5. Are some people inherently bad?
yes, though I see the 'inherent' element as the sticky part. Are (some) people bad? Clearly. But, what has made them bad? Are they bad, or is it the choices they've made and the behavior in which they've engaged?
I've given this a lot of thought. In one way or another, the question occupied most of my time for a decade or so. In my opinion (based on all that thinking, study, research, and writing) is that it's very easy to conclude that some people are born evil, and that settles it. That leaves the rest of us, those who have ever done anything non-evil, to smugly consider ourselves immune from the affliction. However, it's more complicated than that.
Each of us has evil inside, at least in the form of temptation. Temptation is relative, of course—what's an intolerable choice for me is acceptable to someone else, and vice versa. (As a side note, this is what keeps me from road raging! Some traffic laws are easily broken, I think. I tend to speed, for instance, and I cruise in the left lane in certain spots because staying in the right lane seems like a death wish. (Hello Janesville, Cheese State—I'm talking to you!) Others feel that way about the optional nature of blinkers, for instance, or weaving from lane to lane between other cars. Do I have the right to rage about someone else's driving in the rain without their lights on, if I stomp on other laws with impunity? Ah, no.) That philosophy extends to other law-breaking, or even just questionable choices. I don't drink, for instance. Do I believe that drinking is evil, or that it makes a person who does it evil? No. How about using drugs? How about distributing drugs? Same with the use, even excessive, of other substances or activities or choices. That's your problem, not mine.
This is a rambling answer to a simple question, and I think that it needs to be considered at a deep level. That busts apart the "inherent" aspect.
6. What is true patriotism?
I don't have the capacity and perspective to answer that question. I have ideas, but haven't been tested enough to be sure about it.
7. Do the ends always justify the means?
not always, but sometimes. It's possible to be in a seemingly impossible situation, one where any "resolution" will hurt someone - but that pain may be better and preferable to some different kind of pain that comes from not resolving anything.
8. Does censorship solve the problem it’s trying to solve?
never. It always causes more problems than it purports to eliminate. Censorship, book-banning, and other limits on what people can say, hear, or think—it's always short-sighted and insulting.
It's also mean and stupid.
9. What do you think about the world’s cultures homogenizing?
and hey, there's another topic that I'm not getting anywhere near!
10. Is there anything that’s legal today that should be criminalized?
reboots of entertainment that's already been done, with the exception of anything written before 1950
11. What do you think about giving money to panhandlers?
it's a quick answer to a long, involved problem
12. If humans ever reached immortality, how do you think they would view us, their mortal predecessors?
if you had the opportunity to be immortal, what age would you be? I mean, would immortality start at age 18, or 21, or 30, or 50? 75? 100? When would you put on the brakes? And how would you put on the brakes? Fill out an application and submit to the overlords? Simply will it to happen? And what happens when I, who stopped aging at age 20, meet my soulmate, who (previously) chose age 50 instead? Is there some way for me to change my mind and launch myself forward 30 years? Or for them to revert to 20-ness?
And how do we deal with the rapidly decreasing resources, the overwhelmed infrastructure, and the lack of the biological imperative to reproduce? Would there be any reason to pair off, to get married, to have children, to form bonds? Or would everything be too easy, and therefore not worth fighting for?
The immortality fantasy has more holes than all the cheese in Switzerland.
13. Do you think the older generation has missed out on not having social media?
God no, I think that they've been saved from meaningless non-interaction and posing. Social media is a gigantic time-suck that, were it not for the handful of people with whom I only connect there, I would avoid at all cost.
This blog notwithstanding. Is a blog "social media" anymore? Or is it just a slightly higher-tech vanity than a standard handwritten journal?
14. What do you think pushes people towards extreme body modification?
there's no one thing that "pushes" one there. What makes body mod extreme, anyway? How many piercings is acceptable, and what's the magic number that pushes it over the edge? How many tattoos is too many, or is it a question of where they are located? Perhaps the percentage of skin coverage? Percentage of not-clothing-covered? Or is it, like the Supreme Court's definition of obscenity, that you just know it when you see it?
[from here; the title quotation is from Epictetus]
No comments:
Post a Comment