Journeyman Philosopher

I wanted to post an interesting video which I first encountered in a ‘Social and Political’ philosophy course, and just now stumbled upon in my ‘Women Studies’ course entitled ‘Who’s Counting?’. Its a documentary which discusses ideas of gendering and segregation of the work force, a flawed economic system, and various other issues. It’s a three part with a total length of under 30 minutes. Watch it and tell me what you think!

Part One can be found here.

Part Two can be found here.

Part Three can be found here.

Safe to say this idea and similar ideas such as Richard Laynard’s concept of economic ‘happiness’ have really assisted in shaping my views and values when looking at our current economic model and problems.

How does this make you feel?

Continued from yesterday…

I personally feel, as I have previously indicated, that water is a basic human right. This is simply as water is necessary for life, or rather for our life at the very least.

However I was against diverting Canadian water to America and supported our premier when he refused to do it. In such a manner I agree with Eragon in that helping people doesn’t always mean giving your resources (or recourses for Paul :D) blindly away.

If water is needed and it becomes a life or death situation I think its necessary that we share our resources. For one reason because I believe it is considerate, and for the other I believe resource ownership is problematic enough.

The first reason is obvious enough, if we support others in their time of need we encourage future cooperation. And thus if we ever need water, there will be a higher chance of us recieving help.

The second point, that I believe is a more important point, is that owning resources is a strange and finite thing. From my own logic it would seem that resources are owned by all on the earth. If you make something and use a resource you have applied effort toward that thing, and thus a sense of ownership may be wisely placed. But owning something that naturally flows from another’s territory to your own seems silly.

Of course this is against everything our society is based on. Taking away the concept of owning land and terrotories would lead to a complete re-working of our economic model. This isn’t something that is soon to come, first our values need to change and from this a new economic model could be devised.

Really though, how can I say that we should share water because its considerate and because we do not own resources, and still maintain the stance that we shouldn’t share our water with the states.

Our world is filled with short term solutions, and I think it is problematic to support such ideas without guarantees of long term progress. Politicians really need to start planning beyond their office span, this is a fundamental problem of our democratic system.

Feeding addictions is not a solution, but leading to a curb of the addiction is.

 How do you feel about this?

A while ago I visited the Royal Tyrell Museum with a couple of friends. While there I stumbled upon something that made me think and I felt it would be appropriate to share it with you here.

In relevance to the lifeboat or spaceship analogy I have spoken of in the past I came across a display explaining the different shapes of the continents of the past present and future. I took some pictures and they follow:

The first image, all of which you can click on to download the file, represents the earth a very long time ago about when star wars was set! The second image represents the present earth and hopefully looks familiar to most of you. The third image is  the possible future earth quite a while in the future.

What I wanted to bring into question and bring to contemplation was our idea and concept of coutries and continents set in stone (pun intended).

When we go about our daily lives issues of the nature of the changing globe, due to its miniscule nature, may not be that important.  However I think it is simply an interesting concept to place in mind.

What happens when a Canadian store is moved over the border into the states through an earthquake? Who owns it? Does it change the owners rights?

A common observation made by astronauts is that seeing the earth externally makes them forget about borders. Relevance could be made of this point. A mediator is used to ensure fairness between two parties. They are valuable because they are impartial, because they are separate from the situation.

I don’t mean to advance any point although I have started already. I just wanted to put these questions out there to think about.

What do you think?

I want to apologies to everyone who has recently commented and had their comments misplaced. I have notified today.com and they are looking into the shuffling of comments! Thanx for your patience!

Also note that when reading others comments if they seem non-sensical, more then likely it is in a misplaced category. Despite this problem I have been reading your comments in the attended sense and appreciate them.

Remember an opinion is justified in itself please feel free to comment and even criticize my posts. As philosophical inquiry rhapsodies joy over such pursuits. We all live we all learn, please let’s help eachother through this process.