en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/2430377 Comments by clamshack http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/10/voices-from-the-classroom-73/#IDComment227410888 I think the recent events have put a negative perception on Penn State as a whole but not on individual students. Maybe when a person who has no affiliation with the school or if the person has a negative bias against Penn State, then it would cause the person to say: “look at Penn State, they are all monsters there.” Also people may have a negative connotation on everyone at Penn State and somehow connect you to the scandal, but then when they meet you and are up close and personal with you they know you had absolutely nothing to do with covering up any facts from the police. It’s easy to say something about an organization or group of people when you aren’t actually dealing with those people in person. So when you tell someone that you are a Penn State student after them hearing of the whole scandal, they are going to think of Penn State as a blemished community, not Penn State students or most faculty as corrupted. Plus in reality, the students feel betrayed because you hear of Penn State being a school that has never really gotten into any trouble and has a clean track record. Also Penn State praising themselves and having the motto success with honor. So when you hear that the University has not been living up to the morals it sets out to follow and tells its students to follow you feel betrayed and that you can not really trust the University as much. The lack of trust has been partially built back with the firings of anyone who had anything to do with the Sandusky scandal but Penn State is still in a very negative light. The school is getting the most attention of any college in America and it’s for the complete wrong reason, not of how good it has been doing for community service, or research and academic rigor and tradition. For example, when I went back home for thanksgiving break people don’t come up to me and give me a weird glance as if I had something to do with all the allegations, they come up and Ask me “How is it up there with everything that’s going down? or what do you think of the Sandusky situation?” They know I had nothing to do with it obviously. It still is annoying because you feel like you have to defend your brand and its tough to defend Penn State because of the nature of the alleged crimes. So you have to explain why “that is not who we are” and you have to kind of build Penn State back up to the respect and good recognition the school had before the news of this story broke. Sat, 26 Nov 2011 01:11:36 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/10/voices-from-the-classroom-73/#IDComment227410888 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/09/voices-from-the-classroom-32/#IDComment220029909 I think that the amount of money you have does have an effect in your happiness. Certainly if you are poor and living in the slums where people are dying and crime is rampant you are less happy than a middle class with a solid amount of money, owns a house in the suburbs, good family with their kids on the little league team. I think money can bring you more happiness as long as you don’t get greedy and base your life around how you can get more money. Once you make money the sole objective in your life than you have a problem and you become a snob and people don’t like you. Plus you become miserable and don’t enjoy life more because you are investing all your time and resources in the task of getting money instead of enjoying the finer things in life and relaxing a little bit. Especially if you have a family you should be spending more of your time with your family than you do with your work life. Money can bring happiness because with it, you can buy things that make you happy. Maybe growing up and for your life your dream was to own your own boat. It’s a decent size boat and could be a fast motor boat or a yacht. The boat you want to buy is going to have a high price, and unfortunately to get the boat of your dreams, you have to have the money to afford it. That doesn’t mean you’ve been devoting all the time in your life working, trying to get more money. The fact you dream to have a boat one day is in the back of your mind and you work hard, but don’t let your work overwhelm you and live as a happy human being because you enjoy your life as it is. Just because you don’t have the money for a boat does not mean your aren’t going to be a happy person. There are still other things in your life that you enjoy doing, whether it is going to the beach, playing sports, or hanging out with friends and you are happy to be able to do the things you do. But, if you don’t have the money to afford any things you enjoy doing and you live that realization every month, then I think you are going to be much less happy than the person who can afford those things. You are just living with the bare necessities and not being able to get out and enjoy things like going to the movies or traveling the world or going to football games. Many of the activities we enjoy cost money so in order to have and be a part of things we enjoy we have to have the money to afford it. Thu, 10 Nov 2011 21:24:54 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/09/voices-from-the-classroom-32/#IDComment220029909 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/01/voices-from-the-classroom-20/#IDComment216905504 I think absolutely yes that immigrants should have to know English. Why wouldn’t you have to know the language of the country you live in? How are you going to communicate with the people that you live and go to work with every day? Not many Americans are fluent in Spanish or French or any language for that matter so there is no way that people will be able to talk about complex things. Simple things you can figure out. You can figure out that a person is saying “I want to buy a Coke,” but what if the immigrant who doesn’t know English says “I want to buy a pack of nails, a set of drill bits, and a 5’ by 10’ piece of plywood. There is no way you’re going to be able to figure out what the person is asking for. In a corporate setting it would be disastrous. In that setting you’re talking about money and there’s no room for miscommunication because a guy can’t speak English when he lives in a country where English is the official language that almost everyone knows besides some uneducated immigrants. There is no room for miscommunication because you are talking about money and mistranslating what a person says can cost your company millions of dollars. You also need everyone to know the same language just for organizational purposes. Maybe you’re talking about something in the workplace and you can’t understand what this other guy is saying. Now you have to go find someone who knows the language to translate it and you are losing time and being inefficient because this guy can’t speak English. If I was going to live in another country I’d make damn sure that I learn the language at some point just so I can get around and go to work with these people. I don’t understand how you can go live in a country and not know what people are saying to you. You’d be oblivious to everything people say and you are going to have to watch foreign TV and read their newspapers which aren’t going to be spoken or written in English, and you’ll say to yourself: “damn, I really better learn this language so I can understand what I hear and see every day of my life.” Plus, without knowing the language people speak I the workplace, don’t expect to get a good job. Jobs many Mexicans work like mowing grass, landscaping, working in the kitchen don’t require much complex talking and are simple jobs that don’t pay well. If you want to move up you’re going to have to learn the language. I used to work in restaurant as a cook/dishwasher and the 2 Mexicans I worked with didn’t know English at all and it drove me crazy because I’d ask them a question like “where should I put this spatula?” and they would have no idea what I’m talking about. We did find a sort of middle ground where I spoke Spanglish and they could somewhat understand what I’m saying but only on simple issues. Fri, 4 Nov 2011 18:45:08 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/01/voices-from-the-classroom-20/#IDComment216905504 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/27/voices-from-the-classroom-55/#IDComment213697948 Immigration is the foundation of the United States of America, without immigration we would not be the great nation that we are today. My feelings on immigration are mixed, legal and illegal immigration are two completely things. Legal immigration is a way for people of other nations to come to our great nation in hopes of bettering their futures. There is a reason our country is called the “Land of Opportunity” and in order to have that chance it should be equal for all. Every immigrant that comes in should go through the same set of procedures to be admitted and become a citizen of the United States of America. Illegal immigrants come through into our nation illegitimately and steal jobs from the legal citizen who lawfully live in the country. In this time of economic recession and high unemployment, the illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from the people who truly need them because each and every citizen working in our nation in crucial to the economy. With low employment, comes less money in our economy and less money for individuals to spend to stimulate the economy. Illegal immigrants are nothing but detrimental to our society. The illegal immigrants are mostly of latino decent from South America, Mexico, and Puerto Rico and are a major cause for the drug problem which America is facing in this day and time. Drugs are a growing problem in our country, Why should people who are here illegally become more of a detriment to our country by importing and selling drugs to our citizens causing addiction, dependence, and worst of all death. The downside about al of this is that the American population is becoming somewhat lazy and not taking up the options that are offered mostly in the aspect of manual labor jobs. The upside to this is that the manual labor jobs are mostly taken up by immigrants but makes the working society pay for their labors. This is totally fine if the immigrants working are legal but illegal immigrants basically take our money with no repercussion such as taxes. Immigration again though is a wonderful thing which our country embraces both legally and illegally. The legal immigration is a great way to help people who come from poverty struck nations or nations who are worse off than us or descrimination from their home countries. Immigration is something that will always be a foundation to our country, always has and always will be. Although our nation is quite large we are always going to be here with open arms ready to welcome in all that wish to be a part of our country, and we will always have the great structure of Ellis Island to remind us of that. Sat, 29 Oct 2011 02:29:54 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/27/voices-from-the-classroom-55/#IDComment213697948 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/20/voices-from-the-classroom-47/#IDComment210647678 Our world under black supremacy would be much different. History first of all would have drastic changes if blacks were the majority and held the most power. From the Middle Ages through the civil rights times. White people would be looked down upon and thought as dirty or conniving and unorganized. Africa would have had the most power and went to Europe to conquer the whites, turn them into slaves and have whites pick cotton and tend the crops. In a more recent era, whites would be the ones disallowed from certain restaurants and prestigious schools, and whites would have to use the worse segregated water fountains. Also, all the presidents probably would have been black and instead of the first black president being an extraordinary and a sign of progress, it would be the first white president that does the accomplishes these things. All these events would instill into conservative black minds that the white race is inferior. Rednecks would be replaced by some black counterparts who have the same mindset. Instead of whites being the ones who make the most money and the ones in charge of huge corporations it would be blacks and some of them could be corrupt and come up with policies that undermine white people in an indirect way. Black supremacy would have led there to be white people living in inner cities in the projects and they would have to deal with the burden of society being against them. White people would be suspect to the short end of the stick when it comes to equal opportunity and would struggle advancing in life because the inner city schools would lack the funding that the more black schools in the suburbs and nice areas of the city. As a result, whites would be less educated and struggle more advancing in life because they won’t have the same distinguished resumes that black people would have who go on to god colleges. I think blacks would make the world better because their public policy would include legalizing marijuana and not arresting people who are engaging in a harmless activity. We could stop wasting taxpayer money on trying to win the so called “war on drugs,” so in that sense they could make an improvement. Also, police would go through the cities looking to bust white people and the justice system would unfairly sentence whites to longer prison sentences. I think that it would be a compete role reversal between whites and blacks. Black people would be living on large country estates listening to classical music and talking politics while whites would be struggling to get by and whites also probably would have invented rap music because of the way they grow up in the streets. Fri, 21 Oct 2011 19:59:30 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/20/voices-from-the-classroom-47/#IDComment210647678 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/06/voices-from-the-classroom-40/#IDComment207540789 I have to say that I disagree with the question. Both sexes are making a choice to put the clothes they want to wear on and both sexes wear the clothes that they think they look the best in. Both sexes are also sacrificing comfort for looks when they put clothes on to go out. If I wanted to be the most comfortable, I would wear a T-shirt and sweatpants out every time, but that doesn’t have any style. So, I decide to wear a dress shirt and khaki shorts/pants or jeans and that is clearly less comfortable but it looks better. Also, I have chosen a pair of sneakers over another based on how it looks. I’m willing to sacrifice a little bit of comfort for style. Pretty much if you want to be the most comfortable, you’ll just look like a scrub and be the worst dressed person at the party. Also, both sexes just have different standards for clothing. I think the difference is that the female body is more beautiful so there is more to show off. Women are just more attractive than men to begin with so a girl wears a short skirt or short shorts to show more of their body because it is very attractive to men. If your goal to go out at night is to meet girls or guys than you are going to wear what makes you the most attractive looking to the opposite sex. I’d agree that what women wear is probably a lot less comfortable than what men wear but both sides are making sacrifices in comfort for looks. The blonde girl in the question says, “guys can wear whatever they want without worrying about looking good,” and that is just untrue, at least for most men. You just don’t show up to a party in gym shorts even though they are the most comfortable. I think everyone worries about their looks, that’s why there are all these products you put on your face to clear acne and blemishes and what not. If people didn’t care how they looked they wouldn’t shave and wouldn’t take care of pimples on their face and would go out in a t-shirt and gym shorts. Social rules influenced by all other people’s opinions dictate how you dress. That’s why you match a tie with a shirt or a shirt with a pair of pants. All your decisions are shaped by other people’s reactions. Like that one little detail makes you look a little bit better and organized at least in your own eyes and will give you more confidence when talking to people. Women look better in shorter and tighter attire at least to us men and if they are trying to attract men then that is what they are going to wear regardless of comfort. It goes the same way for both sexes, men sacrifice comfort for looks too. Fri, 14 Oct 2011 19:32:53 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/06/voices-from-the-classroom-40/#IDComment207540789 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/27/voices-from-the-classroom-23/#IDComment201436788 I don’t think that race determines drug use. No matter what race I was I would still love to smoke marijuana. It started out as being only certain races smoking pot back in the early 1900s when Mexicans were bringing cannabis over the border of Mexico into Texas and selling it and smoking it in the US. Hemp and weed were a big cash crop for them. Not many white people in the US smoked it so they looked down on the drug because mainly Hispanics were smoking it. It then became illegal in many states after a Mexican high on the drug attacked a white man in El Paso. Because of this, white people thought that weed gives you superhuman strength and makes you go crazy and thus it was outlawed. It also reached the black community through jazz as the musicians used the plant to help them create soulful music. They travelled across the party having reefer parties as they stopped city to city and since whites looked down on blacks and saw that it was black people who were smoking weed, they condemned smoking it. So initially I think it was determined by race because whites didn’t smoke weed because it was the lower classes and other ethnic groups smoking. I think it seems as though drug use is affected by race mainly because of the drug problems in the inner cities where there are mainly blacks and Hispanics living there. The cocaine, crack cocaine, and heroin problem was and is prevalent in those communities. Since mainly blacks and Hispanics live in the inner cities, they are the ones buying and selling these narcotics. Since these other ethnic groups represent a large portion of these communities the numbers are skewed to them having a higher ratio of drug use in their race. I don’t think race affects drug use, but rather socioeconomic status. Life in the inner cities is rough and they are not making enough money to live a good life, so as these people are fed up with life or stressed out all the time they look at drugs as an outlet so they can get high and forget about their worries. Drugs are just prevalent in any poor communities be it black, Hispanic, or white. Take trailer parks for example. There are plenty of white crack heads and drug abusers. It’s not race it is just one’s standard of living. Marijuana use is high in all races. I only have a few friends who don’t smoke weed and we all do well in school and are productive people. The reason it was outlawed in the first place was all propaganda saying that smoking weed makes you hysterical and crazy. Fri, 30 Sep 2011 19:18:58 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/27/voices-from-the-classroom-23/#IDComment201436788 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/20/everyone-respond-to-this/#IDComment197721680 Anytime you have small businesses making money in the local community and in the country it’s a good thing. I think we have to support these entrepreneurs so they can grow their businesses therefore providing jobs for Haitians and providing general growth in the economy because their money would be going back into the country rather than other countries for imports. In any good economy, small businesses hold up the largest portion of total businesses. The problem is that theses entrepreneurs lack the resources to grow their businesses and right now they are stalled because they are just breaking even. For example Figaro, whenever she has to make a delivery across town she has to pay for a chauffeur to deliver the pastries and cordials to wherever they need to go, and the price she pays for the chauffeur is equal or more than the profit gained from selling the pastries. She can’t really raise the price either because consumers will just go with the cheaper alternative or simply not have enough money because of how poor the country is. Also, right now she has 4 workers and they have to make all the pastries by hand. If they had an electric mixer or other kitchen appliances that do some of the work for you they could be producing way more pastries at a lower cost in a shorter period of time. Call it a sad truth if you want but money makes the world go round. Your standard of living is directly affected by how much money you have. You have to have money to afford food, shelter, and clothing and then the accessories you like to have like cell phones, televisions, cars, computers, etc. The Haitian economy needs flourishing business in their own country to improve the economy and general cash flow. Too much money is flowing out of the country and to countries that export goods to them. The US and rice is an example. Small businesses provide jobs for workers, and obviously they are getting paid, therefore having more money to spend on things they need or want. They can then take that money and purchase other Haitian products and giving the owners and employees of the business they bought from more money to work with and spend on Haitian goods. Right now these businesses are under resourced and suffering because of that. The economy is stagnant at the moment because these businesses can’t grow their trade. If we can get these entrepreneurs the simple resources they need they can improve their cash flow and once more and more businesses get the resources they need they can sell Haitian goods to Haitian people and other countries too eventually, thus improving the economy and the poverty situation. Once businesses grow, there will be more jobs and more money on the island. Sat, 24 Sep 2011 00:16:21 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/20/everyone-respond-to-this/#IDComment197721680 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/13/voices-from-the-classroom-9/#IDComment194200708 I agree with the fact that SAT scores rise with income. It’s pretty much common sense. In order to go to the best schools in the area or private schools your family has to have a good size income and if you have that income and you send your kids to the best schools in the area they are exposed to more services and learning opportunities and that translates into a better education. It doesn’t have to be a private school either, because if your family is wealthy, your family lives in an affluent neighborhood and school district where more money is put into the school systems, its just fact. There are some small cases where kids are given grants to go to private high schools based on very high scores on entrance exams or if they are very gifted at sports and therefore they are exposed to the same level of learning material but for the most part its just that you can afford to go to that school. Also, if you have money, you are able to afford SAT tutoring sessions, which give you knowledge on how to take the test. The tutoring, you could say, is a luxury good. Inner city families who live on very low incomes are not going to be able to afford that luxury good because they need to spend their money on life’s essentials like food, shelter, and water. These families would love to be able to send their kids to SAT tutoring classes but they simply can’t afford it and that leaves an uneven playing field between wealthier families and poor families. And these advantages for the wealthy are stretched over a lifetime, because from kindergarten through grade school, middle school, and high school the wealthier families have had the money to be able to live in areas that have good public school systems or send their kids to private school where they are exposed to more resources and a more rigorous curriculum which has given them more knowledge over the course of their learning careers and are therefore more able to do well on the SATs. And doing well on the SATs gets you into a better college, and after graduating from a good college, you have more job options available and these jobs are higher paying jobs. It is pretty much a continuous cycle because now their kids will have access to better schools and the low-income families are more likely to keep having the same lesser resources. In short, money makes the world go round and gives very distinct educational advantages. Fri, 16 Sep 2011 19:37:55 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/13/voices-from-the-classroom-9/#IDComment194200708 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/08/30/double-helix-and-god/#IDComment191618569 The double helix structure and how that was the sign of God and life thousands of years ago and how someone in the jungle took mushrooms and when told to draw what God looks like to him draw the same double helix was mind blowing. I’m not religious at all, but I guess I still classify myself as a Christian. Honestly I don’t think God exists because first of all why is there so many natural disasters in the world. Why would God make storms to kill the people he put on his earth. That makes no sense. Second of all why is there cancer and thousands of other diseases? And you shouldn’t need a Tetanus shot or something to travel to an exotic country. You’d think God would make his people able to go anywhere in the world. I used to be fairly religious I suppose and went to a Catholic high school and used to pray occasionally. I’d pray more in times of stress, for example my first dog was sick with a disease, so as a kid I’d pray every day to God so that he’d be healed and of course he wasn’t. How am I supposed to believe in God when I’ve been “talking” to him on a regular basis to save my dog and the dog ends up dying? I believe everything in the world is explained by Science and that we evolved from apes seeing as how we have the same basic characteristics and just over time from moving to different places in the world they just kept getting smarter and finally turned to a basic human. If God created all humans in their present form, why were the original human beings cavemen who weren’t smart enough to formulate a language? You can also tell the difference when they find bones of very old people and they have very different skull structures and smaller brains. It’s ironic that the double helix is also a strand of DNA and that kind of supports the point that there are very scientific reasons to why we are the way are today and that our human bodies all start with a strand of DNA as with all other creatures. Before Sam Richards showed the double helix I had my doubts and seeing it just pushed my doubts further. Religion really is silly and has caused countless wars and devastation throughout time. It’s just that when they came up with religions they didn’t have the technology and scientific knowhow to explain why there is life on this planet so of course they said someone must have made us and then all different cultures had different opinions on who God is and fought over who’s idea was right. Fri, 9 Sep 2011 20:29:51 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/08/30/double-helix-and-god/#IDComment191618569 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/08/30/personal-preference/#IDComment189091078 I think that gay people are strange, that doesn’t mean that if I’m talking to a gay person I’m going to disrespect the person or believe that I’m on some higher level than they are. Everyone has their own opinions and personal preferences and that is completely fine. We just can’t let them get out of hand. Fri, 2 Sep 2011 18:14:40 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/08/30/personal-preference/#IDComment189091078 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/08/30/personal-preference/#IDComment189091029 As a white man though, I am much quicker to identify a different ethnic group to be the monsters of society instead of looking at a group of white, Christian people who also do terrible things. For example with Colombine, I could say “man those white kids are crazy,” but I don’t because I’m also white and I know we aren’t all like that. It’s much easier for me to look at Muslims and say they are crazy simply because a Muslim group did a terrible thing, and now that one group has now set the appearance of all other Muslims, even though people like Al Qaeda represent probably less than 5 percent of what Muslim people want to do. I think we can all have our own personal preferences and it’s not a bad thing. Some people like a certain type of food and others don’t. I like women that have tan skin because somehow that has been socialized into my brain to think that tan skin is beautiful. Also, some people prefer straight hair and other people prefer curly hair. It’s not a bad thing we just have our own likes and dislikes. When we let our personal preferences take control of us and establish how we categorize people then it’s a bad thing. Fri, 2 Sep 2011 18:14:35 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/08/30/personal-preference/#IDComment189091029 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/08/30/personal-preference/#IDComment189090976 In the case of the Muslim example I’m stereotyping all muslims based on the actions of one extremist Islam group of Al Qaeda when they destroyed the World Trade Center and killed thousands of innocent civilians. Of course not all muslims are trying to kill us and the vast majority aren’t but because they are a different ethnicity or religious belief then the one I am, I categorize them all to be murderous savages based on the actions on one sect. And each race, religion, or ethnicity has their own sects of people who are the extremists or outcasts of each race, religion, or ethnicity. Fri, 2 Sep 2011 18:14:21 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/08/30/personal-preference/#IDComment189090976 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/08/30/personal-preference/#IDComment189090800 I believe there is a line between personal preference and racial preference but the cases in which there is personal preference and racial prejudice are different. For example, prejudice would be me saying I hate Muslims because they are trying to kill everyone in western society. Or if I said Black people are inferior simply because of skin color. Fri, 2 Sep 2011 18:13:51 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/08/30/personal-preference/#IDComment189090800 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/18/war-through-the-ages/#IDComment145162951 I found this video to be very interesting and telling of the characteristics of people in power in countries around the world who go to war. The main causes of wars through the ages are to get resources or religion or expansion of control and power throughout the world as the Romans did way back and the French did with Napoleon. I think the primary reason countries want to expand though is to get the resources of other countries as part of their empire so that they can become wealthier. You can also see that the human capacity to kill has become much larger with all the advances in technology. This is illustrated by the explosions getting larger at a steady rate. It is also telling of the world and society that there is pretty much always a war going on somewhere in the world. I think it says that countries in the world are always at competition with each other and there is not a willingness to coexist and share the resources of the world. Each government wants to control the most resources out of everyone in the world and when someone controls a resource that you want especially if it’s an enemy nation there is a clash of interests. And if a country have the military capacity to wage a war that it thinks will win to obtain resources to become wealthier, they will most likely be going to war. This is evidenced by the explosions happening in socioeconomic and resourceful areas. World War II, I think is an exception because that war wasn’t really concerned with resources but rather removing a madman from power and stopping the genocide of millions of innocent people and keeping the Nazis from expanding into every country in the world which was the goal of the Nazis. That war was for world protection. There are few wars which are just and concerned with protecting the welfare of the world as most are waged because of greed for resources. Our involvement in the Middle East is an example of us being concerned with controlling the oil down there because oil pretty much runs our country. We would definitely not be down there if it wasn’t for how oil rich those countries are. Fri, 22 Apr 2011 17:02:16 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/18/war-through-the-ages/#IDComment145162951 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2010/02/14/men-and-women-were-really-this-different/#IDComment143171459 I think the fact that this robot exists and many men have already pre-ordered speaks a lot on the different views males and females have on sex. The majority of humans, male or female, want to have sex. It is just that each gender has different goals when it comes to sex. Men are primarily concerned with the physical feeling of sex and are aroused much easier than women. Women are more concerned with the emotional attachment and possibility of a relationship that comes out of sex. Also men are ready to have sex on the spot and don’t really care about feeling an emotional connection before having sex. Women need to feel some sort of emotional connection before they are ready to have sex. I personally, as a male, think this product is very perverted and couldn’t get myself to have sex with a robot. Just think about what you are doing. You’re having sex with a robot. First of all it is unnatural; second of all I don’t see how you could be aroused to have sex with something that’s not human. Whoever buys this product is very disgusting and just strange, but this product is specifically made for people who are strange and awkward. Douglas Hines does deserve credit for being a good businessman in that sense, because he is going to make millions of that strange sector of society, and if he can and has the technology to make this than no one has the right to stop him. I think if you buy this product you’re only hurting yourself because if you are an awkward older man who has this product you just affirmed the fact that you will probably not have real, natural sex with a woman because you can just come home to this robot every night with whom you are comfortable with. If you are that desperate and have to buy a 7,000 dollar robot to be able to have sex than that’s saying something about you. I also don’t think that the male sex robot will sell as well because most women are looking for more than just the feeling of sex. And if they are only concerned with the feeling of sex they could get it very easily from and single male. Fri, 15 Apr 2011 17:46:29 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2010/02/14/men-and-women-were-really-this-different/#IDComment143171459 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2010/04/04/this-is-totally-off-the-hook/#IDComment141087380 I think the subject matter of this game is graphic and sick enough to have it outlawed. I have no problem with shooting games and enjoy them myself sometimes, but I think shooters are more acceptable than a game where you rape people and a line has to be drawn somewhere. It would have been acceptable if the producers just made the game have the characters have consensual sex, which they easily could have done. I also do think that whoever would want to play this is still very perverted and lame because the players need a game for them to have sex. To an educated audience of age, the game wouldn’t influence behavior, but kids always find a way to play games that they aren’t supposed to be playing based on their age. It would influence their perception of women and how to go about having sex, and they would think it would be ok to have un-consensual sex with some random girl. People said shooting games and games like grand theft auto should have been banned because of how they would influence kids’ behavior but it didn’t. The subject matter was ok because most kids understood anyway that killing people and committing crime is wrong. The reason I play it is because it’s fun to play that virtual life where you can be reckless and do whatever you want and it’s also pretty funny. I would never run up to someone driving a car and make them get out and shoot him, then take his car, but in the game you do that because of the fact that it is a game. There are no real consequences for your actions. If I did any of the actions I did in grand theft auto it would go against my morals and I’d feel bad about myself and I would be in a jail cell. It’s just fun to have that ultimate freedom without the social strings telling us what we won’t or can’t do. The subject matter of grand theft auto is not sick and has no influence on people’s actions. The rape game is a problem because it is sick and if there are kids playing it who haven’t yet learned about women or sex it may cause to think that what they do in the game is the proper way of approaching women. I think these problems are severe enough to warrant the game being outlawed. Fri, 8 Apr 2011 20:57:29 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2010/04/04/this-is-totally-off-the-hook/#IDComment141087380 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/27/family/#IDComment139231953 I imagine that when you are in prison you find out who your true friends and loved ones are. It is so hard to stay in contact with people and stay in the loop when they are living such different lives. The people he communicates with live normal lives and are fully integrated into society. The prisoners are confined from society; therefore these people have totally different experiences in their life. Because of this, it takes a lot to stay in the loop but you discover who your true friends are because if they love you they will remain in contact with you even though you are far away from them in terms of face-to-face interactions. The family is probably the best support entity a human being has because one knows that it is a group that loves and supports one no matter what, if it is a true family. It is comforting for prisoners to maintain contact with the people he loves in his life and his family. It just puts one in a good mood to hear from someone they care about. It must make the time easier on the prisoners to know what’s going on back home or with their parents because it makes one know that there are people on the outside that care about one and knows that the prisoner is actually a good person. The rest of society probably doesn’t know that he is a good person but rather just some horrible criminal. The perception that other people may have of the prisoner must be on the prisoner’s mind often. That perception being that the man is a big bad criminal. The prisoner wants people to know that he is actually a good guy so when they hear from people that like him he is happy to know that he is still in their good spirits. As humans we all need support groups and know that we are loved because the people who don’t have these support groups are more likely to commit suicide or be depressed. Our enjoyment of life really depends on our experiences we have with other people and to not have groups of people we can associate ourselves with hurts our good mental being. Sat, 2 Apr 2011 00:03:35 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/27/family/#IDComment139231953 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/23/managing-crowds/#IDComment137587702 Whenever you have large groups of people it will always be hard to organize or motivate them. That’s just because of the sheer size of the group. In that group people will always naturally act based on their self-interests, so when you have something like an evacuation plan and you must execute it because of emergency, everyone will be trying to get out of the area to save their own lives. Since you have one million or so people trying to get out of the danger zone it’s going to cause problems like traffic jams or car accidents which hurt the group as a whole. The planning of these evacuation schemes is also based on self-interest thought. The case with the narrow bridge in the article displays this because the writer of these plans is thinking of how it would be for him and his county to get out of the area alone by taking the narrow bridge. They wouldn’t have any problem because it is only them using the bridge one way. He wasn’t thinking of the fact that the people of the neighboring county would be coming the other way and because it is such a narrow bridge it would cause major traffic delays. There will also always be free-riders when it comes to large groups. For example, if the government is passing some tax-cut that maybe a certain group of people were rallying for but would affect the whole population, the citizens who weren’t rallying benefit greatly. They are gaining the benefit of this tax-cut for free as they didn’t rally for it. People that didn’t rally for it obviously didn’t really care for nor need the tax-cut but they welcome it greatly because they are now better off. Motivating large groups to act on something is very difficult because not enough people care about the issue to get worked up about even if it does really affect them. The key thing that a group needs is for someone to step forward as a leader. A leader is necessary because people need someone to organize how they are going to act on whatever it is they are acting on. A lot of people don’t feel like being the leader for whatever reason and just count on someone else to step up. It is the job of the leader to make the group’s objective meaningful and worthwhile to them, that is the only way a large group can be well organized and achieve what it is they want achieved. Fri, 25 Mar 2011 22:55:57 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/23/managing-crowds/#IDComment137587702 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/01/lighting-our-way/#IDComment135923439 It is interesting to think of the effect light has on our lives. We in the USA don’t think of a land where the sun will only be out for 5 hours cause that’s not the condition that we live in. We take it for granted here in America. When you think of it, light has a great effect on how we live our lives and can very much effect the moods we experience. When it is a bright sunny day we usually have a feeling of happiness and joy and are more energetic and lively perhaps. We have a much different feeling when it is a gray cloudy day or when it’s dark out. Light also effects the amount of time we spend outdoors or what kind of leisure activities we do. If it’s dark out we usually can’t go play tennis, or basketball outside unless there are lights. We certainly can’t lounge in the sun if we have no sunlight. As wee can see from the video the lack of light vey much affects the citizens of Finland socially. The repeated lack of sunlight over a lengthy stretch of weeks can impact us mentally by putting us in a worse mood. It also makes us more tired and less energetic because it’s always dark out. Let’s take an example of a workingman’s day in Finland. The person would wake up when its dark, get to the office or wherever and work all day until 4 or 5 o’ clock. Once the man is out of the office its already dark out, and he has not experienced a glimmer of sunlight all day. This same experience over a long stretch of weeks would have you in a much worse mood and cause you to feel slightly depressed perhaps. I can see how the lack of sunlight can mentally get to a person. It affects us physically also because know that the sun is not out we cant play sports or do activities outside that keep us healthy. One would be less inclined to go for runs outdoors because there’s no light out. This combined with the fact that people eat more when there is less light causes us to get out of shape. As one can see, sunlight has a variety of influences on our lives that many of us take for granted. Fri, 18 Mar 2011 22:28:04 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/01/lighting-our-way/#IDComment135923439