Ethnosphere: Our culture uniform

     Davis' claims that the ethnosphere of our worlds are becoming continuously uniform, meaning many cultures and their languages are losing their traditions. Although I agree that many cultures dying would be a bad thing, I do believe that it is an inevitable consequence of modernization and what it brings and at the rate our population is expanding it is impossible for us to stop it.

     His fears of the ethnosphere dying rapidly is unfortunate and unexaggerated. Davis describes a language to be a representation of a tongue and a soul of a cultural group. According to sources, which includes Davis, the majority of existing languages is spoken by a minority of people and the minority of existing languages is spoken by a majority of the world.






Countries such as Canada have created differing reserves to preserve forests and by extension the indigenous people. Although all of these issues are unfortunate, but with the increasing population and the expansion of differing industries it is impossible to save all of these cultures. Also it may seem insensitive but many may ask, "Why is it a bad thing to have a more uniform language and culture?". Personally, I would hate the world to be more uniform because of how bland and boring it makes us as a species, but I do not believe it will ever be possible for us to reverse this process.

So here's the TOK Research Question: Is it morally wrong to allow certain ethnic groups to go "extinct" when it's impossible to save them all?

If you consider this question, many will say how obvious the answer is and that we need to save these ethnic cultures. These groups who believe this will look to the examples of Canada and see the large reservations they promise to leave untouched. However, if every country were to make room for these ethnic groups that take up 5% of the world's population it will hinder the progress of 95% of the world. There is definitely a conflict of interest between indigenous peoples and modern generation. It is also out of our control that many indigenous youth are pursuing careers outside of their cultures. This can be seen in the Native Americans leaving their people for financial reasons.

However the damage done to ethnosphere can be argued as a rather trivial problem, it does mean that our world is rapidly losing our indigenous knowledge which is the most unique knowledge system of them all: Polynesians knowledge of navigation is unique to their indigenous people. They were able to navigate the ocean and know the the proper time to sail and where islands would be located without the help of Western technologies. This is unique to only the Poleynisian culture and these types of indigenous knowledge dies everyday. And a world with uniform knowledge seems uninteresting and boring to me, personally.

Private Military Companies and the Connections of Ethics, Capitalism, and War

The Private Military Company (Which I will refer to as PMCs) such as Black Water have caused a lot of controversy when there has been evidence suggesting they bribed the Iraqi government to covered up some atrocities committed by them to the Iraqi population. This hasn't been the first time Black Water has been criticized for their actions, there are controversial stories surrounding their actions in South Africa around ten years ago.

The problem is  that PMCs are given high levels of confidentiality because they are usually recruited by the Intelligence offices. So the question is: How ethical is the use of PMCs in modern warfare?

Every country in the world has their own standing military, though some are more advanced and disciplined than others, and it's impossible for a country to disband their public armies because of security concerns that surround them. A state's monopoly over it's own security is a vital part of a nation state's identity. Though some may disagree, most will say that a public army is not considered immoral. So why do we not say the same for PMCs?



And this poses an ethical dilemma: Is it immoral to privatize and make a profit off of a Private military when it is not considered immoral to have a public army?

Let's consider both sides to this topic.

On the side that claims Private Military Companies are morally ethical, they argue that they are loyal to a nation and most of their employees are "Patriots" much like American soldiers. The founder of Black Water has stated that he doesn't see the PMCs as mercenary companies, he believes the soldiers are Americans who are fighting for an American agenda.

But on the other side, many criticize these military companies as "Hired Guns" and believe these companies are bribing the best American soldiers with Higher salaries. They also believe that these PMCs do not love their country because they fight international conflicts and often fight for high paying bidders and operate with confidentiality with no consequences for their actions.


This debate could go on for a long time, however there are many ethical questions raised from this topic. I personally believe that these conflicts are rising from the capitalistic nature of the world and everything that a government requires that has a high expense, there will come a company that finds a mean to monetize this.

I believe that the only method to make Private Military Companies is to pass laws that will prohibit their powers to make them more accountable for their actions. This maybe because I personally think PMCs are immoral, mostly because I believe that if there is the unfortunate case of war it should be fought by people who love their country who aren't fighting for a profit or a Capitalistic agenda, though that can be considered hypocritical since a Capitalistic agenda is no more justified than a Nationalistic one.

WOKs concerning PMCs
The primarily used WOK when debating the issue of PMCs seems to use language and emotion. Language is used one side to bad mouth PMCs by calling them terms that sound almost derogatory in nature, words I have mentioned before such as "Mercenaries" and "Hired-Guns" are used often to gain the sympathy of others, which is a method that uses emotions to associate them with greedy companies and wars. However, on the side that defends PMCs, they prefer the words "Patriots" that is welcomed by other patriots.

Ethics behind finances
PMCs main interest are a financial one, and though it is easy to argue that public armies are also fighting for a financial purposes because many wars are fought for economic purposes, however on an individual level soldiers in PMCs have higher wages for serving for a shorter period of time. In fact many soldiers from public armies leave to join these companies, and this raises another ethical question: Do soldiers risking their lives to protect others deserve higher pay? For this ethical question, we'll be exempting the question of whether soldiers are protecting others because that is a topic on its own.

Active soldiers are one of the most physically demanding and threatening jobs in the world, and considering the risk it is hard to deny the soldiers the right to choose higher wages because that will be taking away their freedom to choose their occupation and deny them strong financial support.

Another thing governments are not able to do is make PMCs limited or even go as far to outlaw them because they are cheaper to maintain than Public armies and they provide jobs for thousands of people. The question of removing an immoral business that creates economic benefits for others is a serious question many have to consider.

Finally it's impossible to stop these businesses to exist, and though many would like the companies to have at least some transparencies, the ethical dilemma of removing a business for bad practices is still removing jobs. Every large business is exploiting a group in some way or another: Monopolies are able to buy out smaller businesses and raise prices for consumers, food companies lead to slaughtering animals, and clothes and shoe companies have workshops in Asia. Those who advocate for an increasingly global and capitalistic society should always know that this will inevitably lead to certain groups being exploited. Though no one would argue that's a good thing, no one could really argue that exploitation and corruption is a problem exclusive to PMCs.

Conclusion
Though PMCs are a rather dangerous and exploiting business, this is what will continue to happen: Wars are without a doubt inevitable and it will come to a point where Public army maintenance expenses will be too much for countries to burden. And wars can not be prevented and this new system of businesses will most likely not disappear. And though emotionally, many will say these companies are bullying nations it does not seem much worse than a business nor army. Perhaps many associate the PMCs to be the worst of both these organizations.

There needs to be more research put into this topic and much like most topics concerning ethics there is no clear yes-or-no answer.

Source 1

Trolley Problem: My answer

Many know of the trolley problem, but for those who aren't, here's a question:
There's a train speeding towards 5 innocent people who will die if not stopped. You have the choice to turn the train to kill one person instead.

This dilemma basically challenges your ethics and here's my response: allow the train to run over the 5 innocent people. People may call me sick and mental for stating this answer, but the reason I do this is because I don't see the problem lies within the numbers. Of course, I may not be sound in math, however I am aware the number 5 is clearly a larger number than 1, but I don't believe numbers should apply to ethics.

What I see is when you turn the train or trolley on to that one man, you are responsible for intentionally murdering someone.

Sure 5 people may die, but your decision for killing someone is your responsibility from there on. Though one can say that man had "Heroically sacrificed" himself for 5 of his fellow men, however you can't call it a sacrifice. The only way this could be a "sacrifice" is if the person dying accepted his faith and decided to die himself and this sure as hell isn't "Heroic" to die without a say in this matter. We wouldn't call it a "Heroic sacrifice" if a deer died on the tracks instead of a man. We wouldn't call it a "Heroic sacrifice" if somehow Adolf Hitler was the one getting hit by this train.

This all changes when the fat man is involved.

The scenario continues: You have the choice of pushing a fat man on to the tracks and saving those same five people. Of course, I stayed consistent by saying I wouldn't push him to the tracks, because it should at least be a choice that the fat man makes. The scenario completely changes when the fat man is the one who got those 5 people in the tracks in the first place.

I'd push him on the tracks because I believe the man not only had plans to murder five people and from that point I believe the fat man had lost any right to decide if his life is worth more than those five. As much as I believe everyone doesn't deserve to die, I do believe some men don't deserve to live. And the fat man certainly doesn't deserve to live after plotting to kill five people. So I'd push him, his life isn't worth five and like previously stated, yes this isn't a "Heroic sacrifice" or even just a "sacrifice". I've intentionally murdered someone horrible and if his life is needed to reverse a crisis, then I'll be more than happy to do so.

Surgical Risk Calculator

   Today we had a round-the-table discussion on the article we chose and presented it. The many presentations that we have found were interesting, and sparked various discussions interestingly. 

Surgical Risk Calculator and it's implications on the field of medicine

     A fellow student's TOK presentation that discussed the ethical implications of the Surgical Risk Calculator (SRC) and how that will effect the field of medicine. The surgical risk calculator takes all sorts of factors into account (Such as but not limited to the age, weight, height, gender, previous medical conditions, and much more) and uses that to produce a percentage of risk. This lead to a discussion on whether or not it is easier to trust a doctor or a calculator online, which showed that the majority of our class believed that at least in Nairobi it would be challenging to trust a doctor. I previously did not know that doctors use risk calculator prior to her presentation and wonder what this holds for the future of medicine. 

Her research question: Is emotion a relevant way of knowing when making decisions using the surgical risk calculator?

This research question is interesting because every problem to the world has a risk, so she didn't know how to answer this with certainty, but she asked if it was even wise to confront a calculator that itself is ironically not even 100% accurate. Some thought it was necessary to use emotion to calculate risk, however I personally thought that emotion has no place in analyzation of something as statistical as risk, which like said, everything has it's own set of risks that must be taken into account.

CRISPR gene editing

     CRISPR found a property of bacteria's immune system capable unravelling and removing parts of DNA to remove viral diseases. It also is able to make pig organs "Human compatible", improving the health of many people. However, a lot of people are worried that this advancement in science will allow the "Designer babies" which is a controversial topic concerning ethics. 

Her research question was: Can we rely on scientists or governments to set ethical boundaries for research and use of scientific technology and remain true to these boundaries?

Her Knowledge question was well crafted and sparked a discussion in our table concerning how trust worthy governments or privately owned companies are. We made the conclusion that it is ultimately not trustworthy because the ability may provide the advantage necessary for these companies or governments to succeed. We can never know for a fact how successful governments will be in sticking these boundaries and creating new things that are highly controversial to the public. Some students in our table thought it wouldn't matter because either way scientific advancements would be made and trying to stop things such as designer babies is dumb. But isn't that how large advancements are made in scientific communities?

Art Reflection

   Paul Gaugin has been quoted for saying "Art is either plagiarism or revolution", which is a quote that I completely agree with. I believe that art is a platform that mostly remains the same and has small innovations that aren't revolutionary, until it is. There have been many artists, such as but not at all limited to Picasso's cubism, Shakespeare's revolutionary writing, and Kurt Cobaine's Grunge movement were completely new and changed the public's views on the quality of art. There are always differing eras in every platform of art, and for the most part artists format their arts within the boundaries of this era until a few remarkable artists revolutionizes art and even kicks off new eras.

   However, Marcel Proust's quote stating that, "A work of art that contains a theory is like an object which the price tags has been left" confuses me a little. Is it stating that an artwork with a purpose in it is trying hard to be sold, or is it saying that an artwork that had intention has more value, value that is not purchasable with money? If the quote is stating my first conclusion then I completely disagree, because I believe an artist's objective is not to just make money, at least for the most part. If food and money was what an artist is concerned with, they wouldn't have chosen to be an artist to begin with. However, if it's just saying the painting is more valuable, then I begin to understand where the artist is coming from. I believe that any art that actually had an idea or an emotion behind it automatically translates into more value, because art is not just about the quality or what the public views art as. 

Math Reflection

     The infographic article "Big Numbers count", I was able to better understand the concept of larger numbers and how we apply them in our daily lives. There should be no way, under any normal circumstances, would a person ever be required to learn numbers that range from trillions. The numbers are just too large to be important to us, however the articles begs to differ.



     The article helpfully presents it's readers with examples of large numbers that are present in our everyday lives. For instance, I never thought 1.8 trillion pennies could fit inside the empire states building, but I wasn't quite surprised by the fact that 1.8 trillion pennies have not even been printed in the world. But what caught me off guard was that Googol (10 to the power of 100!) was more than the number of visible atoms in the game, but the number is not big enough to match the possible different chess games. Though these are trivial facts that many could say are for the birds, but these are just a few facts listed on an article that is less than 10 paragraphs long. It is hard to even imagine what kind of "Big Numbers" are present or even dictate our every day life. In the cases of our security, big numbers seem to dictate our life. Encryption has become the ideal means of security and encryption depends on big figures that can not be broken down.

     Yes, the article seems trivial at times, but personally I felt I understood the pivotal role numbers play in our modern society. It reminds me that our world revolves around these big numbers without us even realizing. And it also allows the reader to view things in a different perspective. If you were asked how many ants there were in the world, you would just be able to say "a lot", however when you hear the actual number, which you should check out for yourselves, it almost shocks you and one takes a while to even process a number like that. The cool thing to consider sometimes is that a lot of these numbers or comparisons aren't possible simply because we don't have the amount in real life. For instance, we do not have 1.8 trillion pennies to fill the empire states building, so that raises an interesting question: Are numbers are mental entities or do they exist outside of our heads, as objects outside of our world, keeping in mind sometimes these objects don't actually exist?


Big Numbers Count: (http://www.worldsciencefestival.com/2015/03/how-big-is-a-number/?icn=RA&pos=2)

The Studies of Imagination

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1VOq-pyvnofQKFPH0FozceowMw3h2n0AlAp9sdUYUpWo/edit?usp=sharing