can impose their leadership by force, or those who are assigned by the power.
12) Russians exported the truth (as they saw it) and were responsible for others. -- Westerners just exploited their colonies.
13) Russian language is built around nouns and adjectives. -- English is built around verbs and adverbs: it has more tenses, so English speakers feel actions and results of their actions better than Russians, -- but Russians better than English speakers understand feelings and sex relations.
14) Russians can't live without acts of bravery. -- The westerners develop and use their techniques.
15) Russian sexuality is different from that of westerners, isn't it? What's the difference?
16) The West is afraid of Russians because Russian spirituality is of higher level. Russian mentality, being more human, is bound to win and so to destroy the primitive way of life of the western people.
17) Are Westerners afraid of Russians only because Russians always wanted to impose their power by force?

Should communism be condemned?

There may be many definitions of communism. Here we shall talk about the project Russians tried to embody after the Great October Socialist Revolution.

We have in our group:
1) Judge, who leads the case.
2) Jury, who render (find, return) the verdict: guilty or not guilty.
3) Prosecutor and his team (prosecution witnesses).
4) Defense Attorney (advocate) and his team (defense witnesses).

Criminal charges:

1) Communism is a utopia. Being an artificial construction, it can never be embodied in something normally working.
2) Communists have committed a lot of crimes against humanity and are responsible for a lot of atrocities.
3) Communism is totalitarianism similar to fascism, and so it must be banned.
4) Communism is economically ineffective; so it inevitably leads to poverty.
5) Communism means confrontation with the other entire world, so it leads to cold or real wars.
6) Communism is the antonym of democracy, liberty and freedom.
7) Communism tries to sacrifice the individual in favor of the society. But any society consists only of individuals so communism tries to sacrifice everybody for dubious (and controversial) ideas.
8) There mustn't be any governing ideology in free society. Pluralism is the only normal ideology.
9) Communism means atheism; and Atheism is antihumanism, loss of sense of life, despair, immorality, and the evil itself.
10) The ideas of communism are absolutely wrong.

The world conspiracies

1) Do you believe in world conspiracies and plots?
2) Does the secret world government exist?
3) Secret orders did exist in the past, have they disappeared without a trace?
4) Do there exist implicit contracts?
5) Do there exist subconscious society projects?
Do we need a revolution?
1) Does the current situation with our state suits you?
2) Society is never responsible for peoples’ fortunes and misfortunes, because a strong person will be successful in any circumstances. Do you agree with that?
3) Can one become strong and good in spite of all circumstances?
4) Should we take care of losers?
5) Could you be happy in Nazi country?
6) What would you change in our society if you were given opportunity?
7) Does the revolution inevitably mean bloodshed?

Democracy versus communism

1) Only democratic regimes have a right to exist. -- Only communism is the real democracy.
2) Freedom of speech is an essential human right. -- Propaganda of war, parasitism and hatred must be forbidden (banned).
3) Sexual freedom is an essential human right. -- Sexual freedom can destroy any society. If it is not so, then communism can get along with sexual freedom.
4) Only individualists can provide and guarantee the progress. -- Collectivism is what must be the tool and the goal of the progress. Individualism leads to corruption, crimes, unemployment, high death rate and other terrible things.
5) Democracy leads to prosperity. -- On the contrary, democracy means the power of rich. In capitalism the rich become richer and the poor become poorer.
6) Communism is like fascism. -- It’s capitalism, that chooses between democracy and fascism. Communism and fascism are in absolute opposition.
7) Why should someone decide what I may do and what I may not, as it always happens under communist regimes? -- That is always so in any regime; so nothing can be done with that. Bad traits of human nature must be suppressed by the responsible state.
8) Communism is economically ineffective. -- West democracy, as we can see now, is worse than communism also in economic terms.

Who are Russians?

1) Who are Russians? Who are Russian women? Who are Russian men?
2) Why others think of us in terms and images like: communism, vodka, laziness, Gulag, mafia, balalaika and bears on the streets?
3) Do Russians have the national idea? What is Russian national anti-idea?
4) Why don’t western people like Russians?
5) Do Russians have inner freedom?
6) Do Russians have competitive advantages?
7) Are Russians hospitable and amicable?
8) Are Russians open? Why do Russians not like psychologists and psycho-analysts?
9) Is the Russian language really great and powerful? Do we really have a great culture?
10) Can we talk about Russians of different nationalities or is such a talk nonsensical?
11) Is it true that the Soviet Union was an empire of Russians?
12) Is there something good in nationalism and Nazism? Should Russia be for Russians? Should Russian culture and language have any special support?
13) Does Russian diaspora have any future?
14) What is Russian religion? Is it the Orthodox Christian Church? Is it Paganism? Is it communism?
15) What is awaiting us in the future?

Coming back to the thirties, who are we going to elect?

We are in the past now, and we have an election. It’s up to us to decide who will be the leader of our country. Bolsheviks have just offered Stalin. After our discussion, we are going to vote for Stalin or for somebody else. Who is better than Stalin?
1) Stalin took very poor, almost illiterate agrarian country and turned it into a cosmic superpower.
2) Stalin accomplished the industrialization. But for the industrialization we would have been defeated by Nazis. The collectivization was also necessary for the industrialization.
3) Stalin destroyed NEP. But NEP had to be destroyed. Nations can’t exist if new capitalists show open disrespect to common people of labor.
4) It was not Stalin, who started repressions. Atrocities started by capitalists in the time of the First World War, and they could not have been stopped at once. In that harsh time there were less people in prisons than there are today.
5) Indeed, people were tortured in prisons in his time, but at least it was not done as openly and cynically as it is done today in our country and in America.
6) Retreat-blocking detachments were necessary in the time of World War Two.
7) Could other leaders have created the atomic bomb? And what would have happened if we should not have created the A-bomb in time.
8) The moment the international situation had normalized, the Soviet Union began to build lodging for common people. Nobody else would have done it, but communists.
9) Free education, free medical care, full employment… All that was destroyed by his (Stalin’s) opponents… So…
10) It is said that Stalin murdered real communists like Buharin, Zinovyev, Tuhachevsky and many others, but they were not real communists, they were traitors.
11) Stalin was a tyrant. But how else can we motivate our people to build a great state and to defend themselves against the hostile encirclement and against our homemade exploiters?

Nazism

1) Nationalism vs Fascism and Nazism
2) Economic roots
3) Psychohistorical roots
4) WW I – the first global civil war of elites against their own nations, their own men
5) WW I as a perverted (sadistic) sexual fantasy of elites
6) WW II – the revenge of masculinity
7) Nazism and Capitalism – competition without responsibility
8) Nazism vs Jews
9) Nazism vs Russians
10) Nazism vs Men (Feminism)
11) Nazism vs Communism
12) Nazism and Democracy
13) Democracy vs Totalitarianism
14) Nazism vs Christianity
15) Nazism and sexual perversions
16) Adam Smith, Darwin and Nazism
17) Nazism, Oedipus and suicidal national projects
18) Definition of Nazism

6. Religion, belief, justice

В начало

Death penalty

1) Does the society have a right to kill people? You are not God, why should you take such a responsibility?
2) Is it possible to avoid judicial errors?
3) Must all participants of the judicial process be accountable for their errors? If they really are, do you believe there will ever be even one death verdict?
4) Are you ready to become an executioner? Do you want somebody to suffer that job? Do you want someone to enjoy such a job?
5) Can the death penalty be real retaliation for the most gruesome crimes? Who are worse, worst criminals or respectful politicians who make suffer hundreds of millions of people and die very many of them? Should we execute our reformers?
6) Death penalty is an easy way to get away with your crimes, because in fact it's not a penalty at all? The life sentence is a much more severe punishment, isn't it?
7) You are not for torture? Are you? Aren't they the same - the arguments against torture and those against capital punishment?
8) Can the fear of penalty be a constraining factor for potential criminals?
9) Are you not afraid that our people will become even crueler after our society will accept the cruelest laws?
10) May we execute women? What about pregnant women? But if it's only a man, it's ok, isn't it? Men are not real humans, are they?
11) If the society has brought up criminals, are criminals really guilty? What do we punish them for?
12) May we kill insane people? Can a sane one ever become a murderer?
13) If there exists the death penalty, isn't it the easiest way for some criminal to commit suicide just to commit worst crimes and wait for the death penalty as for relief.

Do we deserve to be respected? Entrepreneurs attack - can you defend yourself?

You don't deserve to be respected if you don't respect yourself. Do you really respect yourself? Let us pass through some questions...

1) You are a slave if for the most part of your life you do what you don't want to. Freedom is not what is given - freedom is what is taken. It is not your right - it is you duty, to be free. If you are not free - it is your guilt.
2) You are a slave if you have a boss (it's better to say: your boss has you). It was your choice to become a subordinate, wasn't it?
3) If you earn your money, you sell your life (and so you are a miserable creature). Big money can't be earned. It can be only made. In fact, workaholics are lazybones who ready to make stupid work for years but never ready to think.
4) You are probably proud of having a diploma, but institutes never give their students real, practical knowledge, they just prepare slaves.
5) Your value can be measured by money you get. Specialists like accountants, physicians and teachers don't get much money because nobody really needs their job.
6) One, who says he doesn't want to have big money is a liar.
7) If you have to count your money, then you are a beggar and it is your fault and your guilt. And if you are a male, then what kind of male you are? Who will ever love you?
8) Your life depends entirely on you. You are the only cause of all your misfortunes. You could change your life but you don't want to look down upon yourself. You must be responsible for your life and blame yourself for your misfortunes.
9) If you are not successful yet, it's because you don't want to pay to masters who could teach you. If you are not successful yet, it is because of your greediness.
There are 1 700 Google results for “If you are so clever, show me your money”. There are 157 000 Google results for “Если ты такой умный, почему ты такой бедный?” Take into account that English Internet is much bigger than Russian. It is Russian saying, not American, isn’t it?

Entrepreneurs say:
In our world there are only entrepreneurs and subhumans. Subhumans must be disrespected and exploited. That's the only way to make them become real humans. You also must look down upon yourself - only that will motivate you to work on yourself.

Ecclesiast said:
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 favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.

Life after life

1) Does life after life exist? Why do you think so?
2) Is it important, whether afterlife exists?
3) What is waiting for us, coming back to the Earth, Paradise, Hell, Purgatory, traveling to other stars and planets?
4) What is waiting for you?
5) Would you like to come back to this life?
6) Which country would you prefer for your next reincarnation?
7) What sex would you choose?
8) What fate would you choose for your eternal life? What is Paradise for you?
9) If God does not exist, does it mean that everything is allowed?
10) What advantages and disadvantages does the belief in afterlife give us?
11) If you were God would you create the Hell for sinners?
12) Justice does not exist on the Earth. Does it exist above it?
13) Is this world spiritual or is its spirituality only a product of our imagination?

Religions and Tolerance

1) Is it right that all religions are good? Is it right that all religions are evil? Does the one and the only right religion exist?
2) Can a religion help a person, or is it only some kind of opium, which never helps but only gives us illusions of help?
3) If to take into account all the history is the role of religions rather positive or negative?
4) France banned all ostentatious religious school clothing. Is it a right decision? What will be its positive and negative consequences?
5) Fascism is also a religion, isn't it? Must it be banned? If yes, then what about the liberty of faith?
6) Do we have a right to ban a religion that hasn't led to Holocaust yet? What should we do if its leaders behave like Nazis behaved before they had come to power?
7) What should we do with a religion, if its Scripture describes atrocities as a norm and God's will? What should we do with religions which have practiced atrocities? Should we ban all religions then?
8) Are there principle differences between atheism and religions? Should it be respected like any other religion? Should we care about "religious feelings" of atheists?
9) Can someone be clever, honest and a clergyman simultaneously?

The Ten Commandments

The Ten words
The Decalogue
The Ten Tables
1) I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.
2) You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.
3) You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.
4) Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. For six days you shall labour and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work-you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.
5) Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.
6) You shall not kill.
7) You shall not commit adultery.
8) You shall not steal.
9) You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
10) You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Truth and lies

1) Do there exist people who never lie?
2) Is lying always a bad thing; or sometimes is it ok?
3) Do you lie only when it is necessary; or does it happen somehow by itself?
4) Do you trust people who never lie? Don't you think that they have something devilish in their souls and somehow they are the most dangerous?
5) We lie only to those who we fear. Don't lie and you will never fear anyone.
6) Does everyone have his own truth? Does there exist only one truth?
7) If we lie, will it inevitably lead to karma consequences? Will we always have to pay for lying even in time of our current life?
8) Can truth be offensive?
9) Is it good advice to always say everything what you think? If so, do we have to choose proper language?
10) Can a person be objective?
11) Why do we like baron Munchausen?

Are insane people responsible?

1) Are lunatics, mentally sick, insane people accountable for their deeds?
2) Do we have the right to restrict freedom of mentally sick people before they have committed any crime?
3) Why maniacs are always found sane by experts? If none of them is really sane; should they all be set free?
4) Do you trust psychiatrists, the experts?
5) Is being drunk a mitigating circumstance? Is it an aggravating circumstance?
6) What about alcoholic mania (delirium tremens)?
7) Being sane or insane, isn’t it our deep choice? Someone lies to others, then to oneself; then he does it more and more perseveringly... Schizophrenia can be a result of such a practice, can’t it?
8) Should we forgive children, old people, and women for their crimes?
9) Are parents responsible for what their children have done?
10) Will God ever forgive any crime?

Why did you come to this world?

1) Why did you come to this world? Did it happen somehow by itself without your participation?
2) Are you a mortal or eternal creature?
3) Do you have some mission? Do such missions exist at all?
4) What will you do if it suddenly (and forever) became unnecessary to work and to study?
5) How do you combat boredom?
6) Do you grieve over lost time?
7) To try to save the world - is it a good idea? What do you think of those who always try to?
8) What do you need first of all, success, happiness, beatitude?
9) Do you value what you got easily?

Should all religions be tolerated?

1) What’s the difference between ideology and religion?
2) Is Nazism a religion? Should it be tolerated?
3) Is nationalism a religion? Should it be tolerated?
4) Should communism be tolerated?
5) Is atheism a religion?
6) If there are atrocities in the history of a religion, is it enough to ban this religion?
7) If religion’s sacred scripture describes atrocities as godly deeds, should that religion be banned?
8) Referring to the two previous points, should Christianity be banned?
9) Referring to the same arguments, should democracy be banned?
10) Should Islam be banned with its sharia laws, with its polygamy and with its terrorism?
11) Should totalitarian sects be banned?
12) Should demonstrative attributes of religions be banned in public places?
13) Should things like circumcision be accepted?
14) Is tolerance a virtue? Isn’t it a choice of cowards and losers who are doomed to be beaten?

Karma

1) Do you believe in reincarnations?
2) Do people pay for what they have done even in their current life?
3) Is it possible to lie and not to damage karma?
4) Do casualties and play of chance exist in the nature?
5) Do you feel that there exists some connection between some people that can be called karma partnership?
6) Do you have karma partners?
7) What matters, what you do or in what you believe?
8) Can we voluntarily change our religion, belief, faith?
9) What is Good and what is Bad from the karmic point of view?
10) Can we voluntarily choose to love or not to love?
11) Do we have a right to pay our respect voluntarily? Or should we respect those who deserve to be respected?
12) Shall we be forced to pay all our debts sooner or later?
13) Do you believe that we should resolve all our conflicts while we are alive?
14) Should we forgive the debts of others?

Should we try to save this world?

1) Is this world the best one of all possible worlds?
2) What would the world be like if suffering and pain should not exist?
3) Should we sacrifice our lives for some great goals?
4) Do people have missions or is it just a product of their imagination?
5) What can we say about characters of the saviors?
6) Do people like missioners, saviors?
7) Do all attempts to improve the life inevitably lead to bad consequences?
8) Christ, Mars, Lenin, Stalin, Roosevelt, Freud, Dostoyevsky, Kurchatov… Has any one of them changed the world to better?

Religion and sexuality

1) Who is more sexual, God of Devil?
2) Who would you prefer to talk with if it were absolutely safely, with God or with Devil? What would you ask them (about)?
3) Who are smarter, demons or angels?
4) Are nuns sexual?
5) Do you like an idea of Rasputin to combine sex and prayers?
6) Would you like to embrace Virgin Maria?
7) Christ was not really humiliated, he was not raped. Would you forgive him his being ready to undergo even that (like it happens in Russian prisons)?
8) What pleasures are possible in the heaven? What sufferings? What about the hell?
9) Can smoking people imagine a paradise without smoking? Do you have any addiction that can make a paradise not a paradise?

Atheism

1) Do you believe in God? Do you believe in Bible? Do you believe in church? Do you trust popes and priests?
2) Do you believe that Devil or Satan exists?
3) Is it a question of any importance at all? Why?
4) If God exists it looks like he has left humans long ago and is not coming back. So, why should we not forget about Him?
5) What religions do you like and why?
6) Do you like religious people? Do you like atheists? Do you like indifferent people?
7) Why do people believe in God?
8) Do some people believe in God (or in atheism) subconsciously?
9) How can we justify and explain the evil on the Earth?
10) Is God a man or a woman? Does he look like a human?
11) Is atheism a crime against God?
12) Is being religious a crime against God?
13) What makes people deny His existence? Is atheism a kind of a religion?
14) If God doesn’t exist then everything is allowed, isn’t it? Why not?
15) Believe and science, are they compatible?
17) Do Good and Evil exist?

Yoga

1) Have you ever practiced yoga? What are your impressions? Do you (will you) practice it?
2) Do you believe in reincarnation, sansara and karma? Do you believe in materialism, Marxism, science? Do you believe in Christianity?
3) Do you believe that there are no restrictions of human capacities? You have only to develop them day by day, don’t you?
4) Do you believe that our thoughts can directly influence the circumstances of our lives?
5) What do you think of vegetarianism? What do you think of fast and hunger?
6) What do you think of asceticism and ascetics?
7) Should we spend our life on self-development? Do you have better ideas about what to live for?
8) Let us compare yoga and Christianity. Which of them do you like more and why?
9) What do you think about Tantra?
10) Would you like to practice yoga or tantra in a group?
11) Does yoga make people closer or farther from each other?
12) Does yoga affect the sexuality?
13) Yoga or sports… Which of them is it better to choose and why?
14) What do you know and think about other yogas?
15) Do you have your own yoga (sadhana)?

Belief in God

1) Do you believe in existence of God?
2) Do you believe in existence of many gods?
3) Are atheists and communists also believers?
4) Do you believe in science?
5) Does God exist? Where does the logical analysis lead? Should we trust our logic?
6) Does materialism equal to belief that God exists, but he is an idiot?
7) Does God or any other deity interfere in human affairs or has God left us forever?
8) Why does Evil exist?

Belief in Church

1) Is your belief your own choice or other people (probably parents and teachers) have decided for you in what you should believe? Should we be with our nations in our beliefs?
2) Can one belong to two different churches simultaneously?
3) Should Christians doubt their religion? What about Muslims? What about terrorists?
4) If our religion tells us one thing and our conscience another whom should we follow?
5) Do we need mediators between us and God? Can we find the right way ourselves?
6) Do you believe in Church, in popes, in Holy Scriptures?
7) Do you believe in The Ten Commandments (The Decalogue)?
8) Are religions responsible for crimes the believers (or so called believers) have committed?
9) What is the difference between religions and sects?
10) Should the church pay taxes?
11) Has the Orthodox Church discredited itself?

Do you believe?

1) Do you believe in AIDS, swine flu, bird flu, atypical pneumonia and other new disastrous plagues like those?
2) Do you believe that people's activity causes the global warming? Do you believe in possibility of the nuclear winter catastrophe? Do you think we can fix the first plague with the second one?
3) What about ozone holes? Isn't it scaring?
4) Do you worry about comets, asteroids and supernovas?
5) Do you believe that democracy is the ideal and the only possible form of governing?
6) Do you believe in free market? Do you believe that self-interested competition in the free market would tend to benefit society by keeping prices low?
7) Do you think our government is really clever and professional? Or are they just ignoramuses?
8) Do you think economists and other experts are able to predict economic crisises and the situation in the global market?
9) Do you believe in Darwin’s theory of evolution? Do you think evolution really exists?
10) Do you think inoculations are good for the health of people? Do you inoculate against flu?
11) Do you think that in case of some disease you should go to a doctor and do not try self-treatment and self-medication?
12) Do you believe that Christ really lived so long ago? Do you believe that the texts of the Bible do not change throughout the centuries?

7. Dreams, magic

В начало

What are our dreams?

1) Are you sure you are not dreaming now? Perhaps you are sure, but why?
2) Do you have repeating dreams? Do you have dreams which continue previous ones?
3) Do you believe in fortune telling dreams? Do you know how to unriddle dreams?
4) Did dreams ever give you valuable information?
5) Is it possible to meet each other in dreams? Is it possible to find yourself in somebody else's dream?
6) Who are the beings we encounter in our dreams? Do they have their own life independent from us?
7) Dreams and death, don't they belong to the same realm? Is it possible to go into deep dream and never find way back?
8) Can our dreams influence the reality?
9) What about Freud? Are our dreams only reflections of our sexual fantasies?

Magic

1) Do you believe in vampires and goblins? What about energetic vampires? What about fortune-telling, hoodoo and other things of that kind?
2) Do you remember any miracles in your life?
3) Did you do spiritualistic experiments in your childhood?
4) If it happened to you to find yourself alone in the winter night in a desolated hut, wouldn't you feel some superstitious horror?
5) Can we believe in magic subconsciously? Do you have examples of such a belief?
6) Can dreams interfere with our reality? Can people have real meetings in dreams?
7) Do you believe in hypnosis?
8) Is shamanic practice only a madness; or is it a real contact with the reality unknown to modern people?
9) Can we use magic in our practical life? Can we use at least the belief in magic?

Mastering our dreams

1) Everyone is supposed to have dreams. Do you remember yours?
2) How do you know you are not dreaming now?
3) Have you ever had lucid dreams? (You are dreaming and understanding that you are dreaming)
4) What would you do in your lucid dream?
5) Dreams and death, don't they belong to the same realm?
6) Can we meet each other in our dreams? Can we enter dreams of others?
7) Is it possible to go into the dream and never come back?
8) How can we recall our dreams? Why is it so difficult sometimes?
9) Can you order dreams for yourself?
10) What should we do in case of nightmare?

If you could become a magic creature

1) If you could become a werewolf, what kind of a werewolf would you prefer to become?

~A polar bear?
~A killer whale or a cachalot?
~A lion?
~An elephant?
~A camel?
~An owl?
~A falcon?
~A seagull?
~A wolf?
~A bat?
~Something else?
2) Would you wish to become a vampire?
3) Would you like to be a forest spirit?
4) What about becoming a mermaid?
5) Would you like to become a witch?
6) Would you like to go to a witches' Sabbath?

8. Languages, reading, self-development, teachers

В начало

English teachers and tutors

1) Talking about studies, what can we do by ourselves and what cannot?
2) How can a teacher help us?
3) Do we need a teacher to correct our mistakes?
4) Can you improve your pronunciation without a teacher?
5) Can a coach train somebody who is better than he himself (she herself)?
6) What do we need exams for? Do we really need them?
7) Do we need somebody who will motivate us or we can motivate ourselves?
8) Do we need native speakers?
9) Can we study languages the way children do it?
10) Can we do well without communication groups?

Foreign Languages

1) How fast can we study new languages?
2) Do there exist any magic techniques; or should we work a lot?
3) Should we invent our own system of studying languages? Isn't it better to choose some system from those which already exist?
4) What are the best ways you could recommend?
5) How do you study new languages, with tutorials or with original books, movies, radio broadcasts, and real conversations?
6) Is it possible to buy a language? The more expensive tutorial the better it is, isn't it?
7) To motivate ourselves is it better to rely upon our positive emotions or upon the negative ones?

Reading

1) Do you read? If yes, what do you usually read and what are you reading now?
2) Tell us about books you reread.
3) Was it interesting for you to read school books?
4) What books have influenced your life most?
5) What is your favorite fairy tale? Which one comes to your mind first?
6) What is reading for you first of all?

~ Just a fun?
~ Escaping from the reality?
~ Getting new information?
~ Participation in a discourse?
~ Self-education?
~ Search for new ideas?
~ Communication with the author?

7) How do you look at the author, from beneath or from above, as a critic or as a pupil?
8) Reading and thinking, aren't they opposite things?
9) Do you write?
10) Have you ever tried to read like an actor, like an announcer? Have you ever recorded your readings?
11) Do you know secrets of speed reading? Do you want to know them?
12) Do you know secrets of speed thinking? Do you want to know them?
13) Can our memory be improved?

Speed Reading Principles

1) Back-skipping, regressions... Go only ahead. What are the minuses and the pluses of that principle? How can this principle be used not only in reading?
2) Can we use the mentioned principle for foreign languages acquisition?
3) Omit inessential. Do texts have excessive, unnecessary, needless information?
4) Anticipation. We don't read every letter - we usually guess. We can mix the letters in every word and yet we will be able to easily understand every word. We don’t need to read every letter in the word; we don’t need to read every word either.
5) Which facility should we develop first of all, anticipation (guessing) or reading letter by letter?
6) Do we need to articulate while reading? Do we need to suppress the articulation? How can we do it?
7) Multitasking. Can we do two things simultaneously? What facilities do we develop while doing two things simultaneously?
8) We can use peripheral vision. How can we develop it?
9) Do we need to practice special exercises or it is enough just to read?
10) Is it a good idea to use some drugs or stimulators to improve our ability to read fast?
11) What do we have to change in our lives if we want to improve our reading skills?

Speed Reading

1) Do we need to read a lot? Do we need a lot of information? Today it is more actual to protect ourselves from excessive information, isn’t it?
2) Can everybody develop the speed reading skills? If someone can do something then everyone can?
3) What principles of speed reading do you know?
4) Can speed reading be used for foreign languages acquisition?
5) Can opposite principles be used for that?
6) Texts are so different. Some of them are simple; some of them are very difficult. So, can the speed of reading be really measured some way?
7) There are three different skills: reading, understanding and remembering; should they be taught apart?
8) If after speed reading we need to spend our time for thinking about what we have just read; and also we need to rest. So, does speed reading give us any real advantage?

Foreign languages and educational books

1) What do we need teaching books for?
2) Must a teaching book be a self-teacher?
3) Is boring work a necessity; or can we study absolutely without boring work?
4) If we don't have tutorials, what materials do we have to obtain?
5) Is it necessary to study grammar?
6) Is it necessary to learn words?
7) How many words an hour (a day) can we learn?
8) Do we need transcription?
9) Do we need translate anything; or can we do without translation at all?
10) Do you consider parallel texts to be helpful for learners?

Self-development

1) Should we care about our self-development?
2) What in the world is worth of care?
3) Is self-development about immortal soul or is it about adaptation to our terrestrial life?
4) What do you think of yoga?
5) What do you think of Christianity?
6) What about speed reading?
7) What about foreign languages acquisition?
8) Is business a way of self-development?
9) What about psychology?
10) What about NLP?
11) What about politics?

Mini-seminar Accelerated Reading

Here are some very wide known principles of speed reading. Let us look at them critically…

1) We can read faster and understand better. To some people it is given by nature, but everyone can develop one’s facilities. There is a lot of evidence that people who visit speed reading courses improve their skills. If you believe it, why don’t you practice it?
2) Speed of reading can be measured.
3) Texts contain unnecessary, excessive words and sentences, and those should be skipped.
4) Don’t skip back when you read. Skipping back (regressions) is a bad habit.
5) Do not articulate.
6) Develop and use wide vision.
7) Develop and use anticipation - guess words and sentences.
8) Use integral algorithm - proceed information you are getting by answering a little set of standard questions, like those: author, publisher, date, dominant (main thought), novelty, how the information can be used.
Now, tell us about your experience of speed reading.

Mini-seminar: NLP; Neuro-linguistic programming

(of Richard Bandler, John Grinder, Milton Erickson, Virginia Satir, Fritz Perls, Robert Dilts)
1) You can submerge everyone into trance without even asking for his (her) consent.
2) Recognize ineffective patterns of behavior and replace them with the effective ones.
3) What is trance? (catalepsy, dissociation, concentration, hallucinations, amnesia)
4) What is rapport? (connection, relation, especially harmonious or sympathetic one)
5) Tuning, pacing, leading…
6) Overloading consciousness…
7) Breaking patterns…
8) Pointing at the trance… If there is no trance yet, behave as if it exists already…
9) Anchors and anchoring techniques…
10) Audio, video, and kinesthetic systems (submodalities). Eyes’ movements.
11) Triple spiral, diffused suggestion, life line, metamodel, reframing and other tricks…
12) Working on consciousness, motivating to trance
13) Creating motivation and cooperation
14) Mystic language, Milton-model, meta-model.
15) Taking authoritative position
16) Two types of trance (positive and negative)
17) Tuning from below, tuning from above
18) Zero reaction
19) Eyes’ movements
20) Submodalities and distance
21) Authority

Who are masters?

1) People are either masters or slaves. How do you like this idea? How do you like it?
2) Do masters need slaves? Do slaves need masters?
3) What betrays slaves? They are right people, they hide their emotions, they speak quietly, they have closed gestures, and they have humble presence and their IMHO (not IMO)… What else?
4) What shows out that the man is a master?
5) Is it safe to be a master? Is it safe to be a slave?
6) Why do people like to obey? Do masters like to obey?
7) Are sexual liberty (being unrestraint, unconstraint) and sexual discontent (dissatisfaction, displeasure, discontentedness) easily visible?
8) What does it mean to be a master to oneself?
9) One used to be a slave and –imagine - he has suddenly got some power… Will he become a real master?
10) Is it possible that someone is a master in one company of people and a slave in another company?
11) How do masters react to other masters?
12) Do real masters serve to some idea or do they serve only to themselves?
13) Will the master willingly give up his position to someone who is better for it?
14) Is it natural for the master to be socially responsible?
15) How many masters does our society have?
16) Is it possible to become a master by one’s own will?

How to become a master?

1) Do you want to be a master? What for?
2) The master is the one who is afraid of nothing. Can we hide our fears?
3) Can we overcome our fears?
4) Is fake boldness (similar to that of tiger tamers) typical for real masters or should we choose other strategies?
5) Can someone who doesn’t feel like a real master look like a real one? Will anybody believe to such an imitation?
6) How can we improve our voice, statue, movement (plastic, gesture), mimic?
7) Will ever real master use somebody else’s authority (diploma, social position etc)?
8) Should we learn to be sexually unrestraint even if our demands are socially prohibited?
9) Professionalism or self-presentation, what is more important?
10) Is it a good idea to say all what we think, or should we control our speech? Why do people stammer (stutter)?
11) Can you be a master to others if you are not a master to yourself?
12) Will ever a master conform to slaves?

The realm of our thoughts

This topic is pretty important for those who study foreign languages. One day you will start to communicate with yourself in your second language. Where will you go in the world of your thoughts? How will you speak with yourself?

1) About what do you usually think when you have nothing to do?
2) Does your thinking sound like an interesting story? Are you a writer?
3) What do you recall when you go into your past? What does your recall consist of?
~ episodes, happenings?
~ people?
~ surrounding
~ feelings and emotions?
~ perception of your life of those days?
~ future in the past?
4) What is the present for you? Does your mind usually go from one that-moment-situation to another, or do you usually perceive your life in whole?
5) When you think about your work do you feel comfortable?
6) What does your future look like? Is it only planning or is it a set of pictures of your imaginary future?
7) Do you discuss something with somebody in your mind? Do you create your own concepts?
8) Do you have erotic fantasies? Do they make whole scenes? Do you put those images into words?
9) Do you recall your dreams? Do your dreams consist of detached episodes or are they parts of a consistent realm?

How to learn vocabulary

1) How many words a day can we learn?
2) Will the words be learnt by themselves? Is it possible to remember new words after the first time you see them?
3) What is the main problem of the second language acquisition, the lexis or the grammar?
4) To what degree can we learn words from the first time? Can they make our active vocabulary at once?
5) What are the ways to activate our vocabulary?
6) The word consist of (1) how to write, (2) how to pronounce, (3) what it means, (4) when and how it is used. So what are the ways of improving our memory? What about all NLP submodalities (visual, auditory, kinesthetic).
7) What are lexical units, words or their combinations?
8) Should the words we study be connected to some context?
9) Method of phonetic associations.
10) The Twenty Fifth Frame.
11) Paper flashcards and how to work with them. Rules of reading and special symbols instead of the phonetic transcription. The Double Rotation method.
12) Electronic flashcards, their advantages and disadvantages.
13) How to improve our memory. Basic movements. Vectors.

14) Relaxation.

15) Using psychedelics and other kinds of chemistry.
Accent
1) Is it really important to have a good accent?
2) What is accent? Intonation, liaisons, pronunciation? Music, word connections, phonetics? Something else?
3) Does the transcription present the real phonetics correctly?
4) Can we use Russian letters to describe English phonetics?
5) Can we become perfect? What should we do for that? How long will it take?
6) What help do you expect from teachers?
7) What are the best programs for approving pronunciation? What would you want from them?
7) American and British pronunciation... Let us compare them.
8) What can we say about the English speech? Let us compare it with those of other languages.

I really hope we shall not accuse all teachers? Or shall we?

1) It is said that those who can’t do anything real choose to teach. Is it so?
2) They don’t get good salary because they do not deserve it. Do they?
2) Those chose to become teachers who like to restrict freedom of people.
3) The school is a place where pupils suffer violence and abuse and nobody is going to protect them.
4) School tries to make people standard.
5) If all pupils by some miracle became successful teachers would immediately increase the level of their demands. So they will restore the equilibrium and turn fifty percent of pupils into losers.
6) For a pupil it is impossible to learn everything teachers demand and to stay a sane person. Teachers demand far too much.
7) Their tutorials and textbooks are extremely boring. Learning by them is unnatural.
8) The paid education is a crime against humanity.
9) The compulsory education is a violation of human rights.

Magic of English verbs

To Have or to Be or to Do etc…

What associations come to your mind when you hear modal verbs?

There can exist a typology of people. People of Must, people of Can, people of Need and so on… Erich Fromm began to deal with that in his book «Haben oder Sein» (To Have or to Be).

Must: Immanuel Kant and Joseph Stalin. Army, war and preparing to war. Clear streets, no beggars. Prisons and schools.

Can: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Henry Ford. Creativity and accomplishment.

Could: Gorbachev. World of lost opportunities and pieces of advice that are never followed.

May: Permissions, democracy, soft promises (that never come true).

Might: Not taking responsibility. Soft regrets about lost opportunities.

Will: Prediction of future, willingness, fantasies, emotions, spontaneity.

Shall: Oracle, procurator, public prosecutor, fate, doom, commandments. Prescriptive grammar.

Do: Everyday work. Brezhnev’s socialism. Invisible but omnipresent activity.

Do: Instructions, accounting, codes, order.

Need: Beggars, poverty, lack of freedom.

Should: Strong prescriptions. Self-assured pieces of advice. No privacy.

Would: preferences, past and rather pleasant routine, readiness to activity and cooperation that usually don't happen.

Dare: Recklessness, risk, fear, adventures, gambling, duels, impudence, real freedom of speech.

Have: Results, money, being old, bankers, exploitation, today's capitalism, necessity to do unpleasant things.

Be: existence here and now, emotions, reality, beauty, parades, demonstrations, effective studying, readiness to future existence.

Want: Sex and games, restaurants, traveling, bread and spectacles, entertainment, laziness and boredom.

Why do we study English?

1. Why do we study English?
2. Is it a good idea to immigrate to UK?
3. Is it a good idea to immigrate to any other English speaking country?
4. Do all Brits think that all Russians are bunch of thieving immoral law breaking hooligans and don't want them in UK?
5. Who are more barbarian, Brits or Russians?
6. What is awaiting Europe?
7. What is awaiting Russia?
8. What makes a good English teacher?
9. Do native really distinguish between man and men?

Thousand words a day, is it possible?

It is about studying partially new and partially known words. And it is about memorizing up to the optimal level and no "better" than that. And it is about your memory after you have already learned and trained special techniques. It is mostly about gaining the passive vocabulary but it is also about activating the passive vocabulary.

1) To remember means to forget right
2) Relaxation and removing unnecessary movements
3) Consciousness or subconscious? Can we memorize voluntarily, intentionally? How can we motivate our memory?
4) Make your subconscious work and you will never get tired
5) We never forget things completely. How can we utilize that fact?
6) How well should you try to memorize words from the first time?
7) Using mnemonics; is it the right direction?
8) Flashcards
9) Double rotation
10) Rules of reading and very simple special signs instead of transcription
11) How to learn rules of reading? The same flashcards and double rotation.
12) Flashcards and our computer programs
13) Dictation mode and blind typing
14) Shamanic techniques
15) Multitasking, trance, strong and long drive (keif, high, thrill, rush ets…)
16) How much drive would you want?
17) What does the word consist of? What are our subtasks then?
18) Using 3 channels
19) Blind typing or handwriting?
20) Writing down the words from the context and how it should be done. Should we take words only from the context?
21) Memorizing at the moment of reading
22) Alternative techniques? With bare hands? How can we cope with words without computer programs?
23) Developing new native language in visual channel (and in the kinesthetic one)
24) Improving your sleeping
25) Forgetting about your conflicts and trouble
26) Not overeating and other health relating things
27) Brain massage
28) The power of young sportsmen
29) No illusions: knowing words is not enough to become a fluent speaker
30) How fast can foreign languages be learnt?

Why do you study foreign languages?

1. Why do you study foreign languages?
2. Is studying the foreign language a question of discipline for you? Do you force yourself? Do you try to coax yourself? Do you moderate yourself when you can't stop? Is the foreign language for you a job or a hobby?
3. Language is knowledge. It is grammar and lexis. Is it also phonetics for you or do you ignore this aspect? Are there other aspects?
4. Do you associate language with sport? What skills do you train? Speaking, reading, writing, listening? All of them? What about thinking? What about additional skills like translating, teaching, communicating, passing exams? Is the language for you like sport games or bodybuilding?
5. Is the language kind of sex or has it nothing to do with it? Are there some similarities? Can sex be substituted by languages?
6. Do you agree that language can be spiritual practice? Can it be a way to highest levels of existence? Can it be Yoga?
7. Language is war. Do you learn to speak to fight for the place under the Sun?

9. Miscellaneous

В начало

Free time

1) Do you have free time? Do you need it?
2) Do you want to become a workaholic and to devote the most part of your life to your work?
3) Why can people so easily say that they don't have free time, while nobody is proud of not having free money?
4) Do you spend your free time for self-development?
5) Having come home after work, can you forget about all needs and duties and just to relax?
6) How do you relax?
7) Would you like to have more acquaintances?

Drugs

1) Are drugs the absolute evil? Can they be used for something positive, not only for self-destruction?
2) Alcohol is also a drug. Coffee and nicotine are also psychedelics. Should the state forbid drinking, smoking, and coffee? What about the advertising of alcohol and tobacco?
3) Did you ever try drugs? Would you try some drug if you were given an opportunity?
4) Have you ever seen to what drug addiction leads? What was your impression?
5) Are all drugs addictive? Which addiction stronger, physical or psychological?
6) Is it right that one who has tried it only once will inevitably want to try it once more?
7) Can some drugs open a door to unknown realms of our psyches?
8) Is it a good idea to legalize soft drugs? What about legalization of all kind of drugs?
9) Does the state have a right to intervene in our lives and dictate us what we may do and what we may not?
10) Having to choose between solitude and drugs, what will a teenager choose?
11) Will it be so bad if the most defective part of the population dies out because of drug usage?
12) What is the war against drugs in reality? Is it a real war or just an advertisement of drugs? Do states really interested in extinguishing narcomafia?
13) The air is also a drug, isn't? Can it be used as a drug?

What would you do if you became almost omnipotent?

1) Would you take power into your hands?
2) Would you try to change something in our world?
3) Would you ask God any questions?
4) Would you punish bad guys?
5) What would you do for pleasure, for entertainment?
6) Would you like to live forever? What could your paradise be like?
7) What games would you play?
8) Would you travel into the past or into the future?
9) Who would you like to talk with?

Animal experimentation

1) -- It is necessary to experiment on animals if we want to develop medical science and new drugs. If we don’t test drugs on animals we have to test them on humans. Is it normal to test drugs on men, women, children? What about testing on criminals?
1) -- Who said that human rights are more sacred than animal rights? If humans want to experiment on somebody, let them experiment on themselves.
2) -- There exist human ways of experimenting: avoiding unnecessary experiments, using anesthesia, creating good conditions for experimental animals and so on.
2) -- On practice it won’t work. If people are permitted to do experiments on animals, there will be unnecessary experiments, cruel experiments, bad conditions, and so on.
3) -- If we are going to protect animal rights, we have first to forbid slaughter of animals that is practiced always and everywhere.
3) -- Animal experiments are more disgusting than slaughter.
4) -- Experiments on animals protect humans from a lot of suffering. If you have drugs you can save children, if you don’t have drugs, children will die.
4) -- Whether you will be healthy or not depends on your karma. If you managed to avoid suffering one way, you will suffer another way. If you do evil, by experimenting on animals, you will have to pay for that.
5) -- The only way to develop science and medicine and prolong human life is making experiments on animals and then on humans.
5) -- First we experiment on animals, then on human embryos, then we practice transplantation, then we buy organs from people who suffer from poverty, then we sentence criminals to death to take their organs, then we buy organs of people killed in other countries, then we kill people for their organs. We have to stop those practices from the beginning!

If you believe in evolution it is only because you chose to believe instead of thinking by yourself!

1) We mustn't believe in science, in professors! They have proved that they would confirm everything their masters want them to.
2) No sane person will ever subsidize experiments for creating any life. So nobody really believes that the life appeared by itself.
3) Genes actually are programs like computer programs. The idea that programs can be written with method of random mutations and selection is obviously absurd.
4) There is no explanation to the lack of fossils of transitional forms (half bovines half whales for example).
5) There is no explanation why millions of species have only tens of ancestors. So we very often see that only one of millions species was able to start new branch, while others were not.
6) There is no explanation to why new features developed even though they were absolutely useless at the moment of their appearance.
7) All the history of the theory of evolution is a history of things that later proved to be wrong, like mammals descended from reptiles.
8) Hypothesis that evolutions can be seen in the world of bacteria also proved to be wrong. What we see is just a selection of resistant forms which were always present in gene pool of bacteria.
9) The death of all organisms can't be explained. If everything is a question only of selection and mutation then there would have been immortal species.
10) Instead of scientific discussions evolutionists "prove" the existence of evolution by creating very "persuading" movies and cartoons.
11) So called theory of evolution has always been one of main instruments of Nazis and others of that kind.
12) The theory of evolution is a derivation of the economical theory of Adam Smith which proved to be very simplistic and wrong.

Dogs and cats

1) Do you like dogs or cats? Do you have one? Have you ever had?
2) Are men similar to cats or to dogs? Are women similar to cats or to dogs?
3) Why don’t dogs and cats like each other?
4) Do you think they are happy to live with us?
5) How intelligent are they? Who are more intelligent dogs or cats? Are they as intelligent and sensitive as people? Can they really love or are their emotions different from those of people? Do you understand them?
6) Do they have their ethics?
7) In what aspects are they better than humans?
8) Is it OK to beat dogs or cats?
9) What personal characteristics do cat lovers and dog lovers have? Who rule our state?
10) Should having a big dog be restricted like having a weapon? Do you believe that some breeds are more dangerous than others?
11) Are you afraid of dogs? Have you ever been bitten by a dog? How big was your damage?
12) What should be the responsibility of dog owners? Should owners of big dogs pay insurance tax?
13) The Orthodox Church is against having dogs at home? What do you think of it?
14) Some people hate people but love animals. What do you think of them?
15) Is it a good idea to have pets instead of children?
16) What do you think of idea to learn being a boss by having a dog and bossing it?

Where and how can we rest and entertain in Moscow?

1) Where can we go in Moscow if we have free time for ourselves?
2) Do you go to the theaters or to the cinemas?
3) What about marches? What about picnics?
4) What about sports?
5) Do you know any interesting clubs?
6) Do you know any interesting sects?
7) Do you visit any seminars?
8) Do you visit your friends? How do you spend your time with them?
9) Have you ever traveled around Moscow as foreign tourists do?
10) Do you have your favorite cafes or restaurants?
11) Do you walk in parks?

Television

1) How much time do you spend on TV? What kind of broadcasts do you like?
2) Do you try to find some interesting TV-programs in internet? In youtube, for instance?
3) There are pretty many people in TV: Гордон, Дуня Смирнова and Татьяна Толстая, Собчак, Соловьев, Кучер, Пушков, Хакамада, Нагиев, Дибров, Ханга, Лолита, Чехова, Малахов, Галкин. What kind of TV-leaders do you like?
4) In what kind of TV-shows would you like to participate? By the way, it is possible. Would you like to be a TV-announcer, reporter or journalist?
5) Does any censorship exist on TV? Should it exist?
6) Do astrologists, parapsychologists, magicians, hypnotizers, priests, extremists and terrorists have a right to cheat people?
7) Black PR. Are popular figures interested in that kind of PR? Would you be interested in it?
8) Do you like pop-music? Do you like rap? (It is popular today.) Do you like jazz? (It used to be popular.) Do you like soviet songs like "Русское поле" and "С чего начинается Родина"?
9) What will the future of TV be like?

The Count of Monte Cristo

1) Would you like to become a captain? Would you like to marry a beauty?
2) How will fourteen years of prison affect a man? Won't there be some permanent changes in his sole after that?
3) Is it a good idea to try to take revenge on your offenders?
4) Is it a good idea to forgive?
5) Would you like to taste emotions of successful revenge?
6) Do you like Count of Monte Cristo?
7) To become a really happy person, is it necessary to pass through misery and misfortune?
8) Do you believe in providence, in prayer, in God's desire to use you? Would you want it to be so?

Little Red Riding Hood

1) What really happened was a sexual adventure of a man and a woman; wasn't it?
2) For whom was the end of the story unhappy? Who was the victim?
3) Did everything happen by chance?
4) How did she manage to get him?
5) How can a man protect himself from Little Red Riding Hoods?
6) What is your favorite fairy tale? What is it about?

Master and Margarita

1) What images come to your mind when you recall Master and Margarita?
2) What characters of the book do you like? Who do you not like?
3) Do the events of those ancient days have something to do with today’s reality?
4) Is Woland the evil? Is he the Devil?
5) Is Yeshua God?
6) Would you like to be a witch (witcher)? Would you like to visit Moscow with Woland this way?
7) Is it a real joy for a woman, to fly over Moscow, being naked, and then meet guests the same way?
8) Was Master a real master? He was so dependent, wasn’t he?
9) Is it right that only very lonely people can love?
10) Was Margarita a moral creature? Do you like her?

Everything that seems to be interesting

1. Did something interesting happen to you today?
2. Did new thoughts come to your mind recently?
3. How do you fight boredom?
4. Do you have some projects to accomplish? Tell us about them.
5. How much free time did you have today? How much free time do you usually have?

10. Communication Games

В начало

It is about how to begin to talk when you don't have a special topic for the conversation

1) Associations
2) Unriddling dreams
3) Psychologist
4) Coach
5) Fairy tales (for children)
6) Animals-plants-things (for children)
7) Court - to Hell or to Heaven? - for us, and for others, and for social systems
8) Will you marry me?
9) Forbidden questions

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