Name:Ramon Country:United States State:Michigan Metro:Grand Ledge Birthday:4/23/1990 Gender:Male
Interests:Electronics, Astronomy, Computers, Internet, PC Games, Religions, Cultures, My Website, Science Fiction, Prank Calls, Roman Catholicism, Band, Clarinet, Music, and Movies in General, Theoretical physics, HIstory, Islam, Star Wars, The Fifth Element, Back to the Future, and The X Files Expertise:
Xanga used to be somewhat lively. But now all the action is in MySpace and Facebook and now most of the action on Xanga seems to be done by asians.
I am concerned that there is a perception that environmentalism is inherently connected to animal welfare. Environmentalism makes room for the abuse and exploitation of animals so long as their population is maintained and it doesn't affect the environment in a negative way. So killing cats and dogs and such aren't exactly harming the environment and could be argued to be helping the environment. Feral cats and cats allowed outdoors can destroy wildlife populations because they are good hunters and they multiply fast.
I don't think environmentalism and animal rights are necessarily connected.
Whales and other endangered animals are a concern to environmentalists because their population can have an effect on other organisms as well and cause problems if the population disappears.
But even though the two are not inherently connected, I think it's important to address both.
Animal welfare activists and environmental activists have similar goals although it can be for different reasons. Factory farming and lack of responsibility with pets causes pollution and biodiversity problems. Factory farming and poor pet control also causes poor health and abuse to animals.
I think a lot of environmentalists don't want to be identified with the image that PETA has which comes off to me as being more extreme and shocking than say Greenpeace. But you know, PETA kind of has to be shocking because that's the whole point - animals are having horrible things done to them and they have to raise awareness. I think it's easier to show people a forest cut down than a stumbling cow being dumped into a grinder alive. Although I don't think people would react as much to the forest as they would to the cow.
I do see that in the last year or so, "green" has become the new buzzword in the media to encourage environmental friendliness and sustainable living.
I'm working my way towards removing meat from my diet, I stopped eating pigs and cows. Next I gotta stop eating chickens and turkeys.
People use the idea that life has some inherent meaning to argue against gays and sodomy. Why is sodomy wrong? It's gross? You can't say something is wrong just because you think it's icky. Calling it unnatural doesn't work either, what makes it unnatural? Unnatural things are plastics, computers, synthetics, and various chemicals. Unnatural isn't the same as unconventional.
Some people say that gays are confused as to what life is about, and that by turning sex into a game instead of a method of reproduction it makes life meaningless. What meaning does life have in the first place? All life is is a chemical reaction! I don't look for meaning when I mix vinegar and baking soda. " OH BEHOLD! FOR GOD HAS GIVEN RISE TO CARBON DIOXIDE FROM TWO UNRELATED SUBSTANCES! IT IS A SIGN OF CREATION! THESE SUBSTANCES SHALL NOT BE MIXED IN VAIN!" Nobody tries to outlaw volcano demos.
No. People give themselves meaning in their lives. Some people find meaning in their life in their family, others find it in their religion, other people find it in careers or hobbies or interests or anything. Life doesn't have an inherent meaning.
No other animal needs a reason to live, their instincts just say what to do, and since only animals that want to live will pass on their genes, then they will be born with a will to live. Since we are the only animal that can imagine abstract things, we worry about these things.
I like how Louis C.K. said that the only argument against gays is "They're fuckin' queer!"
How can homosexuality be wrong if it doesn't hurt anybody, and it is in private. My favorite joke is from Lewis Black where he talks about the hypothetical "Gay Banditos" which starts at about 3:30 in the video.
You know, perception is subjective, so that means that everything we know about the world outside of our mind comes from the way our brain perceives the world. The brain processes the information given to it by nerves, so we can create images of what we see with our eyes or feel or taste or hear.
So if there was some kind of entity or machine that wasn't limited to perception, but could see everything for what it was. Which to me, is difficult to conceive of.
It might take a look at an image on our retinas, and see a fuzzy mix of various forms of electromagetic radiation coming from it. If it looked at just visible light, it would see what our eyes see, which would look something like this:
I was sitting in class watching the announcements slide show on the TV, and one slide says:
Senior Oscar Night: • Main emcee tryouts and entertainment auditions for Senior Oscar Night are March 3-7 during all three lunches in Ms Landis’ room (323). See Alyssa Kluge if you have any questions.
Emcee is not a word. These people are thinking of the abbreviation "MC" which stands for Master of Ceremonies. Emcee doesn't make any sense.
There are also people who say they don't like technology or say they don't want their kids to use to much technology, when what they really mean is electronics. Everything that is made by people or formed by people is technology. Without technology, we can't survive, technology is one of the main things that make us human.
Without technology that means no clothes, housing, forks, spoons, soaps, glasses, music, tools, cars, etc.
If we didn't have technology we would be eating insects and fruit and living in caves. People who live like the Amish use technology, they have horses and simpler tools and they obviously wear clothes. I've seen them ride bikes and such. Old fashioned African tribes use technology to build their huts and make spears to hunt for food. A stone axe is probably one of the oldest forms of technology, if not that, a pointy stick or a blunt rock used to get food or to hunt/kill might count.
I don't think that punishing children works very efficiently. When I was spanked or punished, I was thinking about how much I didn't like being punished, I didn't think "Oh, I better not do that again" I was thinking something more along the lines of "Well I'm going to pour out all of my parents' things." Then the whole cause of the punishment was not addressed the way it should be. There was no discussion as to why what I did was bad or stupid, it was just. "DON'T DO THAT AGAIN! COME HERE!"
All punishment is is a distraction.
Punishment doesn't work on animals, if you spank a dog, it won't think "oh, I better not do that again" it will just bite you and if you punish animals enough they just plain won't like you and will attack you or avoid you whenever possible. So why is it okay to do to children?
After punishment, children and teens will just test the parents' will to follow through with the grounding.
Most people will just work around to avoid getting caught or punished.
A person will always avoid being burned with fire, but a person won't always avoid doing drugs or sneaking out, because they don't always get punished for it.
A lot of bad behavior already has consequences, hurting others is going to make people not like you and more prone to hurt you in return, so it's not something I would want to do.
Why don't parents instead of punishing them, point out the consequences that already exist from what they did, or the possible consequences or why it's not right. If a child steals, instead of hurting them, they should be taught why stealing is wrong in the first place and what can happen when they steal. If they're caught, nobody will trust them.
If you think about it, animals would evolve to avoid doing things that harmed them. So if an animals found out that fire hurts them, they would avoid it, some animals might evolve to have this behavior hardwired into them. Other animals might have to be taught or learn from experience.
Social animals probably benefit from being good to each other so that they each survive. So from that could evolve our morals, if we were all nasty to each other, we would all soon die because we can't survive for very long on our own. So if being human inherently comes with morals, when why should a child have to have artificial consequences?
If a child isn't allowed to leave the house at a certain time, there should be a reason for it, a real reason. One reason could be that going out on the weekends late at night, there is a higher potential for drunk drivers to be out and about. So that could be one reason. "Because this is my house" is not a good reason and who's going to buy that?
Obviously stealing from people is wrong. Why? It hurts that person because they worked to get what they had and you deprived them of it, and if they stole something from you, you would be upset. So it's cruel to cause people to be upset. Plus, if you're caught, people won't trust you and they'll think of you as a thief.
I think that people should think about why things are wrong more often instead of just punishing people who do wrong. Isn't it amazing how straight of a line these lines of text make?
