A Final Observation

While looking through all of these different theories and philosophies, there is one indisputable fact that I observed: people simply want to explain their existence an give meaning to life. Furthermore, humanity wishes to know the best way to live, to be fulfilled. It seems to be a quest that almost everyone feels the need to act upon. We look to books, speakers, philosophers, and religions. Every one has the equal right to choose their own belief and how willing they are to listen or change. It can define people in many ways. Like wise the meaning a person finds could be complex and riddled with deep thought, like many in the text, or simply throw everyone else through a questioning hoop like Douglas Adam's, "The answer to life, the universe and everything else is 42."

"So long and thanks for all the fish." 

Forming Groups

In class it was mentioned that, for many animals, it is a survival instinct to form a group. Many times this is most obvious case of this is when a predator is attacking. In the case of elephants, the group forms a wall between the attacker and the prey. You can observe the same behavior in humans. Being, obviously social animals, we automatically form groups. Although there is not as many attackers that would wish to truly kill us for food like a lion, a group still helps to protect against bullying and other harassment from those outside the group. Likewise, when people find themselves without any form of group, they are more likely to be targeted and are often pushed to their breaking point much sooner.

Cooperation or Chaos

As it was pointed out in class: even in competition there must be cooperation. Any sport or game must have rules, even the most brutal of competitions. Think of why cheating is so frowned upon. By making the odds unfairly in your favor it destroys any attempts of cooperation. It removes any test of skills or strength and instead the competition becomes another pointless bout of survival. You can also observe this outside of  any game or sport. Take the market system as an example. By every business or product theoretically having the same opportunities, consumers are allowed to choose which product they purchase. The competition comes into play with commercials and general advertising as well simply making the best product possible. If a company decides to completely destroy, or make it impossible for another company to produce, then the cooperation is broken. Also, as many know, competition, and therefore cooperativeness, helps the quality and prices of products. There simply cannot be competition without cooperation. Other wise it is chaos.

Intelligence and Technology

In class the idea that technology is causing people to be increasingly less intelligent or knowledge able. I do not think this is true. Consider how much information has been made accessible by technology. Of course there are books filled with information, and they still hold great value, but the amount of information that has been made available to the masses over the internet is almost miraculous. Technology has also acted as a medium to a better understanding, and knowledge of other countries. Although many people remain rather ignorant of other cultures there is no doubt that we are moving forward.
Technology however, by allowing people to accomplish tasks faster, has given people more time to spend as they wish. The problem comes into play when people chose to spend their extra hours goofing off instead of continuing to expand their knowledge in some manner.

Traits Against Us

When talking about Darwin's theory of natural selection people often tend to think of the traits of a parent  being passed down to the offspring helping them to survive. I know that personally (and I bet many others have done so to) I used to forget about the idea of bad traits or genes being passed to the next generation, such as being more likely to drink or have certain diseases. I wonder if this is in fact part of natural selection. It a harsh thought, that part of humanity may be systematically diminished, but then again many of the individuals still manage to have children and pass on the gene.

The Burden of Freedom

Sartre's concepts bring up the very touchy idea of being 'condemned to freedom', suggesting that freedom is a sort of burden. For Americans, a country who prides itself with freedom, even the suggestion seems, to many, like an insult.  We are condemned in the aspect that we have no choice but to choose one path over another. We can not simply sit idly and wait, for even that is a choice we make. This means that no matter how much we  may not want to we must always decide in some way. However true Sartre's statement I believe his wording is almost too harsh causing people to automatically want to dismiss his theories. Our freedom to choose is still something to cherish, it means that as a species we have the intelligence to make, and capability to act upon, these choices.

Another Observation

In response to philosowater.

I also would be cautious about dealing out absolutes. As far as the idea of people choosing to be poor there are a number of examples to consider. Without doubt there are definitely people who, despite their best efforts, fall into poverty and/or remain there. There are also those who choose to live a simplistic life, for religious believes or other personal beliefs.  There are then the individuals who simply abuse the opportunities that are presented to them. For example there are many stories of families in near by towns that have a low income job but instead of choosing to pay their rent, the money they obtain goes towards their Cable or internet bill. In many of these cases, these families rely and expect, state money to support them. So instead of trying to save up the money that they earn in order to secure a better future, it is often spent on unnecessary goods. It is simply another factor that might be considered before claiming that no one chooses to live paycheck to paycheck.