Fairness (and meat-eating)

It is 2AM at night. It appears that reading about philosophers in an attempt to get to sleep was not such a good idea. The very fact that I’m still typing right now is proof of that.

One guy I happened to read up on was John Rawls. I’m quite sure my dad mentioned this guy a few years ago. His main point of view is basically as such: if we are behind a veil of ignorance about who we will be born as, what kind of society will choose to be born in? Is it one where there are the extremely rich people and the extremely poor — and you could be one of them? Or is it one where everyone ends up equally well-to-do, not too rich and yet not too poor?

To be honest, his argument does appeal to both reason and emotion. I would have chosen the latter world. But then again, that’s just due to my personal preference — there’s no need to be too rich and I don’t want to be too poor. On a more caring note, it’d in fact be better if poverty was non-existant! This may explain how my views are pretty much socialist thus far. (reading Free To Choose hasn’t seemed to change that)

However, let’s extend his logic. Behind this veil of ignorance, we may very well end up as an uh oh, aborted foetus. We shouldn’t have abortion either. I sure as hell won’t want to be a to-be-aborted-foetus just cos of some wild party regardless of the reason.

More importantly, we shouldn’t even eat meat! Behind this veil of ignorance, we may end up as some farm animal, we may very well end up getting abattoired , chopped up after death and well, eaten.

Consider this scenario: in a futuristic world, a new breed of superhumans have evolved. They are stronger and smarter than the average human being by a difference of heaven and earth. But there’s one problem — they enjoy feeding on human blood. For the purpose of illustrating my point, these vampires do not need blood to survive, they just enjoy sucking the blood of humans. Man is subsequently locked up, force fed and bred specifically for the purpose of providing blood for this new elite superhuman race.

We cringe at the very thought of being drained of blood, let alone getting killed and eaten like animals. We detest the manner in which a supposed “elite” breed of people would like to take control over us. Yet we are all guilty.

Perhaps no matter what we do, animals are going to continue getting killed for food anyway. But then again, shouldn’t we show even the slightest support against the act of eating animals. In fact, more people eating animals will result in more animals being killed to meet the demand.

Do bear in mind — that eating meat is in no way necessary for us. But we do so anyway. I find no justification in the killing and eating of animals, but I’m going to continue to do so anyway. Most people will.

Enjoy Thanksgiving! We weren’t born as turkeys!”

I’d like to find a justification

(But back on John Rawls, one must bear in mind not to be hypocritical. In accepting John Rawls theory, it has to be applied to both abortion and the issue of meat-eating — otherwise reject it. )

 

Political Quiz!

Take this extremely short quiz here: http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html

Being so short, I can’t say that it is entirely accurate, but at the very least it provides enough of a rough guage to groupe you into the four or five categories.

I happen to be (Left) liberal. The quiz was basically split into the personal and economic issues. I scored an 80 on personal issues in terms of how much freedom should be granted, but when it came to economic issues, I scored a mere 20 — quite the opposite. Incidentally they total up to be 100 by coincidence.

LIBERALS usually embrace freedom of choice in personal

matters, but tend to support significant government control of the

economy. They generally support a government-funded “safety net”
to help the disadvantaged, and advocate strict regulation

of business. Liberals tend to favor environmental regulations,

defend civil liberties and free expression, support government action

to promote equality, and tolerate diverse lifestyles

It’s interesting to note how putting the two scores on a table and finding the point they meet will land you into the grid which will classify you. Am thinking about the accuracy of this as well.

Perhaps my point of view will change after I read “Free to Choose — Milton Friedman” (which I will the moment I am sure I can get my 35%++ discount at borders hehe)

To quote Ronald Reagan, “Government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem.”

I’d have to read up a bit more on Reaganomics (lately EVERYTHING has a damn “-nomics” at the back no thanks to Steven Levitt) and compare them (of the trickle down effect and what not) to FDR’s policies to deal with the Great Depression. It could almost be considered an antithesis. (hmm, i’m getting some ideas here) Both their policies left USA with debt — its understandable since debt is a secondary issue to a president compared to making the voters happy.

 

Unemployment solution

I was reading about unemployment today and how it is impossible to go down to zilch. Unemployment is indeed a hard problem. The government cannot just allow the unemployed and their families to starve or resort to crime (or throw themselves onto the tracks…). Yet it isn’t a good thing if the government hands out taxpayer’s money for people to do nothing. Is there a way to find a Golden Mean?

My inspiration stems from two sources
1. My classmates and their talk about how we should send mainly failures to the army. It sounds damn elitist i know, but our Prime  Senior Mentor once suggested this, though it faield most unfortunately
2. The story about how this poor guy stole just to go to jail to get food

lloyd’s proposed solution is basically to —

Draft all unemployed people. Recruit them, immediately put them in the army. They may not necessarily be part of the military combatants but they can be stuff like clerks, cooks or even parachute folders. That would grant them a job and some income.

Basically, “if we can find money to ‘kill’ people, we can find find money to help people” — a quote from Tony Benn, a former British politician who is extreme left. Perhaps there are other roles in which the government can provide apart from the military.

I will not go into the possible consequences of such a move — but it is feasible in my opinion. If you can conscript and train all 18 year olds, you can do the same for the unemployed as well.

Maybe this policy may not even involve much money being paid out…Perhaps not being sent back to the army would be a good reason to get a job — ANY job, even a cleaner. Essentially, disincentivise people from being unemployed ^.^ I don’t believe there’s such a thing as being “unable to find a job” just “unable to find a job that would suit a person’s tastes/preferences”

I have a slight problem with the definition of unemployment — more often than not the main phrase left out of the definition is “looking for a job”. Why the distinction? Perhaps it is mainly for women who’d willingly stay at home — to not count them as unemployed and thus screw the statistics up. My point ofview on the evolution of gender roles means that men can as well. But regardless of gender or the willingness to look for a job, it does not change the fact that they *can* contribute to the labour force and they have the potential to do so.

There probably is only one problem with this idea i’m toying with — we can’t exactly pinpoint who is unemployed to force them to become militarymen. Then again, why would that matter — its not our fault if people “refuse our help”. Just wait till theyre desperate enough and they’ll seek this avenue of employment and income.