"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."

-Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)

Sunday, May 23, 2010

SO....MUCH.......IRONY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6vqCGhJBK4&feature=related

I stumbled upon this funny, but painfully ironic and sad clip, made from a recorded phone call.

p.s. sorta NSFW (but not really) --no need to get scared and run away, it's just a picture with a little rudimentary animation to make it look like it's talking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOC58c-Ibdk&feature=related
a slightly more serious video I found a few minutes later.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Everybody Sing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWMxUsTjhY0

enjoy!

you know the wierd thing is they are half right, if there is a god I doubt he really loves us if he created a world where the only way to keep living is to kill others

Monday, May 17, 2010

Carl Sagan Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJE_Ld-UyCk

a video made from an excerpt from Carl Sagan's book The Pale Blue Dot

Friday, May 14, 2010

Risk

What, in your opinion, is the most important feature of what Mavin Zuckerman calls "HSS"
  • If you are a high you seek high risk activities, which brings them high stimulus. There is a down fall most of these people tend to abuse drugs because of there attitude of trying new things that will create that risk for them. The most important thing is knowing that if you are a high you might be prone to get into drugs. Then once getting the feeling that the highs get will make you want to do more it grows on anyone that tries a new thing.

Does Aptor's way of explaining the evolutionary benefits of risk-taking make sense to you?

  • I understand Aptors way, he said that risk takers would be the people to try new foods or test if something was poisonous etc. These risk takers would save the life's of others, and if they survived they would get the feeling they wanted.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Risk response

1. I think the most important feature of the HSS is their inability to be content in a safe situation.

2. I think risk takers often resent neurochemical explanations because they feel that it is suggesting that there is something wrong with them, that their risk taking is due to some imbalance or defect.

Risk

1.) I think that the most important HSS feature is some one who seeks risk to fulfill a need (dopamine, thrill, etc.) that most people can get without scaling a mountain. They have to go above what normally satisfies people to get the same feeling.

2.) I think that risk takers might dislike the scientific explanations because it may seem to sterilize and minimize the experience. People who take risks probably have their own conscious reasons, putting it in terms or brain chemistry takes the emotion out of it and makes it clinical. I might also resent some scientist telling me why I did something, especially if the scientists weren't adrenaline junkies themselves.

Risk Taking

1.) In my opinion, the most important feature of the "HSS", or those who favor high risk situations, is there ability to process more information without reverting to the more primitive, instinctual human.  This reduces the thrill they get from each activity, creating a boring life. These high-risk seekers often pair off with others like themselves, while those less inclined towards risk taking seek friends of a similar tendency.

3.)  I think risk-takers, like rock climber Todd Wells, have a problem with the neurochemical explanations for their behavior because it destroys their very objective.  They seek risks to escape from the restrictions placed upon them by society and to gain a greater perspective of themselves.  However, when a scientist claims to be able to explain the motivation behind their behavior, they feel that the individuality of their method of escape is destroyed by society's scientific, structured explanation regarding their risk seeking.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Ethics Of Risk

well, I read it. Seemed like it cut off just as Altham was about to get to her actual argument, so I don't really have anything to say about it.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Red Letter Media Does It Again!!

http://laughingsquid.com/harvey-plinkett-of-red-letter-media-reviews-star-wars-attack-of-the-clones/

I can honestly say this is one of the funniest and most insightful things I have ever seen on the internet, once you've seen one or two parts of this you should get what I mean.

....and yes it's still good even if you don't know or care anything about scifi, but caring about cinema would probably help.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Phi @ Williams Tomorrow...

Thursday, May 6
Perfectionism and the Meaning of Life in Camus's The Myth of Sisyphus
4:15 p.m., Griffin 7
Lecture by Professor Iddo Landau, Department of Philosophy, Haifa University, Israel and Visiting Fellow at Indiana University at Bloomington.