Murphy's Law, Silver Linings, and How Life Changes Off of Little Random Things

So, today I had to work from 7am - 12pm, at the Marriott hotel as a server. That's my summer job, I get to dress up fancy and be a waiter at hotel receptions and the like. It's an okay job with the exception that the people I work for are very unorganized and don't seem to care about us. *shrug*

Murphy's Law: If anyone was awake at 7am, a storm system hit Indy at 6:55ish, right as I was finding a parking space and getting out my car. I ended up having to run through the rain (and it was POURING) and getting soaked. It didn't start really raining until right as I made the last turn before pulling into a parking space. And it only lasted about 15 minutes, I was told.

Onto the next bad thing, not as bad, but annoying. I was told to be at work at 7 am. I was there at 6:59. The way it works is, I wait in a waiting room for someone from the hotel to come get me. No one did until 7:10, and because they were late, they docked my pay. Also because of this, and because I was the last group in, the 3 people with me and I didn't get jackets to wear over our T-Shirts. So we went in and started working, with 70 other people looking fancy, and me in a ThinkGeek.com t-shirt with a nerdy saying about electricity and Star Trek. Needless to say I felt foolish.

The silver lining: A few minutes in, one of the guys who was doing the audio for the breakfast (it was a breakfast for the girl scouts) came over and told me he found my shirt quite funny, and when I mentioned the reason for not having a jacket, he scoffed and told me I should keep wearing my t-shirt itself because of how much of an "epic win" it was. Also, later when I was on break, he found me and had me show it to a friend of his. So that was sorta cool. I ended up getting a jacket before guest arrived.

How Life Changes Off of Little Random Things: As I was finishing up my shift, my new friend came over and asked if I had a full time job, and if I had any experience in audio. I explained that I had been a sound technician for weddings at my church for years. We talked for a while, with the end being that he asked me for my resume and contact information, so I now very probably have a better job lined up for the rest of the summer. All because I was almost late and wasn't wearing the overjacket like I was supposed to be doing.
 

A Little Humor

I found this from StumbleUpon today and it gave me a laugh. I thought I'd share it with you.

Don't Argue With The Gay Flight Attendant

My flight was being served by an obviously gay flight attendant, who seemed to put everyone in a good mood as he served us food and drinks.

As the plane prepared to descend, he came swishing down the aisle and told us "Captain Marvey has asked me to announce that he'll be landing the big scary plane shortly, so lovely people, if you could just put your trays up, that would be super."

On his trip back up the aisle, he noticed an extremely well-dressed and exotic young woman hadn't moved a muscle. "Perhaps you didn't hear me over those big brute engines but I asked you to raise your trazy-poo, so the main man can pitty-pat us on the ground."

She calmly turned her head and said, "In my country, I am called a Princess and I take orders from no one."

To which the flight attendant replied, without missing a beat, "Well, sweet-cheeks, in my country I'm called a Queen, so I outrank you. Tray up, Bitch."
 

Profiling Passengers - Wrong?

I was watching C-Span yesterday morning, and one of the guests was Nihad Awad, director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which is a group dealing with American Muslims, and the relations between America and the international Muslim community. Awad has been the Executive Director since 1994, and was speaking yesterday about racial and religious profiling.

There have been a few instances of security officials stopping Muslims, but religious profiling isn't US policy. Awad was making the point that the profiling will only serve the alienate Muslims that don't hate the US yet. IE, our own citizens. And while he makes a valid point, it doesn't change the facts. Fact, all terrorist attacks of the last 15 years have been Muslim extremists. Fact: They were young men.

When we are looking for White Supremacists, do we go to Harlem? No, it doesn't make sense. It's logical to scrutinize young Muslim men more than other passengers, because they are more likely to be a threat. Profiling will save time and money, and increase our chances of actually catching a terrorist.

That said, profiling is still not right. Frankly, and I know that I'm going to be disagreed with, none of this security is right. Controlling who gets on and off a private plane, that's not the government's place. We shouldn't be wasting money on any of this. Bin laden did much much more with 911 than the innitial effects. How much money has been lost due to the extra security across the country? The time lost? The threat of a terrorist attack is bad, but it's not worth the loss of civil rights. Religious profiling .... doing nothing for the last hour of the flight (including the bathroom! even for children!) .... possibly having to register travel plans and reasons for traveling ... it's not worth the small bit of extra safety. And it's giving the government way to much power.

Remember the Nazis? "Your papers, please"
 

New TSA Regulations

Following the attempted bombing of Flight 253, the TSA in their infinite wisdom has declared new regulations on all of us. The short version is, you aren't allowed to do anything during the last hour of your flight except breathe.

No getting up to use the bathroom (even little kids), no laptop computers, no food, no drinks. You can't even read a book. Now, I'm not going to get into how many civil liberties this violates, because the government doesn't care about such trifling concerns. The Patriot Act started it, and Obama has continued, if not gotten worse. All I'll say is that the Founding Fathers (after being taught was a plane was) would declare a revolution was needed against this Tyranny.

However, there is hope. The security measures are like a magnet on a slippery refrigerator. Constantly slipping down, and then every once in a while shoved back up suddenly. Things will calm down and the regulations will slowly be relaxed, because people don't really care. Even the TSA doesn't care. They are only doing this, in a knee jerk reaction, to curry public favor. To try and look as though they are Doing something, and damn the rest of us for wanting to not be controlled.
 

Do Actions Derive From Morals, or Positive/Negative Feedback

Do all actions derive from positive and negative feedback? IE, consequences? I maintain it does. Example:

Take a normal average person. Ask him or her if he would rob a bank. The probably answer is no. Ask him why, and you’ll probably get the answer of ‘it’s wrong’. However, an honest man might answer, ‘because of the consequences of doing it … jail’.

Both of these are valid reasons, because people Do have a sense of right and wrong. Everyone has his or her moral code. However, the threat of immediate consequences is also a large incentive. That is the basis for the justice system; we prevent people breaking the law by imposing punishments. Now, second example:

Take the situation from above, but in this theoretical world, the law is suddenly changed, and it’s legal to rob banks. Would the average people do it? And this is immediate, not in the future after the law has been changed for a very long time. (Basically so we assume people don’t have time to change societal morals) Ask the same person from above, and the answer is probably the same. They won’t. Because it’s wrong.

This would seem to prove that actions are determined by other then consequences at least part of the time. However, we must look deeper. Where does the very concept of right and wrong come from? It comes from positive and negative feedback. It comes from parenting, when parents teach their children what is wrong. And those children are taught that, by consequences. Example:

A child steals a cookie. The parents find out, express disapprove by yelling, or giving the child the ‘disappointed’ speech, and then they give a punishment. Alternate description: Child does an action, and then receives negative feedback from the parents.

The negative feedback can be a punishment, or even just expressed disapproval. Verbal, the parent telling the child it is wrong. A frown could also express disapproval. Pain isn’t always needed, although it is one of the most powerful negative feedback tools available. It is by that expression of disapproval, the negative feedback that the child learns what is wrong. And conversely, positive feedback enforces what is good. Example: A parent smiles and tells a child how proud they are of him or her, after a good action. Our moral code, our internal idea of right and wrong, is taught when we are children, and is taught by positive and negative feedback.

Follow this to adulthood. A person is governed dually by internal moral code, and the threat if immediate consequences. A person doesn’t rob a bank, because they will be punished, but also because they believe it is wrong. And since that belief was taught by negative feedback, it follows that all of our actions are determined by feedback.

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As a side observation, all Morals are taught by positive and negative feedback. However, I am not saying that there are not ultimate, or correct, morals. Another way to prove that morals are taught, is the fact that everyone’s moral code is so different. A blatant example being South American Indians, who as a society, believed cannibalism to be morally correct. If there was a higher absolute moral code, and it was just inherent in people, they would have as a society rejected that immediately. (Or we would realize that cannibalism is okay). Again though, I am not saying that there aren’t Real higher morals. Just that people are Taught there morals (initially) by positive and negative feedback. And I’d also note that there are some cases where people change there own moral by self evaluation. However, it is a rare occurrence.
 

I'm Back

Well, it's been forever since I last had a blog update. Mainly because this summer I've been obscenely busy with class and work. However, I'm on vacation at the moment and finally have some free time, so I'm going to try and get this going again.

So, has anyone been keeping up on the Debt? Not our personal debt (although that is increasing at alarming rates because people have no idea how to manage money) but the National Debt. At the moment I write this, it is $11,639,684,699,552. Now, that's such a huge number, but it's not really real.

It's one of those things that is so large, it doesn't even matter anymore, because it cannot ever be paid off.
 

The Majority Vs The Minority

Does the majority have a right to overrule the minority? I have been trying to follow the Prop 8 hearing in the California Supreme Court, and as of a few days ago, both sides were finished, and all that remained was the ruling.

One news site I read from, the San Francisco Chronicle, said that the Justices seemed the be leaning towards upholding Prop 8, and quoted Chief Justice Ronald George. "There have been initiatives that have taken away rights from minorities by majority vote [in the past]"

Link:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/05/MNLP169S2G.DTL

Now, I was discussing this with a friend of mine, who is gay herself, and she is, for very good reason, very much against Prop 8. She thought this statement was ridiculous, because the majority does not have the right to take away a right of the minority or suppress them, especially in this case. I disagreed however, at least on the actual issue of, Does the majority have the right to suppress, control, or otherwise hinder the minority's right to do something. That is what I would like the examine today.

Leaving aside the question of, What is a Right, and using it in the more generalized sense to mean something that we are entitled to, I personally think that, yes, the majority does have that right. Actually, there is no question whether it does or not, the only question is, Should it. It's easy to tell it does, because every time 1 or more people don't agree with a Law that is passed, the majority has just over ruled and controlled them.

Basically, look at the chain of command. That majority votes in people to office. Those people make the laws. The laws restrict and control what we can do. Leaving aside crime and people ignoring the laws, and accusations that the real power and decisions are not made by the people we elect, let us assume that that perfect system is how it works. Whoever, though advertising, campaigning,and money, can control the vote, can force their will upon everyone else, because they convince the majority that that will is the majority's as well.

Now, the question of, Should it have the right. Well, there are many cases where, yes, it should. For example, one man says, I think I want to kill you and take you things, then rape your daughter, and burn down your house. That is my right? Why, because I say so.

That is a minority opinion, and the majority of people disagree that we have a right to kill and rape. And so, the majority, using it's power, suppresses that minority. There are many cases like this, many good things that are prevented because they are no longer acceptable to the majority, ie, society.

On the other hand, there are many bad things which come from this, ie, Prop 8. When the majority decides to support something wrong, then there is no good way to stop it. One time this happened that could still be debated, whether is was good or bad, was seat belts. Does the government have the right to Make you wear a seat belt? The majority got it into their heads that we should wear them, and so it became law. Now, on the other hand, seat belts save lives, every day. So you could say, okay, fine, it's good. Well, now they are talking about banning talking on cellphones while you are driving. Does the majority have the right to do that? You can cite the same safety statistics, but in the end, it's still invading the privacy of your car. Cigarettes are another issue, but right now, the majority still want to allow them, even though that could change rapidly in the future, given the nature of the "public property" bans.

All of these are cases where you have to decide one by one, should the majority have been allowed to force it's will upon the rest of us, the disagree-ers, the minority? It's not a question of Does the majority do it, only, should they. And if not, then what are we going to do about it.