Luis Enrique Colón
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Posts posted by Luis Enrique Colón
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On 17/4/2016 at 6:28 AM, Not Lawliet said:
Objectivism includes a retributive theory of justice, in that the purpose of punishment is essentially to prevent criminals from standing to benefit from the crime, to ensure that those who violate rights face consequences equal to that of their victims. Objectivists, such as Leonard Peikoff and Diana Brickell, have given satisfying refutations of deterrence, incarceration, and rehabilitation as justifying purposes of punishment. However, I have yet to find an explanation of how retribution in justice is moral, that criminals ought to be punished. I haven't heard a good case for how punishing criminals is in the self-interest of the victims, which I think is the necessary premise needed to justify and also demand punishment of crimes.
So, does anybody here have a good explanation to offer me?
Punishment may not be the right or the best way to have a criminal endure for their actions, yet again it's what's established in the American culture and in governments throughout the world. Yes, the American culture is derived from the British in terms which criminals in England (before and after the 13 colonies) had to pay for the crimes by being incarcerated or even killed depending on how serious was the crime. Nowadays many governments have established rehabilitation programs for those that want to participate and have and have opportunity in lowering their sentences. There are still criminals that have to be locked up because they show no signs of change when given opportunities to persevere and leave what they did in the past. So, yes incarcerating criminals may not be the best way but it's the most effective since it's better to have them locked up than have them running around stealing, raping, or killing people.
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On 16/10/2016 at 2:11 AM, dream_weaver said:
I've mixed feelings on this one.
I don't have an issue with a company choosing to make drug testing a condition of employment. I do have issues with government mandated drug testing. If government mandates drug testing for any government post—then candidates for any public office should not be exempt. This would make such a call, strategically, an interesting one for Trump. Will it make a difference, or simply proffer an opportunity to spill a bunch more ink in the scramble to make more headlines in the news?
Donald Trump is an ill minded man, then again drug tests should be made throughout the government. I understand that he made such comment because of a video where Hillary appears to be lightheaded and had to leave a convention. Just because of her behavior it doesn't mean she's using drugs or drinking alcohol; it's just a strategy of Trump's. As I mentioned before, drug tests should be made, no one ever knows which politician may be using drugs illegally.
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On 19/11/2004 at 0:48 AM, Dentist85 said:
I am planning on writing an essay on how one measures life and would appreciate some input. Is a man's life measured simply by the days spent in existence, or is it the substance that is sqeezed into these moments on earth? Is there sometimes a contradiction between what can gratify one's mental well-being and what prolongs life?For example, f someone uses stimulants (coffee, amphetamines), which may be harmful to health, to acomplish more in a day and as a result has a more fulfilled, flourishing life at the expence of a slightly shorter one, has he made a mistake?
A person measure life in different ways, for example, a person may say they had a great life because the worked, had fun, relaxed, and had a balance. Also a person may say they had a great life and all they did was adventure and travel throughout the world, so I believe it's relative how you measure someone's life.
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The human has survived all this time because even though we have acted as our own destroyer, we have found a way to keep living. Take the bird's example, suppose that the bird is trying to break its legs and finally does it. Now, suppose the bird finds a way to keep moving without using its legs, yes birds can fly but they need their legs to land and hang on to everything. Not only that, but also they need their legs to catch their prey, so let's suppose that the birds find a way to not starve to death, to keep feeding its babies, to keep escaping from the predators. If they can do this breaking its legs does nothing because eventually they will recuperate. Same thing happens to us humans. Since ancient times there have been wars, epidemics, starvation and many other things that put humankind in danger yet we find a way to survive. In my opinion it's because us humans always find a way to strive and survive, after all we are the most intelligent species in the Earth. You ask yourself how are we still here, but the real question is when will we vanish from existence, if we even vanish. That's what we have to ask, we've gotten very far from where we started but we don't know how much more will we travel before hitting a barrier that can not be overcomed.
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I'd like to correct what I said before. The Cubs haven't played in a World Series since 1945, but haven't won one since 1908. Just a small mistake I made.
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On 17/4/2016 at 3:09 AM, Not Lawliet said:
In the case that you are told that what you are saying is "offensive", and that you should therefore stop speaking, what would be your response?
I haven't quite had that experience yet myself, but witnessed it around me. My response would have to be replying that such a criticism of what I have said is offensive. I would go on to be sarcastic, saying that I feel attacked and marginalized.
I'd stop and think what just said and try to find the offensive part, if I find nothing offensive then I would ask why did the find what I said offensive. In my opinion people shouldn't prevent you from saying what you think, and nowadays anything may offend anyone. Even the most absurd comment would get someone going ranting about why are you saying such a thing. So like I said, stop, think, and continue speaking, don't let anyone prevent you from saying what you feel.
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On 5/12/2015 at 8:09 AM, dadmonson said:
I was speaking to someone very close to me about the San Bernadino shooting and they said "it doesn't matter if the killers were Muslim. What all killers have in common is a desire to kill." We then proceeded to argue about gun control.
Do you think it matters if murderers are motivated by Christianity, Islam, Nihilism, anger etc.? Why or why not?
Yes and no, a person may have the desire to kill just because one day they woke up and decided that to make their day a bit more fun or interesting they were going to kill someone. Then again they may be motivated because of their religion or because of a social factor or situation that triggers them to act in a certain way. Just as the shooter in Dallas killed five police officers because two african americans were killed, other may have motivations like this one to commit the crime. In this case the shooter wanted vengeance and wanted to prove that this are the things that happen when police abuse people. So in my understanding, there may be people that have mental problems and commit crimes while there are people that have a reason to commit said crimes.
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Currently I live in the capital of Puerto Rico, San Juan. For us it's a big deal, in the largest city in the island and as I said before, the capital. If I were to choose where to live I would be between medium metropolitan city and a metropolis. I basically lived in a large metropolitan city my entire life and now i'm accustomed to it. If I were to choose where I'd say New York City, Chicago, Atlanta, Orlando, and London. I chose these cities because i'm attracted to them not because they are recognized throughout any countries. Of course, San Juan is just a small town compared to these cities but even though it's small, the way the people act and how the city runs is just like any other in the world.
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It's very interesting what you're mentioning but in my opinion I say that it was us humans that created such technologies. Yes, throughout history there have been many questions of how things were created or built such as the Pyramids of Giza, but then again just because the humans may have not been fully capable or didn't have the technology, it doesn't mean we weren't able to do it. You see, Leonardo Da Vinci was a great inventor back in his time. Did he have help from aliens? We don't know, but why question the power of the human mind? Haven't we constructed the society that we have presently by ourselves? Thanks to the Nazis' experiments many scientific advances were made. They for a fact did not have help from aliens, then again there are some theories that they did. In fact there is a theory that they even created a teleportation machine, but since there is not much evidence to back the story it's just a theory. I do believe that we shouldn't be the only living beings in the universe, what I don't believe is that we aren't capable of building the things we already have.
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I'm a big Iron Man fan and I have to say that the move was great, but I prefer the first one better. In terms of action both had lots of it and it made the movie great in that aspect but the storyline in the first one was way better.
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This reminds me of the scene in the movie I, Robot where Will Smith's character encounters a car accident and a robot comes to rescue him. Throughout the movie they show you bits of the whole scene until showing it completely. Once the scene was shown the audience would see that he said to save her. Now, I don't recall whether he meant his couple or if he meant the female driver in the other car. With this being said, the robot saves him instead of following his instructions and saving the other human. Now, reading this is interesting because at first the robot has no problem of saving the human (proxy), but when another human is introduced the robot fails to decide which to save or if to save both. Basically another problem would be that if robots were advanced as in the movie I, Robot, would they follow the instructions given to them of saving the other person or would they save the person giving the instructions instead? This is a mere question to the thousands of question we have regarding robots and artificial intelligence, but there's one thing we have to understand, even when we think we are prepared to make robots act like humans, with emotions, with actions like humans , with thoughts, etc, we are not. We never know what would happen in the beginning and with all these movies, games and series, presenting a fictitious world where robots are fully capable is just funny to me because in the real world it's going to be very different.
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On 25/7/2010 at 5:49 PM, claire said:
Just saw the movie Salt, and highly recommend it. For an action flick, it never loses its tension. I was on the edge of my seat throughout. And Angelina Jolie is superb. After seeing her in this, I can actually see her as Dagny - attractive, but not too sexy. Tough but with a great vulnerability showing through.
Great movie! Definitely one of the best for Angelina Jolie. Not only the action but also the tension of what would happen next was what I liked the most because they might've given some clues, but at the same time if one wasn't paying attention you could miss them. A must watch movie!
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Breaking Bad was one of the first TV shows I started watching and I immediately loved it. By far my favorite.
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On 7/4/2016 at 7:22 PM, dadmonson said:
Here is the general question...
Is it racist to love your race? Are there racist ways to love your race and non-racist ways to love your race?
Below are more specific questions:
Is it racist to love your race because people from your race have higher IQs or are better at sports... Is that racist?
How about in aesthetic issues...
Is it racist to like a black person's skin tone or a white person's eyes. Is that racist? For instance, some white people might say, "We white people are the best looking race because look at all the people of other races trying to copy the way we look!" I've heard similar statements by black people...
Or what about the other side of the coin... what about the people who dislike or hate the way they and other people of their race look? Is it best in that case to downplay other race's features and tell them that their race's features are beautiful? If you don't agree with downplaying the other race's features then what do you think would be the best action to take? We often hear "black is beautiful" in the United States for this reason I think. I remember back in school I heard they did a study with white and black dolls. When young black girls had a choice to pick between a white or a black doll they always went with the white doll.
If you can articulate why you said yes or no then that would be helpful also.
This topic is like a coin, it has to sides. On one side some of the comments used as examples are racist, then again some might be true. White people may prefer white people because of their skin color, eye color, hair color, hairstyle, etc. It depends the way the person says it, then again there is no correct way because nowadays people are offended by anything. You might say you don't support homosexuality but support the fact that they should have equal rights as everyone else. Some people may understand your point of view while others will say that you are supporting homosexuality because you are supporting the fact that homosexuals should have equal rights.
On the other side of the coin, saying that you like your race may not be racist at all (for some people). It's like genders, males may say that they're glad they're males because they don't have to deal with menstruation, giving birth, menopause, and other natural stages that women go through. Same goes with races, Latins might say that their race is the best because they have a mixture from black people and white people, because they are great at dancing or making exotic dishes. In my opinion, it depends on the perspective and the way the people express themselves regarding their race.
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On 10/9/2011 at 4:27 PM, Dreamspirit said:
Is it rational for social services to consider parents letting their children get obese physical abuse? This is one of those issues that I'm not sure about. It almost seems reasonable for them to take a child away in this case because they will suffer later in life from their choices when they were non rational beings. But then again, some children are rational enough to know they shouldn't eat junk food and with the same logic they could take a child away from their family for non-objective reasons. The only reason I question it is because feeding a child bad food to the point of obesity in actuality causes more physical harm than beating.
As Tanaka said before, it's not abuse, its being a negligent parent. Yes, it's bad for children to eat junk food when they are not aware of the damage it will do to them when they grow up, then again there are lots of ads nowadays telling parents and children to eat healthy. These ads usually explain the servings that a plate should have, that they should eat fruits and vegetables, and also do exercise. Now here's the fun part, it's not only the parents' responsibility but also the school and the child. Schools should teach children to take care of themselves at a young age, and also give nutritious servings in school cafeteria. Now many schools do this but not all, that is why I mention it. On the other hand if the child doesn't want to eat healthy or do exercise, the best one can do is convince them, if it does not work then it is on the child, but only if the child is conscious of the dangers of being unhealthy.
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Originally the US was not going to enter WWII; they didn't have the need to do it. After the japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the US decided to declare war to Japan. Still they technically weren't entering WWII, but after Hitler declared war on them they decided to join forces with the allies. Yes, many men were drafted and others decided to join, but back then, after WWI not many people were going join the armed forces because of the casualties during said war, that is why the draft had to be done.
On the other hand we have the Cold War, which didn't not have much justification, but the US wasn't going to back down from a threat like Russia. Joseph Stalin was a smart man, so smart that when WWII was ending he saw an opportunity to implement Communism over the territories that Russia liberated. That is why most countries east and south to Russia became communist territories. At first the americans did not care much, after all they had a bigger problem which was Japan. Soon after the end of WWII came the controversies between the United States and Russia. In my opinion they didn't have to make such a big deal, they could've made a treaty letting the countries decide whether to be communist or capitalist. Then again at that time the human mind still had this sense of dominance and power, the more you had under your supervision the better.
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I'm going with the Greek civilization because they had to do with some pioneering regarding mathematics, science, politics and philosophy.
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I think we have to look at the situation as a coin. On one side we have the the ex couple's wife who decides to attend the funeral because they made peace after the divorce even though the man verbally abused her. On the other we have the new couple or husband, that is "being" disrespected because his wife is attending her ex's funeral. She has the choice of going or not, but she should talk with her husband and ask if he is ok with that, because if he isn't then I understand she shouldn't. Also there's the fact of children; if they had children together she should attend the funeral out of respect. Either way she should attend the funeral out of respect, but then again she should talk with her husband to see if he doesn't mind because it wouldn't not be fair for him that she attended when he didn't like the idea at all.
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On 10/4/2013 at 11:25 AM, kowalskil said:
Will the overall effect be positive or negative?
If by this you mean that the overall effect regarding humans using technology, I believe that it's a 50/50. Technology has come very far from its beginnings, from the radios, the radars, the cars, the computers, etc. The problem is how far are we willing to make the technology independent, and by this I mean self-driving cars and planes, robots, and many other things. How far is the human mind trying to go in order to create a type of technology that does not depend at all from human interaction, customization, or even help. I've read some articles that say that by 2045 planes will be auto controlled and that there "might" be a pilot for emergencies. We are now seeing self-driving cars- the Tesla, which is very innovative, but not completely since there have been some accidents. Then again artificial intelligence is not perfect since it is created by humans. With this said, I believe that in the beginning it will be positive but after some time it will be negative in the way that we never know what might happen to machines, they might fail or even stop responding to us humans and decide they are in control (like in the movie I, Robot or Ex-Machina). Not only that, but also it will make us more dependable from technology than we are and were, and that is a real problem because if we depend too much on something that might have an exparition date, we will have nothing to work with in the end.
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I don't know about you, but I still believe the Cubs might have a chance at winning the World Series. Yesterday they won the 5th game 3-2, the problem is that they're going back to Cleveland. On the bright side Arrieta will be pitching game 6, which is great because in game 2 he also pitched and the Cubs ended up winning 5-1. I'm a Yankees fan and i'm rooting for the Cubs because they haven't won since 1945 and also because I believe they have great pitchers, they just have had no luck in this series. I believe that if the Cubs have great pitching this last 2 games and above average batting they end up winning the World Series and making the Indians blow a 3-1 lead like the Golden State Warriors with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
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On 2/7/2008 at 1:49 PM, KevinDW78 said:
I am starting to think that government granting of financial aid to college students has enabled people who otherwise would not have earned the privilege of higher education to go to college.
I totally disagree with this statement because just because one person does not have the financial resources to attend university or even a community college does not mean that they do not have the education and preparation. In one point I understand what you are implying, there are lots of people that attend college because of financial aids and they barely graduated from high school, but that does not mean that the government should stop giving financial aids. In my opinion, the government should ask permission from the school that the students graduated or colleges that students are trying to enter for their academic performance in order for them to receive government help. The government should also utilize the parents' tax returns because there are people that I know of that receive financial aids and his/her parents have a decent salary that could afford the college expenses.
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I completely agree with you review and comments about the movie. Great cast and story although as you mentioned a bit slow at first. I honestly do not like romantic movies very much but this one hit the spot and I definitely recommend it.
Why read the ancient classics?
in Miscellaneous Topics
Posted
Personally I agree with you completely. I myself am a big fan of history, especially WWII, and I believe that reading ancient classics is good because we learn from different perspectives, ones that back then had a lot of weight because people backed them. Another good thing about this is that one can compare said perspectives to the ones of present day.