selfish wisdom from self

Talking to Naina about family and things helped me organize one aspect of my beliefs...and that is to live for oneself selfish FIRST. I feel parents often get the feeling of their kids owe them something because they have sacrificed so much--and that is absolutely true--the latter. The kids DO NOT owe parents anything. Adults must take even more serious responsibilities when they make decisions (like having children) and not assume that they can just push off those responsibilities onto their children just because they bore them. I feel that unless one has lived his or her life rather fully during his or her youthful years, and has enough EXTRA money to support an additional member of the family, one is in no position to have a child. But most people decide to have kids way before they are in a position to do so, and that's why to repent for their mistakes they must sacrifice, and they get this self-imposed notion that their kids somehow owe them their life-long service to them just because they had to sacrifice a lot to raise them, when in reality the birth of the kid was a result of their imprudence--they actually owe their kids, quite possibly, an unfulfilling life. This then turn into a malicious cycle that, after generations and generations, becomes established values that settled deep inside people's minds, and anything that runs against those values, such as disrespecting parents, disobeying parents, becomes unconscionable.

I think people should live for themselves first, others second. This is the best way for us to be responsible for ourselves and not nurture that sick feeling coming from "sacrifice." Moreover, any nice things people do on this principle of "me first" will be more genuine than altruism because that's "additional" and burdenless. The other could freely receive the favor without feeling obliged to pay back.

Just a quick thought after reading Searle's "Minds, Brains, and Programs"...

Link: "Minds, Brains, and Programs" by John Searle


I believe that human beings have the potential to create anything, but there are lines that we should never cross:

1) the cloning of actual human beings
2) making machines that are so biological and "intentional" that even Searle would call it a "thinking" thing.

I think these two things would create ethical and moral problems so huge that they would completely alter our society for the worse.

A formal afterthought is coming up...Searle's paper is absolutely fantastic not because I agree or disagree with it but because it brought up so many contradicting ideas in me that it led me to a whole new level of utter confusion as to what my beliefs are. Absolutely fantastic read especially watching Battlestar Galactica and Blade Runner.