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kunhuo42
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Name: aaron
Country: United States
State: Maryland
Metro: Baltimore
Gender: Male
Interests: engineering, anthropology.... in other words, your typical nerd...
running, hiking, and backpacking; baking (and occasionally cooking, i suppose).
Expertise: i'm not so presumptuous to say that i'm an expert in much of anything at all
Occupation: grad student
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
10/13/2005
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| on the news this morning, my bf heard a report that despite the shortage of h1n1 (a.k.a. swine flu) vaccine at many hospitals, wall street corporations were given a private allotment of the vaccine. that is, while middle-age men who are at low risk for some of the more serious side effects of h1n1 are being vaccinated, hospitals are not able to vaccinate those at most risk including children, pregnant mothers, and even hospital employees (and here i can speak from experience; at the hospital where i work there is a multi-tier system as to who has priority for h1n1 vaccines, and i doubt that anyone beyond the first tier of high risk individuals has been vaccinated). what bothers me isn't that these people do not comprise a high risk group. nor is what bothers me that the people who nearly drove this country into a depression to rival the 1930s were given something that many others have not been able to get. what really bothers me isn't even that so many more at-need individuals are still unable to get the vaccine. what upsets me the most about hearing this is that it simply points to an even deeper problem that is rooted in the very basis of society: the fact that money and greed are such strong driving forces in this world.
i commented to my bf this morning that maybe the world wold be better off if everyone went back to using the barter system. sure, it would be a pain. it would be difficult to find someone who valued my work as a graduate student enough to trade me fruits and vegetables in exchange for a few pretty graphs of data or a nice model simulation. but the nice thing about the barter system is that it is entirely self-limiting in its extent. it would be impossible for society to become so extremely polarized to the extent it is now, where we have some of the richest people in the world in our nation and still have thousands of people starving in the streets. let me give a concrete example of why bartering is a self-limiting means of accruing wealth. let's take the commodity of food. everyone needs food to survive, so food would be valued highly as a bartering commodity. however, nobody could amass so much food that they could never in their entire lifetime hope to even put a small dent into their food wealth. why? because food goes bad. so in fact, food could not be stockpiled; food would by its very nature need to be either consumed or traded quickly. thus, it would not be possible for any one person to amass a commodity such that they gained total power over others. greed would be self-limiting. and payment would certainly be more in line with the services rendered; nobody would be able to pay themselves millions of dollars (or pounds of fish) to head businesses whose primary duty was to accumulate millions of dollars (fish) for its executives.
ok, so maybe i'm oversimplifying things a bit, but the point is that our society is based off greed, when it really should be based off altruism. a society thrives when its members work together for the same good; a society fails when its members seek only personal gains. consider, for example, why parents vaccinate their children against diseases that have never seen the light of day in this country for decades. the reason why such diseases no longer are around much is because people dutifully take their children in to be vaccinated so these diseases do not have the opportunity to appear. are the diseases gone for good? no! people forget that, however, and think "well, my child doesn't need to be vaccinated because the risk of vaccine outweighs the chances of getting the disease." but in fact, the only reason why a parent could even think that is because everyone else is vaccinating their children. rather than support the community, people think they have the opportunity to become selfish, and this in turn sets the society up for a great fall. we cannot simply live out darwin's theory of evolution on an individual basis; it does no good for us to compete against each other for resources. that is why we are social creatures; that is why societies exist. a society's purpose is not to perpetuate the existence of a single individual; it's purpose is to perpetuate the existence of the group. that is why some go to war and fight for others who ever get close to battle; they are willing to sacrifice their lives such that the society remains intact. altruism serves the group before the individual.
the problem today is that the "group" has become too large; it is so abstract, so globally-expansive that it is impossible for us to comprehend that in our minds. when our tribe is a few hundred members, it is easy to understand the importance of altruism and the downfalls of individual greed. but when our tribe is the millions of people on this planet, it is easy to put ourselves first and others second. we figure that our individual actions do not matter, so why be altruistic? why not serve ourselves first? what's in it for me? but in fact, if we all thought that way, if we competed with each other rather than helped each other, our society would collapse. there would be no sense of "us;" it would turn into a free-for-all, each-for-themself melee in which we would compete ourselves to the brink of extinction. in the end, it boils down to this: do we care about the world, and all who live in it? is our purpose in this life to bring some benefit to society, whether it be by making some great discovery that affects millions or by bringing a smile to the face of a loved one? or are we so wrapped up in ourselves that we care only about our own individual welfare? if it is the latter, be warned; a society does not care for those who do not care for it.
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| pardon the long absence... i've been buried in work in the lab. actually, let me correct that statement.... i've been buried in someone else's work in the lab. not even my own work! it's quite frustrating really, to know that you have to go in to work to finish up someone else's project rather than your own, and that the only reason you're stuck doing it is because they don't know how to do anything to get it done. sigh....
anyway, this week i've sort of managed to escape from all that, by attending a big conference in chicago. it is cold in chicago. that's about the only impression i have of this big city so far; i haven't had much of a chance to explore anywhere, aside from wandering around millenium park yesterday morning, despite the rainy weather. so since it's my first visit to the city, i am soliciting suggestions -- what do i HAVE to do/see in this city before i leave? also, any suggestions for good places to eat, particularly near the mccormick convention center? let me know!
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| you always hear stories about people doing really crazy or dumb things, but you never actually think you will witness it. or at least i didn't... until i arrived at work yesterday.
i was walking along the second floor of the hospital heading in to work (my lab is in the hospital building), and i passed a woman pushing another woman in a wheelchair. they had just stopped in front of an elevator, and the first woman asked the other, "so, now we're going up, right?" the second woman responded, "no, we have to go down!" the first woman replied, "oh, well then we have to find an elevator that goes down!" and proceeded to push the other woman further down the hall in search of another elevator. apparently, we have some elevators that only go up, and some that only go down... must keep the maintenance workers busy keeping the elevators going in the right direction all the time! needless to say, i couldn't decide if i was astonished or incredibly amused for the remainder of my walk in to lab.
does anyone else have these experiences, or is it just me?
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| today has been a very rainy day. on the shuttle ride home, i noticed small groups of people -- two or three, maybe -- standing on street corners here and there holding small signs. "peace," they read. "peace." it was not until i passed another group who had a more descriptive sign -- "make peace, not war" that i realized what these people were trying to say as they stood bravely out in the chilling wind and heavy rain, needing little more than a rain coat and the strength of their message to keep them warm. these few people, scattered about on a few street corners of the city, were there to remind us not simply of the importance of peace in our daily life and of the evils of war, but also to help us recall what makes the message of peace on this day, of all other days in the year, particularly poignant.
eight years ago, this nation swore that today would never be forgotten. it experienced a great tragedy upon its own shores -- the loss of many lives, the damage to two great landmarks -- and caused this nation to rise up in response, both by instituting new security policies here in the united states as well as sending troops abroad to do battle in the name of our country. yet to look around this country 8 years later, one could almost imagine that nothing ever happened. certainly, at ground zero there was a commemoration ceremony, but for those whose lives were not directly affected by this tragedy, or by a few who remembered to remember, not many bothered to take even a short pause in today's rush of life to reflect for a moment on what happened on this day 8 years ago.
so why have so many found it easy to forget, or to brush off the past? perhaps because we desire strongly that everything remain "normal;" that is, we crave consistency in life. as long as things remain the same from day to day, we don't care so much about what happened a year ago, or 10 years ago, or 100 years ago; we are only concerned about things that affect our lives today, at this moment. but the problem is that those who fail to remember the past are doomed to repeat it. the past is important because it teaches us what to do and how to behave, and most importantly, what not to do and how not to behave. so by commemorating events, both tragic and happy, we remember the rich history that has led us to this place and time, and has allowed us to go about living our lives with that same normalcy and consistency that we crave. the past, good and bad, has shaped the world -- and us in it -- to be exactly how it is now. it is important to understand the path we took to arrive here, to see the sacrifices that have been made and to understand the efforts that have been undertaken -- not only to appreciate these things, but also to learn from them. to see the power of belief, to hear the weeping of great sorrow, to feel the glimmers of hope, to taste the bittersweet flavor of victory, and to smell the heady perfume of success; these are the things we hope to understand by remembering. and by remembering, we learn how to make the future better. life changes whether we want it to or not. it is only by changing with it that we can hope to achieve some amount of peace in our lives.
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| murisopsis' post on "looking at the cosmos" reminded me of an old paper of mine that i wrote in high school in response to a short story we had to read in class called "the grid." i can't find the original and i have no idea who wrote it, but i did manage to dig out from the depths of my external hard drive a copy of my response paper. so forgive me for the bad writing (i'm sure it has improved in 8 years) and for the lack of editing (i think i was in a rush and didn't really do a thorough edit before i turned this in), and with apologies to the original short story that i would credit if i could remember what it was, i am (re)posting my paper below.
It is very late on Sunday, and I am sitting here at this computer, typing, and trying to think. As I write, the cursor makes its way in short spurts across the screen that also displays various toolbars of the Microsoft Word program, and on a second screen, hidden from view, is the e-mail account I am checking at the same time. The modem attached to the computer is in the process of converting conversations from English into Binary, and then into the light waves that will pass across the phone lines and into the great void known as the Internet. Each individual pixel on the screen is performing its own purposeful function by displaying one of three colors or none at all, together forming a changing myriad of colors that my eye instinctively puts together and collaborates into the text of the story that I am writing.
As I sit here, my mind wanders and I think about what I am going to type next. Unknown to me, 13 other people are also sitting in front of their computers, trying to furiously think of things to write for the paper that is due the next day. A few of them are on the phone talking, while two others are writing to each other via AOL instant messenger. Meanwhile, the teacher of the class I am taking is also sitting in front of a computer, but he is not writing. Instead, he is surfing the web and looking for new ideas to introduce to the class he has first period. Somewhere, in that great void, the light waves that are allowing my teacher to search the web is crossing the path of the e-mail I am sending, but the two messages remain discrete and balanced in a flawless dance of moving particles.
My aimlessly drifting mind settles upon the scene of a large crowd of people in a nightclub, partying and dancing and having a good time. Some people sit off to the side, enjoying the music while snacking on a few pupus or sipping at a strawberry daiquiri. Alex is one of those people sitting on the side. He notices that the music is changing, and he feels like dancing. He grabs a few friends and together they wander down to the dance floor, while above them a few of the older patrons are sitting in a small room overlooking the scene. Alex and his friends walk amidst the swirls of light and color. The living pulse of the room fills Alex’s ears, drowning out all thoughts of the computer at home bearing the beginnings of the term paper that is due tomorrow. He had accidentally left it on, and so slowly, cent by cent, the electric bill for his house was increasing with each hour. By the time he returns home, he will have used copious amounts of energy to power the computer.
All around the world, people are also leaving their computers on as they turn off the lights and get ready for bed, or leave to grab lunch or a snack, or even to go to work in the morning. And even if one was to travel around the world in the span of an instant, stopping long enough only to note how many computers are left on, one would notice that there is a great deal of power consumed. This consumed power is generated from thermal vents, the spinning turbines of a hydropower plant or a windmill, burning coal, nuclear reactions, and even through capturing the energy of the sun, which is the ultimate source of power on this planet.
And slowly, as the earth turns under the unceasing glare of the giant ball of gas that we call the sun, people sit before their computers in thought, thinking that consumes just as much power as the giant silicon-and-plastic analytical engines that sit before them. These insatiable computers are feeding constantly on tiny electrons that satiate the computer’s giant hunger for only a millisecond before the electronic brain must consume a second, and a third, and yet still more. Even while all this is occurring, the Earth is orbiting around the sun, being pulled towards it by an even greater and unstoppable force known as gravity, and the sun is rotating in the galaxy known as the Milky Way, and that, too, is spinning and spinning and endlessly spinning. It is turning like the music that is pulsing through Alex’s mind, causing synapses to fire at a rapid rate; revolving like the thin magnetically coated platters that spin at breakneck speed in the hard drive of the computer; moving as quickly as the tiny electrical impulses that shoot through the CPU on their way from one place in the computer to another; and veering from one place to the next like the incessant flashes of light that travel the phone lines every day and night.
And in that moment, the equivalent of all that energy fills me and causes a single synapses in my brain to finally fire, and my mind returns to the conscious world where my paper has been patiently waiting on the monitor residing before me. My mind sorts through the bounds of information like the computer searching the internet for an answer, and finally reaches the thing I am searching for – subject matter for my paper – and I am inspired to write again. As I generate more thoughts and type them so that the words appear on the screen, the energy that resides in me is transferred to my paper for others to read. And perhaps when they read it, they will also be working diligently in front of a computer, trying to put the essence of their own magnanimous thoughts into words that can be read by still more people, spreading the power of knowledge around the world like the gift of fire.
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