I was reading up on those kinds of books that always emphasize the fact that We Teach You Things that You DON'T Learn in School! No to make fun of them or anything because each one actually is new and interesting and all of them and different and original from each other. Anyway in one of them I learned something very cool. After Hitler killed the guy who killed Hitler (SPOILER ALERT! It was Hitler!) it turns our that the part of his family that remained decided to make a mutual agreement. They all decided not to reproduce as to die out the Hitler name entirely. How nice is that? There is a book called the The Last of the Hitlers. A section of the book focuses primarily on that, here's an excerpt that I found from it. They didn't sign a pact what they did is, they talked amongst themselves, talked about the burden they've had in the background of their lives, and decided none of them would marry, none of them would have children. And that's... a pact they've kept till today. I admire them so much for that, how much will power does it take to stop working towards getting the thing that you've wanted all your life, all for a thing that you didn't even do, a screw up that your family member made. But a see a huge problem within that.
Price is what you pay, and for it value is what you get. Your values are what you work for what work toward because that's what you hold the most important. But when you sacrifice you surrender your values. The ultimate sacrifice like the one I just illustrated is a total surrender of every single one of your values. Let me make something clear though, a sacrifice is not starving yourself so that your child can have food, its starving yourself and your child so that you friends child doesn't starve. Its not giving a pregnant woman your seat of the subway, its giving it to an energetic full bodied person.
When its put this way it seems quite stupid doesn't it. So don't sacrifice, pay for an asset not a liability.
When Hustling While Hushed
Its summer now, well it has been for a while, six blog posts ago to be exact. And I've realized that though I thought I would so much cool and crazy stuff after summer started I've been finding myself a slave to boredom. Now not to say I haven't had any fun or I haven't been doing anything at all but I've been succumbing more and more to simple idleness. Now I've been making a huge mistake with what I've been putting that time into. When I have no idea what to do I shift my focus towards Xbox, or texting my friends, or watching TV shows, but I have only recently come to terms with how terrible that practice is. So I decided to change it but weirdly I want to focus on the why I'm changing it as opposed to the what I am changing it to, in order to help you stop and more importantly to clearly illustrate to myself why to stop.
Imagine you snorkeling underwater, and I know how dumb and illogical this may sound but also pretend that an octopus squirted you with its black ink, blinding your goggles with the gooey substance. Now what do you do? Go on your jolly way bumping into the coral reefs, making enemies with sharks, and getting in the way of stingray's? Probably not the best option. The logical decision would be to immediately stop, go back above water to land or to the boat that you deployed off of and clean your goggles or get entirely new ones.
I get it, duh. Literally everyone except for dumb asses would not do that. Maybe so, but if you translate that into a real world situation you'll find that a large majority of people are dumb asses. If you're lost and you don't know what to do stop. Asses the situation and find a solution and then carry on. Or if you're just bored then don't do anything. Doing something blindly does more harm than it does good. When hustling while hushed nothing is always the best solution.
Imagine you snorkeling underwater, and I know how dumb and illogical this may sound but also pretend that an octopus squirted you with its black ink, blinding your goggles with the gooey substance. Now what do you do? Go on your jolly way bumping into the coral reefs, making enemies with sharks, and getting in the way of stingray's? Probably not the best option. The logical decision would be to immediately stop, go back above water to land or to the boat that you deployed off of and clean your goggles or get entirely new ones.
I get it, duh. Literally everyone except for dumb asses would not do that. Maybe so, but if you translate that into a real world situation you'll find that a large majority of people are dumb asses. If you're lost and you don't know what to do stop. Asses the situation and find a solution and then carry on. Or if you're just bored then don't do anything. Doing something blindly does more harm than it does good. When hustling while hushed nothing is always the best solution.
A Case of Inflation
So scrolling through the news other day, and just found an ingenious solution to fix the economy of America, suggested by a government official who shall go unnamed. He basically stated this since we need more money, and we control the U.S. Treasury, why don't we just print more money. Really, you have to applaud him, he identified a problem, and created his own, original, creative, solution. Too bad that the certain solution comes with a shitload of cons.
There are only two words that I need to say to prove my point. Zimbabwe and Inflation. So to answer the case, because of inflation. Not even on a normal scale, more like mega-inflation. A decade ago something like toilet paper would cost $417. For a single square of toilet paper. The entire sheet would be something around $150,000. Yeah it was really crazy. In the year 2009 they stopped printing their own money and realized it would be best if they switched to the U.S. currency. So basically it ditched all of its own currency leaving large amounts of money completely worthless.
The exact same thing happened in Versailles in the 1920's. For them there was so much unneeded money that they started using the money to build kites, to use as toilet paper, and as makeshift plates. All using $100 bills. That is how worthless a dollar became at that time. That's a signal that it things are taking a turn for the worse.
There are only two words that I need to say to prove my point. Zimbabwe and Inflation. So to answer the case, because of inflation. Not even on a normal scale, more like mega-inflation. A decade ago something like toilet paper would cost $417. For a single square of toilet paper. The entire sheet would be something around $150,000. Yeah it was really crazy. In the year 2009 they stopped printing their own money and realized it would be best if they switched to the U.S. currency. So basically it ditched all of its own currency leaving large amounts of money completely worthless.
The exact same thing happened in Versailles in the 1920's. For them there was so much unneeded money that they started using the money to build kites, to use as toilet paper, and as makeshift plates. All using $100 bills. That is how worthless a dollar became at that time. That's a signal that it things are taking a turn for the worse.
Equity not Equality
I bet that in the past few months or maybe even years you've seen many people protesting for equality between people of class, gender, and race, multiple times. You hear the repeated out cries screaming its classist, sexist, or racist, to say that success only happens when you work for it, when you say that there actually is a reason that woman get paid less, or when you say that refugees commit more crimes than average citizens. But in truth, those are all true statements.
A lot of rich people came from poor backgrounds but worked their way to the top. Females do get paid less for a reason, employers don't actually give a shit about your gender, but females, especially older, middle aged ones, take maternity leave, and since they need to get paid still the lower salary compensates for that, even then you could say it is sexist to assume the girl is the one that is going to go on maternity lave but 95% of the time that is the case. And now I know swedish people and dutch people are really defiant on this type of statement but I honestly don't think we should just leave them alone saying that they're just victims. They do commit crimes, sometimes even passion crimes, and they are way more likely to do that, now call me racist, a bigot, I don't care, its a fact, I'm not saying I hate them or they shouldn't be allowed, I'm just stating a fact.
Now people always go and say that we should be equal towards everyone and not care about our differences and just treat them the exact same way we would treat anyone. And honestly, that is the worst protest purpose that I've heard in a long time. You can't treat a person on the Autistic Spectrum the same way you would treat an NBA player you like and you can't treat a highly esteemed investigate banker the same way you would treat them. Everyone has different needs so its stupid to try to render equality into how you behave with them, instead you should try to use equity in your interactions with them. Equity meaning giving people their specific needs, needs to achieve success, needs on your interactions, needs on anything that they need to have fair opportunity for all.
That may not seem to make any sense but think of it this way. Four sprinters are racing around an oval shaped, standard four-hundred meter track. Now would you make them all start side by side and expect to have equality? No! The ones on the inside have the advantage because they need to travel a little less distance than the other four. Here you need to apply equity and give the ones one the outside each a little more of a head start than to the people to their inside.
Now everyday equality is being applied and because of that so many lives are being negatively affected. Equality only works if both people come from the same start point and are given the same opportunities. Only after we ensure equity can we enjoy equality.
A lot of rich people came from poor backgrounds but worked their way to the top. Females do get paid less for a reason, employers don't actually give a shit about your gender, but females, especially older, middle aged ones, take maternity leave, and since they need to get paid still the lower salary compensates for that, even then you could say it is sexist to assume the girl is the one that is going to go on maternity lave but 95% of the time that is the case. And now I know swedish people and dutch people are really defiant on this type of statement but I honestly don't think we should just leave them alone saying that they're just victims. They do commit crimes, sometimes even passion crimes, and they are way more likely to do that, now call me racist, a bigot, I don't care, its a fact, I'm not saying I hate them or they shouldn't be allowed, I'm just stating a fact.
Now people always go and say that we should be equal towards everyone and not care about our differences and just treat them the exact same way we would treat anyone. And honestly, that is the worst protest purpose that I've heard in a long time. You can't treat a person on the Autistic Spectrum the same way you would treat an NBA player you like and you can't treat a highly esteemed investigate banker the same way you would treat them. Everyone has different needs so its stupid to try to render equality into how you behave with them, instead you should try to use equity in your interactions with them. Equity meaning giving people their specific needs, needs to achieve success, needs on your interactions, needs on anything that they need to have fair opportunity for all.
That may not seem to make any sense but think of it this way. Four sprinters are racing around an oval shaped, standard four-hundred meter track. Now would you make them all start side by side and expect to have equality? No! The ones on the inside have the advantage because they need to travel a little less distance than the other four. Here you need to apply equity and give the ones one the outside each a little more of a head start than to the people to their inside.
Now everyday equality is being applied and because of that so many lives are being negatively affected. Equality only works if both people come from the same start point and are given the same opportunities. Only after we ensure equity can we enjoy equality.
Would you (the government) pay one dollar if a terrorist held a soldier for ransom?
In the January of 1937 the acclaimed journalist O.O.McIntyre received a newspaper clipping that had a fun narrative printed on it. It featured a dynamic message starring media tycoon and Canadian-British politician Max Aiken also known as Lord Beaverbrook. McIntyre reports that he received the following anecdote. “They are telling this of Lord Beaverbrook and a visiting Yankee actress. In a game of hypothetical questions, Beaverbrook asked the lady: ‘Would you live with a stranger if he paid you one million pounds?’ She said she would. ‘And if be paid you five pounds?’ The irate lady fumed: ‘Five pounds. What do you think I am?’ Beaverbrook replied: ‘We’ve already established that. Now we are trying to determine the degree.”
The moral of the story is that money is of no matter, its all about the doctrine. In real life, there is no valid reason why those terrorists as illogical as they are, they still have some common sense, and using that common sense they would know that is a useless agreement, and something bigger is at play, which most countries, especially the U.S. would see right through and disagree to carry out with. If they're willing to pay one dollar why not, 10, 100, 1000, etc.
Even if we were sure that there was absolutely no trap hidden behind this endeavor then we still couldn't pay the ransom. Paying it would compromise our hostage policy, which signals to all the other terrorists in the world that if they want money just kidnap a U.S. Soldier and hold him for ransom. As you see, this allows these kind of people to expand on these hostage situations.
The money was never an object. The military of our nation would rather spend a million on recovering a hostage situation before spending a thousand in ransom money. If there are always means to make money some will be hopeless enough to do it.
In the words of John Adams,"Millions for defense but not a penny for tribute.
The moral of the story is that money is of no matter, its all about the doctrine. In real life, there is no valid reason why those terrorists as illogical as they are, they still have some common sense, and using that common sense they would know that is a useless agreement, and something bigger is at play, which most countries, especially the U.S. would see right through and disagree to carry out with. If they're willing to pay one dollar why not, 10, 100, 1000, etc.
Even if we were sure that there was absolutely no trap hidden behind this endeavor then we still couldn't pay the ransom. Paying it would compromise our hostage policy, which signals to all the other terrorists in the world that if they want money just kidnap a U.S. Soldier and hold him for ransom. As you see, this allows these kind of people to expand on these hostage situations.
The money was never an object. The military of our nation would rather spend a million on recovering a hostage situation before spending a thousand in ransom money. If there are always means to make money some will be hopeless enough to do it.
In the words of John Adams,"Millions for defense but not a penny for tribute.
One Way to Spend Tax Money
You live a modest life, you aren't rich but you aren't all that poor, you're mediocre, the middle of the middle class. Your best friend, in panic, calls you one, very frantic, very pleading. He's the top one of the one percent, he has a mansions that's so elegant the ancient Egyptians stand in awe of how big and beautiful it is, and aside from the normal quarrels, his family is the best you have seen in real life, or television. "I'm in debt. Deep in debt. And I need help, fast." So, of course, you drive down and see what you can do to help him.
You can see him standing on the outside of his massive house with his arms stoically put down with his hands crossed forming an X. His Lykan Hypersport car is parked out front and you notice that its in need of a desperate paint job and small white scratches outline the entire car frame. The brick in the paint on the pillars in front of his house are dirty and there are numerous cracks and holes all over his door. He leads you inside to the kitchen and opens the fridge. The normally stacked refrigerator is almost empty now expect a few bottles of soda and ice cream. "I couldn't afford to buy more than that," he explains. He goes to the living room and you notice the TV has a blue sign on it saying no connection. His wife is lying on the couch, her nose red with a bunch of tissues all littering the ground. "I didn't have enough money to go to the doctor." He leads you upstairs now to his kids rooms. Both of them are empty, even though school ended an hour earlier. "I now send them to public school and since we can't pay for WiFi here, they need to go the the library to do work online.
You ask him if he wants to get a loan for helping his family get on better but he objects. "That is not the real problem. Here, follow me." He leads you to an elevator and while you get in he directs it to the basement. It keeps going down for at least two minutes so you are sure it is no ordinary basement. As you get out you spot a long steel tunnel and at the end of it a sturdy, obviously multi-layered door lies, guarded by eight security men, all in tuxedos. As you reach it he types in a password onto a screen nearby and it runs a voice recognition scan and once it is complete, it opens. Inside are rows, and rows, and rows of artillery, guns, shotguns, machine guns, every kind of weaponry imaginable. After your eyes get weary of scanning through shelves of these you ask him why he has these many defenses. "Well, when I go around the neighborhood I'm seeing more and more Hispanics on my route. Also my companies are dealing with a lot more Chinese business man and I don't really trust them. Someone else I don't trust is those Saudi Arabian fellows running the grocery stores downtown, there is just something about them. I mean, I tell them how I want them to behave, but they just don't seem to listen"
I stare with my mouth open, bemused. "And you think those guys are gonna harm you, is that it? Geez man, they're just living their own lives, do what you have to do to protect yourself and you family but you can't just dictate what they say and do. C'mon with just 1/4th of what I bet you spend on this defense system you could donate millions to charity, put money towards the community, or even just improve the city budget. He just slaps his palm against his forehead and exhales loudly. "Don't you get it dude, I'm worried about my deep debt not because I care about all those other things, I need help with a better defense.
That rich friend reminds me of someone, actually something. The United States of America. We could cut the U.S. military budget by 200 billion and still spend more than the next three countries by at least 50 million. And that 200 billion could go towards sending every high school senior to a two year college, taking in ten million refuges on the welfare system, and taking off a two percent tax break for every American. A strong foreign take on our issues is important, but what good is it if the domestic issues crumble right in front of you?
You can see him standing on the outside of his massive house with his arms stoically put down with his hands crossed forming an X. His Lykan Hypersport car is parked out front and you notice that its in need of a desperate paint job and small white scratches outline the entire car frame. The brick in the paint on the pillars in front of his house are dirty and there are numerous cracks and holes all over his door. He leads you inside to the kitchen and opens the fridge. The normally stacked refrigerator is almost empty now expect a few bottles of soda and ice cream. "I couldn't afford to buy more than that," he explains. He goes to the living room and you notice the TV has a blue sign on it saying no connection. His wife is lying on the couch, her nose red with a bunch of tissues all littering the ground. "I didn't have enough money to go to the doctor." He leads you upstairs now to his kids rooms. Both of them are empty, even though school ended an hour earlier. "I now send them to public school and since we can't pay for WiFi here, they need to go the the library to do work online.
You ask him if he wants to get a loan for helping his family get on better but he objects. "That is not the real problem. Here, follow me." He leads you to an elevator and while you get in he directs it to the basement. It keeps going down for at least two minutes so you are sure it is no ordinary basement. As you get out you spot a long steel tunnel and at the end of it a sturdy, obviously multi-layered door lies, guarded by eight security men, all in tuxedos. As you reach it he types in a password onto a screen nearby and it runs a voice recognition scan and once it is complete, it opens. Inside are rows, and rows, and rows of artillery, guns, shotguns, machine guns, every kind of weaponry imaginable. After your eyes get weary of scanning through shelves of these you ask him why he has these many defenses. "Well, when I go around the neighborhood I'm seeing more and more Hispanics on my route. Also my companies are dealing with a lot more Chinese business man and I don't really trust them. Someone else I don't trust is those Saudi Arabian fellows running the grocery stores downtown, there is just something about them. I mean, I tell them how I want them to behave, but they just don't seem to listen"
I stare with my mouth open, bemused. "And you think those guys are gonna harm you, is that it? Geez man, they're just living their own lives, do what you have to do to protect yourself and you family but you can't just dictate what they say and do. C'mon with just 1/4th of what I bet you spend on this defense system you could donate millions to charity, put money towards the community, or even just improve the city budget. He just slaps his palm against his forehead and exhales loudly. "Don't you get it dude, I'm worried about my deep debt not because I care about all those other things, I need help with a better defense.
That rich friend reminds me of someone, actually something. The United States of America. We could cut the U.S. military budget by 200 billion and still spend more than the next three countries by at least 50 million. And that 200 billion could go towards sending every high school senior to a two year college, taking in ten million refuges on the welfare system, and taking off a two percent tax break for every American. A strong foreign take on our issues is important, but what good is it if the domestic issues crumble right in front of you?
The Dying Death Penalty
For the past 20 years close to almost 1,500 people die from the death penalty and luckily the numbers are decreasing. In America we have established ourselves as a more sophisticated society, not in cars like the Germans, in wine like the French, or in suits like the British, but rather in our beliefs. The one I'm focusing on is how we treat criminals. Do we rape rapists? Do we burn down the houses of arsonists? No? Then why does it seem logical that we murder murderers?
The death penalty goes back from many many years, starting with the Babylonian empire where twenty-five crimes were seen as punishable by death including adultery and aiding escaping slaves, and the practice arose again in the 1600's as punishment for treason, and once again in mid 18th century Europe in retaliation for founding an abolitionist movement. What all of these death bringing punishments all don't include retribution for murder. Murder which is considered the greatest offense possible throughout every government, culture, and coven in the world doesn't deem itself important enough to be punishable by death. What does that say about the uses of the death penalty during history? It was used as means to get revenge, not justice mind you, not to balance out a tragedy with another but as a legal way to derive pleasure from the misfortune of others, or Schadenfreude, as the Germans put it.
An "eye for eye" proponents of this extremist cause say. Sure it might honor the victims, consolidate the grieving families, and make absolutely sure they perpetrators don't have an opportunity to cause more deaths in the future, but that's the short term. What is the long term effect of such a cause?
Firstly, death of one criminal doesn't deter others from committing more crimes. In fact, if they are performing murder they probably don't give a shit about the affects of their actions. They probably have a reason for committing the crime and the threat of death obviously doesn't outweighs the reason, at least for the criminal it doesn't. Secondly, it puts too much power in the governments hands. The eighth amendment goes against giving a criminal cruel and unusual punishment, yet this goes directly against that. Thirdly it costs way too much to keep up, when it would be way, way, way less expensive to just sentence them to a prison. Reports have shown that taxpayers have unknowingly put 5 billion towards maintaining death row facilities that now houses around 757 convicts, 13 which have been killed from the death penalty, at a whopping price tag of 347 million dollars for each execution. Keeping them in a life sentence would be much cheaper.
An eye for an eye makes the world go blind. And a blind world is the most dangerous kind.
A Paean of Glass
It was the middle of seventh grade when I first got a glimpse of Quora. What had attracted me was the simplicity covering the layers and layers of connotations of stories, ideas, and becomings that were inputted from wide varieties of people all around the world. Through this medium my entire view on the world was transformed, changing my ideals in many different issues. For example I used to think I was a liberal but now I half discovered a considerable amount of my political beliefs are conservative. I am gained so much knowledge and a real interest for learning from this simple site and I know I would be a dumber, more apathetic person if I had not joined it.
It had completely transformed my writing world mainly through my writing content and style. I learned from quora to try to create a personality behind each writing piece that you can definitively nail to one personality even if not you're own personality. I was also able to make more connections in my writing, using real world historical examples and write on more topics and while doing so having better formulated opinions on those topics. A lot of times people(read my dad) ask me "How are you do you know so much about this if you don't learn this from school and if there is no class that teaches this kind of thing that I know you're in." Well I attribute all that outside knowledge to first Beverly Hills 90210 and second Quora.
I discovered quora through searching up a usual dumb question among the masses of dumb questions I google each day. I don’t really remember the specifics, but it was something to do with food I think, but anyway but I was scrolling through the web index and clicked on Quora’s webpage and read a really provocative answer and really wanted to comment on it but, I couldn’t without getting an account. And ever since I had succumbed to this amazing site. Sometimes my friends see me scrolling through an app and have learned enough about me to assume its quora. Sometimes when I go out to a store or restaurant people see me on my phone, and who knows what they think, probably something like those damn kids and their phones. Little do they know I wasn’t reading words, I was looking through a window with a special colored pane. A pane called Quora.
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