Nature and life have always had its own rhythms, seasons, and quantities when it comes to growth and follow a “invisible hand”, which guides the global harmony and balance. However, when technology came into the scene of nature, it has brought with it a completely new set of logic to impose on life and nature – a much more efficient and reliable schedule and quantity. By going against the original rhythm of original, harmony of nature and life and demand from it mankind’s own wants and terms — technologizing nature — is essentially an act of rebellion. ‘Without this rebellion, we would all still live nasty and short lives of toil, drudgery, and discomfort’ (Mokyr, viii). Continue Reading

The main feature that separates humans from animals, in a world where humans possess “inalienable rights” and animals do not, is Descartes’ famous Cognito. However, I do not think it’s complete when Plato declared that it’s reason that defines us and makes us human. I believe “some” of those people whom we deem “retards” — people with less cognitive facilities — never-the-less encapsulate the same emotions as a normal person. They feel and have strong emotional preferences just as we do. They can love, get hurt, and possess all the vulnerabilities as we mortals have. Continue Reading

Milton Friedman is a canonized saint (Nobel Prize) of modern economics, continuing a line laissez-faire, market-driven economy first started by Adam Smith. And culturally, America revered Friedman as a freedom fighter against the Soviet totalitarian expansions during the Cold War. Friedman’s theory favors minimum government (Libertarian), especially minimum, government intervention on national markets. Trusting solely on the active, free-market forces, all exchange of goods will (in theory) be taken care of by individual understanding of supply-and-demand. Continue Reading

Beauty and Art is a complex subject that’s culturally and existentially relative

A gifted artist between West and East may both extrude life’s beauty to us, but their life’s philosophy determines the style of their expression. A gifted Western artist wants to show us the beauty of this world through an ideal — a platonic space if you will. Western art is imagined to have capability to inspire individuals to pursue perfection: “A million sunsets will not spur on men towards civilization. It requires a perfect art-depiction of that sunset (a Platonic image) to evoke into consciousness the finite perfections which spurs human achievement. In Western Art, both science and art is believed to capture a manageable slice of the infinite richness of nature for us and let us glimpse a moment of perfection. Continue Reading

The Bronx Project is a diverse community that demonstrates what human freedom combined with love and unity is capable of achieving. It was inspiring to see how people of every ethnic, economic and social background were willing to sacrifice — hand in hand — to free their fellow brothers and sisters under the grip of poverty. These grass root organizations created social programs and institutions to help illuminate a path of freedom and unleash the potentials of our fellow citizens in New York’s poorest region. Continue Reading

Why this is the right thing to do from a religious point-of-view

Philosophers and Theologians have been dazzled for over a thousand years by one single-most important question, and here is what the buzz is all about:

A child is near death from a serious disease. There was only one drug that might save the sick child. But the sick child’s father cannot afford this cure even with his entire life long savings. Continue Reading

Images rarely, if ever reflect reality. All images are a distorted view of reality since they are highly stylized. They are not a slice of life but a constructed version of reality. Many theorists argue that the version of reality encoded in images of our media is that which serves the interests of the dominant group such as corporations and wealthy white men and women in America. Continue Reading

To paraphrase Aristotle, all people desire to know: who we are; how we know; how we should live. To Socrates, the health of the state depends on the knowledge and education of its individuals. To Thomas Jefferson, a democracy is only valid and meaningful if our citizens are educated, well-informed, and qualified to make enlightened decisions. Another word, to substantiate a democracy, to raise the health and wealth of a nation and to fulfill an individual’s happiness and his or her inborn curiosity, a good education system is the answer to all of them. Continue Reading

The lessons that can be drawn towards the current Middle-East Peace Process

The nuclear alert was based on a diplomacy-supporting stratagem Nixon called the Madman Theory, or “the principle of the threat of excessive force.” Nixon was convinced that his power would be enhanced if his opponents thought he might use excessive force, even nuclear force. That, coupled with his reputation for ruthlessness, he believed, would suggest that he was dangerously unpredictable and win favorable conditions on the negotiation table during the Vietnam War. He and Henry Kissinger commanded the military in Vietnam during his term in the White House to “send anything that flies, against anything that moves.” Continue Reading