Why every student should learn philosophy

I am enrolled in the Philosophy program at my school and I am planning to do a double-major with English and Philosophy. I love to think and to write, so this makes sense for me. Of course these two majors aren't very logical to go for since they don't provide a good job afterwards, unless you want to go to grad school and become a professor or you want to become a teacher.

Most people I know are either "science" or "arts" people. Either they are better at math and science or they are better at arts subjects. The "in betweens" are the social sciences because they sort of combine science and arts, like Psychology and Sociology. I used to want to major in Psych (and I still might) but that is besides the point.

The point is that being an arts student is extremely rewarding. I am not saying "Quick! Everyone go get an arts degree!" I just mean that at some point in your life you should either enrol in a single credit of philosophy, english, history, whatever your arts preference or perhaps just read a lot of literature based on a few subjects. I think it is extremely healthy and although shouldn't be a requirement, should be strongly recommended by most universities to have to have at least 1 credit in an arts subject.

I was reading an article in Macleans (here) about french students who think Philosophy shouldn't have to be a requirement since it doesn't prepare you for the "real life".

The real life?
THE REAL LIFE?

The real life should involve questioning, studying and your mind playing an active role in the understanding of great metaphysical questions and the questioning of ethics. The mind should have to do this. Why? It's simple. Blind commitment. If our society just keeps progressing we are going to start forgetting why we do the things we do. For example, Why do we shop in grocery stores instead of farming? Why do we want to get jobs? These questions are things everyone should have to really think of and answer. It doesn't even have to be ancient philosophy, it should be modern philosophy.

Maybe this is an over exaggeration and a fallacy, but I am just trying to prove to you that it is important to question things and if you have to force a mandatory philosophy credit upon students to get them to start questioning things, then do so.

If I could have it my way, I would have Philosophy a mandatory credit in high school for grade 11 students, just when they are starting to try to figure out their futures. If I could, I would also make philosophy a mandatory credit in university for first year students, although there are no assignments and although the reading is "recommended", the attendance is necessary, you have to pass by having attended something like 95% or even 100% of all classes. This way it barely takes away from your actual subject of study since there is no outside work, just perhaps a 1-3 hour lecture per week, for one or two semesters. That is it. No laptops, as well, so you have to pay attention. If I could have it more my way, again, I would have a seminar once a week as well in small groups so they can discuss what they learned in the lecture earlier in the week.

I want to ponder on my "modern philosophy" point. I think that people should have a healthy skepticism. Maybe the university philosophy course can be chosen more specifically to be a historical philosophy from a certain time period, a general overview or a more "modern" philosophy. Basically, questioning things that are around us today, like I said earlier like "Why do we go to the grocery store instead of farm?". Being able to question these things just makes us understand the world around us, a little more.

But the learning of philosophy or any other arts subject definitely doesn't have to happen in classrooms or lecture halls, it can happen in libraries, on the internet, or even alone.

I do understand how people find the study of things like literature, philosophy and history to be completely useless, but it isn't. People think that since it doesn't lead to a career that it is worthless to society. These people are the ones who tend to forget that getting a career isn't the be-all and the end-all.


If you are interested in learning anything about philosophy in specifics I suggest:
- Starting off with some Plato which is fairly easy to understand or perhaps Nietzsche if you have an advanced reading level and want to be slightly entertained because Nietzsche has some crazy ideas (which I love)
AND/OR
- Just question things around you
AND/OR
- Enrolling in one college credit at the college or university near you, perhaps you can just enrol in a "non-degree" which usually means that you can walk into any class and just pay attention, not get a degree and not have to do any work
AND/OR
- Have fun reading the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/ This is the best resource for everything philosophy. It is highly reliable and you can certainly learn from it. I've used it for research projects in the past but I suppose you could just read it for fun if you wanted to

Having fun expanding your minds!

More thoughts on feminism

Frequently in my blog posts I talk about feminism and how I find it almost an unnecessary movement in Western or more specifically, Canadian culture. I am also one of these people who says "What about men?" whenever there is a Women's Appreciation day of some kind or another.

I don't necessarily want to take back any of the things I said, yet I want to re-appropriate them.

I do not think the modern feminist movement is completely useless. Of course I want genders to be equal to each other, and I think we are darn close to, if not, we have reached it but I just openly hate "extremist" feminists.

My personal definition of an extremist feminist is a feminist who:

- Goes out of their way to put down men

- Goes out of their way to bring up women

- Does not work towards gender equality

- Acts irrationally 

- Dedicates their entire life to the feminist movement 

- Outwardly hates men

- Simply just pushes things "too far" by fighting harder than women are being fought against

I think this kind of feminism is completely irrational. Honestly, I do hate the term "feminist". Egalitarianism is more what I would prefer this to be called. 

But I will acknowledge there are many women being mistreated by men. Some of it doesn't even have to do with misogyny though, it has to do with disrespect. Sure, there are tons of accurate and inaccurate social studies that show women are being abused by men but that doesn't directly mean that the abuser is a misogynist, maybe he just can't manage his anger and he is just abusive to all people, even men. Studies aren't reliable.

I think the things that do need to be fought are in our courts and the american courts. Cases in which men get away with beating their wives, women can't use self-defence and the judges and juries are misogynistic. 

Gender equality in the workplace is a battle not worth fighting, unless the inequality is in pay for equal work and when there is equal seniority and experience. Having 50/50 employees in some workplaces doesn't make sense. Men can lift boxes better, more women are librarians. Deal with it. Affirmative action can suck it. 

The only other thing I hate doesn't bug me too much, but it bugs me that it bugs other women. It's guys who shout "blow me" or "suck my dick" or "I wanna fuck you" or "You are cocksucking beautiful" or any derogatory thing men yell at women from their cars, the streets, anywhere. This doesn't bug me (usually) because I either ignore them or yell "suck MY dick" back at them, but there was a time in which this would bug me. I just think it's weird how men shout stuff at women but women don't shout "fuck my vagina!" and embarrass guys over it. I mean, I'm sure that has happened but I just think it's weird. 

Dear Guys, 

Stop being dicks by yelling "suck my dick" at us from your cars. 

Love, 

Your mom (who is a woman who obviously didn't suck dad's dick because you piece of shit were born from my vagina and I don't know where I went wrong when raising you because you turned into a dick).

I am a pretty tough girl. When a guy is being weird to me I am able to ignore it. Girls shouldn't have to feel targeted and subjected at work when a creep is talking to her and she can't walk away because her boss won't let her. I can take it, but not everyone can. I would rather tell girls to "man up" than to tell a guy to "Cut it out" just because of my "fight" response to most things rather than flight, but honestly, this is all so stupid.

I am not a feminist. I am not even a mens-rights activist. I just think everybody should fight for what they want. I am not a liberal in the sense that everything should just workout and be equal, I am more of an anarchist because I think people should literally fight and shoot for what they want. I guess that's why gender equality doesn't concern me as much as it concerns other men and women.

Do you agree or disagree with my thoughts on feminism and/or gender equality?

Thoughts on censored Internet and the book "Feed"

I am reading M.T. Anderson's book "Feed" right now, and I love it so much! No spoilers please!

But what I want to talk about is the concept of an internal feed in your head, which is what this book is based around. Instead of computers or tablets external to your body, you have it in your head at all times so you are able to look things up just like that. 

I hate this idea! The Internet is so easy to censor rather than a book, so if we all learned everything we knew fom one large database, sure we would all know the same things but knowing things wouldn't be interesting anymore because there would be no fight to the facts, no bias, everything is just one way.

How boring would life be if historians didn't have to look at several sources, detecting biases and looking for the truth in past events? Just having the censored info there of whatever your government wants you to think or know.

If it's censored by the government, it is of course 10x worse, but still, in general, having some form of feed just internally does make things convenient but convenience can reach a certain point in which individual thought is ignored and life becomes super boring.

I would rather fight people with opposite beliefs to me on the Internet than have a Feed telling everyone what our beliefs are and what the answers are to our questions. I want to answer my own questions, not read biased answers on an external Internet or an internal feed.

All of this government censor stuff really freaks me out because you honestly don't know 100% what the government is doing and what they know. Everything seems fine, but you honestly never know. This is why things like wiki-leaks are our best friend. 

Whenever I read books like "Feed" by M.T. Anderson or even "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley I always get super paranoid, which I hate, but I love books like this. It's fascinating to think about this kind of stuff.

I think technology will go to far once censorship has taken over everything and information and education are perfectly standardized. This is when society will have reached its breaking point. 

What do you think about having an internal "feed" in your head?

Panhandling Confrontation

Today I was leaving the mall after purchasing a few random items from the Dollar Store and I was walking out to my car. A tall skinny girl with a neck tattoo in her early twenties came up to me and told me a story about how she is stuck and needs like $20 for gas and things and that she has 2 kids in her car and she is stranded and blah blah and then repeatedly said "I am not a panhandler".

I told her that I didn't have a lot of money and that I am a student but I'll give her some change and I gave her $3.

I have no idea what the hell she actually needed the money for, maybe she did need gas and had 2 kids in her car, who knows!

I am not a charitable person and I feel like I just gave her the $3 just for her to leave me alone. I honestly don't care if she's going to buy drugs or whatever, she asked for the money and I gave her $3, it's as simple as that.

I probably did get "scammed" but is it really scamming if you don't care what happens with the money? Essentially I see the transaction as me giving her $3 and that's all. I don't care what happens to that money.

Maybe I gave her the money because I really don't see the value in money. Well, I understand the value in money, but I really don't care about money that much. I am not a communist, I just think there are better things in life than money.

Part of the reason I bought my car was because I value time over money. Sure, I might spend $50 a week on gas and have to pay upkeep and whatnot, but now I have the ability to save time by driving places than waiting on a bus. I am saving time by spending money. I value time over money. It is as simple as that. (and yes, this was really the main contributing factor to me buying a car). Although I supposed another person could see this as useless because you have to spend time to earn money to spend money to earn time, but the money that I used to buy the car wasn't even mine, I got it from an inheritance. I did work and so that money will go towards gas, so I guess really I am just forming a stupid circle.

I could not ever work and just walk everywhere. That would actually be such a wonderful life and a terrible life. You would need money or something to trade to get some things like food.

I think it's weird you have to pay for food because food is natural and so are humans so denying humans the free things of the earth is weird. Although groups of people (companies) have claimed this natural source and combined several of these sources to make several unnatural ones and then sold it back to us.

Humans are real suckers. Squirrels don't have to fucking pay for their goddam food. Society has fucked up all natural things of the world and I HATE it. This is going back to my technology post from yesterday.

Sorry, I got sidetracked. I guess the main reason why I gave that girl the $3 was just to get her to stop bugging me and also because I really don't care. I had like $70 in my wallet at the time, it's not like I gave her all of my gas or food money.

I honestly don't give a shit about the less fortunate, about philanthropy, charity, etc. As I said, I am not a charitable person.

Technology is making us L-A-Z-Y

Lately, I found myself often pondering on the idea of technological advancement.

When will it come to a halt/standstill or plateau?
Will it lead to the downfall of the human race, or any other animal?
Why is technology bad?
Why is technology good?
Does technology help us or hinder us?


My personal belief is that some technology is good and some of it is bad.

Examples of Good Technology are things that help people as well as the environment, other animals or the earth or possible the universe in general.
- Reading glasses
- Books (yes I am claiming books are technology)
- Telephones
- The bicycle

Examples of "Bad" Technology:
- Any piece of machinery that has to do with whatever Monsanto or any other company because they are polluting the earth and the plants (which are IRREPLACEABLE) with genetically modified crap and then making us pay for food which should be rightfully ours as members of this planet
- Cars (Do we really need to travel THAT far THAT often? Basically everywhere we go is in walking or biking distance but people are too lazy)

Too lazy. Let's just dwell on this point for a while. The reason why technology is becoming a "bad" thing is because it's making people lazier. Instead of farming we are going to work at a sit-down job and then run on a treadmill later to burn calories so we don't become obese. Have you noticed how obese we are all getting? We don't need this much food in our bodies yet with the combination of fast-food chains and video games, we are making it so easy to become unhealthy.

We are killing ourselves. We don't care enough to put a stop to our misuses of technology because, well, we are too lazy too! It is so easy to think something on the internet like what I am doing right now, talking about technology or Billy-Joe is on youtube commenting on some video saying "ABORTION IS BAD".

Is this where we are at? A society of overweight people who are too lazy to do anything about it other than complain on twitter or eat ice cream with genetically modified ingredients to console our natural emotions? Apparently.

I have also been dwelling on the idea of creativity lately. I think the internet has removed the ability to be creative. About half an hour ago I was trying to think of a title for something I was writing and I wanted it to have something to do with sadness/depression and something to do with happiness. The first word to do with happiness that came to my mind was "bunnies" and then my brainstorm session was over. Why? I decided to google "happy things". I immediately stopped in my tracks.

I was so lazy to creatively think of happy things that I googled "happy things". Do you see how lazy we are getting? This is just a really small thing but I immediately caught onto it.

Our laziness is taking over our creativity and minds. We would rather watch a TV show than write our own. We would rather google "how to run" than experiment with running ourselves. We are a cautious, lazy, scared society and I honestly want to do something about it.

But I am too lazy. This blog post will most likely end my journey of trying to get people to stop being lazy.

At least I do better than the people on youtube misspelling "craitionism" (creationism) and aborshun (abortion).

That leads me to another idea, the way we compare ourselves to each other; I am going to stick a pin in the idea of comparison and write about it another time.