>Do you think they’re worthwhile? What resolution did you make if you did, and why?
Do you think it’s slightly pessimistic of us to enter the new year thinking about what went wrong in the last year and that we should turn a whole new leaf? Or do you think New Year’s resolutions are more about minor changes such as not eating so much chocolate?
>Barbara Ehreneich recently wrote a book called ‘Bright-Sided’ In it she argued that optimism is infectious, and that it contributed to the current economic recession. She argues that shortly before the crash, in the US in particular, people were starting to hold optimism above the facts i.e. ‘if I believe in it enough it will happen’. She even cites a story in a podcast about someone who is fired because they seemed too pessimistic, asking too many questions about what problems the housing market could bring.
She argues that this one-sided attitude (that optimism is always good and pessimism always bad) has entered general culture. She was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. But when she started displaying pessimism it seems many people thought her response abnormal. People wrote to her saying that she should treat her condition as a positive opportunity to reflect upon her life, embrace spiritualism and generally become happier.
I have to say I’ve noted similar things myself. In fact I took a job as a Sales Manager at the start of the recession. It was a small company and I knew very little about sales. It turned out neither did they. At a senior meeting I was told that despite the then current market trends, they still expected the business to grow on a certain path (I can’t remember by how much). I asked what they based this on and where they expected the sales to come from i.e. what were their biggest market areas in the past. Amazingly, they didn’t really know. I was promised some data but I never got it. So how did they come to their conclusion? Sheer optimism is my guess.
Do you think there was too much optimism prior to the crash? Maybe you think there still is?
>The theory of the Big Bang is taken as an accepted fact by science. Yet despite the extravagant theories detailing all the events that happened after it occurred, no one has given any explanation as to what caused it.
The best they can do is keep regressing its after effects until the come to the smallest singularity they can think of, and then stop there.
They neither explain what caused the Big Bang, nor where this incredibly small but incredibly dense first speck of matter from which all others derive, came from.
Secondly, the shape of the universe is postulated to oval-like. But in a vacuum there is no resistance, so any explosion would have travelled outwards in a uniform manner. As such the shape that should be expected to be circular. It would only be oval if the horizontal plane had a magnetic pull or the vertical planes showed resistance in some form.
Do you believe in the Big Bang, and if so how do you reconcile the missing information?
>Do you believe in evolution and the steady transformation of single celled organisms into complex species like humans? Or do you believe that humans came from Adam, the first human and the one created by God Himself?
If you believe the first then do you think we are related to all other life on the planet, or do you think that more than one tree of life may exist i.e. life started more than once? If you believe the second then do you think God made life from nothing or something? If nothing then how?
>See this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=an55wU0-kAE
Do you think he was a war criminal? Do you think the lives lost in the Iraqi war were “wasted” (words of the news reporter)?
>There’s a lot of disagreement on whether climate change is occuring and what’s really at fault. Do you think climate change is really ocuring, and if so to what extent is it our (people’s) fault?
>Most of us love television. Most people spend a hell of a lot of time watching it. But is it good for us?
Bhutan’s ruler nobly declared in 1972 that he would lead the nation based not on ideas of advancement and monetary growth but on happiness. On the whole this does seem to have made people more happy, even if only through providing people re-assurance that their government is trying to help them. But in 1999 it was decided that television would help people become more happy. And so Bhutan became the last nation on Earth to recieve television. What happened next?
One year later crime and suicide had surged. In April 2002 the country experienced a crime wave like no other it had ever faced. The non corrupt culture that Bhutanese had been so proud of erroded seemingly over night. In a country where drugs grow more commonly than grass drug use had never been a problem before television. Yet on April 16th 2002 Dorje, a 37-year-old truck driver, bludgeoned his wife to death after she discovered he was addicted to heroin. Stories like this would have seemed completely out of place in 1998, where the Budhist culture discourages killing anything, even insects. Have the Bhutanese experienced a culture shock and difficulties coping with change? Or is television really at fault as many Bhutanese believe?
>The Chagos Islanders numbered more than 2000 people when between 1967 and 1971 they were forcibly removed by the British Government to make way for a joint UK-US military base. Funds were designated to allow rehousing in Mauritius but in reality the people never saw much of the money and were forced to live in slums. Many committed suicide. But those who remain are still refused the right to return.
Since 2000 a series of legal attempts have been made to allow the Chagossians the right to return or at least further compensation. In 2003 and 2004 the High Court repeatedly found in favour of the Chagossians and it was only by Royal Decree that the UK government was able to overturn the decision. In 2007 a new attempt was made, with the courts once more fighting the government. On the 23rd of May 2007 the Court of Appeal said that the methods used to stop Chagos families returning to their homes were “unlawful” and an “abuse of power”. Yet the House Of Lords still vetoed the rights of the Chagossians in 2008.
I find this disgusting. Don’t you?
>So many questions to ask…
What are your thoughts?
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