Category Archives: Other
>Inheritance
>Should it be taxed or not? If so by how much? Do you think that all people have the right to pass their surplus cash onto friends and family or do you believe in complete equality of opportunity i.e. that everyone should start from a roughly level playing field and therefore achieve based solely on ability?
>"That’s just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the universe has that"
>This is a quote from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Arthur Dent spoke of a feeling that there was something going on in the universe that nobody would tell him about. “Oh no” says Zaphod Beeblebrox, “That’s just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the universe has that”.
This feeling is what films like The Truman Show and The Matrix play on. But does anyone know what that feeling is? Is it really universal? If so what causes it and what is it’s function?
>Great Modern Books
>The great books are held to be great cultural achievements and long term assets. Many films have entered this category too over the past few decades. But what books remain either undiscovered or worthy of being made into film that have not yet been already?
In other words what stories would you like to see made into film?
>Is progression linear?
>A few sub-questions to think about…
- What is progression?
- Are there stages of history that societies pass through?
- Do we inevitably improve ourselves individually and collectively?
- Was everything chaos in the beginning and will it be in the end?
- Was everything ‘eden’ (the Hebrew word for pleasure/paradise) in the beginning and will return to it in the end?
>International Finance and the Balance of Payments
>This is a discussion aimed to help people learn rather than a debate. So if you have any questions about this topic put them forward and hopefully someone will answer them correctly.
>What age are we living in?
>If a group of historians from the future gave you the chance to name the age we’re living in today what would you say and why?
>Banker’s bonuses
>Should they be taking them or not?
>The future of education
>Milton Friedman (a famous American economist) once advocated a privatized system of education where every new born child receives a certain number of vouchers that can be redeemed at any educational institution right up till PHD level. This would give parents a choice of whether to spend all the vouchers getting their child into a world class school like Eton, or spending the vouchers getting their children into a moderate school but still having some vouchers left over to fund higher education. Though of course parents would be able to spend extra money on top of the vouchers.
Is this a good idea or should education be solely administered by the state?
Any other ideas for educational reform are also welcome (from any country).
>Is the right to parenthood absolute?
>It is fashionable among modern politicians to say that the environment is the biggest problem facing our age. But many environmentalists argue that the planet is overpopulated. In fact one the most popular documentaries to ever be made, ‘Planet Earth’, features a quote saying that we need to limit the number of people to a level far below its current 6 billion in order to achieve a sustainable level of life.
Then there are all the abusive, and just plain bad parents out there. What gives them the right to be a parent? Is a child always better off with the natural parents?
Battison's Blog 