Child Imprisonment….OK!
To distract from the deeply philosophical and one-sdied discussion ongoing here, I’d like to mention something I read in the paper on Monday.
IRISH-designed software aimed at protecting children from mobile phone bullies was launched yesterday. The Bully Stop lets parents monitor callers and access abusive text messages before their offspring read them…. ‘The whole idea is to give parents control over who can and can’t contact their children,’…
Sounds like a great idea, right? Until you realise just how far this can be taken, and how this technology can be abused. From the sounds of it, this program allows parents to completely prevent anyone from contacting their children without their consent, effectively walling off their children from the world if they so desire. Texts can be read, thereby invading the child’s right to privacy. What’s to stop an abusive parents using this to prevent their anyone helping their child. Or a paranoid mother cutting off her daughter from her friends in the name of ‘safety’.
This goes right in hand with the recent Canadian law brought into action dictating that even speaking to someone under the age of 18 online in Canada is a crime. Even if you never have any intention of luring the child into sexual practices, as the law was brought in to prevent. Unless, of course, you’re from the child’s family, completely ignoring the fact that the vast majority of child sex crimes are committed by someone from the child’s family. A sad, but true fact.
The world seems so desperate to protect the children from perceived outside evils, that we imprison them in the same place as the much more dangerous inside dangers. The single most dangerous thing in terms of teaching children about the dangers of the world is and was the “Stranger Danger” program in the US and UK. It taught kids that they should watch out for creepy people hiding behind trees, when it’s far more likely that a perfectly normal person is going to kidnap them. Especially a family member or neighbour.
And now people are going even further, essentially imprisoning children in a small and paranoid world. Which does nothing to help them in the long run, and only makes us feel better about ourselves. The dangers of the modern world have always been there, probably in greater amounts thanks to the increasing level of police protection and the general decrease in crime across the world. We just find about these child kidnappings and abuse more often because of increasing news coverage and the internet.
The world is safer than it has ever been. We’ve just gotten more paranoid.
MM#25: Nightwish – Nemo
Lyrics:
This is me for forever
One of the lost ones
The one without a name
Without an honest heart as compass
This is me for forever
One without a name
These lines the last endeavor
To find the missing lifeline
Oh how I wish
For soothing rain
All I wish is to dream again
My loving heart
Lost in the dark
For hope I’d give my everything
My flower
Withered between
The pages two and three
The once and forever bloom gone with my sins
Walk the dark path
Sleep with angels
Call the past for help
Touch me with your love
And reveal to me my true name
Oh how I wish
For soothing rain
All I wish is to dream again
My loving heart
Lost in the dark
For hope I’d give my everything
Oh how I wish
For soothing rain
Oh how I wish to dream again
Once and for all
And all for once
Nemo my name for evermore
Nemo sailing home
Nemo letting go
Oh how I wish
For soothing rain
All I wish is to dream again
My loving heart
Lost in the dark
For hope I’d give my everything
Oh how I wish
For soothing rain
Oh how I wish to dream again
Once and for all
And all for once
Nemo my name for evermore
Nemo my name for evermore
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Emotion vs. Logic
Post-Publish EDIT: Yeah, it’s a day late because I set it to post 24 hours after writing it, which I expected to be eleven PM on Friday. I missed that in writing it that the time was now 00:03 on Friday, making it post today, Saturday. My bad, feel free to spam me with derogatory comments.
Another argument I frequently face when discussing what seperates Humans from other animals is, put simply, emotion. People place our emotions on some kind of pedestal, giving them fantastic qualities. The soul, or whatever, when in reality emotions are simply biological and chemical reactions, evolutionary developments which we have given names and far too much meaning.
Take anger, for example. What possible evolutionary advantage could be gained from this? It helps us to power through problems, or – more importantly – to defend ourselves and defeat opponents. Anger induces a release of a lot of chemicals, which when combined increase our stamina and strength. It enables us to fight harder when threatened or to regain something that belonged to us.
Rather than go through every emotion imaginable here, I’ll skip to the “special” one. Love.
Love. Is not. Special.
It is not some fantastic, otherworldly sense. It is a series of chemical reactions throughout your body, a series of different events which we have termed love. Does this make it any less wonderful? No, of course not, in the same way that breaking anger down to what it is does not make it any less terrifying to be on the receiving end of. Love was evolved to enforce the protection of our species, of our mates, of our children. We protect them and give them a chance to develop into their own mature creatures, and to ensure that the next generation comes first, love was a necessary adaptation. It’s the same for partners. The man protects the woman because, biologically, he is usually stronger and she is necessary for reproduction.
And all the affectionate things we do when in love? Kissing, hugging and so forth? All acts which serve a purpose. Getting close gives your subconscious to examine your siginificant other and establish whether he/she is a suitable mate. Kissing trades saliva, which can lead to an examination of the immune system. It’s an extremely complex series of actions, subconscious decisions and biological input which all works together to ensure our survival. And, for simplicity’s sake we call it all the one name.
I’m not decrying these things, not saying oh they’re solely mechanical. Well, I am, but it doesn’t make it any less exciting to be in love. I know, I’ve been there. But just the same as knowing how a plane works it doesn’t make it any less amazing to watch a hundred ton metal tube fly through the air.
Instinct vs. Intelligence
So I asked people to weigh in with their thoughts on what makes us human. Didn’t get many responses, but on with the show.
So what, exactly, makes us qualify as human? You could take the point that our genetics makes us human. After all, human is a term to define a species, and that species is defined by its biological makeup. Perhaps you could ascribe to that view, but then you fail to see the other meaning of the word human. To be human and to be a human are two different things. You are a human because of your genetics, but what makes you human? What makes us so much better than every other animal on this planet?
MM#24: Korn – Freak on a Leash
Lyrics:
Something takes a part of me
Something lost and never seen
Every time I start to believe
Something’s raped and taken from me, from me
Life’s kinda always been messing with me
You wanna see the light?
Can’t they chill and let me be free?
So do I
Can’t I take away all this pain?
You wanna see the light?
I try to every night, all in vain, in vain
Sometimes I cannot take this place
Sometimes it’s my life I can’t taste
Sometimes I cannot feel my face
You’ll never see me fall from grace
Something takes a part of me
You and I were meant to be
A cheap f*** for me to lay
Something takes a part of me
Feeling like a freak on a leash
You wanna see the light?
Feeling like I have no release
So do I
How many times have I felt diseased?
You wanna see the light?
Nothing in my life is free, is free
Sometimes I cannot take this place
Sometimes it’s my life I can’t taste
Sometimes I cannot feel my face
You’ll never see me fall from grace
Something takes a part of me
You and I were meant to be
A cheap f*** for me to lay
Something takes a part of me
Something takes a part of me
You and I were meant to be
A cheap f*** for me to lay
Something takes a part of me
Part of me, part of me
Part of me
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