Shalnoff School
Пишет Илья Шальнов

Темы для дискуссий

Английский Коммуникационный Клуб на Арбате: http://www.englishclub.org.ru/ Участники сидят за столом и обсуждают предложенную тему. Есть возможность выбрать группу и тему. Общение организуется лидером. Уровень - средний и продвинутый. Встречи - каждую пятницу в семь часов вечера. Продолжительность - два часа. Плата небольшая. Вход без предварительной записи. Всю необходимую информацию можно найти на сайте клуба.

Это - написанные мною темы, которые уже дискутировались в нашем клубе. Можете ими пользоваться, если найдете собеседников. Если вы еще не набрали пассива и переходить к дискуссиям вам рано, то, как понимаете, я с удовольствием помогу вам. И инструменты, и описание, как с ними работать, и мое заинтересованное участие - всё к вашим услугам.

Democracy

All governments call their power democratic; but can anybody tell us, what the real democracy is?

1) Democracy and 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) Have 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?

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 you?
7) Dreams and death, don't they belong to the same realm? Is it possible to go into deep dream and never find back way?
8) Can our dreams influence the reality?
9) Are our dreams only reflections of our sexual fantasies?

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?
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? Can you say to your opponent what he thinks in such words that he will agree that he is understood right?
5) Are people always aware of their motives? Are they responsible for motives they are nor aware of?
6) Should we always forgive people their debts, as Christians suggest? Is it so even when someone does not recognize one's debts?
7) Will unresolved conflicts mean something in the afterlife world?
8) Do you want bad people to go to hell and to pay for what they have done?

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?

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 like 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?
Are you happy to be Russian?

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 could be 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 money make you happy?

1) Do you need to earn money to prove others or yourself that you can do it? What do you need more wealth or respect?
2) Can the real value of the person be measured by money he (or she) earns?
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 interesting and pleasant, unlimited consuming or creative work?
6) How much money does your favorite art demand? How much money does a programmer need (artist, poet)? How much money do you need?
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 the universal tool to resolve all kind of problems?

Can we create our own business?

1) Will you prefer 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 ourrselvs?
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) What do we have to start from? From producing, from selling, from creating one's image, from making relations?

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 big money can only be made?
4) Doing our business, must we be socially responsible? Do we have to worry of ecology, for example, of comfort of our workers and so on?
5) Can a fair gentleman be a businessman? Is it is impossible to be both simultaneously, what would you prefer?
6) Don’t you think it is dangerous to be a rich man?

Can you be a psychologist to yourself?

1) Do you want to be a psychologist to yourself? You will have a psychologist always and for free! Isn’t it cool?

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?

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?
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 all what is possible to subordinates?
7) Isn't it risky to give your subordinates all means of management and control?

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 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 is not successful only because of circumstances? Can everyone find possibilities if he wants to work? Can everyone find excuses if he does not want to work?
7) Do you believe our thoughts can directly influence our world? Isn't it schizophrenia?
8) Should we help talented, gifted people? Or just the opposite: should we help those who is handicapped by nature or by circumstances?
9) Does everyone have one's own gift? Are all people endowed equally by God, by Nature?

Communication

1) Why do you communicate with people?

~ To relieve your feelings?
~ To share your opinions and concepts? Do you 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?

9) What are advantages, sociability gives a person?
10) 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/stranger, what do you prefer, serious discussions or talks about nothing?
8) Is it a good idea to talk with a friend/a stranger about your problems? About your successes? Have you ever be shy of your good deeds?
9) Is it right to hide your disadvantages from close people/strangers? Your advantages?
10) Do you like to communicate with people who like to fib, exaggerate, play popular or famous persons and so on? Do you like to communicate with a person who never lies, who never exaggerates things?

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? Every literature book if built around the conflict. If our life is the art it should have its conflict, shouldn’t it?
7) Should we always forgive people their debts, as Christians suggest?
8) Will unresolved conflicts mean something in the afterlife world?
9) Do your ready to fight God?
10) Should the hell exist in the best of the worlds?

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 coincident? 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?

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 some of most gruesome crimes? Who are worse, worst criminals or respectful politicians who make suffer millions of people and die thousands 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, 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?
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 most part of you 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’s 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.

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) Is it so bad if the most defective part of 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?

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?

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 does not exist another 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? Three hours 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 smart why are you so poor? Is it a correct question?
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?

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 another one doesn't want 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?

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 on our positive emotions or on negative ones?

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 just 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.

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 people can 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?

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?

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 two higher educations and I am a recognized NLP practician 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, the respect of thousands of stupid people or the respect of some intelligent ones?

Internet-communications

1) Everyone says internet is so interesting! But what is so interesting in it for you?
2) Do you meet new people via 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 on forums or blogs? Do you read forums and blogs?
7) Do you have your own site, not a merely business one?
8) Don't you feel sometimes that the virtual life becomes more important for you than the real life?

Leadership

1) Do you want to be a leader? The desire to be a leader, where does it come from?
2) Position or work? Is leadership a position and benefits of the position, or is it work and hardness of the 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? Which image do you like more and why?
4) Do you want to be a leader in our communication club? It's quite possible if you want. You are welcome.
5) Which one of following four strategies is the best for survival?

~Trying to be the first one?
~Readiness to be the last one, but not the first one?
~Trying always to be in the middle?
~Readiness to any position?

6) What do people like more, to obey or to command? What do you prefer? Is it natural for you to be a boss?
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?

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?

Magic

1) Do you believe in vampires, goblins and so on? What about energetic vampires? What about fortune-telling, hoodoo and so on?
2) Do you remember any miracles in your life?
3) Did you have spiritualistic experiments in your childhood?
4) If it happened to you to find yourself alone in 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 believe?
6) Do you believe that dreams can interfere with our reality? Do you believe that people can have real meetings in dreams?
7) Do you believe in hypnosis?
8) Is there something real behind shaman's practice? Is it madness or a real contact with a reality unknown to modern people?
9) Can we use in our practical life magic or belief in magic?

Manipulations

1) Is it right that any communication is a manipulation? 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?

Mastering our dreams

1) Everyone is supposed to have dreams. Do you remember yours?
2) How do you know that 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?

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?

Moderalism

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 it the link to the very controversial materials of Александр Бурьяк:
http://moderalism.narod.ru/

Money and self-respect

1) Do you need to earn money to prove others and yourself that you can do it? What really matters wealth or respect, or 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 - unlimited consuming or creative work?
5) How much money does your favorite art demands? How much money do you need to have 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 the universal tool to resolve all kind of problems?

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 fine 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?

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) Are you not afraid 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 try to unriddle 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 the search for 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?

Reading

1) Do you read? If yes, what do you read?
2) Tell us about books you reread.
3) Was it interesting for you to read school books?

4) What books have influenced your life?
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?

Religions and Tolerance

1) Is it right that all religions are good? Is it right that all religions are evil? Does the only right religion exist?
2) Can a religion help to 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 if 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?

Rich Dad, Poor Dad

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

1) Do you want to never work, have a lot of money, and not feel shame 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's talk about other opportunities

~Do you want to belong to elite, to be one of those who orders laws and print money?
~Do you want to be a free artist?
~Do you want to be an entrepreneur?
~What do you prefer, to create or to sell?
~What would you prefer, safety or freedom?
~What about becoming a gambler? (reel gambler, stock market gambler, cards player)

5) What is happiness for you?

~Unlimited consumption?
~Creative work?
~Acknowledgement and respect?
~Being a part of great nation?
~Sex and family life?
~Football and beer?

6) How do you prefer to study, in institutes or by yourself?
7) Where do repeating failures lead? Do they make us weaker or stronger?

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.

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 the 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 their 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) Being in need 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 do 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. Or are Westerners afraid of Russians because Russians always wanted to impose their power by force?

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 thing of swingers?
7) Could you forgive your spouse for adultery?
8) Do you thing 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 is happier, married or bachelors (bachelorettes)? Probably divorced?
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 would 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 amusement, 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.

Should communism be condemned?

Should communism be condemned and banned?

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 of individuals so...
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, lost of sense of life, despair, immorality, and the evil itself.
10) The ideas of communism are absolutely wrong.

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 this 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 (scanning)?
6) Do we need to articulate while reading? Do we need to suppress the articulation? How can we do it?
7) 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 improve our ability to use 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 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?

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?

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?

The Ten Commandments

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 neighbour.
10) You shall not covet your neighbour's house; you shall not covet your neighbour's wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.

The Family

1) Who needs who more, men or women?
2) The man or the woman is the main one in the family today? Is it 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?

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?

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)?

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 our current life?
8) Can truth be offensive?
9) Is it good advice to always say everything what you think? Do we have to choose proper language?
10) Can a person be objective?
11) Why do we like baron Munchausen?

Violence, Horror, Erotica, Porno

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 porno?
5) When we say negative words about porno, don't they reflect our attitude to sex itself? What is your attitude to sex and porno?
6) Have you ever seen good porno? 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 like to increase your sexuality?

What are our dreams?

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

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 self-affirm in this life?

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 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 can happen in that 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) 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 you choose, to force yourself to work or to wait till readiness to work comes 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? Unwillingness to work? Laziness? Something else?
4) Workaholics, who are they? 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 does work he does not like most of his time, 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? What way of studying is more effective?
3) Do institutes give us real specialties? What do they give apart from diploma?
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 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?

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? If none of them is really sane; should they all be set free?
4) Do you trust psychiatrists, the experts?
5) Being drunk, is it 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?

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 travel around Moscow as foreign tourists do?
10) Do you have your favorite cafés or restaurants?
11) Do you walk in parks?

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?

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?

Why did you come to our world?

1) Why did you come to our 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) becomes 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?

Gurus

1) Do we need gurus or teachers? Should we try to find some one?
2) How do you react on people who call themselves gurus?
3) How can we distinguish between teacher and 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?

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

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.
Let us look at some of these principles critically…

Mini-seminar: NLP; Neuro-linguistic programming

(Richard Bandler, John Grinder, Milton Erickson, Virginia Satir, Fritz Perls, Robert Dilts)

You can submerge everyone into trance without even asking for his (her) consent.
Recognize ineffective patterns of behavior and replace them with effective ones.

What is trance? (catalepsy, dissociation, concentration, hallucinations, amnesia)
What is rapport? (connection, relation, especially harmonious or sympathetic one)
Tuning, pacing, leading…
Overloading consciousness…
Breaking patterns…
Pointing at the trance… If there is no trance yet, behave as if it exists already…
Anchors and anchoring techniques…
Audio, video, and kinesthetic systems (submodalities). Eyes’ movements.
Triple spiral, diffused suggestion, life line, metamodel, reframing and other tricks…

Working on consciousness, motivating to trance
Creating motivation and cooperation
Mystic language
Taking authoritative position
Two types of trance (positive and negative)
Tuning from below, tuning from above
Zero reaction
Eyes’ movements
Submodalities and distance
Authority

Is it dangerous to study psychology and explore our life?

1) 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.
2) To really understand things means to understand Good and Evil, and for that you will have to participate in their confrontation. Isn’t it dangerous?
3) Being stupid is a kind of self-protection and self-defense. It’s also a means of attack and offence, isn’t it?
4) If you understand people and things too well, people will be afraid of you, won’t they?
5) If you are too smart, people will probably try to punish you for your superiority, won’t they?
6) If you see how disgusting it is be too be an idiot, you will never have some advantages idiots have.
7) Right conclusions may lead to wrong ways of living. Right thought: our time is precious. What will be the conclusions? Are they as right as the right premise?
8) Instead of studying life, isn’t it better to study how to earn money to buy a good apartment?
9) You began to feel the real joy of knowledge and then suddenly stopped the exploration of life, how will it effect 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.

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?

Isn’t feminism a crime against humanity?

1) Who is a better worker by nature? Should it be compensated by society, being handicapped by nature?
2) Does he (or she) pay for his (or her) advantages? Good things may have other sides, can’t they? What are they?
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 is 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 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 State 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 elations, 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?

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

We are in the thirties 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 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 great state and to defend themselves against a hostile encirclement and against our homemade exploiters?

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, of parasitism, of hatred must be forbidden.
3) Sexual freedom is an essential human right. -- Sexual freedom can destroy any society. If not, 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 the absolute oppositions.
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.

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 minus cost of living, and minus money invested into a business, 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 may 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 may not be committed without consent of the father. It may 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. 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."

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 make 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 dye.
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 make 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!

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 to lie in critical situation?
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 your 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 reality from its best sides, 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?

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 our 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 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?
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?

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 interfere?

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.
5) Homosexual relations and marriages
6) Incomplete families
7) Swinging
8) Prostitution as an avocation, as a destination
9) BDSM-relations (sadism, masochism and so on)
10) Striptease
11) Nudism
12) Virtual love without trying to meet in the reality

2010.02.24

Помните, что чтение об эффективных способах работы
не может заменить самой работы.

Шальнов Илья Вячеславович
http://shalnov.ru/
studynlp@narod.ru