Human Decency - Mr. Rogers - Senate Subcommittee (1969)

Still relevant today...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKy7ljRr0AA
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fredrogerssenatetestimonypbs.htm


Senator Pastore: Alright Rogers, you've got the floor.
Mr. Rogers: Senator Pastore, this is a philosophical statement and would take about ten minutes to read, so I'll not do that. One of the first things that a child learns in a healthy family is trust, and I trust what you have said that you will read this. It's very important to me. I care deeply about children.
Senator Pastore: Will it make you happy if you read it?
Mr. Rogers: I'd just like to talk about it, if it's alright. My first children's program was on WQED fifteen years ago, and its budget was $30. Now, with the help of the Sears-Roebuck Foundation and National Educational Television, as well as all of the affiliated stations -- each station pays to show our program. It's a unique kind of funding in educational television. With this help, now our program has a budget of $6000. It may sound like quite a difference, but $6000 pays for less than two minutes of cartoons. Two minutes of animated, what I sometimes say, bombardment. I'm very much concerned, as I know you are, about what's being delivered to our children in this country. And I've worked in the field of child development for six years now, trying to understand the inner needs of children. We deal with such things as -- as the inner drama of childhood. We don't have to bop somebody over the head to...make drama on the screen. We deal with such things as getting a haircut, or the feelings about brothers and sisters, and the kind of anger that arises in simple family situations. And we speak to it constructively.
Senator Pastore: How long of a program is it?
Mr. Rogers: It's a half hour every day. Most channels schedule it in the noontime as well as in the evening. WETA here has scheduled it in the late afternoon.
Senator Pastore: Could we get a copy of this so that we can see it? Maybe not today, but I'd like to see the program.
Mr. Rogers: I'd like very much for you to see it.
Senator Pastore: I'd like to see the program itself, or any one of them.
Mr. Rogers: We made a hundred programs for EEN, the Eastern Educational Network, and then when the money ran out, people in Boston and Pittsburgh and Chicago all came to the fore and said we've got to have more of this neighborhood expression of care. And this is what -- This is what I give. I give an expression of care every day to each child, to help him realize that he is unique. I end the program by saying, "You've made this day a special day, by just your being you. There's no person in the whole world like you, and I like you, just the way you are." And I feel that if we in public television can only make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable, we will have done a great service for mental health. I think that it's much more dramatic that two men could be working out their feelings of anger -- much more dramatic than showing something of gunfire. I'm constantly concerned about what our children are seeing, and for 15 years I have tried in this country and Canada, to present what I feel is a meaningful expression of care.
Senator Pastore: Do you narrate it?
Mr. Rogers: I'm the host, yes. And I do all the puppets and I write all the music, and I write all the scripts --
Senator Pastore: Well, I'm supposed to be a pretty tough guy, and this is the first time I've had goose bumps for the last two days.
Mr. Rogers: Well, I'm grateful, not only for your goose bumps, but for your interest in -- in our kind of communication. Could I tell you the words of one of the songs, which I feel is very important?
Senator Pastore: Yes.
Mr. Rogers: This has to do with that good feeling of control which I feel that children need to know is there. And it starts out, "What do you do with the mad that you feel?" And that first line came straight from a child. I work with children doing puppets in -- in very personal communication with small groups:

What do you do with the mad that you feel? When you feel so mad you could bite. When the whole wide world seems oh so wrong, and nothing you do seems very right. What do you do? Do you punch a bag? Do you pound some clay or some dough? Do you round up friends for a game of tag or see how fast you go? It's great to be able to stop when you've planned the thing that's wrong. And be able to do something else instead -- and think this song --

'I can stop when I want to. Can stop when I wish. Can stop, stop, stop anytime....And what a good feeling to feel like this! And know that the feeling is really mine. Know that there's something deep inside that helps us become what we can. For a girl can be someday a lady, and a boy can be someday a man.'

Senator Pastore: I think it's wonderful. I think it's wonderful. Looks like you just earned the 20 million dollars.

Evolution - The Wrong Point of View

I am on the side of "evolution" in the discussion of evolution versus creation. But unlike most evolutionists, I can understand where creationists can also be correct. I chose my side because it coincides with my essence to seek the truth. My problem with creationism is that there really is not much else to seek because logic can basically stop at any point where my mind cannot conceive the idea and say it was just created that way. So it really is not a matter that I "picked" a side but rather I accept both as a possibility except that there isn't much else to "study" for creationism.

Back to the topic of the point-of-view of the word "evolution," to clarify, the evolution of animals/creatures. Fundamentally, I believe the word evolution is not the proper root to use because the connotation is that evolving is a positive mutation as if there was control of the mutation. Looking back in time, it appears to be evolving because it "adjusted" to the changing environments as if the animal decided on its new features.

The better term should be that animals are mutating (although mutation does have a negative connotation... perhaps there is a better neutral term). And only those that have the mutation that can survive the current and future environments keep living. Unlike movies or tv shows that show radical mutations, mutations are usually very small changes. Most of those small mutations are not life altering. Mutations happen all the time and can easily be observed even among ourselves from generation to generation.

Let's say a hypothetical situation where people build a higher tolerance to either heat or cold. Because we are much more mobile and free to move from place to place, people with higher tolerance to heat will slowly migrate towards hotter locations while people with cold tolerance move to colder locations where they will meet other similar people. These mutations are harmless. If the pattern continues, people will likely mate with similar people due to closer proximity to similar people. Eventually, the extremes of both people can no longer tolerate the opposite extreme but life continues.

So neither side really consciously chooses which mutation to change towards, but the natural habitat plays a factor in increasing certain mutations. While a mutation to have an extra finger may not have any factor (except maybe social ones where 5-fingered and 6-fingered people fight).

Now let us say there was a catastrophic world phenomenon where the world is freezing over. The heat tolerance people start dying off because they can no longer survive. While the cold tolerance people are surviving just enough to have future generations. In another 200 years where "freezing" temperatures are not normal weather, the cold tolerance people "evolved" to the new extreme. On the other hand, the opposite scenario could happen if the world heated up.

Of course, physics is much more complicated than that where the extreme tolerance would have likely changed other physical attributes of a person. Of course, there is guided "evolution" where we artificially bias a mutation over another for example plants. Sweet fruits used to spread because their seeds were able to travel further distances by the animals that eat them. Poisonous fruits protect themselves by preventing animals eating them. Now we produce sweeter fruits by only breeding the fruits that are sweeter.

So evolution is real or at least a pattern shown by the current creation iteration. Can I really "prove" that evolution occurred over millions of years? No, because nothing can survive even remotely that long. We cannot even prove someone did something even when strong evidence shows the high likelihood that it happened only 24 hours ago. Neither can I disprove that a fossil was created yesterday but "created" in such a way to carbon date millions of years ago.

So I do hold that creationism is possible and one that I would at least be partially possible. I would imagine that a replicator (like the one in Star Trek) would have the same principle where it could just "create" a million-year-old fossil even though it was just created.

Anyways, I hope this helps clarify some basic points and also hope that there are people who are capable of accepting multiple possibilities (a confident doubt, if you will).

TED: A Kinder, Gentler Philosophy of (Career) Success

Why do we care so much about our career and about our material goods? Alain de Botton gives an amusing discussion on how we feel and the reality of why we feel that way. Even with current social advancements, new social problems arise. Where do we go from here?

Reference

http://www.ted.com/talks/alain_de_botton_a_kinder_gentler_philosophy_of_success?language=en#t-18995

Future Reading - New Ways to Think of Volunteering/Philanthropy

I like some of these thoughts of long term philanthropy.

http://ideas.ted.com/2014/07/07/rethink-the-way-we-run-charities-a-useful-reading-list/

Bored: Random $100 Tipping, JavaZone - Game of Codes, Why I Don't Wear a Tie

Why I Don't Wear a Tie

The video started of slow but then brought up some interesting topics in the latter half. At first, I thought he was leading into being able to relate with common folks but really was more about oppression. It is not as bad as other areas of oppression but was interesting that it exists in other niches of society.

JavaZone 2014 - Game of Codes

Interesting spoof of Game of Thrones although I have not watched it. The video was still funny to watch. It probably would be more amusing if I watched the show.

Tipping Fast Food Workers

This was a heartwarming video (although the publisher's primary content is to amuse people). Makes me wonder if there is a documentary on homeless people after reading the comments. I am wary on what they use the money for. I have more faith that the fast food workers will make better use of the money. Is it possible that my faith is misplaced? Possibly...

It was really interesting that some of them were unwilling to take the money. They seem to genuinely work for their money. I'm not sure if I would take the money but probably more out of suspicion. The last recipient was kind enough to give some of the money to someone else.

Reference

Why I Don't Wear a Tie - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Szc3vSfCg&noredirect=1

JavaZone 2014 - Game of Codes - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vI_7os2V_o

Tipping Fast Food Workers - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyXJeus-wm4

Life: Future is Behind Us?

One of the few things that I always think about when pondering about the Origins is how limited is my thought process due to my language. Thinking about the future, we want to move forward or look forward. The past is behind us.

After some thought (inspired by reference-1), the future is more like behind us and the past in front of us. We can easily "see" what just happened and harder as time goes farther away. At the same time, we cannot really see the future as we cannot see behind us. We use some senses to figure out what could behind in the near future, but the farther away the distance is, it becomes even harder to determine the future.

In this case, it would almost seem to make more sense to move backward towards the future and look into the past. I wonder if we are ever able to time travel if this idea would change. To change to another topic, such topics always make me wonder why our brains do not crash or go into some form of infinite loop.


Reference
1 - http://digest.bps.org.uk/2014/08/back-to-future-psychologists.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BpsResearchDigest+%28BPS+Research+Digest%29

Work Life: False vs Not True in programming and db logic

Oftentimes, I think that false is when logic fails by which I mean a logical contradiction like "true = false". But in reality (like in MS SQL), false is that it is not true. And a lot of logic is also built in this fashion even though most of us do this unconsciously.

In a less technical view, the difference is like saying that someone "unhappy" is sad. Although we typically understand it to be sad (given certain context) but someone could be in other states that are neither happy nor sad, thus being unhappy and not sad. The person could just be indifferent, content, angry, etc.

The minor difference is important particularly with passwords where it either passes or it does not. When it "fails", there is no reason to why it fails except that it is not true. This is important because we do not want to provide a reason to what may be wrong because it may provide a clue.

To further explain the technical logic and design, the minor difference also includes when something cannot be computed like when variables are unknown or conditions that were not met. The most common is with nulls or anything that results in an unknown like dividing by zero. A simple null example is (null = null) which returns false. An 'unknown' example is (1/0 = 1/0) which also returns false.

It is somewhat fascinating to me that classic philosophy does not quite consider the concept of null or unknown... but then, my knowledge on classic philosophy is extremely limited to what I had to read in college as an engineer.

Life: Detached Life, Attached Life, What Life Do I Want?

Do I want to rage in my life or observe from a detached point-of-view? Here I want to differentiate "I" from "us" because I want to be clearer that this is a choice that an individual cannot take both extremes. Most of us will fall in between the two, but we will likely lean more towards one than the other.

And as I ponder on this thought, my curiosity is more on what made me decide the path to take and what made you who you are. The more that I think on it, the harder it was to imagine that I made my choice without the world around me. It is like a void that I filled.

My life has taken me towards a path, while my talents have driven me towards a subset of those paths. Given all the choices I've made and the choices of the people around me has made, my one single path is the one that I lived. My future may have infinite paths, but not all paths are available to me.

I will never know what it was like to be homeless, parent-less, and the same time I will also not know what it is to be king or wealth beyond my imagination. I can guess, but I'll never know. It is just life to me because there is nothing I can do about what is. This does not make me sad or happy.

By the same thought at the more extremes, do criminals exist because of the situation they were put into? I am not perfect. Assuming that everyone is imperfect, there are bound to be "cracks" in society that almost seem like it necessitates the existence of "evil" within our world.

So to solve our worldly issues, we cannot "not" care about the world around us. To me, the solution is to strive to be self sufficient and be able to help at least one other person so that my idea can survive. If I can help at least two other people, then I have at least made the world a better place. Eventually those two people can help at least one other person.

I can choose to be a more pro-active person or an indirect person. I believe both paths can solve our problems. To reach the point to safely guide someone else, we need to reach a point where we are comfortable with our existence. Whether you find your sufficiency through a god, multiple gods, no gods, science, nature, personal faith, or even questionable existence, I believe we all seek a greater truth and we can all reach there faster with everyone. For a Buddhist monks see things that a pope does not see which neither can truly see what you nor I see. By sharing our vision, we can see a bigger picture... hopefully, we'll see that none of us are wrong. We just saw it differently.

Reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb-OYmHVchQ

“Man is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with a towering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order blindly and dumbly to rot and disappear forever.” -Ernest Becker