Oh Dear, We've Got A Bias Problem In Our Hands.

I was at Chili's last night, and was eating. An older couple in the booth next to ours was talking about Hillary and Obama(Well, the guy was talking, his wife was making polite agreement sounds.) And he said things that were obviously biased, and untrue, making it obvious to where his allegiances lie.

Now, first off, it's not a political thing I'm talking about. That's just an example. My point is how hard it seems for people to be unbiased. I have no idea why this is, and I am certainly not an exception. It's just interesting. People become so stubborn to change of their opinions. Things thought first are always right. At the risk of offending people, an example would be people who still don't believe in Evolution. Everyone has their beliefs, and I can respect that, but I don't understand how people can flatly deny something that is certainly fact. I can see Intelligent Design. But...just creation theory? It's been disproven, it's just not real. And stuff like that happens in everyone's mind, whether it comes down to religion and politics, or the score of a backyard baseball game. I wonder if this is somehow coded in to our survival instinct, and goes along with not liking new things, and I'm betting it's in our culture somewhere.

I dunno. I'm a quote fan, as you may see from some of my blogs. So I'll end it with this one.

They were so strong in their beliefs that there came a time when it hardly mattered what exactly those beliefs were; they all fused into a single stubbornness.

Vigilantism

There's been a billion books, a billion movies, and probably a ton of songs about this. This being Vigilantism. In case you don't know, it's basically taking the law in to your own hands, often for revenge. Popular vigilantes would be The Punisher, from comics. Hell, the Die Hard movies are focused around a vigilante.

Generally, through the books and movies, you see the good side. FIGHTING AGAINST CRIME. Sometimes, they show the cops trying to arrest the vigilante. But, generally, the cops sympathize, and let them go. This is generally because something horrible happened to them, and they're getting revenge now. Of course, there's some grandstanding political figure condemning the whole thing, but who cares about them. Nobody trusts the politicians, the legal system, or the government.

I mean, think about it. I'm reading a book, A Time To Kill, where a man's daughter is raped, and he kills the two rapists on the steps of the Courthouse. Honestly, I agree with him. If I ever become a father/husband, and my family is hurt....Well, let's just say I don't trust in the judgement of the Court. We've all seen the acquittals and the short sentences that people get. But that's scary. I don't know of one person who can really say that they trust our government to do what's best for us, or that the politicians aren't lying, or that the legal system is fair.

I wouldn't be surprised if there was, or is an increase in Vigilantism as a result of this. Maybe not, and I'm just looking too deep into it. But say something horrible happens to you, or the people you love...And you don't trust the authorities to do the right thing....What DO you do?

Sliding Scale Rate

As it came up in class Monday, I asked my Econ teacher about Unemployment Benefits, and I was thinking it'd be a set rate. Like maybe at or slightly above what the poverty line is, per year.


Nope. It's sliding scale, based on previous income. I found this quote, and other sites seem to agree with it.

How much does unemployment insurance pay, and for how long?
The amount can vary slightly from state to state, but in general, the amount you will receive will be approximately 50% of your weekly earnings, with a set maximum amount you can receive. The maximum varies from state to state. (Note: because of this maximum, most workers receive far less than 50% of their weekly wage).

In general, Unemployment Insurance lasts for 26 weeks (about 6 months). In times of extended high unemployment, benefits may be extended by 13 weeks or more.

I can see the benefits to having this. It keeps people who have high bills, because they are in higher income areas, floating. But I'm not sure. People who have higher incomes save more, because they sped less of a % of their income overall, even though they spend more money overall. (Yay for Econ.) So they save alot more money then people who do not have as much income. So they'll be easier off, maybe not easy off, but easier, then those with a smaller income. I guess it seems like it'd be easier to survive with Unemployment Benefits for people with higher incomes, even though they're getting the same % of Benefits. Seems kind of unfair. I mean, if you have a 2 million dollar job, and then you lose it, for the next 6 months, you get 500,000 dollars. That's crazy. They should be able to easily live off their savings, unless they spent unwisely. Which is kind of their fault.

I see the benefits for having it too, but it seems like it should stop at a certain point, like 50-60,000. That's just my opinion though.

Sense of Accomplishment

Here's a little back story to why I started thinking about this. Since December, we had a TV stand packaged up, and a brand new TV still in it's box just waiting. We couldn't put either of them up, since we couldn't move the other TV cabinet, since it weighed more then an elephant. (Exaggeration.) We finally got some movers to come and move it yesterday morning.

So when I got home, the TV stand was in the family room, in the box. So, at roughly four, I got like 4 screwdrivers, a hammer(Never used it), a wrench(Never used it), and scissors and got down to business. By 9pm(Taking breaks every so often for dinner and such.) I was finished. And I felt GOOD. I wasn't expecting to get past the first part of instructions, much less finish the thing. But I did the whole thing myself, minus some parts where I needed my mother to hold something still while I screwed it in. Now, as far as building things go, it wasn't hard. It was screw here, fit in place, etc. There was just some tedious parts. But I had a sense of accomplishment. I spent most of my free time that day building something, and I was happy. Weird, huh?

Anyway, I was thinking about how little in our life gives that sense of accomplishment. How often do you feel good about that worksheet you finished, or that report you wrote up? I know I don't feel too good about it, it's just "Now that's done, what's next?" It seems like a ton of jobs don't give that sense of accomplishment either. I cannot, for the life of me, imagine a cubicle job being at all rewarding, like you're really DOING something. I kind of feel like a lot of problems might be lessened, if not solved, if people were getting more sense of accomplishments from their life. I don't think it's the long work hours, or the stress that really hurt people. It's the boring, tediousness, USELESSNESS that people feel towards their job. They don't care, because they don't feel like they're doing anything.

I suppose that's why I want to be a therapist. Helping people directly seems like a good way to avoid that, and I get to help people. It's win-win. Hopefully.