Surprisingly, I agree with a lot of what Sam said about the war and how it’s about oil and resources. I don’t think anyone was much too surprised by Sam saying it’s about oil. What shocks me is how many people supported this war throughout the Bush era despite the fact that it was about something that would never benefit them.

Supporters fell into one of two categories, I think. The first is those who think the war is about extending freedom to the Middle East and securing any weapons of mass destruction. While I never believed that, I can see how some people have believed it a few years ago. If they still believe it, I’d say they’re naïve or they’re not making sure they have enough information to form an opinion.

The other group of people supporting the war is those who knew the war was about oil, and thought it would somehow benefit them. They may have thought it would be cheaper to fill up next time they went to the gas station if we won the war and obtained oil. While it’s a logical concept, I never believed that either.

It sucks that we sent hundreds of thousands of people to essentially die for the oil that will make a select group of people rich. It sucks more that we killed so many people who were just trying to protect their own resources. On the other hand, that’s essentially what every single war in the history of the world has been about so it’s not a big surprise. It’s also not something I can see ever changing. It’s human nature to look out for one’s self even if it means inflicting harm on others. As long as there’s a separation of groups, whether that be race, geography, or religion, there’s going to be senseless war.

That’s not to say any individual supports war more than world peace, they’re just never going to be willing to sacrifice what’s needed to make the peace realistic. The United States can’t give about oil, just like the British Empire couldn’t give up control of trade routes, and just like Rome couldn’t let “barbaric” tribes live within the empire without being part of it.

While I don’t agree at all with the reasoning behind the war, I understand why it happened and I understand that there’s nothing we can do about it until everyone makes sure they are informed enough to make a real decision about whether they support it or not. I also know that’s never going to happen. I do, however, think people need to take a long, hard look at our military budget and question why it isn’t going towards education instead.

If the scandal surrounding us right now had only involved women, it probably would not have gotten as out of hand as it did. Men, in general, typically protect each other over doing the right thing in my opinion. They have some type of "wolf pack" bond that makes them look out for their own rather then turn them in. Women, on the other hand, have a much easier time relating to children and have less of a reason to protect each other in such a huge scandal. I'm not saying one way is better then the other. In this situation, it would have been better if a woman had been involved because it wouldn't have blown up as much as it did.

Sometimes, though, it makes more sense to let things fly under the radar. For example, when Bill Clinton's scandal came out, it ruined his presidency. I'm not saying what he did wasn't morally wrong but I don't think his personal life should have been a reason to almost impeach a perfectly good president. In that situation, his affair stayed silent as long as it did because the government positions that work close to him are largely men.

I also think people have an easier time lashing out if the person involved in a scandal is a male. You hear about male teachers all the time that had sex with their students, which I agree is wrong. On the other hand, how often are female teachers on the news for doing the exact same things? I went to a high school where a health teacher (married female) taught us about abstinence and it was discovered a year later that she had an affair with a freshman male student. No one outside the local media ever heard of her. Males that do this, on the other hand, are in the national news everyday. For example, a teacher in Conneticut was on the front page of Yahoo News today for sharing passwords to porn web sites. How is that national news but not the fact that a married woman teaching kids about abstinence had an affair with one of those very students?

I'm not sure why males are shunned so much more then women for the same scandals. If I had to take a guess I'd say we have a harder time believing that a woman could ever do something as bad as a man. They're looked at as much more innocent and so when it happens there's always doubts as to what always happened. Some people in the media in my school actually defended the teacher saying she was in an unhappy marriage and she fell in love with one of her students. If a man had done the exact same thing, I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that no one would blame it on an unhappy marriage.

In class, Sam mentioned that the idea that happiness comes from money is something that is hardwired in this generation’s thought process. While I agree with the statement itself, I’m missing how it makes this generation any different than previous generations. I know not to trust the history books 100% but if anything they say is true then it seems like money is the central issue that causes any change in the world. You don’t see countries going to war unless winning the war is economically favorable for them. You don’t see countries signing peace treaties unless there is financial incentive.

Looking at it from more of an individualistic perspective, there’s a lot more exceptions to the rule, but the vast majority will still do things that are financially favorable to them. I think this has held true for thousands of years. Breakthroughs seem to come from people who do something without expecting a return on investment (like Isaac Newton, Einstein, Hawking) but that’s to be expected. Even today, I’m sure you’ll find people who do what they do because they want to not because of the money. That’s where the breakthroughs will come from. It’s not necessary for the entire generation to share that disinterest in money for us to move forward. Sam himself said that change comes from those on the fringes of society. In our society, those “fringes” are made up of people who do what they do because they want to not because they want a six figure paycheck.

My entire point is that I’m having trouble seeing the drastic differences between past generations and our generations that Sam is seeing. Maybe it’s easier to see if you were there 30-40 years ago, but it definitely isn’t clearly visible. I think Sam was trying to point out that our society associates money with happiness. While it’s not a direct relationship in my opinion, that relationship is definitely there. More money means you have more security and more security leads to more happiness. I’m not saying you need to be the next Warren Buffett to be happy but I think most people would agree that it’s hard to be happy if you’re worried about whether or not you’ll be able to eat or feed your family tomorrow.

In my opinion, we as a society are pushing this idea of “don’t worry about money and do what makes you happy” too hard. I remember a commercial from a couple years ago that tried to make this point by showing a guy from a rural town who loved making kites and how he ended up starting his own business making kites. Great. He’s doing what he wants. Awesome. What’s the demand like for kites in the little town he’s from? What’s he going to tell his kids when they ask him why they can’t afford that new bike or video game because they have to buy food for the week. That’s the state of finances for most people in America these days, so why perpetuate the cycle?

I think the way the question was phrased is a bit of an oxymoron. If Americans are lazy and decide we don’t want to put forth the effort to excel in math and science, we’re giving everybody else in the world an advantage. It’s not like foreigners are being sneaky and “taking” the advantage. The fact that someone had to ask this question at all just shows how fucked up in general the thought process of Americans is when it comes to education. In some third-world countries, people would have asked how they can compete with Americans without access to the same tools we have access to. They may have asked how they can get even better at math and science so they could compete with Americans. In no other country in the world can I picture someone asking the equivalent of “How can we stop these people from taking advantage of our laziness so we can sit back all day?”

How screwed up is our country if our goal is for all the other countries in the world to stop working so hard so we can stay ahead? When you see things like this it’s no surprise we have one of the lowest ranked educational systems in the world. The type of attitude that’s so rampant in this country would never cross someone’s mind in, for example, India. In India, being average (a C student) isn’t something people are okay with. When they get something less than a 90%, they try to figure out why they didn’t get a 95%. When we get a 75%, we just think to ourselves that we’re average, no big deal. While I don’t agree with how the grading system works, the idea that people are okay with a grade that’s in the median range of grades is ludacris.

This mentality isn’t just screwing us over right now, but it’s going to lead to a constant decline in America’s status as a world leader. Kids that aim for C’s today are going to pass on that same attitude to their children and their children. Why would you spend hours and hours studying and go thousands of dollars into debt to be average? The foreigners aren’t taking advantage of our laziness; we’re giving them advantage by being lazy. It’s no surprise we’re so against immigration. Maybe we don’t want them to come into this country because that might mean we have to get off of our lazy asses and do something. Why change our less than adequate work ethic when it’s so much easier to stunt the progress of others so they stay at our level. I’m ashamed to admit that I’m from a country where this mentality is the norm.

It's not all that surprising that whites are going to be a minority soon. It's already true for the world as a whole so it only makes sense. It's not just the fact that there are more and more black and brown people in the United States every year. We're also a lot more open to interracial couples. When an interracial couple has a baby, chances are the baby will look more non-white then white.
It used to be almost everything in this country revolved around white people. You didn't hear about too many people that weren't white in the government or executives in fortune 500 companies. Over the course of the last few decades, that's been changing dramatically. For example we have a black president now. Fifty years ago, it would have been ridiculous to think a black man could be president.

I find it funny that so many white people are afraid of the fact that they're going to be minorities soon. I don't think the life of a minority in this day and age is any different than white people. I'd expect it to be the same way when white people become a minority. The only real differences might be that affirmative action might work the other way which might cause a lot of controversy. People experiencing white guild wouldn't want it to work in their advantage and whites in stage 4 would expect it to work in their favor since it would be their "turn."

Things may not be as fair as white people would like them to be in a few decades. But then again, things aren't really symmetrical for the different races now. For example it's a lot easier for even a white person with a criminal background to get an interview for a job then a black person. That's not as fair as black people would like but it's just the way the world works and people get used to it.

Chances are once the race distribution in our country starts balancing out, we'll start seeing different forms of segregation. We're already seeing it a little bit with the turmoil over the financial distribution. Though I don't exactly agree with their ideals, I have to admit that there's a good distribution of races in the Occupy Wall Street movement.

On one hand, I'm surprised at all the white people that say they don't think it'll effect their life at all and that they're not at all nervous. It's a pretty big change that I think would affect their everyday lifestyle. On the other hand, I can see why they wouldn't be nervous. People tend to just roll with change and get used to it so I'm sure that's what would happen in this case.

First and foremost, most girls that are "sacrificing" their comfort are doing it by choice. There's no gun to their head to wear short skirts and high heels. From what I've heard from the girls that dress like this, most of them do it to attract attention from guys. Some girls say they're wearing those clothes not to attract attention from guys but to compete with girls. If that's the case what are they competing for? It all boils down to attention from the opposite sex.

If a girl doesn't feel comfortable in revealing clothing, I'd say she should wear something she does feel comfortable in. I've seen plenty of girls that aren't dressed "slutty" that I find very attractive. I'd actually say they're a lot more attractive if they're not wearing revealing clothing.

As for guys, I'd say most of them would choose comfort over looking good. Also, men are initially attracted to women based on looks, but that's not the case the other way around. Women are attracted to men initially based on confidence and personality. Based on this it's pretty clear why it's more important for a girl to look good then a guy. The only issue is that each person's idea of what "looks" good is different.

Most girls seem to think the less they wear the more guys they can attract because of the male-centered media. This is true if the context of attractiveness is based on how many guys want to have sex with a girl. If you change the context to how many guys want a relationship with the girl, suddenly the ones that wear the most revealing clothing are the least attractive.

It comes down to what kind of image the girl wants to portray of herself. Most guys I've talked to would think a girl wearing very revealing clothing is "DTF" but she's not someone they would want anything more than a one-night stand with. It's possible for a girl to look sexy without wearing the most revealing clothing in the world, in my opinion. I don't think most women around State College understand that concept.

I'm curious as to why some women decide to dress the way they do even though they're so uncomfortable. It amazes me that some of these girls wear short skirts and high heels and walk down Shortlidge Rd in the snow and ice in the middle of January to go to parties. I can barely walk up that road with boots on so I can't imagine how uncomfortable it would be to walk up that hill with heels on.

Girls who aren't comfortable wearing revealing clothing should wear what they think is comfortable, it's that simple.

I share everyone else's view that the amount the United States spends on war is ridiculous and largely unnecessary. There's no reason we should be funding wars to free people of another country when we have what I'd consider a shaky foundation economically in our own country. It's kind of like if an orphan was giving money to starving kids in Africa. Granted the starving kids need help and people in the position to help should definitely do everything they can to help them. An orphan, however, should probably only worry about himself/herself until they are old enough to be financially stable. Logically, the United States should first make sure our economy isn't going down the toilet, and THEN try to help other countries with their problems.

While I do think military spending is high, I'm much more upset with the people of the country. The mindset of people in this country is to try to find a job but if they don't succeed, they'll just live off of welfare. To prove my point, we can just take a look at OccupyWallStreet and how screwed up the mindset of those people is. They're complaining about the top 1% of the population because they don't pay enough taxes, they have a huge political pull, etc. I'd love to find out how many of people have ever done what it takes to move from the bottom 99% to the top 1%. I feel as though people think they're entitled to become that top 1% because they've been working 60 hour weeks for the past 20 years. They don't look at the other side of things. The people that are in the top 1% are there not because they spent huge amounts of time working at a dead end job and living paycheck to paycheck. They're there because, at some point, they took a risk.

There's not a single profession that can make you rich that doesn't involve risk. Actors, athletes, entrepreneurs, and musicians all took a risk by letting go of a steady paycheck. Most of these professions have at least a 2-5 year incubation period where they make little profit, if any. Success doesn't come until they've paid their dues.

How is it, then, that the people protesting the top 1% can complain about what the top 1% has if they've never done what it takes to join them. Not only is this mindset a huge thorn in the foot of the US economy, but it's self-perpetuating. Parents that think like this nurture their kids to think like this. Chances are, if the 1% started paying more taxes, these people would find something else to complain about. Why not use that energy and time to do something worthwhile?

I don't particularly care about gay couples, interracial couples, or gay interracial couples. I'm not sure why a lot of people find anything wrong with these couples, actually. I can understand why some people may not want to be PART of an interracial/gay couple, but why does it bother them to see someone else go outside of their race for a mate? There's no reason why I, or anyone else for that matter, should let any relationship that doesn't directly effect them bother them.

Gay couples in general don't bother me as long as they don't cross any lines that ANY couple should not be crossing in public. For example making out in public is unnecessary and I'd have a problem with any couple doing it. gay or not. Why some people need to exhibit their uncontrollable desire for one another in public, I'll never understand. Some LBGT members around campus decided it would be a good way to make a statement about their cause by making out with their partner in front of a Willard in the middle of the day last year. I think that entire situation hurt their cause, if anything. Even people that typically don't have a problem with gay people were a bit turned off by their actions.

As far as interracial dating is concerned, I think a lot of people are becoming more and more comfortable with it. I typically don't realize a lot of couples are interracial until someone brings it to my attention, although I think older generations, like our parents, still notice it before anything else. Especially in the United States, we have such a large mixture of different races and cultures that it's unreasonable to think that you're not going to see at least one or two interracial couples a day at a school with 40,000+ students.

Anyone that has a huge problem with a gay couple or interracial couple, in my eyes, is just a really small-minded person. Some can argue that you have to be against stuff like that if you're religious but I'd have to call bullshit on them. No religion punishes you for the actions of others. No one's going to hell for seeing an interracial gay couple no matter how devout of a Catholic you are. As long as you're not the person committing what your religion identifies as a "sin," you shouldn't be worrying about it. You definitely shouldn't be going out of your way to take something away from someone on the basis of YOUR beliefs. People need a sense of empathy. They need to put themselves in the shoes of whoever they're bashing and look at the world through their eyes. I don't think being gay is a conscious choice someone is making.

In a perfect world, race, gender and other forms of discrimination wouldn't exist. On the other hand, a perfect world would be a really boring world. If we didn't differentiate between races and cultures, we would eventually lose those differences. It's not cool to be racist, but at the same time, it would really suck if everyone in the world was one color and one culture. Almost everything we love is in some way related to culture. Let me give you an example that we can all relate to. Everyone in State College has at some point enjoyed a falafel (or similar wrap) at Pita Pit. If middle easterners didn't want to keep their culture when they came over to America, we wouldn't have had a Pita Pit. State College is actually a perfect example of my point. We have Italian food, Mexican food, Indian food, Chinese food, Mediterranean food, Thai food, etc.
Asking why can't we all just be human is like asking why we can't all just be males. You're asking us to ignore clear differences that we see in each other. Females can't be males because they don't have penises. White people can't be black because their skin doesn't produce as much melanin. Jews can't be Hindu (for the most part) because that would require them abandoning beliefs that have been with them since birth.
All in all I don't think skin color itself is important but I think everything that goes along with it that's important. I think what you mean is why can't we all look at racial differences in a positive light rather than how most people currently see it, which is a pretty negative viewpoint. I think we're moving towards a culture that doesn't care too much race. It's still only been a relatively short time since the civil rights movement, the holocaust, and even slavery so I don't think we're close to achieving what I can see we're heading towards. I think in five or six generations from us, race will be something that is barely used as a reason to keep others down, if at all. Especially as more and more people get a higher education, I think racism becoming less and less rampant.
In my discussion group, I noticed that most people would be able to bring home a different race boyfriend/girlfriend to their parents but they had issues with introducing them to the grandparents. This is a real life example of my point. Our parents are a hundred times less racist then our grandparents, and I'd like to think we're that much less racist then our parents. I think this cycle will continue so it's only a matter of time before race stops becoming such a big issue.

I was raised in a religious home and I'd say I "believed" in god until I was fifteen or sixteen years old. I put the word "believed" in quotes because I had faith in God not because I'd thought about it and decided that's what I believed in. Instead my faith came from my family and what surrounded me. Looking back, I can't say that I actually believed because I didn't make a conscious choice. Anyone who has believed in any religion for the entirety of their life without once questioning it, in my eyes, isn't religious by choice but by fear.

Once I started to question not only my religion, but religion in general, I realized it didn't really provide me with the answers that I feel religion is supposed to provide. Creationism, to me, sounds like a great story but then why do we have fossils? Did God just put them there to test our faith? If that's the case, God doesn't seem as loving as most holy scripts make him/her out to be. Evolution, on the other hand, is also a cool story. But it explains why we have the things we have around us. It just makes sense. I'm not saying there isn't a God because we have fossils, but I am saying I don't think God created the Earth as we know it. This is also the reason I wouldn't call myself an atheist, but an agnostic. I believe that maybe there is a being that takes the form we know as God, but they didn't create what we see around is in quite the way that most people believe they did. I believe that maybe he/she may have created the big bang and given the universe a set of mathematical rules to follow. From that point on, I don't think God has an active role in what happens. It's similar to turning on free will in "the Sims" and just watching what happens. You don't actively make anything happen; you just sit back and watch.

Whenever I talk to religious people, they always bring up holy scripts and what's written in them and how I could possibly disregard them. Most holy books are written by man. In fact, most religous people agree with that statement. So how does anyone seperate, for example, the Bible, from any other book. Both are written by man, and niether has any solid proof of actually occuring. I don't mean to attack just the Bible, though. I see holy books as more of a guideline of how to live a moral life. Their events didn't actually take place in my eyes but they weren't written as recorded history, they were written as a moral measuring stick for your life.