again

i don’t know where we are headed.

but that’s just life.

mungkin nanti

abit busy these days. but all is good in the hood!

joga

not going to get philosophical. but you’re still the same like you were when i left. but you’re still hot. i’m so conflicted.

no internet

no internet at home. excuse the lack of updates.

The Summer

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”

- Jack Kerouac

Whatever it takes

I hope we can start anew.

Because I think what I’ve been looking for all this while has always been you.

I need a Girl (Part 2)

When your soul is pregnant with so much emotion, what is the correct path? Do we correct ourselves by the self-medicating offerings of drugs and alcohol? Or do we then finally see the purpose of art? Is it then the purpose of art to be the wastepool of the soul’s emotional excrement? Is this the true destiny of the arts, to be a festering pool of emotional excrement?

I don’t know.

nothing compares 2 u

I could write something vulgar, crude and offensive. Or I could write something that tries to reach, but seemingly never, the upper echelon of writing immortality. Try as I may, I don’t know if I can make it.

Perhaps vulgar, crude and offensive works for now =)

ps. Yes. I am writing again. Seriously.

Response paper psy610. Comments appreciated.

This paper is on animal research. I’m too lazy to polish it up any further. Hit me up with comments.

***

Response to Debate on the 8/11/2009

            Though the opposing team did not bring any substantial points to the debate, I believe that the discussion highlighted many points that should be relevant when searching for middle ground. Regardless of my side in the debate, I am staunch supporter of animal research. However, with that said, I believe that both sides of the issue need to be taken into consideration to understand why this debate is relevant.

                I am a proponent of the evolutionary argument; whereby we are the most evolved of all species, and by this I mean that we dominate every other species on this planet, and are therefore entitled to the exploitation of other species because our interests outweighs theirs. However, this argument cracks under further scrutiny– as is demonstrable by the Nazi argument. The Nazis believed that they were dominant over the Jews, and that Jews were nothing better than animals. Furthermore, they acted upon this and subjugated the Jews. This is similar to the case of our current debate, and I will draw a comparison between these two examples.

                How were the Jews subjugated? Subjugation was the result of Nazi popularity amongst the non-Jewish masses. Nazi power stemmed from support by the non-Jewish masses.  This power was sufficient to oppress the Jews, as the Jews were a very small minority in the German population. If we draw a comparison to our current debate, we can make an analogy that our intelligence has granted us power to oppress animals. As numbers gave the Nazis power to oppress the Germans, intelligence has given us to oppress animals. Did the Jews have power? A pithy amount, perhaps. But that is the demarcating factor that defines everything. Power.

However, if we could find another demarcating factor that differentiated us from animals, would that factor would be grounds for a more compelling argument?

Consider this; what the Nazis believed about the Jews – that they were sub-human etc.- was ridiculous.The Nazi belief was easily refuted by the fact that the only difference between humans of Jewish descent and humans of German-Nazi descent was  genealogical. Why the Nazi belief was easily refuted and why racism is conceptually illogical, is that as humans, our differences are entirely aesthetic. Under the color of our skin, the practices and norms of our culture – we are all undeniably, biologically human.

If differences between us and animals were based on something more decisive, other than aesthetic differences (There are some that argue biological differences between species are just aesthetic -  we are all similar organisms that require the same biological processes to subsist) – we could be arguing on a different plane. For this matter, I would like to use the point of consciousness. If we can successfully argue, and show, that animals do not have the consciousness that we possess, perhaps that would be grounds for a decisive difference between us and them as species.

 Though consciousness itself isn’t defined yet, if we take the capacity to suffer emotional torture, emotional pain, mental torture, mental pain, physical torture, physical pain etc. into the definition of consciousness, it then becomes exceedingly clear that human interests outweigh animal interests because we have this consciousness and they do not. This in effect makes the evolutionary argument much stronger. But of course, the caveat is that the validity of this point is contingent upon whether animals do or do not actually have that definition of consciousness.

Invariably, this debate will then branch off into what consciousness actually is. But until we solve this problem of consciousness, or whatever it is that truly differentiates us, the evolutionary argument will not hold strong. And lastly, on a more general note, I hope this debate over animal research will continue to remain relevant.

here comes the sun

Random Idea

‘Riding the bible belt’

3 weeks of traversing the southern states. video camera. hitting bbq pits, bars and all things quintessentially south. filming everything and everybody. the people, the culture. something like borat; only not so demeaning and subtly vilifying.

utah, kentucky. christianfreaks. rednecks. hicks. deerhunters. belleoftheballs. whatever the stereotype. probably next summer. who’s down?