All Look Same!

Over at AllLookSame, they offer a quiz where you attempt to identify Chinese, Japanese, and Korean people based on pictures of them.

I think the first time I took the quiz, 3 years ago or so, I got about 3/18 correct (it's multiple choice and there are only 3 options, so I did significantly worse than I should have if I were just guessing). I took it now and did a little better - 6/18, exactly what I should have got if I were just guessing.

With that caveat, I have something to say about all three of these Asian cultures. From what I can see, there often seems to be a strong separatist identity. They define themselves by their own culture and by their differences to the other two, and normally have this pride where they believe they're "the best". Obviously I'm making generalizations - performing the same kind of generalizations I'm about to condemn.

This whole mindset strikes me as, well, silly. Perhaps it's because I can't understand wanting a Cultural Identity. I don't care that I'm an Oregonian, an American, a North American, whatever. I'm not eager to identify and place myself in that group. To be honest, I think it's sort of childish to want to do so. More importantly, it's meaningless. Any classification, of oneself or others, seems to want to do this. He's Japanese, therefore blah blah blah. Not only are statements like this ignorant, they're also the roots of cultural discrimination (a variant of racism). Making blanket statements about others on the basis of culture is simply a stage before making judgments about those same blanket statements.

The accomplishments of my cultural ancestors are theirs, I can't claim any personal right to them. The accomplishments (*cough*) of my culture or of America are not mine. I can choose to identify (time-wasting, non-productive arguments of free will aside) with certain aspects of American culture, but that is not because I am American - it is because I choose to do so. My exposure to them may have increased the likelihood of a certain behavior, but nothing is a given. This is why I don't understand the strong desire to identify oneself and classify others on the basis of culture. We're all just people, at a basic level. There is no difference between a Korean, Chinese, Japanese or American person of any real significance. Maybe we don't actually All Look Same!, but aren't we'll all the same anyway?

Ancient vs. Modern Medicine

My mom came up to visit recently, and we got into a discussion about medicine. We had just finished searching for some Essential Oils and were having a discussion. She mentioned one line of products meant to prevent disease called the "Thief" line - it was apparently used by graverobbers to prevent disease around the turn of the millenia.

"Now, see," I told her, "I don't understand how marketing campaigns like that work. Why should anyone care what people used before we had any understanding of disease, germs, viruses...it doesn't make sense to me that anyone would care about medicine from so long ago."

I could tell right away she disagreed, I'd maybe even offended her a bit. "Hmm, ancient medicine is valuable because it's natural, and it's been tried and it works. It's harder for me to understand why people would want to put all of these chemically altered substances into their body in an attempt to get well."

The discussion continued, but the truth is I felt we both had valid points. It seems silly to ignore progress, to ignore what we have gained biological knowledge that is undoubtedly helpful in diagnosing and curing disease. On the other hand, often if something isn't understood or proven scientifically, it doesn't receive recognition. The fact that something "works" isn't generally enough - we have to know why and how, or we're eager to write it off as the placebo effect or even to just write it off completely.

There's also the motivation of profit. It's unfortunate that profit is the driving force behind a good part of medical research, because it means that health isn't necessarily at the forefront of motivation. It means that there is at least a possibility that research will be performed that doesn't search for a cure but for a product that masks the symptoms (the advantage being that if a disease is cured, there's no more need to buy expensive medication). Ancient medicine wasn't motivated in any sense by a need for profit - it's limitation was science and understanding.

Loss of International Respect

Click here to watch

Zbigniew Brzezinski appears on the Daily Show and talks about how our foreign policy is destroying International respect for the United States. It's very good, just trust me and watch it.

Apple Unveils: The iRack

haha This is hilarious. MadTV political spoof.

The Irack

My flight was canceled and I'm back in Oregon by the way. How upsetting.

Stormbound

I'm sitting in the airport again, but it's not quite as early as it was the last time I posted here. The airport is alive today, bustling with activity and hungry people.

I'm flying off into a fairly big storm, from what I understand. It's rather ironic, the weather this morning said the majority of the U.S. was pretty clear this morning, other than the super-storm blanketing Philadelphia to Maine. OK, so no one actually said super-storm, but I could tell this one guy was thinking it. I imagine off-camera the guy was mouthing "super-storm" while making air-quotes to his on-camera associates...trying to provoke a Freudian slip or maybe just trying to get them to crack up during a live broadcast. It seems he was unsuccessful though - the transition to the "find the monkey's daddy" segment was seamless.

Enjoy your week everyone =)

Crick on Philosophy

Francis Crick:

"...Essentially, philosophers often ask good questions, but they have no techniques for getting the ansewrs. Therefore you should not pay too much attention to their discussions. And we can ask what progress they have made. A lot of problems which were once regarded as philosophical, such as what is an atom, are now regarded as part of physics. Some people have argues that the main purpose of a philosopher is to deal with the unsolved problems, but the problems eventually get solved, and they get solved in a scientific way. If you have how many cases in the past has a philosopher been successful at solving a problem, as far as we can say there are no such cases.
Essentially, their main technique is the thought experiment, and here you can argue indefinitely. Let me give you an example-John Searle's Chinese room. You see, I think this shows just the same disadvantages. It says that if you have a system that can only deal with syntax, it can't deal with semantics. Once you've said that, you've said it all, and you haven't proved it anyway."

Heh I found this pretty amusing, mostly for it's basic truth: Philosophy doesn't solve problems. It's basically about speculation: if it were about facts it would be science. That's not to say that philosophy doesn't use facts or science as a basis: that's exactly what a good philosophy should do: it should attempt to assimilate the ideas of modern science into a cohesive whole, filling in the gaps with reason. Arguments and differing philosophies take place over the gaps rather than the facts or assimilation.

Knowing this is true doesn't really change anything for me. I can't live life without figuring out why I want to live life - I can't be motivated without understanding my motivation, and more importantly defining my most basic values and the things that are most important to me (and even further, discovering the basis for those values). As useless as philosophy might be, it's still the best solution we've got...it's why people turn to religions or to introspection to uncover these same guideposts. I'm not giving up, I'm just not too proud to laugh at my ineptitude or the futility of my struggle from time to time.