en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/4270118 Comments by mastaphysics http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/04/20/voices-from-the-classroom-156/#IDComment343867673 This is an interesting question, and I think it all depends on the parent. If I was gay or bi, my mom wouldn’t care too much. She’d be happy for me as long as I’m happy. She has a lot of gay friends and is very open to situations like that. Also her cousin who is gay has a PHD in mathematics she looks up to highly, so she has no problems with gays or bisexuals at all. On the other hand, my dad would tell me he wouldn’t care, but I know deep down he wouldn’t be happy with it. This is because we couldn’t bond over son father kind of thing when it comes to women, which is important for any father son relationship. It would just take out a whole spectrum of bonding together. He also would be a little more reluctant to watch me play sports because he’d probably think I was engaging in sports such as rugby or wrestling to get in close contact with other men. When it comes to interracial dating, this topic bring up much debate in my family. Well it’s easy for my dad, he would totally rather me be straight and date interracially than be gay. My mom is a different story though. I grew up with her always teaching me to be open to other peoples sexual orientation and to never be racist so I always thought if I ever dated a black girl per se, she would have no issue with it. But I brought this topic up to her a couple of weeks ago, and her reaction was far from what I expected. She said she would have been extremely disappointed if I fell in love with a person of color. This blew my mind and I was awestruck. Her reasoning was because that people frown upon interracial dating and it would cause a lot of problems down the road when it comes to employers and such. I think her views are extremely outdated and she needs to reconsider them. Maybe thirty to fifty years ago this may have been true, but it’s a new era and interracial dating is definitely not frowned upon in todays society and I think of it as normal. So in conclusion with my parents, it think my dad would prefer me to engage in interracial dating, and my mom would prefer me to be gay. For me, I’m not sure if I would be too happy with my son being gay either for all the reasons I explained. I have no issues with gay people at all, I’m actually good frined with many gay people, but because I couldn’t have the same sexual attraction bonding experiences with my son, I feel it would be awkward. I would totally have my son in an interracial relationship than be gay. Sat, 21 Apr 2012 02:15:30 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/04/20/voices-from-the-classroom-156/#IDComment343867673 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/04/10/voices-from-the-classroom-146/#IDComment338541921 Sam presented the question of how many stranger child abductions occur a year, with a range of values from 100 at the minimum to 20,000 or so as the maximum. I was shocked to find that the value was only 100 abductions per year, for I guessed around 1,500 abductions a year. Sam brings up a good point with this clicker question that humans are typically good in nature, and one wouldn’t have to worry about walking their eight year old daughter to school every day for it’d be safe for her. I could totally agree with what Sam was bringing up in that it’s the media that makes us think the world is a lot worse than it is. With headlines news only showing the bad stuff people do throughout the day, it is hard to see past media’s wall of a world of evil. Shows like CSI, criminal minds and Law and Order doesn’t help either for it also puts a façade of evil in the world. Now that I think about it, the world is typically a safe place and I shouldn’t have to worry about it too much. I think that’s the “take home message” Sam wants from this video. If two groups of people came together, they definitely would work together for the harmony of the group, I would not expect at all for the people to start fighting, robbing, or murdering each other right away, or at all. I can’t lie though, even though Sam gets the point across to me that the world I s pretty safe, I still feel like I would need to walk my eight year old child to school, even if I lived 200 yards away. This stems from the fact that the chances of abduction may be low, but if the odds were against me, and my daughter would be the one child to be abducted, then it would be a terrible, horrific experience. I wouldn’t take the chance even if the odds were a trillion to one, for it’s my child’s life that I’d be gambling with, and if I walk my child to school, then that chance becomes zero, and I’d never have to worry about it. It was quite interesting also to see the top crimes that occurred in America. I would expect murder, robbery, and assault, but the actual top crimes were none of these, and weren’t dangerous crimes at all. This goes to show the power of the media once again, for television shows chose to base their crime stories off of crimes such as murder and robbery, and news channels chose to show those crimes more often than less dangerous crimes. Sam, I’ve learned my lesson in that the world is safer than I thought. Sat, 14 Apr 2012 01:29:27 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/04/10/voices-from-the-classroom-146/#IDComment338541921 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/03/29/voices-from-the-classroom-139/#IDComment328218579 I grew up in a suburban school outside of Pittsburgh, and when our school got drugged searched with drug dogs, there was a slight warning, almost everyone knew it was coming, this enabled anyone with drugs in their lockers to get rid of any evidence or any substances they have on them in time of the search. I know kids who grew up in the inner city schools, and they tell me stories how they have to walk through metal detectors and have to walk past police officers every day. There is an obvious imbalance when it comes to fairness of the drug dealers getting caught in the city school versus the kids in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. Some kids may not agree, but I totally agree that cops in the city are far more strict than outside. It is sickening to me. This brings up the topic of police officers outside of the city versus the cops inside of the city. I’ve totally been to busted parties and have been let go by police officers. The police in my school district were the most lenient people I’ve ever met. I think it has to do with the fact that I come from an upper class family and the police think that I’m going to go to college and they don’t want to put anything on my record to screw up any chances of me going to college. The fact that I live in the suburbs has nothing to do with my college success levels though, which is what angers me about the police. The police in the cities have this preconceived notion that anybody that lives in the city is just poor low lifes that have no shot in making it big or going to college. I feel like that’s why the cops are less lenient. Like I said I don’t think that people are less intelligent or anything in the city, I think it’s totally unfair. Most of my family, uncles, aunts and cousins live in the inner city right now, and they tell me terrible cop stories. My uncle used to be addicted to certain drugs when he was younger, and he told me a story how when he bought some drugs off a certain dealer in Lawrenceville, undercover cops came and arrested him right away. He was totally confused. He asked why he was arrested only and the dealer was let free. The cops told him that they have a quota to meet as city cops when it comes to arrests, so cops will follow around drug dealers, and arrest the people buying the drugs, because if they arrested the drug dealers, they wouldn’t have as many people to arrest any more. It goes to show how messed up the system is, and that cops aren’t truly acting in favor of the people, but in favor of their quotas. By the way, my uncle is clean now for 10 years. Sat, 31 Mar 2012 02:53:25 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/03/29/voices-from-the-classroom-139/#IDComment328218579 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/03/22/voices-from-the-classroom-131/#IDComment323443172 I can’t say that there are any negatives for people of color to deal with racial issues at an earlier age. The world is full of black, brown, asian, latino, etc kinds of people. That is like asking what are the negatives of learning math at an early age? One can’t really say there is any because math is part of the function world. If kids grow up without dealing with racial topics, especially at a young age and the mind is still developing, the kids will be racially unaware and they’ll feel out of their comfort zone. If an African child grew up all never seeing a white person, and in their twenties they finally saw a white person, they would be shocked and wouldn’t know how to react, respond, or socialize with them. He’s be too low in the racial identity stages of life. Yet if an African child grew up in a mixed race neighborhood, when that child was older, then he would know how to socialize well with other ethnic groups, meaning he would be higher in the racial identity stages of life. If the world is looking to have ideal living conditions that all races are accepting of other races, then the stages of racial identity development needs to start at young ages, which is awareness. Children also have to be exposed to multiple, if not all racial groups at a young age, if not, then they would be more racially developed for some groups, and completely undeveloped for others. I’m pretty sure if an island was found right now, and everyone on that island was short purple midgets (oompa loompas), then I would be so confused and not knowing of how to interact with these kinds of people, even though I was high on the racial identity latter with blacks, middle eastern, etc. A good question or an interesting thought would be how someone who claims to be in the stage of racial development that they are don’t see people as different “races”, but all human being together, reacts when they see tiny little purple men. It would have to be a shocking experience for them. I don’t know if anyone can claim that they would only see the small purple men as “human” and not as a separate racial group. In conclusion, it seems that it is important to be exposed to racial issues at a young age so these issues don’t come back up later in life. This will allow people to live in harmony and without conflict later in life. It seems that most people of racial hate groups such as the KKK where born and raised up in areas where they were only exposed to their race, and when they get older, can’t handle the new experiences, so they ban together to get rid of the person that isn’t the same to them. Because they didn’t make friends with other racial groups at young ages, they feel no empathy towards other races. Sat, 24 Mar 2012 14:22:59 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/03/22/voices-from-the-classroom-131/#IDComment323443172 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/03/15/voices-from-the-classroom-123/#IDComment317915946 I’m personally confused on the war and what stance to have on it. It was clear in 4th grade when 9/11 happened that it was necessary to protect our country. It seemed necessary to invade Afghanistan to ensure no more Americans were killed, to take out the Taliban, to kill Osama bin Laden. But as I grow older, more and more questions come about this war. What was the true motive to invade Iraq? Weapons of mass destruction? Where were these weapons George Bush? We invaded, killed Sadam, no weapons were found, but now we have a US friendly government in place and now we control the oil in Iraq. It seems secret motives in favor a national security are taking place. But at what cost? Most of the Iraqi civilians are in poor living conditions and their one national resource is being controlled by a western government. Some argue that it was necessary to take out the tyrant Sadam in Iraq to ensure that no more Shiite civilians were killed by the oppressing government. But then why doesn’t the government intervene in countries in Africa and take out oppressive genocidal men like Kony? It seems because there is no incentive to do so, no oil, nothing to give back to greedy America once the oppressor has been taken out. Americans like to think of themselves as the hero’s of the world, the leaders of democracy, but it seems that America is the oppressor itself. The older I grow, the more I hate the war. Sam’s lecture on empathy was astounding and put a new perspective to the war that the media doesn’t show Americans. American troops are over there abusing their power, flattening civilian truck with their tanks because of stolen wood. No wonder the world hates us, especially underdeveloped countries. We like to see ourselves as the good big brother to the smaller countries, but we really are the mean older brother who beats up on the younger brother all the time and steals his toys. There’s also all of these conspiracy theories people here, like the world trade centers were brought down with bombs planted inside them by the government. Ok, this sounds completely absurd to me, but other conspiracy theories make me question the war also. Some say the US government, who at the time was Republican controlled, and is definitely in favor of war time activities, knew the attack was going to happen. Why not stop? Because for national security, if they allowed the terrorist plot to go through, then that would definitely get the American public’s, thus the house of representatives support for invasion of the middle east. Why so? As said before, for national security reasons, which is oil control. Some could think of this as absurd also, but in history, there’s strong evidence that the government allowed Pearl Harbor to happen to get the public’s backing to join WWII, which before Pearl Harbor, there was an extreme majority against joining the war. Also in Vietnam, there is even more evidence that the US fabricated a fake attack on a US war ship and made it look the Vietnamese were the attackers which started the war. All in all, I’m just overall confused as to what to believe is right in this war. Should we stay or should we go. Fri, 16 Mar 2012 23:25:40 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/03/15/voices-from-the-classroom-123/#IDComment317915946 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/03/02/the-kiss-seen-round-the-web/#IDComment312654862 As a male in American society, one would think I would have a negative tone towards the picture of the male soldier and his significant other kissing at their reunion, but this photo has had no effect on me what so ever. I believe the values Americans hold against homosexuals is outdated and too conservative to our ever changing liberal society. This photo I believe is going to be an iconic photographic symbol for the LGBTA society. It’s going to be a strong symbol for their pro-gay movement. America is stuck in battle between those who support gay marriage and those who are highly against it. It seems one can’t change the views of the other side, almost like religion and that it’s nearly impossible to change the views of others religion. Those who are against gay marriage mainly argue in two forms. The first one is religiously. People who argue with religion as their basis say that god doesn’t support those who don’t follow the rule that only a man and a woman should be in a sexual relationship. They think that god made them the “normal” way and that gays just chose to be in a gay relationship. It is a basis of their beliefs in their religion and these kinds of people are hard to persuade the other way. The second kind of people who argue against gay marriage are those who think that it is unnatural for a man and a man or a woman and woman to be together. They believe that humans are wired naturally through natural selection to only feel affection for opposite sex. They believe those who have gay tendencies have something wired wrong in their head, and because of that they put them on the lowest rungs of society. These kinds of people are a bit easier to persuade in the opposite view point. I’m personally atheist, so the first argument against gays doesn’t pertain to me. Saying that a higher being makes everybody straight, and that gay just “choose” to be gay sounds absurd to me. Isn’t government and religion supposed to be separate anyways? If marriage is based out of religion, why do policy makers ban gay marriage because it is their religious belief? Why don’t schools just force teachers to teach intelligent design and ban Darwinism? When it comes to the second argument, I do believe that there is a different wiring in brains when it comes to gays and straights, but I don’t think that should be a reason to downgrade homosexuals and to put them on the lowest rungs on society. I personally am for gay marriage and think that the rule against gay marriage is way outdated and needs reform in this day and age. Sat, 10 Mar 2012 03:47:05 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/03/02/the-kiss-seen-round-the-web/#IDComment312654862 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/02/10/voices-from-the-classroom-101/#IDComment289306585 I tend to think of myself as an open minded person. I try not to jump to conclusions because I know that I do not possess all of the knowledge in the universe, and I always keep in my mind that the knowledge I have obtained has the potential to be wrong. I sat and listened to Sam’s story about the Shaman, being opened minded to the story, but his story didn’t seem that convincing to me. I’m not calling Sam a liar and say it didn’t happen, I’m just saying the super natural aspect of the Shaman going into a deep, alternate, transient state, obtaining knowledge on how to heal Sam’s wounds, coming back to reality, and actually having it work out. The only reason we see his story as supernatural and awesome is that we don’t understand the dynamics, chemistry, and dynamics this shaman performed on Sam. I’m no physical therapist, but maybe if a physical therapist sat and listened to the story, they would nod their heads and give respect to the fact that the shaman twisted Sam’s ankle so many times. Maybe twisting the ankle released blood pressure, massaged the muscles, and put the tendons back into place in a manner that maximized Sam’s healing potential, which for Sam was one night of sleep. Maybe with the help of the physical therapy, the shaman’s “magical” paste he put on Sam’s ankle was an opiate that blocked the pain in that area, and also had some steroid or regenerative protein that helped heal the ankle. What I’m trying to say is there could be some science behind this that modern western medicine isn’t aware of, and the shaman’s use the fact that we are unaware of it to their advantage because it helps the credibility of them obtaining knowledge from the unknown. I’m sort of calling the shamans phony’s, but at the same time, but I can’t throw out the possibility that the shaman actually believe that they are going into an alternate state, gaining knowledge, and magically helping their patients, without them knowing the science behind their actions. For me to be a be a believer in what these shaman are said to be capable of, I’d have to see it for my own eyes. I’m one who has to see to believe. I think a group of scientists, chemists, doctors, should go down and observe, analyze, and make a conclusion as a team of specialists on the matter here. If they go down and through all their work, cannot find out how these shaman are curing their patients the way they do, and can conclude there must be without a doubt some supernatural intelligence involved, then I’d finally be a believer in the shaman’s supernatural claims. Sat, 11 Feb 2012 02:49:39 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/02/10/voices-from-the-classroom-101/#IDComment289306585 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/02/02/voices-from-the-classroom-97/#IDComment283321850 I do not expect that minorities apply to colleges knowing that affirmative action may assist their acceptance. Penn State is a very prestigious school, and I believe anyone who applies believes they worked hard in high school to get in to this school. This question brought up by this female individual gets its roots from affirmative action. Affirmative action I believe was put into action under the federal government I believe in either the 60’s or 70’s. At that time affirmative action was much needed, since this part of the 20th century was the equal rights movements. I believe the law was put into place under good intentions and was needed at that time, because universities definitely picked students based on race/religion/sex, etc. But now I think times have changed, and the world is more accepting. Yes there is still discrimination, but as Sam showed in class, the white girl from rural PA who was never exposed to an environment with a lot of black people thought it was socially unacceptable to pick out the darkest person in the room. She shows how the American thought process has changed for minorities. So I believe affirmative action is outdated and needs to be withdrawn at this point in time. Universities definitely pick students based off of academic potential, and do not discriminate. America’s president right now is a black man, 30 years ago, nobody would ever believe that would ever happen. That also shows how far America has come in tolerance of other races. I will move on and talk about another subtopic of universities picking students. I believe schools need to have academic standards for their athletes, I do think it’s unfair that I worked my ass off in high school, had a great gpa, and had to worry if I was going to get into Penn State or not while the lineman of my football team barely worked at all, was in all of the remedial classes, graduated with like a 2.7 gpa, and has a full ride scholarship to Penn State main campus. That makes me angry more than anything. I will overhear conversation with some athletes and I’ll just shake my head at the way they compose themselves and the way they talk. You go to a top university in the world, learn to talk in a respectable manner. There’s nothing the federal government can do about it, nothing that would be effective, but I hope one day Schools have a better standard on academics when they chose the athletes who are admitted into their universities. It also makes me angry that these athletes take spots that other people could have taken, yet they pick majors that don’t even help them later down the road in life, almost like a waste of a top notch education. Sat, 4 Feb 2012 02:51:47 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/02/02/voices-from-the-classroom-97/#IDComment283321850 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/01/26/voices-from-the-classroom-92/#IDComment276408515 Having Joe Paterno pass away has been a terrible experience for this university. Looking at the situation from an outsiders point of view, one can learn many things about human nature. One thing I’ve learned is that all giants fall. Joe Paterno was everything, he went to Brown university, was an assistant coach to a top football school at the age of 23, and has only gained a better reputation from then on, becoming something close to a legend and a god. But that all fell through last November when the whole scandal unfolded. Seeing our hero fall as a Penn Stater was a terrible experience, we as Penn Staters didn’t want to accept the facts. But the rest of the world looked at the Penn State community and questioned our morals. Looking back on it, as an outsider, I can see why the rest of the world would question our morals. But I question them on judging Paterno so quickly. I truly believe, looking at the situation form an outsider point of view, that people should have waited till due process of the law occurred before fingers were pointed. They should have let the trial run through, and a judge make the final verdict before the board of trustees fired Paterno, and the rest of the world attack him. That shows an interesting point of human nature. That people jump the gun on accusing those who may or may not be wrong. It was almost as if the world and the media wanted Joe to fall. His name and the scandal was all over the media. I saw more of Joe in the media than I saw of Sandusky. Another point of human nature one can concur from the situation is the impulsive reactions of those who are in fear. By this I’m talking about the board of trustees. The board acted way to quickly on firing Joe Pa, in fear the rest of the world would judge them. As stated before, they should have waited until the due process of the law and the trial were completed before anyone was fired. Their fear and irrational reactions have had many people judge their actions, such as the founder of Nike at the Joe Paterno tribute. His 2 minute standing ovation over his statement regarding the board’s actions just shows how the majority of people think and feel the same way about the board. Seeing the amount of people that converged onto Penn State for the funeral shows how much people still had respect for the man. Alumni, former football players, founders of big companies, and people from other universities all came to Penn State to say a farewell to Joe, showing the strength of the Penn State community. We Are. Penn State! Sat, 28 Jan 2012 01:29:18 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/01/26/voices-from-the-classroom-92/#IDComment276408515 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/01/20/questions-from-class/#IDComment270682018 America is a melting pot of many cultures, races, and ideas. The American dream is derived from the freedoms the American constitution allows individuals. When I think of achieving the American dream, I think of immigrants in the 1910’s-1920’s coming to America to start a new life, traveling far, escaping famine, oppression, and poor living conditions. They would come to America for a new opportunity and a chance to make it big. With Laisez-faire economics, anyone could make it big in America. Today the American dream hasn’t changed, only the people trying to achieve it has changed. Today, Latinos, Mexicans, and Asians are the major immigrants to America, and they come here for a new opportunity. The American dream still lives within these immigrants and gives them hope to a better life. This dream is strong to them, immigrants these days will walk hundreds of miles, through desolate deserts, with no food or water, risking everything to make it to America. To Americans though, I believe we take for granted the American dream and don’t account for it when they think of their futures. This is because a majority of America is the middle class, and the middle class in America is pretty well off, so the children who have their futures ahead of them believe they live well off, so trying to achieve a better life isn’t a high priority for the younger generations in America. I do not believe all young Americans think this way though. There are many kids who work hard every day to try to better themselves, but I do believe it isn’t the same percentage of kids aren’t trying to achieve a better self. It’s funny how people think of the American dream as people coming to our country and achieving success on our land. But everyone forgets about the Native Americans. People take for granted the fact that they can achieve the American dream. People think America was this barren land that Europeans settled and tamed, and the settlers fought off the British to finally get the amazing country known as America. But everyone forgets about the Native Americans, they forget the number of lives that have been taken, and the number of freedoms and dreams oppressed so we could achieve our freedoms and dreams. Coming from another perspective, the American dream is about having the opportunity to live the life how you want it. This perspective comes from my friend who has is a hard working blue collar man. His view on the American dream is intriguingly different from mine, where I come from a white collar family. He believes as long as your happy, no matter what the income, you’re living the American dream. Different from my view as achieving wealth and prosperity. Just an interesting different perspective. Sat, 21 Jan 2012 19:26:42 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2012/01/20/questions-from-class/#IDComment270682018