The speaker in this video did an amazing job at getting her point across to her audience, even I felt like I was there and fully captivated by her speech. There were so many things that she said that really stood out for me, one of them being when she said “how casually we treat casualties” when discussing victims of war. It is so true, the majority of the time that we look at casualties in past and present wars, we just look at the number and compare it to other wars. We never really stop and think that we are talking about individual people who have fell victims to a war that they didn’t even want to be a part of, or that they had loved ones who will never get a chance to see or speak to them again. Another big impact that she had from her speech was when she explained that those who truly seek peace do not get to have any say in the “negotiating table”. The ones that are fighting, but fighting to preserve life and refuse to pick up a gun to kill have no say, but those that are killing do.
Although she does say that there are men who belong to the group of those fighting for life rather than to kill, but she does make me as a man feel like a barbarian in a way when she says that it’s men who refuse to let women have any say when it comes to war, as true as it may be.
It’s frustratingly painful to think about how easy my life is with no real worries occurring besides getting schoolwork done, while there are kids YOUNGER than me that have been through so much more than I ever could imagine. These kids go day by day just fighting to stay alive and keeping their family safe. I can’t imagine growing up with a life like that.
My favorite part of her speech was when she said that we need to have an equality where we can understand war both from the frontline AND the backline. Just imagine how many lives could be saved just by having an understanding of both sides of war.

This was a pretty interesting article to read. To be honest, I have never really put much thought into religion and how it affects people’s everyday lives. However, I’m not at all surprised if these statistics are at least somewhat accurate, that religion is starting to become “extinct”. I do wonder if these go for all religions, which I have a feeling that the declining statistics of religion are more for Christianity than any other religion (I could be completely wrong with this).

I have a big family, and when I was little we would go to church every Sunday, including Sunday school. None of this made me happy, because I would have much rather stayed at home and playing outside. I’m not sure if it was due to it being difficult to haul a big family to church once a week or because me and all of my siblings lacked the desire to actually go to church, but eventually my parents stopped making us go. I do wonder if we kept going to church, would I be religious and believe in God? I consider myself to be an atheist, although it just sounds like an evil word, and I never find myself attacking anyone for their religious beliefs. I hardly ever find myself talking about religion, nor do I ever go out of my way to let people know what I believe in (or don’t believe in).

I’m not sure what this world would be like if religion did indeed become non-existent. The Book of Eli is a movie that’s pretty much about this, where religion has died out and the world was no longer organized in a sense. There was no real leadership and chaos was pretty much everywhere, as well as outlaws preying on the weak. I’m in no way saying that this would actually happen if organized religion was no more, but it does make me wonder what would happen to us in this world if there was no more religion. Would things change for the better or for worse? Or would life basically be just as it is today?

This is a very moving video, and if I was somebody that had to make the decision of whether or not allow gay marriage to happen and was on the fence in that decision, Zach Wahls’ speech would have had sealed the deal for me and I would have not hesitated to say yes to gay marriage. Fortunately I am already a supporter of it, having a sister who is a lesbian; she has full support from me and my family. It’s pretty amazing how effective an amazing speaker can be when trying to motivate people. I think the major point that this man made that would help the process of changing the views of the ignorant was describing how even though he was raised by a homosexual couple, he turned out just fine, and nobody in the world would have guessed that he was indeed raised by two women unless he told them otherwise.
Zach Wahls is a perfect example of how the reason people believe that gay couples should not raise children because they are unfit to could not be more wrong. Do people really think that children are better off being raised in foster homes rather than by a same sex couple? If that’s true and these children are likely to turn out better than Zach Wahls then maybe all of our children should grow up in foster homes. But honestly, many children that are put into foster care are done so due to the fact that they were born into abusive and neglecting families, these children don’t care whether or not their parents are of the same sex or not, they want to not only feel safe and protected, but most of all to be loved and cared for. That is the basic definition of what a family is; it has nothing to do with there being a mother, father and children.
I read some of the comments to this video and somebody said that with the exception of love, gay couples can’t give their children many other important things. I tried thinking about what important things this person was trying to talk about since they were unable to provide any more information about this, but I couldn’t think of anything.

I can only imagine what would happen if I won the lottery. I honestly don’t think I would be harassed like the women who won five million dollars was. I feel like my friends would joke around about how I owe them and such, but it would only be playful and they would know that it’s mine, as would my family. Although with my family I definitely owe my parents for paying for my education and all. I think that the woman who won the five million dollars would be better off if she did what she felt when she said “Sometimes I wish I could change my name and go somewhere and hide”. If winning five million dollars is doing more harm than good for you, then you definitely need to make a change, whether it’s moving far away or just giving the money up. I would say that the outcome of winning the lottery is based on your current financial situation was, and who you associated yourself with. If you’re living a poor life, the majority of your friends are as well. I would think that being poor and having your friend win the lottery would turn on a light bulb above your head, thinking that this friend of yours will help you out with their winnings and that they owed you in some way. If you want to be guaranteed happiness from winning the lottery, then you may just have to change your entire life and get away from the place you are currently at, if you are not happy there. I’m not suggesting that you should become a whole new person, but if your life is becoming in danger due to winning money, then it would be for the best to do everything that you can so that those people who are making your life a living hell are no longer able to get in contact with you. I remember when a friend of mine won a car, and people who knew him tried to get him to tell it to him for really cheap, for no reason other than being his acquaintance, so it’s pretty hard to imagine what would happen from winning millions of dollars from the lottery.

Even though seeing the video of this guy “trying” to steal a child is creepy enough as it is, it’s hard to believe that he was setting out to kidnap the child. Unless this man had some sort of mental issues going on, one would think that if a person was going to try and kidnap a child then they wouldn’t do it in broad daylight, on a street full of people from a nanny. But of course anything like this will cause a scare for anyone that sees it on the news, and rightfully so. A parent’s job is to do everything they can do protect their child, and in many cases parents are over protective. I wouldn’t say that telling your kid to not talk to strangers is bad advice, because you wouldn’t want your child to be TOO trusting, to a point where it could get them into trouble. I’m not too sure what Sam means when he said that “not speaking with strangers is what often gets children into trouble” because it could go either way for a kid, although I do agree that more times than not a stranger would be helpful. I guess it’s about taking a risk. I’m not sure what someone would gain from kidnapping a child, unless they were some creepy pedophile, which I hope there isn’t a lot of them out there, and I’d guess that is what parents think about when setting rules on talking to strangers. Better safe than sorry comes to mind when I think about this whole thing. I mean would you rather be a bit of a nagging parent and have your kid be safe? Or take the risk with that small chance of losing your child in the arms of a terrible person? It are fears like this that do keep people safe, because it makes people be more aware of the dangers out there, and if people were not aware of it, then my guess is that kidnappings would be as rare as they are today. We may be annoyed with these fears now, but they really do help us.

To just about all people living in the United States, polygamy is a bit strange to us. I feel like (unless through religious beliefs) polygamy would be considered as something like greed. The greed is to have more than one husband or wife. In the Himalayas where life isn’t very easy for the people there, it would be very convenient to have a big family. If a woman were to marry more than one man, then that provides opportunity for the family to be able to get more things done, since their day to day lives require manual labor. In the United States we are better off than those living in places such as the Himalayas. There is no real need to have more than one husband or wife. If anything, doing that would make your family more financially troubled than if you were to only marry one person. Besides, if the reason for marrying multiple men or women is for greed, then it can be easily predicted that jealousy would occur, and who knows what would be the result of that? Although it would be clear that (in most cases) each person would have agreed upon the marriage, it’s in the human nature to be inclined to jealousy if you aren’t getting as much attention as the other husband or wife is getting.
My one criticism of the situation that they have in the Himalayas with the polyandry would be the weirdness of three brothers being married to the same woman. However it can’t be any weirder than a person being married to another person, and that’s just my personal opinion.
In China it does seem like it is a very convenient thing, for their population, what with the whole one child rule encouraging the mother and father to prefer a male child to take care of the family when he is older.
Like I said before, it should depend on your life situation if you plan on marrying more than one person, or agreeing to be one of several. It sort of takes the idea of having a one true love away.

I have always been a person that showed empathy towards others and took action towards it. This video definitely put it more into perspective for me by explaining how early on in our life we develop empathy (straight from birth, in a room full of babies if one cries then they all start to). If somebody injures by tumbling down a snowy mountain while trying to ski or snowboard, I feel for the pain that they are going through, even though that has never happened to me. I feel like after being explained that in the video, a very strong example of empathy was when he talked about the earthquake in Haiti. It was a very devastating disaster, and even though we didn’t gain any economic increase by helping out in Haiti, we still did because we feel for the suffering that happened over there, knowing that if it happened to us, we would want some sort of care from other countries.
The original question for this blog asked how I would change the way I live if I believe in what the man in the video was saying about empathy. Well considering how no matter how bad off an American is financially, they are still considered to be wealthy to anyone living in a third world country. I suppose I will try to change the way I live by continuing to recognize that fact and not only will i not take my more privileged life for granted, but also try my best to set out and spread these facts around so that others will develop their empathy for those that live a more struggling life. I can’t really imagine how effective any of that would actually be, considering many people are aware of how difficult it would be to live in a country with such a small amount of resources and money, and nothing major gets done about that. Also, maybe at some point we can detribalize and have more association based on the fact that we are all humans, rather than smaller things like being apart of the same the same religion or being from the same country.

I remember watching this video before, which was very hilarious to see how easily somebody can be turn to conformity, even without being told to be like anybody else. I guess when you look at it in a wider perspective; you will hopefully see that there are two sides to conformity. Obviously it’s pretty easy to find the good and bad in just about everything out there, and conformity is no exception to this. When you think about it in a negative light, one of the first things that may come to your mind are gangs. I know that’s the first thing I thought of when thinking about the negative effects that conformity has on us, especially the youth. I can only imagine that a kid having so much potential for good can easily be coerced into joining a gang. Those around the kid, and who he (or she) normally hangs out with may be all in the same boat together. The only people that they may have the possibility to look up to in their area are those that are in a gang, and I’m sure that everybody knows that if you look up to somebody then you would most likely want to be just like that person when you are older. Another major negative side to it is when it comes to drugs. Maybe your group of friends decide to try something dangerous that you know wouldn’t be a good idea but they are your friends and they are doing it, so you don’t want to be the odd man out. You join them. Obviously there is good to it, like if you’re a shy person and you’re around people that are more outgoing, it tends to rub off on you and you become more comfortable with being in a group of people so that you can be yourself around others. People just don’t like to be different from others. We all know that there is no rule about taking your hat off while in an elevator, but if everybody is taking theirs off leaving you as the only one with a hat, you will feel different and uncomfortable because of it.

I have two brothers and a sister that have gone over seas for military duties for the war. Fortunately they never were placed in combat zones or suffer from post traumatic stress disorder. However they have been close enough to witness some bad things that have happened in the Middle East. Considering what the one young solder said in the video about how he always sees horrible images in his head, when he is awake and when he is sleeping, it gives you an idea of why these soldiers are resorting to suicide and the use of drugs and alcohol to deal with their trauma. It would seem to them that death and drugs is a sweet escape from those images in their head, and just knowing what they know. There is a lot of psychological stress that is forced onto soldiers before and after they are told to go over seas. Perhaps many of the reasons for the high number of suicides that is going on for these soldiers is that they would do anything that they can to not have to go back to that same place that is causing them all this trauma and stress in their lives.
It is a good thing that the military and the government are putting forth some effort to deal with this on a highly serious level. The set up of chaplains to help deal with the stress and improvement of behavioral health in the force is a big step that these soldiers need so that they can understand that suicide and drugs is not the way to solve their problems. They are all just unnecessary additional problems that they not only put on themselves but they put on those around them who care for them. It’s a struggle for more than just the returning soldiers. My two brothers are both married and each has a daughter that they come home to. That is what they use to fight against anything negative that they feel from the way. Knowing that your family is there and needs you may be one of the best defenses to post traumatic stress disorder.

Maybe this is the starting line for people who crave attention and would do anything for it, like cutting themselves. In class we talked about all the reasons why people cute themselves. One of these pageant parents may not be too proud of a second place child and be given some sort of punishment for that. Even one like no snack foods for a week (do pageant parents ever let their children eat snacks anyway?) could put a toll on a child’s emotional well-being. Who knows what kind of traumatic damage is done to a child when a parent is that disappointed in them for coming in second place. Considering how it’s natural for a child to strive for their parents’ approval.
At least in my mind, two year olds aren’t supposed to care so much about their looks that they are getting their eyebrows waxed. In the end of the video the mom said that if her daughter said that she doesn’t want to do that anymore, then they would be done. It’s hard to believe that. Who knows how brainwashed these little girls have become, believing that that is the sort of childhood that is considered to be normal.
I can sort of see the mom’s point when she talks about parents that have their kids play sports at a young age. From my own experience I was never forced into sports, in fact I would beg my parents to let me play football, or soccer, or baseball. I would never see the parents get out of hand or take the fun that their children are having too seriously. Can the same thing be said for pageant parents? Who knows if it was the child who begged their parent to do the little pageants? But seeing the video and how serious the parents get into the entire process, it’s hard to believe that that is what the child was hoping to get herself into.
Hopefully the parents know better than to put emotional stress on their own child at such a young age. I say just let their child be a child.