These Lines Work...trust me

--You mean SO much to me. If I had a thousand years to try to describe how much I love you, I still wouldn't even come close. So thank you. I love you so much. I owe you everything.

--I love you more than words could ever say and actions could ever express. I am constantly looking for ways to tell you.

--I never knew it was possible for somebody to be so perfect, without actually being perfect.

--I'm not perfect and you're not perfect, WE are perfect. I've never felt so much love for another person and I don't think I could feel more if I tried.

Normative System of Ethics

Alright, enough waiting, I'll give you a quick rundown of...well...my view. Like I said, there are many out there. And no, I don't mean this is my view and my view alone...it's a pretty common one.

The key word here is intention. What did you intend to do? Aro, I was REALLY impressed with your logical train of thought. That's almost exactly how most people go through it but they don't take it as far as you did. The point is that someone has to die either way. If you switch the track, 1 dies. If you don't switch the track, 5 die. But not switched the track does not remove you from the situation. Not acting is itself acting. If a baseball if flying at my head and I choose not to duck...I am choosing to get hit in the head. So lack of action gets you nowhere.

If you switch the track to kill the 1, you are saving the 5, but you are not intending to kill the 1. It is an unfortunate course of events that you have no control over. In a case like this, though it sounds cold, it actually becomes just numbers. Don't confuse this with utilitarianism...it is anything but.

As another example (everyone is surely groaning) that you don't have to respond to if you don't want, but it makes the whole thing a lot clearer, here is Room 306:

You are a doctor and you have 5 patients who are all dying due to massive failure of major organs. Each one has a different organ failing. They will all die by the end of the week unless they get a transplant, and they are all so far down the transplant list that there is no hope. Nothing else can save them...not life support, not black market organs, nothing. Jim walks in to get a routine checkup and he is completely healthy. You realize, though, that if you were to drug Jim and take his organs, you could save all 5 of your patients lives. Jim would die, obviously, since he would be lacking such necessities as a heart and lungs. You know that you can do this and get away with it and nobody would know.

What do you do? Take Jim's organs and save the 5, or not take his organs and let the 5 die?

For our advanced readers, let's throw in this twist...Jim is a homeless drug addict. His addiction hasn't ruined any of his organs, but he is hopelessly destined to walk the streets with no family, no friends, no money, no chance of a job, and in perpetual anguish.

GO!

Ethics 101

I tried this recently on MySpace but nobody would respond. I know you guys will (or else!) so I'll try again.

Here's a thought experiment for you all:

You work for a railroad company and you are standing by the track-switching lever. Today has been set aside for maintenance on the tracks. From where you are standing you have a view of the two tracks being worked on. On one side there are 5 workers busily doing repairs. On the other side there is 1 worker doing maintenance. Suddenly you get a call that a train is coming your way and the breaks are out. The train will be here in 10 seconds and you are too far and lacking the means to inform the workers of the coming train. Right now the track is set so that the train will hit the 5 workers. If the lever is pulled, the track will switch and the train will hit the 1 worker. You know that there is no way of saving everybody, no hope of the train stopping, and 100% surety that whichever track the train goes down, anyone on the track will die.

You can leave the track how it is and 5 people die, or you can switch the track and 1 person dies.

What do you do?

EDIT

Since there is so much equivocating over the words I used, I’ll re-state part of this:

There is no way to save all the lives. There is no way to warn anyone. There is no way any of the workers will get off the tracks. There is no way the train will not kill any and every person on the track it takes. There is no way to stop the train. There is nobody on the train to worry about.

The point isn’t to find a sneaky answer; it’s to understand the ethics of the situation. There we go…now I’ve annoyed all of you who’ve come up with great ways around the situation.

It was once said...

...that the only way to achieve happiness is to stop searching for it.

Or another version: the best way to stay unhappy is to keep trying to make yourself happy.

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I think that 90% of the things I do in attempt to gain happiness end up making me unhappier than ever.

...as she melts...

If I had to narrow down my list of favorite songs to one song (and you can all understand how hard that is), it would be difficult for me not to pick Jupiter Crash by The Cure. A song that has had a profound impact upon me.

Here's a live version for your aural pleasure.




EDIT: This might not work in Firefox...try it in another browser and let me know if it works.

POST-EDIT: If all else fails, you still have to hear this song, go here: http://216.117.137.200/cure/08B_jupitercrash.mp3 as a last ditch effort.

Hey Boys and Girls...

It's Out of Context Saturday!!!

In this special edition I will offer you all some of my recent favorite out of context quotes. Names (other than mine) and faces have been changed to secure privacy. Enjoy!

Recent e-mail conversation

her: yeah you better go straight away to the hardware store and get some nylon rope to tie urself up with- and have someone lock u in the closet.
me: duct tape is always more fun. or just rope. hell, even a scarf will do
her: a scarf? but then it gets ruined.
nah rope is restricting but not... binding. does that make sense? you can still move too much. i dunno- even belts are better than rope i think
me: Hmm...I guess it would depend on the belt. Those dress belts with really hard edges would most likely dig in and possibly cut you. Which I guess could be the point? Also...who has a whole bunch of rope sitting around? That might seem suspicious.
her: no no i meant like one of those belts that are cloth and have the little metal buckle you thread it through. does that make sense?
me: yup...a cloth belt would work indeed.


Recent comments made at work

me: Sometimes I'm embarrassed to take it out because...it's just SO big


me: If anyone could do it, it would be you, because your hands are just so big


customer: ...I'm a heavy creamer

I hope I have thoroughly confused, disgusted, or intrigued you all. Goodnight!

...but Friday I'm in love...

So a week or so ago Aro, Keika and I went to Friday's after we went bowling. At the end of the meal I thought it would be funny to leave our waitress a note. The note was scrawled on a napkin and went something like this:

We love you
please call us

555-555-5555

(ask for Ed)

(no, really)

(please???)

A couple days later Aro walks into his house and Ed asks him, "Hey, did I go to Friday's recently?" Ends up she actually called and asked for Ed. When she said, "Remember? You were at my table?" Ed simply replied, "Um...no?" At this point Aro and I felt really bad for the poor waitress because, well, despite it being really funny that she actually called, it was probably funnier for us.

Aro, being the nice guy that he is, called her back and they had a little chat. He apologized on all our behalf and she said she wasn't mad or anything.

Tonight we went back to Friday's and asked to be seated in her section. She walked up to take our order, got halfway through "Hi guys is there anything..." and then blushed and sort of stumbled through the rest of her greeting. We asked if she remembered us and she said yes. Apparently her co-workers were daring her to call and that's why she did it. She found it funny and we felt we had redeemed ourselves. She even joked about it and brought the check and said, "I gave YOU guys a number this time", and showed us a number to call to do a survey. Obviously we had to leave her another note. It went something like this:

Thanks for the number!
Now we're even!
You're the best waitress in the world!

Then we drew stick figures with our names above them and hearts all around us and a stick figure of her holding a drink tray.

It's amazing I haven't ended up in jail because of my friends.

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In other news I got back from the gym the other day and I looked in the mirror and this is what I saw:



Apparently I sweat in shapes such as "bunny rabbit."

Keep an eye out for our next rorschach-sweat test!

Save Me

EDIT: This now has 2 camera angles for your viewing pleasure!