Chilly ages and atoms on Hiroshima

So, students in school are fed legitimate history, right? It's not just whitewashed nonsense, right?

Well, obviously we aren't taught as poorly as the students of a certain history teacher are (*coughcoughBillyCollins'snotquitepoem*), but it cannot be denied that all people experience bias in some way, shape or form. This includes people who write history books (and more importantly includes the people who teach history using said history books). History is written by the winners, so we do not really get the full picture from history.

A fairly good example of this is the whole deal with the colonization of America. If you think about it, American history is more or less made upon the mass grave of a population of Native Americans that, according to some estimates, was comparable in size to that of Europe. But we don't exactly remember that very well.We learn that European settlers came to America and wrecked shop with smallpox and gunpowder weapon wielding troops but we don't remember the sheer destruction that Europe caused upon the natives as well as we should. In fact, history skates over many facets of the colonization of America. For example, remember the idea of Manifest Destiny? Of course you do. It was great for Americans. But do you remember what Manifest Destiny meant for Natives? It meant that Americans believed they were entitled to ancestral land that the natives had used for centuries.

It didn't help that they were....oct-icimated.

Technical terms, thanks to Crash Course US History

So yeah.

At least we know that the history we learn wasn't ultra far off right? I mean, we remember the Roaring Twenties as an ultra lavish time period in American History, and the Great Gatsby seems to confirm that (Since it was written in 1925 it is technically a primary source). Ahh well.

How the debate could have gone

Ok, so I'm pretty sure that 80% or so of the blog posts this week are going to be typed up versions of our synthesis paragraphs if only because it's easier to do so. So I figured I'd just be a trailblazer and write one of the first blog posts (or I assume I'll be one of the first because most of us are probably just going to do it at like 8pm on Sunday). Unfortunately, I believe that my potential material is pretty limited because pretty much all the stuff discussed this week was pretty much punctuation or grammar; ergo, I am forced to write about punctuation anyway. But I promise it won't be a typed up synthesis paragraph! I don't even HAVE my synthesis paragraph to cheat off of anyway. Most likely this is going to an analysis of what I perceive are the strongest points on both sides and potential rebuttals (And perhaps rebuttals of rebuttals). This is going to be a very long post, so don't read this unless you truly want to hear what I have to say.

So let's start with a look at the argument of the most effective debaters of "the most effective debaters" (the pro-punctuation side of 2nd hour). As far as I can tell, their premise mostly revolves around the idea that punctuation exists to prevent miscommunications. This, of course, makes sense in theory. After all, no one wants to have "Let's eat, Grandma!" become "Let's eat Grandma!"

Cannibalism on a T-shirt. Brought to you by Punctuation and Google Images.

When I was thinking of rebuttals to this idea (and I did think of a lot of them, they just weren't used. As a result, I will be reiterating them here), two particular ideas came to mind. The first is more obvious; it simply goes along the lines of "No self respecting human being with a sense of context would be confused by this!" and most of the time, you'd be right. But the point of punctuation is that you are ALWAYS right. After all (God forbid), what if the narrator of this sentence was a cannibal? Then context would not be so useful. Is he inviting his grandmother to the table so as to enjoy a meal? Or is he really interested in eating his grandma? Punctuation would clear that particular situation fairly easily. So this particular rebuttal isn't infallible.

Another attack on this premise is that tighter punctuation rules means more rules, each of which have certain applications. As it goes, more rules = more chances to mess up = more miscommunications. I actually thought of this idea as a way to point out that less punctuation does not necessarily mean more errors. And clearly people mess up our current punctuation rules; that is why Grammar Nazis exists. The obvious response to this particular rebuttal is a trap; yes, it is true that Grammar Nazis nitpick on unimportant things and that the errors they point out are unlikely to cause miscommunications, but the context miscommunications above are equally unlikely. Thus, as the anti-punctuation side would have it, less punctuation and more punctuation cause equal amounts of miscommunications. And since less punctuation is so much simpler to type, there is no reason to keep the current amount of punctuation. There is a second response to this rebuttal, but I don't wish to bore you with the explanation. Long story short, it ends in a stalemate with a slight advantage on the side of anti-punctuation team as well.

But enough about the rebuttals of the pro punctuation argument. I have to attack the anti punctuation side as well to be fair. So first things first, let's look at the premise. As far as I can tell, the best premise available to the anti punctuation side is that the evolution of the English language is that English, like every other non dead language (coughLatincough) changes over time. However, it has also gained a lot of rather ineffective punctuation rules over time that have come and gone. Thus, it needs to be trimmed.

Well, because I lack the insight of the pro-punctuation group on what they would respond with, I can only come up with one rebuttal right now. I assume the most logical response is that our current punctuation system is a result of the evolution that I pointed out earlier and that if it changes, it will do so imperceptibly and thus there is no need to push it in a direction which history may regret. Of course, I doubt this is the route the pro punctuation group would push because it is too....moderate. What I just came up with seems to be a compromise of sorts. But you get the general idea.

Dimmesdale is not Jean Valjean

First off, today's post is going to be another spoiler post. If you didn't read last week's post because of that and you STILL haven't read The Scarlet Letter, then that bucket goes back on your head, buster.

So today, I have decided to condense all of the anger I have collected reading all of the misfortunes in the book into an attack on the pitiful excuse for a human being named Dimmesdale. That means that this kind of also qualifies as a hate post. So if you're against that, better join the person with the bucket. Maybe there's space for two.

"But Nick," you say in surprise, "no one hates Dimmesdale. In the end, he was redee--"

NO. That is not redemption. Which is depressing, but more on that later.

Anyway, we all remember Dimmesdale's whole scene where he admits his adultery and shows everyone his A before he dies, but consider what I have to say.

Dimmesdale once has a conversation with Chillingsworth in which they discuss a dark looking plant that grew upon a poor soul's tombstone. Dimmesdale thinks about what could possibly be so dark as to cause this to happen. He also wonders whether or not grass will ultimately grow upon his grave (and he also has a guilt attack in the process, leading the reader to think that he believes it will not). This conversation, I believe, is ultimately the true reason he admits anything at all. The simple act of grass not growing on a grave signifies a lot to Dimmesdale. I mean, think. We know nothing about the man from whose gravestone grew Chillingsworth's test subject. We only know that he probably did something bad. Think of that from Dimmesdale's perspective. Though he stands to lose his whole reputation with the entirety of Salem at the time, doing so is much better than being remembered as a bad person by all of the people of future generations. He wins by confessing his guilt.

And though he loses the respect of almost everyone, he does it at the time when losing said respect means the least to him. Literally at the moment of death when future shame means nothing, he loses the guilt which so threatens his getting into Heaven. Plus he gets to spite Chillingsworth as a bonus.

To reiterate, he stands to gain so much by confessing that it isn't an unnatural thing that he drags out of himself. It was the logical choice. Yes, it may have sucked, confessing to everyone he acted like a paragon towards, but in the end it was the logical choice.

You tell me what's the better option.

I drew up a decision matrix on MS Paint to represent his choice. Higher possible numbers represent relative weight values of benefits or losses. And yes, I may have overexaggerated a bit, but you get the idea.

Earlier in this post I mentioned that this was depressing. Why? Because Dimmesdale represents us. Hawthorne shows that humans, as a selfish species, will wait to the last second to do things because the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages of doing so. Of course, no one likes that, but it's the truth.

We want the most for the least.

Chillingsworth for whatever he's worth

First off, this blog post is on The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. If you haven't read at least part of it, stop reading. If someone is reading this to you, put a bucket on your head and smack it with a spoon or something if you don't want any spoilers. Still reading? Then I shall assume you have enough understanding of the book to at least know who all the characters are.

Okay, we all get that Chillingsworth is a creep, and this is even reflected in his appearance. But is he purely evil, or is he rather a disillusioned old man with a perverted sense of good?

Let's all remember that Chillingsworth is Hester's actual husband. However, when he meets her again for the first time since she came to the New World in prison, Chillingsworth feels remorse for his part in her public shaming. As a result, he promises not to seek revenge on Hester or her baby, though he does not feel the same way for the person who Hester committed adultery with. Hester notices this, and forces him to promise that he will not seek physical revenge on Dimmesdale (who she does not name even though Chillingsworth makes it abundantly clear that he will find out).

Chillingsworth is also a physician, and a good one at that. This is interesting because physicians have a connotation of good people who work to make better lives for everyone. However, Chillingsworth uses his skills in a perverted manner and attempts to hurt Dimmesdale with his knowledge of healing herbs.

All in all, though Chillingsworth is certainly a rather dark character, he probably had good intentions to start, which were bent to into what they are shown as in the novel.

"Trust me! I'm a doctor!"
(Let's be honest. When we imagine Chillingsworth, we imagine someone with the skeletal structure of the Hunchback of Notre Dame)

The power given to words

Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, as far as I can tell, is an interesting read and provides some valuable insights into the Puritan settlers who first colonized America. It also happens to remind me of a few things that I've heard before.

The scarlet letter referenced in the book title no doubt has a negative connotation, but it and pretty much every other word in existence only really has as much power and meaning as we decide to give it. I mean, think about the idea of a scarlet letter if it was not referenced with a book. It would be a red colored...letter. It would be like hearing a word from another language. Without some knowledge or context to work out what the word in question means, the only real thought possible in such a situation is simply, "What does that signify"?

The thing is, the scarlet letter only has meaning when we have an idea or know what it means. Reading the first chapter of the book is enough to give you enough context that the letter is probably bad. Looking at the covers of the books we were given and seeing the rather sullen face of the woman with the letter is also context. We learn that the book is going nowhere good and the woman is probably not doing so well (Also if you DO know what the letter means note that the woman is holding a baby).

We made language by assigning values or definitions to arbitrarily picked sounds (this is probably why we have different languages -- everyone just assigned the values to different sounds). This is also why some languages happen to have words for certain things while others suffer from such lexical gaps (see below).

This is also a scarlet letter, and though it is also not good news, it most certainly is NOT the same as Hawthorne's scarlet letter

Lexical Gaps (as explained by Hank Green)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LpHfPOM6GQ

Give me liberty or give me death...or both!

Allow me to start off by pointing out that Patrick Henry is dead. He has been dead for a long time. But before he died he became one of the most influential founding fathers of the greatest nation in history, a nation founded on the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But also remember that the US was created in a revolution. And a revolution, as pointed out by the video below, means a 360 degree turn. So it's worth asking the following question: did we actually change at all?

Even Patrick Henry himself, despite his calls for liberty, strongly opposed the US Constitution on the grounds that it created a president that could easily turn into a new king. Yet despite his protests, the Constitution was ratified and the office of President created. So if our initial idea of governing head was based on the British model, did we really change? Or did we simply change leaders?

Remember that on the Declaration of Independence, the founding fathers listed grievances towards Britain in terms of things that the King did. They protested HIS rule and subsequently fired up rebellion. But considering the fact that the initial issue with Britain that started the whole thing was "taxation without representation,"they were OK with the taxation and representation in Parliament meant something.

Eventually we ended up with the US and its Congress (based on Parliament) and its President (Loosely based on the king). They just were filled with different guys.

"Look at all those stairs we climbed! We must have made such progress!"

A revolution is a 360 degree turn plus some background info on the American Revolution.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EiSymRrKI4

Hysteria

People who live today can easily claim to be extremely different compared to, for example, the Europeans that colonized America. But is that really true? Changes between generations of living beings tend to be minute at best -- for example, there was no point at which a wolf became a dog, or, as minutephysics will point out in the video at the end, no point at which a proto-chicken became a chicken. There was no generation during which a colonial-era human gave birth to a modern-day human. So how do we know that we have changed? Well, maybe we haven't. In fact, in terms of actual behavioral change, we probably haven't changed much from our distant cave men ancestors. For example, we tend to feel adrenaline rushes while presenting to an audience. As a result, we are jumpy and speak quickly. So if the adrenaline doesn't help us, why do we have it? Probably because such mechanisms were useful in prehistoric eras when humans had to respond to unforeseen dangers quickly. But why am I discussing long term changes anyway?

Because we have made almost none. We still react the same way to the same stimuli as before; we just have more sophisticated titles for things that scare us. Witches and Communists are both equally unlikely to take over America, but we have responded with the same fear and finger waggling to both. It simply takes a target that many people hate combined with some over-zealous investigators as well as some high intensity accusation matches to cause the mass hysteria that engulfs and damages society.

Even now, we are still freaking out over entirely useless things. Things like the Illuminati. Or the shadow bankers of the Knights Templar. Or Majestic Twelve.

Or this guy.

Minutephysics discusses change/evolution

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1a8pI65emDE