Okay... SOME Parts of College Rock

My Child Psych course is a pretty standard 200-person lecture class. It's a prerequisite for almost every other psychology course, and is fairly low level. I'm pretty bored with it, but I'll deal. My problem is that the people aren't exactly the brightest bulbs. The other day we were talking about prenatal genetic testing for heritable diseases.

The professor asked what the moral and ethical implications for prenatal genetic testing were, so, of course, a (slightly) older gentleman in the front row raised his hand and said:
"You could test for a disease, then get an abortion based on the test results."
And the teacher agreed; prenatal testing could lead to horrible things like abortion. It is true that this is an ethical issue that we should contemplate, but I am inclined to disagree with my professor's sentiment. There are many diseases that would cause a child to be better off dead. We could argue about this all day, but it would be missing the point of this post.

Two days later we were talking about the spread of HIV and AIDS through breastfeeding, and the same guy asks:
"Is there a law against breastfeeding if you have AIDS?! There should be! It's murder!"
This statement missed the obvious fact that all childbirth is murder, not even mentioning the multitude of horrible genetic deformities and diseases that can drastically decrease the quality of life (and lifespan!) of those who inherit them... All of those could be easily avoided. Through what you ask? Abortion of course.

Later on in my discussion group the T.A. asked what the ethical implications of genetically engineering children could be. One particularly perky girl (this class is at 8 A.M... No one should be perky at that hour lol) answered in a spectacularly thoughtless fashion. She said:
"Well, if we make perfect humans we'd be interfering with the way God made us."
Thank Pasta it was so early in the morning, otherwise I probably would have smashed my forehead into my palm.

Oh well! I guess I'll just have to focus on the positive... like, I'm in college! I have my own house! I love learning!

Poorly Considered Argument

Rudeness abounds in YouTube debates!
It started with a comment made by some Christian bigot.
He said something along the lines of:
"Stop having sex with holes that are meant for excrement!"
To which I responded:
"Vaginas are used for excrement."
So he said:
"Vaginas are not used for excrement asswipe, WTF is wrong with you? move the hell out of the US if you like gay, sickening perversion loser!!"
Really?...
Someday the world will be filled with intelligent discussion, or I'll be dead. Either way works.

Ray Comfort... *sigh*

These people are fucking moronic.

"An atheist believes Nothing made everything."
"help to pull the plug on the rising tide of atheism"
-Ray Comfort

And this guy thinks he could take Dawkins in a debate... are you fucking kidding me?

YouTube Sucks!

After writing a lengthy and disparaging response to a Christian troll via comment I proceeded to click "Post Comment" but to my despair, when I clicked the button, instead of showing the usual "Comment Posted!" it just said "Post Comment" again! Even worse, that incredibly long comment I posted couldn't be highlighted! No copy and paste for me... So I refreshed the page and wrote the comment again. I figured it was just a fluke, so I didn't even bother copying my post... I was wrong. This time I refreshed, wrote my response, copied it, saved it in a word document, then pushed post. Still nothing. After about twenty minutes of troubleshooting, and posting, and copying, and blah blah blah, I got an error message at the bottom of my screen.
It looked like this.



Of course, I was absolutely horrified! First you don't let me post a comment (on my own video even!), then you insult my intelligence so directly and personally? Perhaps you missed it. How dare they insinuate that I "Can't read?" Those obnoxious bastards! Do they really think this kind of thing is a user error!?!

Well needless to say, YouTube has caused me too much frustration... I'm afraid I can no longer visit that wonderful (on paper) website.
;)

Intelligent Discussion Is Hard To Come By

I'm reading a book called "Why Don't Students Like School" and let me tell you, it really has me thinking. I haven't gotten very far, seeing as I'm in the middle of moving out and have no time for reading, but the first couple of pages that I've read are fascinating!

It basically explains that humans don't like thinking. It's slow, takes up lots of energy, and rarely leads you to the correct answer. When I think about it like that it almost makes me feel bad for people who seem ignorant...

For example, I overheard a conversation about talent. Most of the people were arguing that talent is something you have to work for, while only ONE person was arguing that it was inherent. Now, this may just be semantics, but the definition of talent according to Princeton's website is:

"A person who possesses unusual innate ability in some field or activity"

Uh... Innate ability? Do you have to work for that? It seems fairly ridiculous that people don't even think about the very definition of the word when they're arguing about it, but even more ridiculous to think that the person arguing for innateness didn't even use that argument!

It seems as though my outrage with the world will not come to an end until we genetically modify ourselves to be more efficient thinking machines. For now, I will have to endure living in the minuscule minority.

Really?...

Give me 30 minutes in a room with any of these kids and I guaruntee that if they haven't drastically changed their viewpoints they will within 6 months.

I am the antidote.

Anyone In Here?... *tumbleweed*

For those of you who check my blog (0) more than my YouTube (200) I should be posting a new video soon, which is big news because I don't do that often! Check for it tonight or tomorrow!

Media... *sigh*

Taliban 'brainwashed' Pakistan [sic] teen suicide bombers
Really? Well what's the difference between that and this?

The latter is too subtly harmful to hold our attention.