Helpful comments

Well, then, ladies and gentlemen, today's assignment is to share some helpful comments I've received from our classmates here on my blog, and analyze them about exactly why they were helpful. Sounds simple enough, so let's get to it.

Going backwards in chronological order, Austin Jones' comment on my entry "3/22 prep for Socratic Seminar" is the first to be reviewed:

"Your reading is true in many ways in my opinion. It is right that if there was no right or wrong, there would be chaos. It's just that some people don't seem to see it as clearly as some other people do. For example, on the day of the Socratic seminar when you were talking to me about my sample about how ants are not that different than humans. If you kill an ant and you say it's like a human, most people will say it's just an ant. Think about it harder. Think about it from our view, consider that the ants are a society (which they are). I'd like to talk about this more with you."

I do suppose that to understand this, one needs a bit of context. In the Socratic Seminar we had, Mr. Jones here made a rather interesting comment about murder. He stated how it was rather obvious that killing a human is murder, but what about other species? We may kill some animals to eat, but what about insects, like ants? We're not killing them for any particular reason. Is that murder?

This really got me thinking, and helped me to better understand human nature.

Continuing to go back, we have Kit Haggard's post:

"Justin,

I am so sorry that we have gotten off debating. I think that I never responded to your last comment. Oh well, we can start a new thread now.

Ok, to education. I think that it is absolutely true that young children are some of the wisest people that the world will ever see. I honestly do. I think that part of this is because their minds are very clear on what they think is right or wrong. I think that 80% of the problems in the world today would have never happened if we brought in a load of fourth graders to run the government.

Unfortunately, there is that other 20%. Children (and I know this from personal experience, I have a little brother) are very frivolous, sometimes selfish, and often just very unaware that the choices that they make have an impact on people other than themselves. They don’t realize that they can hurt someone by something that they say, it doesn’t even occur to them. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule.

I also have to agree with what you said about adults. Most of them are ALSO very selfish. They get very caught up with things like, as you said, getting from point a to point b. Of course, children don’t have this problem. As a whole, children look more at the world in a day, that most adults do in most of their adult life. Children will look out the window of a car and point at a kite in a tree, or flowers in someone’s garden, or a man sitting at a bus stop. Just little things that most would never notice, and that IS one of the things that makes children so wonderful.

However, the world cannot be run on observations alone. As you said, children don’t worry about profit or statistics; some wouldn’t know what those words mean. Decisions that are made in this country that involve things like passing a bill for stem cell research, or abortion, or even fishing rights in Michigan. A child would never have enough experience, enough education, to make a decision about something like that.

As a rule, I’m not fond of the people who run the world today. If they did their jobs a little bit better, I think that there would be far fewer problems. Darfur, for example. The UN should be doing something about it, it’s been classified as genocide for nearly two and a half years, and yet they still send no troops in to save people. Why don’t they do anything?

But despite this, I don’t think that we could just replace all governments with children. We need people who have enough knowledge to make good decisions and be able to look into the future, so that they can predict any problems that may arise. Children live too much in the present.

And last, yes, I do think that Plato was a little egotistical. Socrates too. He was, after all, the one that said there was no one to rule but philosophers. After reading some of his ideas on justice, though, I might be persuaded to that opinion. I especially like the conclusion that he draws at the end of part two. That a good man will hurt no one, therefore a just man will hurt no one, and only his opposite, an unjust man, will cause harm. Pretty good if you ask me.

Alrightly, enough rambling.

Kit
PS. I had to delete the last comment due to a posting error. I always hate it when people delete things form my blog so I thought that I would explain."

She and I have been debating on a few things for quite a while now, and I found this one a bit interesting. Usually, when I write about the world and the humans that inhabit it, it's often mostly based on my observations, and is thus somewhat influenced by who I'm around. Usually, I don't get to hang around the lil'uns unless I'm on VMK, which has gotten rarer as school gets harder. This post was a nice reminder that people do grow, and aren't static.

And, of course, it's always fun to have a nice debate about something every now and then. Especially with someone like Kit, one of the rare few that tend to think a lot about their posts, and have some rather interesting thoughts (As opposed to what others tend to do, simply posting a two-word long comment that doesn't really say anything other than "OMG PWNAGE." *coughcoughdanielrodriguezcough*) ;)

Finally, we have Matthew McCauley's comment on This post:

"Nice ending man! Tight essay! I liked the fact that you made this as a third person kind of view. Hey, was this the fight with Ariana or Alana or whatever name was (I forgot)? If it is, I remember that time. It started over a video game, and then the whole class split into two sides. I can kind of relate to the fact that when you said she wouldn't stop arguing. I know what your saying because sometimes when me and somebody else is arguing, I'll just say "Cool, I agree". But then they want to get mad because I dont want to argue anymore. Pfft.

*No suggestions*"

It's always nice to have some throwbacks to the good ol' days. It also struck me as a little interesting that such a silly argument actually split the entire class in two. To my knowledge, it was a one on one fight.

And, although the assignment only limited me to my classmates, I'd like to give a bit of a shout-out to my teacher, Mr. Jana, for his post on an (extremely rough) draft of a philosophical piece I proposed a while back:

"Justin,

Thanks for pointing me in this direction. As usual, I find your writing thought provoking; you have the makings of a philosopher. I will respond by listing things that have resonated with me and point out some possible lacunae.

I strongly suggest that you look into a French philosopher named Jean Baudrillard. Here is a wiki link to a book of his that makes an appearance in the movie The Matrix. If you take up Baudrillard, I strongly suggest you read secondary sources first, because his writing is notoriously opaque. Your interest in representation and reality will eventually take you to postmodern philosophy, and Baudurillard is related to that type of thought.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation



1. Time. Your comments about time are particularly striking. I think you are on to something with Disneyland as a utopia without time, and this is worth following up. I wonder if timelessness, or at least a particular way of looking at time (i.e. history), is a characteristic of other utopias that we have seen in philosophy and literature. “Time is violence” is great line, but what do you mean by it?

2. Enlightenment. In your second paragraph you write about the cave-in caused by blindness and bumping into things. When I first read this I interpreted the people in the cave as analogous to the type of people who click off the camera at splash mountain and make sex jokes on the kiddie rides. Is this what you meant? It seems that if they are looking for the exit their motives are well intentioned because they are searching for Enlightenment. What exactly causes them to block off their own path to Enlightenment? I think this aspect could be better developed and clarified.

3. If you would rather “voyage deeper in the cave” aren’t you saying that ignorance is bliss and you would rather live in a world of self-delusion and illusion than in the real world? Disneyland might have its place as a getaway, but if you stay there, in the cave/Disneyland, aren’t you just another sorry fool whose shackled like everyone else. Maybe you have a longer chain that allows you to “voyage deeper,” but you are still enchained.

4. Maybe the way to go with this is to say that all is illusion. In other words, staying in the cave is not so bad after all because there is no outside. The idea that there is an outside is just another illusion or shadow. Even if the outside existed and we went there, we would be confronted with another series of shadows.

5. You portray Disneyland as a type of oasis from the world. It is a world apart. But what happens when the world outside of Disneyland becomes more and more like Disneyland. I think one could argue that the outside world is just another type of Disneyland, a world of crass consumerism and fantasy escape, as exemplified by what people watch on T.V. and check out on the internet.


Mr. J"

(By the way, "Time is Violence" is a quote from Gamer Theory :D Do excuse me if it didn't make sense the way I used it. I could not resist)

Thanks for that, Mr. Jana. Although I haven't gotten started on that Disneyland allegory yet, (I want to make sure I feel good and ready, to insure quality ;) Maybe this weekend or the next) this really inspired me to write The Allegory of the Clock. Maybe that should clarify a few things ;)

END OF LINE.

Now that that's done... I haven't plugged EE in a long time, so...

So, throughout the production of Eternity's End so far, I've been really experimenting with the concept of a virtual office (Partly inspired by Tom Clancy's talk of it in "Teeth of the Tiger"). Until now, I've only been recruiting classmates and close friends, so I can still meet up with them in person if the Virtual office fails.

Well, I feel confident, and feel like stepping up this concept to the next level. Now's the time to, ah, "overcome topography through the use of the topological plane", as McKenzie Wark's "Gamer Theory" would probably put it.

I've decided that I MAY be publicly hiring for the last main voice-acting job, the voice of the younger of the two princesses of Kakana and the mercenary team's only Kunoichi, Dimona. However, I'm going to be a lot more strict. You gotta go through an audition, of sorts. In reality, that just means email us, I'll send you back a little script, and you send me back the soundclips.

I warn you though, since this is a REALLY BIG test on the concept of a virtual office, you gotta be serious about this. That doesn't necessarily mean putting in 16+ hours of work a day (Although I would love it if you do ;)), but just that you don't fall behind too much.

Oh, there are also a bunch of little jobs up for grabs, too. These are only a few lines or so, so these aren't as serious ;) For all genders, too!

So, if anyone is interested, mail us at eternitysendrecruiting@gmail.com