Wednesday Web Work

We saw two videos today, about after school arms clubs. What types of loopholes are there in Japan, and what type of activities would be beneficial to society?

Three came to me: the population problem and how foreigners are treated in Japan,

the nuclear reactor problem in Japan, and the food problem.

How can we make a difference? is it possible to tie up with Amnesty or some other group like that?

Another　thing: the people in the video were not making any argument, but just pointing out the flaws. In our classes, we don't do that, we just compete to make a better argument and then discuss the relative merits and demerits. .

(another reason why i like agriculture: YOU have to DO it)

We then learned how to set up a website. I hope to make something interesting.

And finally the topic i was avoiding all along, the fact that it was our last class.

This class was one where i never felt any apprehension when going to class, and this thanks to rab and everybody in CB, Yay!hope to have fun during the barbecue!

Tuesday- what would you take to a desert island?

OK, so Rab asked us what we would take to a desert island (12 items)

Personally, i wanted to get rid of relying on Oil and machinery but i failed to get my point across.

I think that there isn't any need for Man to hunt animals, especially where food is supposed to grow abundantly on plants. is it something hardwired into men that we instinctively want to create a situation where everything is to our advantage? ( in this case, conservation of energy by burning fuels)

I read the Swiss Family Robinson when i was small and wanted to grow up to be like them. However, the family had a whole ship at their disposal. As if that wasn't good enough, the ship was loaded with stuff required for inhabiting a new island.

I feel that a diary set is enough for entertainment, by the way. Its one of the activities that is unique to humanity, the ability to record events in such a way that many people can learn of it.

Monday PWT

The PWT is so boring....

i mean they could have asked more interesting questions. The questions are so predictable...

Nothing much to note here, except that i chose to answer the second question.

i hear rumors that just being present for the PWT is enough to guarantee a pass mark.

Friday's Class

We had our last class in the computer rooms on Friday.

We saw many videos used by people to get their message across, and saw a lot of them using humour as a weapon. In contrast to the grimmer Earthlings, i think that more people can watch these videos. However, the humour also kind of numbs the senses to the gravity of the situation. I think that both serious and humorous videos have to be seen..... in the end, (like in yuuji's blog) it depends on what the person watching the video wants to do.

I read tomoaki's rant against the people who want his medical certificate. What's the bottom line ?

was tomoaki sick or not? If he wasn't sick, then the system has succeeded in finding him out, hasn't it? I thnk that such generalisation is self-defeating to say the least.

Wednesday: debate

I was wrong about my thinking that i was successful at debating.... Rab totally destroyed all of us.

The way he managed to outfox us reminded me of a slippery eel. i would really like see rab debating rab if you know what i mean.

Do debates ultimately have any real social value? I think this brings up ghosts of Nisbett.

i used to stay in a dormitory in high school, and we often had debates about what to do about our policies ( it was a self-governing dorm) . When i was dorm president, i was what you might call conservative reformer. I kept jougeikankei in place , but i emphasised the responsiblity of the seniors more than my predecessors. The system worked well because everybody trusted me as the dorm pres. the next term, the new dorm pres ( my classmate) was a radical. He involved the students in a debate about jougeikankei . after lengthy debates, i lost and jougeikankei was abolished, at least experimentally. Instead of the authority of seniors, we depended on everyone's good will for the dorm to function. I had pointed out that the pressure on everyone to perform their duties would dramatically decrease, while my friend said that it was better to rely on everybody's conscience to provide the pressure. Naturally, everybody wants to be the master of their own fate, so i failed to convince.

Ultimately, however, we admitted to certain failures in the new system, but this was after we graduated from the high school.

The bottomline is that i am a bad debater, and i want to improve, so i want rab to teach us about debates and convincing arguments.

Tuesday political compass

Today we explored the political inclinations of Hemingway, and the effect it had on his writing.

Rab told us about the Political Compass, and i visited the site. By the way, i was close to gandhi in my political views. Rab made some mistakes when placing the personalities on the compass in class, and it might be a good idea to check it out yourself!

We then had a debate about the best interpretation of Hemingway's book. I always get hot and flustered in such situations, but i think i managed to hold my ground.......

Monday- Hemingway's nature

On Monday, we did work on Hemingway. The discussion somehow wound up on the topic of Hemingway's view of nature, and then moved onto the ethics of eating animals and the rights of animals in general. I felt that we can't defend our reasons for eating meat, and it just comes down to a matter of taste. Advances in science mean that we do not need to depend on eating animals for our nutritional needs, and this reduces the argument to our values.

Rab recommended the video ' earthlings' , and i saw the first fifteen minutes on freedocumentaries

and i understand what rab meant when he said that we would be thankful for the poor picture quality. It was extremely depressing. But it is our duty to know.

By the way, there is a farmer in america called Joel Salatin who raises animals on his farms and kills them in a glass abbatoir( literally). He emphasises the consumer's duty to know where his food comes from and allows people to personally process their own chicken. So what? you might say but i think it will lead t0 lower consumption of meat.

Salatin's farm is interesting, you might want to google him.