yourstockjustgotrocketedtenfold

bleh. i like music.
and umm. movies.
and umm. artsy things.

Class Discussion: Universal Right?

I honestly dont believe that there is or ever will be a universal right or wrong. The human species is too diverse culturally to make one code of conduct. Historically, the most civilized societies have broken codes of conduct that are now deemed wrong in our culture. Sure those societies burned to the ground, but its not because they liked seranading little boys(i.e. Athenians), but the Spartans weren't right either when they killed the babies that had defects.

Everything depends on the culture you live in. Genocide is alright in Africa(not to the people being hunted), but there is nobody stopping it. The UN though, has a strong policy against mass killing of people based on their race or religion or whatever they are discriminating against. People in general are hypocritical and we cant prevent that, therefore there will never be world peace or a universal code that everyone obeys. How would you enforce this without killing or punishing in some drastic way the disobeyers?

Respond: David Gans' What is the value of the life of an organism...

http://dgans09.blogspot.com
ratios are very important. but you shouldnt be kicking pidgeons. I dont think you could anyway.
In my views, nothing is truly "equal". Everyone is an individual, so they should be valued individually. Would you not take a perfectly healthy child over a crippled old lady on the verge of death? Certainly some choices will come harder than others, but the ratio cant be 1:1 for everything or even everyone.Take the poisonwood bible. Adah asked Orleanna why she chose her to go on the boat in Exodus. Orleanna's response was that she was the youngest. A mother will choose her youngest child. Why? I dont know. but she did, in both instances where it was neccessary.
It all depends on you and how you value things.

Respond to David Gans' Why does the world hate Rachel

http://dgans09.blogspot.com
...WE CHRISTIANS HAVE OUR OWN SYSTEM OF MARRIAGE, AND IT IS CALLED MONOTONY.sorry i couldnt resist. Sure shes stupid, but thats not why i dislike her. It's because she is a racist; and not like a cute naive racist like Ruth May was. She is just very up front about it.There was one part in which she said that she would have Leah and Anatole stay over at the hotel, but they cant make exceptions because everyone else would want one.i can see your point of her sticking to what she believes in, but i think the majority of the people who read this will read it with just the thought of her be biased towards white people and their culture. For the same reason that people hate Nathan for his stubborness and unwillingness to quit this whole convert thing, people dislike Rachel because she will not accept a culture different to one she was raised in.I find her funny. monotony. lol

Respond to David Gans' What is considered too much work?

http://dgans09.blogspot.com/
well david, homework always has been a pain, and i think always will be. It part of the nature of it. That and generally, people want to be lazy and have everything come as easy as possible. But for some people like me, your easy isnt neccessarily mine. You have fun writing some papers. I never do. I dont mind some, but I never truly enjoyed one to be honest.
When will homework reach a point where it becomes too much? I agree, its all in perspective. Some people dont mind a 40+ hour a week work schedule just for homework, while some prefer a slightly smaller. This is just a matter of work ethic. Some people procrastinate, while others like to get things done early so they can not worry when everyone else is stressing out. I definitely procrastinate, and I regret it sometimes, but I take full responsibility for that. Basically, school is always going to have work. Some days will have more than others, but I think its suppossed to prepare you for the real world where you have to work hard in order to succeed.

DEFACED

fight the power of corporate giants and their mass advertisements.

i'm all for sticking it to the man, but when has it gone too far? when has this advertising for conformity gone too far? These boundaries are endless. People will have strong feelings going both ways. The corporations, i think are right, about getting a mortgage, but to spam this message across the entire wall, and over everyone else's posters creates an uncomforting uniformity. At what point does the mass advertising become like graffiti if not worse. I think tagging is retarded, but i dont mind creative expression on walls. it's when you spam a single design everywhere just to say youve been there that is bad, ugly, and unoriginal.

4 generations/Singer Solution

This video just shows us that Singer's numbers are real, but his approach puts you in an unfair situation.

In Peter Singer's solution to world poverty, he posed a question of whether you would save a kid or a car. My immediate response was save the car. First off, I didn't like this question. It puts you in an uncomfortable situation in which you have limited amount of time to respond. Questions to how you got there, why the boy was there, why you were driving an uninsured car, why you parked this uninsured car on a railroad track, why did the boy not see the train, etc. were what i was focusing on. Then when I looked at the actual question; would you save an unknown child's life or your precious car i came to the intial conclusion that you should let the kid die. Sure I was in a bad mood, and I probably would have stuck my own mother on the tracks, but logically, you work your entire life and invest everything into this car. This car essentially is all that you have worked for, you have made multiple sacrifices to make this car yours. So why would you throw all you have worked for away to save the life of a kid that you do not know? You can't see his face, you can't sense the fear he'll surely eminate when he sees the train coming and it's too late, so why should you care?

Singer says that for just 200 dollars you can save a child. Now think, a car and 200 dollars are completely different amounts here. The car he speaks of in this paper is a bugatti. The estimated cost of a 2006 bugatti is 1.24 million dollars. With 1.24 million dollars, you can save 6,200 kids. And just to further make this 6,200 hit closer to home, the estimated amount of students at Punahou is roughly 3,700. so roughly 1.67 Punahou student bodies could be saved by trashing this car. Again to put this into perspective, 2,973 people were killed in 9/11. So you would be single handedly responsible for a 9/11 over twice as deadly.

Over the original proposed question of would you let a kid die to save your 1.24 million dollar car, I would choose the car. But over 6,200 people, which is something of approximate equal value, I would choose the people.

See Im not a complete misanthrope.