en-us https://www.intensedebate.com/users/2395224 Comments by vashp2029 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/29/voices-from-the-classroom-83/#IDComment231459353 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. Fri, 2 Dec 2011 03:29:09 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/29/voices-from-the-classroom-83/#IDComment231459353 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/15/voices-from-the-classroom-77/#IDComment224002063 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. Fri, 18 Nov 2011 18:56:04 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/15/voices-from-the-classroom-77/#IDComment224002063 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/09/voices-from-the-classroom-69/#IDComment219420523 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? Wed, 9 Nov 2011 18:36:20 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/09/voices-from-the-classroom-69/#IDComment219420523 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/01/voices-from-the-classroom-61/#IDComment216496771 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. Thu, 3 Nov 2011 22:41:43 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/11/01/voices-from-the-classroom-61/#IDComment216496771 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/27/voices-from-the-classroom-58/#IDComment213178697 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. Thu, 27 Oct 2011 23:20:54 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/27/voices-from-the-classroom-58/#IDComment213178697 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/06/voices-from-the-classroom-40/#IDComment210700612 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. Fri, 21 Oct 2011 22:57:45 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/06/voices-from-the-classroom-40/#IDComment210700612 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/11/tax-dollars-at-war/#IDComment206983553 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? Thu, 13 Oct 2011 16:02:02 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/11/tax-dollars-at-war/#IDComment206983553 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/02/voices-from-the-classroom-30/#IDComment204553611 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. Fri, 7 Oct 2011 23:14:17 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/10/02/voices-from-the-classroom-30/#IDComment204553611 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/07/questions-from-the-classroom/#IDComment201051354 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. Thu, 29 Sep 2011 22:18:20 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/07/questions-from-the-classroom/#IDComment201051354 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/08/30/why-your-religion/#IDComment191213610 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. Thu, 8 Sep 2011 21:03:21 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/08/30/why-your-religion/#IDComment191213610 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/01/why-do-you-follow-any-religion-at-all/#IDComment188846603 Over the years I think everyone was taught in one class or another that religon started out as a way for people to explain what they couldn't explain otherwise. Over time, science took over and started explaining things like why the sun rises and sets every day and what keeps us on the ground. It's hard for me to understand why people still need religon, because I don't think people see it as a way to explain the unexplainable. It's possible that it all comes down to what we grew up with. Most people grew up in religous homes and it just makes sense for them to believe in what their families believe. How else would you explain why someone who grows up in a Catholic home turns out Catholic rather then Muslim? I grew up in a Hindu family and considered myself Hindu until high school, not because I actually believed in the religon, but because I never questioned it. I think most people that are devoted to their religon feel that questioning their religon is blasphemous. Thomas Jefferson once said "Question with boldness even the existence of a God, because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blind faith." While I don't have anything against people who are truly religous, I wonder how they can go through life knowing that their religon is correct but not once did they question it. In fact, I had a conversation with someone just a few days ago who knew that Jesus was real and he was part of God. He knew that God created the universe and everything in it. When I asked him who created God, he said he was just there. After several minutes of conversation it became clear that he didn't question how God came to be; that would mean he would end up in hell. From my perspective, if you would end up in hell simply for questioning HOW God came to be, God is not as loving as some people would make him out to be. Over and over again I try to understand how people can go through life and not question their religon AT LEAST as much as they question the religon of others. What makes people positive that the Bible is fact but the Bhagavat Gita or the Quran is fiction? After all, every holy book (with the exception of the Gita) was written by man himself. While I'm not an expert in psycology, I know that anything people say or write should be taken with a grain of salt. How can someone have absolute blind faith in the written word when that word was written by man himself? Fri, 2 Sep 2011 00:07:35 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/09/01/why-do-you-follow-any-religion-at-all/#IDComment188846603 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/18/war-through-the-ages/#IDComment144999427 It's pretty clear that for whatever reason Asia and most of Africa seem to be more peaceful then Europe and the Americas. I find this odd since the Chinese had gunpowder and other things that could be used as weapons long before Europe. It's strange that the two biggest countries in Asia, India and China, have been relatively peace loving countries throughout history. I can't think of any sociological differences between Europe and Asia to have produced such different mindsets over the centuries. A lot of the fighting in the Middle East is understandably vigorous since three religions are all fighting over pretty much the same supposed holy lands. I was amazed at how many battles there have been throughout history that I had never even heard of. A lot of this is just due to the fact that our education system in this country focuses largely on US history and only touches on world history. One of the posts before mine mentions how they'd astonished that even though the US has the largest military spending budget in the world very few battles have taken place on our soil. I think this actually makes sense. A large portion of the military budget is for defensive tactics so most countries don't have the money to put up a significant attack on American soil. Overall, I think it was an interesting and effective way to show people how war has progressed through the ages. As our weapons progress, our battles become that much larger and have that many more casualties. I'd be curious to see a video like this that factored in civilian deaths and factored out death caused by natural causes like disease. I think the results would be very different. It would also be interesting to see which countries have been in the largest number of wars. I'd expect England to top that list but other than that political borders have changed so much throughout history that it would be difficult to say one country took part in more wars than another. Obviously, countries in Asia and especially South America and Africa would be ranked very low on how active they are military wise. Fri, 22 Apr 2011 04:00:42 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/18/war-through-the-ages/#IDComment144999427 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/09/the-fricking-frackers-own-my-arse/#IDComment143248807 One of the previous replies states it's so difficult to trust people in the oil and gas industry. I don't totally agree with this statement. I'd say it's as difficult (or easy, however you want to look at it) to trust gas and oil industrialists as it is to trust banks, car manufacturers, pharmaceutical corporations, even hospitals and schools. I think the reason mistrust in oil and gas is so blown up boils down to the fact that we just use it more. Everyone is out for a profit so I agree that you can't put blind faith in the corporations but I can't see the system working any other way. When you're blaming big corporations for hoarding power, you're essentially saying that capitalism is an inadequate form of government. While that may be true, in my opinion, capitalism is as close to a fair government as we can get. Many different forms of government have been tried across the globe at one time or another and as far as I know, there isn't a single empire that's been around since civilization began. Basically, what I'm saying is that while it's not a perfect system, it's as perfect as we can get when trying to account for everyone's best interests. Also, it's important to remember who's at the head of these big corporations. Most of these people are better educated than most of us will ever hope to be just because they had opportunities we never had. We have to assume they know what's better for the system to work then we do, especially when you realize that the majority of the population, if put in those executives shoes, would drive the economy straight into the ground. It's easy to complain about how ridiculous it is that we go to war over oil but the people that are complaining need to formulate what they're talking about more. As far as I know, most of the people that complain about this are still driving cars, taking the bus, carrying groceries in plastic bags, etc. Until you can even a day without using any oil derived products, you really don't have any grounds to you argument. Fri, 15 Apr 2011 23:30:02 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/09/the-fricking-frackers-own-my-arse/#IDComment143248807 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/07/4827/#IDComment141111657 As someone who comes from a middle class family, I understand that what the oil executives are doing is frustrating. On the other hand, I can see it from their perspective also. People in general are going to do what benefits them over anyone else and in the case of oil executives, what benefits them is typically something that is detrimental to the majority of the country. While it may be unfair to us you can't really say the system as a whole is unfair. If they didn't have more power then the majority of the country, it's likely that they wouldn't be able to build their business as large as they've become. While that makes sense to some people, essentially that means the people would actually control the government, which would control businesses. In turn, the majority of businesses would be required to do what the public wanted which means that profit margins would dry up. While a lot of wealthy people have gotten to that position by sheer dumb luck, most have an entrepreneurial mindset and perseverance. For the most part, someone doesn't become Chairman of a company like Exxon because they were in the right place at the right time. They generally did things to put themselves on the right side of the bell curve over and over. For example when most large corporations started, they were nothing more then a few people with a dream and lots of loans. When these entrepreneurs started their businesses, they made a fraction of the money most people made for two to three times the hours that most people work. They paid their dues at some point. The majority of people go through life trying as hard as possible to take the easy route, to find a secure job, etc. It's only right that the people willing to take bigger risks earn bigger returns. Overall, I think people find oil lobbying unfair because it's not in their best interest but they don't take into account the other side's perspective. If someone felt that strongly about the issue, why not waste their breath becoming part of the upper class rather than complaining about how unfair life is for the middle and lower classes. Fri, 8 Apr 2011 23:09:39 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/04/07/4827/#IDComment141111657 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/19/changing-the-way-we-think-about-education/#IDComment139214955 I can relate to the video a lot because I've always been "good" at academics but I've always found the majority of what we learn in school to be unimportant. In elementary school I enjoyed learning anything that was science but I hated everything else. As I got older, like in high school, I hated going to class period. Even science I found boring by high school with the exception of my physics class. I enjoyed that class a lot because of the teacher I had. Unlike all the other teachers I'd had until that point, he encouraged finding a solution to problems however you think is most efficient. He didn't tell us to do it this way or that way. I didn't have to worry about getting the right solution but have the wrong method of doing things. I've always wondered why teachers don't allow students to figure things out however they want. Why do we have to do it a certain way. The way our system is setup is meant to make us carbon copies of the previous generation. If I had teachers like my high school physics teacher throughout my schooling career, I'd bet that I would be much less knowledgeable about history but I'd also be much, much more interested in science. It makes more sense to let people excel at the things they're interested in rather than hold them back by making them learn things they have absolutely no interest in. I think we should be teaching children how to be entrepreneurs rather than conditioning them to look for jobs working for entrepreneurs. Nine out of ten college students, I think, are in college so they can "find a good job" when they graduate. It's rare to see someone in college because they want to create a business or corporation and be a leader. This is because parents and teachers alike are always drilling into children's heads how important it is to get a good job. Why aren't they telling them how important it is to start your own business? Why don't they teach them how to take calculated risks rather then how to be "secure"? Fri, 1 Apr 2011 22:44:43 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/19/changing-the-way-we-think-about-education/#IDComment139214955 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/24/religion-in-the-future/#IDComment137586319 Personally, I consider myself agnostic and so do most of my friends so I didn't find this article surprising at all. As we move into a time where more and more technology is part of our lives I think it becomes harder and harder to have faith in religions that were essentially created to explain things that science explains today. For me in particular, I find it difficult to have faith in religions because most of them have strong explanations for things that have been proven wrong over and over. I'm a strong believer in the fact that the Earth is, in fact, a sphere and not flat. If the Catholic church was wrong about that, I don't see how I can have faith in anything else they say. The same goes for any other religion. They've all been proven wrong at some point or another. However, my lack of faith lies in religion, not God. After all, religion is man-made and humans by nature always have reason to manipulate facts. As time goes by more and more people are beginning to see the flawed nature of religion which leads to the fast growth in "no religion." I think more and more people are beginning to form an image of "God" as being one who is logical and rational. What I mean is people understand that if God exists, he's not looking for people to be "God-fearing" and have blind faith. A famous quote by someone states "Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.” I very much agree with this because if God does exist, I'd like to think of Him as a being who would rather see me have faith in Him because I truly believe in Him because I questioned Him rather than because I'm scared as hell of what might happen if I don't believe. Most of all, I really would just attribute the rise in "no religion" to convenience. Until recently, it was more convenient for people to trust what the major religions said because they explained what could not be explained logically. These days, with things like CERN and the LHC going on, science has taken over the job of explaining things in a way that people can understand. Fri, 25 Mar 2011 22:46:38 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/24/religion-in-the-future/#IDComment137586319 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/09/the-r-word-and-the-oblivious-others/#IDComment135931872 I think people make way too big a deal out of people using slang terms for things such as mental capacity, body size, sexual preference, and race. I've been called racial slurs before by friends and I know they don't mean it so it doesn't matter. I've also been called racial slurs by people who aren't friends in which case I don't really care what they say. Either way, the words don't bother me because at the end of the day that's all they are--words. As children we're taught that "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" but somewhere along the line we lost sight of that. It's ridiculous that people care enough about words to spend millions of dollars to eradicate a word (NAACP). The sooner we learn to move past problems like this, the sooner we can deal with real problems like people starving and dissolving tensions between countries. I think people just need to learn to have a tougher skin and take the advice they give their children. Fri, 18 Mar 2011 23:17:05 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/09/the-r-word-and-the-oblivious-others/#IDComment135931872 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/09/the-r-word-and-the-oblivious-others/#IDComment135931852 A lot of people know or are related to people that are mentally handicapped and it's understandable that they would find it offensive when people use the word "retard" in a derogatory remark targeted TOWARDS someone with a mental handicap. On the other hand, I don't think they should find the word offensive when it's used in slang everyday language like a lot of us use it. We typically don't mean anything by it. People use the word "gay" to describe almost everything in this day and age for example, but most people that use the word in that fashion don't have anything against gays and lesbians. I wouldn't find it the word "gay" offensive if I was related to or had a gay friend which is the basis behind my argument for understanding the use of the word "retard." We're not machines so we have the ability to reason and decide if someone using a certain word means harm by it or not. It doesn't make sense to completely ban a word from the language because people find it offensive. Fri, 18 Mar 2011 23:16:58 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/03/09/the-r-word-and-the-oblivious-others/#IDComment135931852 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/28/the-lottery-as-a-blessing-or-a-curse/#IDComment133726524 The main reason people think money would make them happy is because they tend to compare themselves with people around them who have more materialistic "things' than they do. It's because materialistic things are easy to spot and value. You can't as easily see someone who derives their happiness from philanthropic work and you sure as hell can't value how much work would equal a certain amount of happiness. So people tend to look at the few things they can easily compare and it turns out that they believe money leads to more material things which leads to more happiness. This is funny because most wealthy people I've met are actually very thrifty and tend to think about a purchase a hundred times before making it even though it's well within their range of affordability. Middle class and lower class individuals, however, tend to go out and buy materialistic things as soon as they have enough money to buy them rather then when they can "afford" them. While they think they're becoming more like the wealthy by having that possession, they're actually getting farther and farther from it because they keep collecting assets that depreciate over time while the wealthy tend to invest. For this reason, someone who has lived a middle class life all their life and suddenly hits the jackpot may end up spending more then they win and actually end up worse off then they were. Most people can't wrap their head around dollar amounts past $100,000 let alone millions so they think they can buy the world when they win the lottery. They end up overspending for several years only to find out they have nothing saved, nothing invested, and no real assets. At that point they have to go from living a luxurious lifestyle back to middle class. This is hard on most people because their habits have changed to expect more over the top materialistic things while their wallet has all but dried up. The other big reason I think people are materialistic is because they put their self worth in their bank accounts. They get their self confidence from how large that number becomes. People think of success at something that goes along with luck and skill. Successful people that I talk to tend to derive their self confidence from their drive to succeed. They know that if something were to happen where they lost all their money, it would only be a matter of time before they were able to get it all back because they realize that if they keep doing what other's aren't willing to do when they're young, they'll be able to do what others aren't able to do when they're old. Going from rags to riches can have different outcomes but it all really comes down to the person's mentality and self worth, I think. I'd like to think that my self worth comes from the fact that I can persevere long enough to be able to do anything rather than what I've been able to collect and deposit into my bank account. Thu, 10 Mar 2011 00:45:47 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/28/the-lottery-as-a-blessing-or-a-curse/#IDComment133726524 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/21/rethinking-education/#IDComment130718822 I think this video really hits the nail on the head in everything it says about education. I have always thought the education system, in this country in particular, sucks. It doesn’t make sense to teach everyone about everything. If I don’t like literature, it doesn’t make sense to teach me about it when I could be using my focus and energy into making a difference in a field I am actually fond of. I’ve seen so many students excel at some subjects without once reading a page of a textbook just because they’ve educated themselves in the subject out of sheer interest in it. For example, I didn’t have to go to class at all in my first several physics courses at PSU because I was so interested in it that I had educated myself on it at a younger age. On the other hand, I work harder and have lower grades than most in chemistry just because most of my energy is spent in trying to focus on what I’m learning rather than actually learning. Especially in this day in age, we push students to strive for academic excellence in all fields and the highest GPA. It’s been proven over and over again that those people that don’t care about GPA but more about learning are the ones that do well for themselves and create something to better the world. For someone to care more about learning than about their GPA, they have to be learning about something they care about. Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Albert Einstein, Steven Hawking, and the list goes on. These are all people who excelled at one or two academic fields but suffered horribly at the rest. They did however, become successful. On the other hand, I’ve met countless numbers of people who have respectable degrees and GPAs but are struggling to find a job. I think we need to teach kids to be entrepreneurs rather than just another person looking for a job working for the system that’s so fundamentally flawed. Entrepreneurs, in my experience, are usually people who work twice as hard as normal people at something that they like but they feel like it’s just play rather than work. It seems to make sense to me to have people do what they want so that they can all change the world in their respective fields rather than all compete for a secure job with a Fortune 500 company. Fri, 25 Feb 2011 23:47:37 +0000 http://www.worldinconversation.org/2011/02/21/rethinking-education/#IDComment130718822