prompt Fame corrupts the soul

Many of the heroes who joined the gods at Mount Olympus found themselves distant from their human neighbors who once loved them. A certain aura of fear and venerability follows them. Like these classical demigods, celebrities today become removed from the rest of the human population as if the fame they earned had replaced some invisible bonds that held them to their old friends. It may appear that fame delivers power or shallowness to its bearer, but instead it takes it. Fame is a chain on human instinct and is a mask on human profoundness.
In the state of fame, individuals are constantly watched, and thus constantly denying their true selves. Most people usually have time alone to belch or scratch in ways that appear less-than-beautiful. But celebrities do not. Instead they are confined to social standards set for them. In the myth of Gyges, one can see that people act differently in different situations according to who is viewing them. Celebrities do not have the chance to unleash their primal instincts in solitary meditation nor do they have a magic ring that turns them invisible. There are some exceptions. Lady Gaga is an interesting case. Through a primary analysis of her external character, one can see that she is well suited for fame even naturally. She, like many other celebrities, is a performer and is trained for an audience. In an interview, she revealed that the most important parts of her life are writing, loving, and wearing fashion. Writing, referring mostly to her work as a musician, and fashion both imply that she is very much a natural celebrity. Loving, as an emotional experience, shows she is human. As a physical experience, it is simply one of the additional parts of celebrity life. For most celebrities, however, as demonstrated by their more human apparel, show proclivity towards normal human society, but may commit strange acts given their circumstances.
Celebrities are then not capable of having such a profound impact on the lives around them. There are only so many minutes in life, and the way celebrities have to stretch those minutes over many people and "lives" they live means that they cannot develop real relationships with the other people around them or live entwined lives. The Peanuts comic artist Charles M. Schulz once argued that celebrities do not actually mean that much to all people. Even if the last Olympic champions accomplished more than some of our closest friends, they never did us any sort of favor or anything. Their accomplishments on the screen were promptly forgotten. This is similar to the "15 minutes of fame" proposed by Andy Warhol. The short duration of fame he refers to explains how the media just catches something, looks at it, and grows bored and moves on. People will never grow bored of a good deed done to them. Just as Jesus cautioned his disciples not to go preach as the hypocrites do, making a public show of things, he understood the way in which his disciples could be remembered for character, not rhetoric. The fact that celebrities are capable of being "deep" is not to be disputed. Indeed, they too are human, they just might not have the time for it.
Fame tends to come with money, but not necessarily power. Celebrities, in most cases, are not simply corrupt. They simply act in accordance to the conditions imposed on them, being a lack of space and a lack of time. Certainly, they give us reason to envy them, but we might really want to reconsider if a magic lamp were in our hands. If Mount Olympus had a toll booth, the currency it accepted would not be in souls, but probably devotion.

You thought I'd give up by now, huh?

I need to start taking a new approach to this. One of the main reasons I'm so bad at writing is that I'm barely literate. I'm going to spend the next hour reading. Also, I did horribly on my English final. Honestly, someone break into my house so I can kill you and release my frustration.

An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope

In an attempt to diversify my pathetic writing, here's a poem I'm going to look at and write about all in less than 50 minutes.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A Being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much;
Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confus'd;
Still by himself, abus'd or disabus'd;
Created half to rise and half to fall;
Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all,
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd;
The glory, jest and riddle of the world.

On the Third Day, God created Man in his likeness. We, as humans, bear similarity to God. As a result, we have often turned to looking at God to satisfy our endless quest for self-definition. The result of this is a narcissistic view of humankind that draws a strong distinction between us and animals that is not present, at least willingly, between God and us. Alexander Pope explores the relationships that connect God, humans, and animals to explain that humans are unique from both.
Pope describes our relationship to God and animals like a middle ground rather than a direct product of God. By metaphorically calling our situation an "isthmus" [line 3], humans are made out to be connected to both God and animals. The idea of an isthmus is a narrow strip of land, meaning that God and animals are not necessarily close, but humankind can span the distance between both of them with attributes of both. The idea of an isthmus also relates to the idea that two much larger continents surround human beings so that they are more alone. The line "Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all" [line 16] describes humans as insignificant, as humans are both smitten by God and devoured by animals. At the same time, humans are "Lord of all things", a title usually given to God. The curious capitalization of "Lord" reveals human's likeness to God, but also their lack of his invincibility, showing that humans are between and attached to both God and animal.
Where humans stand in accordance to God and animals only reveals that they are in the middle in terms of power, but Pope further elaborates that humans are unique. "A Being darkly wise and rudely great" first juxtaposes the two ideas of human definition. On one end, they are wise, in a manner not understood like God, referencing the individual cognitive ability of humans. On the other, they are obviously great, meaning strong in a way clear to the eyes. Yet the negative connotation of those adverbs also points out the negative feelings associated with trying to judge humans on the same scale as animals or God. Instead, the anaphora Pope uses for "in doubt" [lines 7-9] emphasizes that, because humans are reluctant to choose to be either like God or animal, they are unlike either and have their own distance. The isthmus described earlier is indeed its own continent.

akdjksv I can't write. Well I guess I should learn to sing or something.

Nothing is left when humans are not humans

As a policy debater, I am often faced with a critical (or shall I say kritikal) perspective on human value. In many cases, I am forced to place lives on a weight opposite from money or some other resource. But human value can never be defined, but only determined, by humankind, the paradox of human's quest for self-worth. To even get a glimpse of this value, it is imperative to strip back the extra layers society has provided to understand the inability to define human value, before realizing the true nature of human value, that we can determine it.
Human value is an area human beings cannot explore. But to even begin, humans must first put themselves in perspective. As Descartes explained, nothing is certain except for one's existence. It is not only within the nature of understanding, but that of existence, that humans can only know themselves before others. Knowing only one value, as understood by math, puts one number at both the top and the bottom. In order to first establish the line that defines human value as the most basic, linear idea, another point on this endless map must be established. For many people around the world, this is nature. It is universal, as Annie Dillard wrote in her Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Nature's universal understanding is an easy way of allowing all people around the world to know but one fact: that they are insignificant. But this is only when considering that they are the extreme. The main point, however, is that nature, the absence of human presence, is where this line can be made. Thus, experience outside of humanity must be the first step.
The next step is understanding how humans can determine, but not define value. The problem with the nature to human graph is that humans must place themselves on the minor extreme of a linear function. Inevitably, this must mean 0 when nature is 100 percent. Nonetheless, humanity cannot be a simple 0 because we must be certain of human value. The television program Heroes explores, quite explicitly, the quest to finding purpose on Earth. The people who have powers explore life both within and without society. Within society, many are able to establish their own value compared to others, but this demands the inevitably flawed perspective of human society. Then, in the collected analysis of critical legal studies, one scholar remarked that even if society were destroyed, that would not be true nihilism, the skepticism of personal value. Rather, one would wake up in a new society because above all else, "we are not nothing" [CLS]. Human value is simply made by human will to live.
Thus the greatest fear in today's society must thus be existential nihilism. Humans, by being themselves, survive only as long as their willpower, which is completely dependent on acknowledging self worth. In many ways, by seeing themselves as a 0 on a two-point line, many humans will see it necessary to eliminate themselves just to avoid division by zero. But this is the problem with placing human value on a scale. Nihilism destroys the first idea of human value, and thus the rest. It is this suicidal school of thought that noble institutions such as Postsecret hope to fight. By creating a community of support and self-definition, Frank Warren has fought tirelessly against this mindset that leads many human individuals to suicide. The success of the Postsecret program, in turn, gives value to both the people who needed to use it and Frank, who has made an impact on the world around him.
Once again I shall present the paradox-that human value can not be defined, but only determined. Those who strive endlessly to place their own value on a scale will consistently find that they rank lowest, and therefore 0. But 0, as a number, is a representation of nothingness. It is in rejecting this nothingness that humans determine their value while simultaneously rejecting the only means to knowing their value. Once again, we can be certain of but one thing, that we are not nothing.

Giving false hope is a shallow and degenerate concept

The act of believing is a difficult task that pulls us both through life and under it. On one end, the lack of belief in hope gives way to a person's self-consumption of worth. The will to live may be lost. But on the other hand, gullibility leads to the naïve view of life that draws individuals into life's traps. Yet two extremes can only prove so much. As each person is inclined to preserving life, it is more important to find more manageable limits. To do so, one must look at the safe boundary that protects the human subject from nihilism while also seeing the limitations of total faith.
The loss of faith is a dangerous idea, without believing in the value of one's life or their ability to make something of it, suicide becomes such a plausible option. In a discussion from Polytechnic School about Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, the idea of religion was brought up. While some people may accuse religion of giving a false hope of eternal life in order to sustain a business, their criticisms mean nothing when considering that religion, even in the Da Vinci Code, means something to a lot of people. No matter how they interpret it, it gives them consolation about life. The philosopher Descartes also brings up the concept of universal uncertainty. People can only be sure of one fact-that they exist because thinking proves it. To question even this fact is to go insane. But religion is like this platform. Because religion is something to believe in, not something to actively prove, it gives another layer of defense against nihilism. It is like the manhole cover that prevents people from otherwise falling into a hole. By these two definitions, the faith necessary to life merely entails a basic belief in some sort of hope that the reality each person lives is real. As Miguel de Unamuno explores in his book San Manuel Bueno, Mártir, there is more than one type of faith. The good faith is that that is grounded in reality or provides consolation, as in the mountain. But the lake, whose reflection is only on the surface, is a superficial type of faith that is dangerous. But that is the burden of San Manuel, he must bear the nihilistic truth just for his parishioners Faith means many things to many people, and being able to hold on to something has always been part of human psychology. One feels strong when they can grab on to something. Even the clenching of a fist is often strength enough.
Being able to tell the difference between an ice cream truck and a questionable van with "ice cream" painted on it is often the difference between life or death. Having faith in oneself, as Descartes explains, cannot extend beyond to other people. One cannot even always trust faith. In the Matrix Trilogy, people who are plugged in are happy, content with their fake lives. Knowing about the real world may even kill them. Although there seems nothing wrong with simple happiness, this is where nihilism meets hope. In that situation, excluding Zion, the human species is extinct because it cannot develop or grow. It can only play over a fake reel of life provided by the machines [Matrix]. In Michael Bay's The Island, naïveté is bred into a stock of human clones in an underground facility. The clones, while human must have faith in life to live, because prototypes bred without hope were unable to develop. On the other hand, the fully grown human clones desire the opportunity to go to the Island, which actually means getting their organs harvested for their "real" counterparts above ground. Because Lincoln questions the system, he is rewarded, not with a false hope that leads to death, but a real hope of starting a new life as a human. The cap on faith that protects us from gullibility is much harder to find than bottom limit, but can be imagined as another conceivable limit based on instincts that keep us alive. In both the Matrix and The Island, certain "gut feelings" are understood as not doubts, but safe skepticism. The matter of developing these "gut feelings" is simply part of exposure to both truth and lies. These doses of truths and lies can feed a person with the proper conception of faith.
Every bit of faith in anything, whether that be religion or even a bet, means an investment, like chips in poker. All too often, people find difficulty investing faith, afraid to lose it, but also afraid to keep it and watch it wither away each turn. Faith is a fundamental cornerstone of human willpower, the abstract thought that keeps our blood, and thus our bodies alive. Seeing where faith is most useful is simply a vital skill for both existence and survival.

Fichas de valor

Cuando yo sabía menos, creía que el moral era un meta extra. Ahora, tengo una idea muy diferente. El moral es un instinto humano. Todos sienten la culpabilidad a causa de la sistema limbica. Y la ambición. Piensen, por favor, del póker. Se elige cuándo quiere poner las fichas. Tener la participación es algo difícil. Por el tiempo que usted puede mantener una "cara de póker", no tiene la oportunidad de ganar. En el programa Heroes, Samuel crea unos temblores cuando Vanessa se va porque él no tiene ninguna razón para no matar a los humanos sin poderes. Él ha perdido su participación.

prompt We should ban cochlear implants

Biology class discussion... I hope this isn't offensive.

Imagine the seeing soundwaves move through the air during a rave. Cones and disks fly around the room. Music is a strong form of human expression, but many people are born unable to experience this. Due to deformities in the connection between the ear and the brain, many children cannot perceive sound. Using cochlear implants, a chip can be inserted into the brain that reads sound from an external receptor, allowing the user to hear. Many are opposed to this technology, seeing it as a dangerous threat to "deaf culture" a developing form subculture in communities around America. But trying to ban this technology is immoral in preventing children from reaching fuller potential while also dangerous in denying the basic ability to hear.

One of the greatest responsibilities humans have today is that of optimizing the future for their children. In the documentary Sound and Fury by Josh Aronson, a deaf family does not allow their daughter to get an implant, for fear of her leaving the "deaf world". But in the film, the father admits that, even if he can make money, he will never be able to go very far in business due to his hearing limitation [Aronson]. According to Emmanuel Kant, morality is based on maintaining the full autonomy and safety of others. Denying a daughter the potential to become successful is a grave violation of Kantian morality [Kant]. Even for other cases, when implants are made in a baby who is not old enough to make a decision, the autonomy denied is overridden by the future autonomy provided.

Hearing is part of life and a lack of it is often death. It is part of communication. Humans have hearing, much because years ago, as described by Cambell Biology, an animal randomly sprouted ear-like structures and all of its cousins without those ear structures died. In a more modern example, the Prius, an extremely silent car, has been considered very dangerous because people cannot hear it. Whether a lack of hearing enhances vision or culture, human society is still far too based on hearing as a survival technique. In Aristotle's examination of communication, he identified it as one of the most important parts of life. Communication requires the receiver of a message to be receptive of different messages. It is also part of human life. Denying communication, in general, is a dangerous idea, especially considering the fact that forced deafness limits thinking to visual and emotional, but not active reading. Deaf society may be an expression of human art, but even KHH, the F-period biology teacher at Polytechnic school agrees, that music, or even talking and film involve their own forms of art.

Deaf society in America has been, for a long time, an invisible collection of communities who support each other, but is transforming into something more. Because the majority of the world is based on hearing and spoken language, the only means to maintain morality while banning cochlear implants is in the creation of a radical deaf community. Calling sign language a foreign language is a dangerous way of alienating other humans. But separate cannot be equal. Allowing access to a culture, not denying it, is more progressive to both cultures.