Should footwear be required or should people make the decision?

It has been a commonly held belief for a long time that shoes or sandals are a required form of attire in all settings outside of the beach, pool, or playing fields. In some situations, like chemical labs and kitchens this policy makes sense. There's no reason to unnecessarily risk feet and toes by dropping harsh chemicals, sharp knives, or boiling liquids when a layer of canvas or leather could easily protect them. However, if a person wants to practice their native-esque fox-walking or build up their soles for some old fashioned foot races, I don't see why we should frown upon the practice of not wearing shoes.

To me, the biggest reason shoes shouldn't be required is developmental in nature. Humans evolved from their ancestors (if you believe the myth of science) wearing nothing on their feet. Shoes weren't invented until well after the modern Homo sapiens reached prominence and weren't widely worn until maybe a hundred years ago (outside of the military, aristocracy, and extreme climates). As such, our feet aren't developed to effectively operate when covered in shoes. The reason humans have an arch on their foot is that it operates as a kind of spring board. Ideally, a running human should land on the pad of their foot and then bring their heel down, toe - heel, to best utilize the springboard action. With dress shoes or sneakers a person is inclined to land heavy on the back of their foot, heel - toe, which eliminates any benefit of having the arch and ultimately results in pain and problems all the way from the ankles to the spine. Certainly people will survive if they continue to wear shoes as we have been doing for decades, but anyone who is inclined to go back to their roots and walk like their ancestors shouldn't be barred from doing so.

One problem that many people might suggest in opposition to the shoes-free policy is the "yuck" factor of seeing other peoples' bodies out in the open. A lot of people probably don't want to see, smell, or acknowledge the existence of their friends' and neighbors' feet. I see their point and respect their feelings, but maybe it's time our culture stopped being so ashamed of the natural part of being human. Not wearing shoes would certainly offer a stepping stone (no pun intended) to that very goal. On top of that, many respectable places in the world (places some westerns might describe as "backwards" or "dangerous") still commonly wear bare feet. Tribes and communities in Africa will wear shoes from time to time, but mostly still take part in the magnificent pass-time of feeling the soil between their toes. The same is true in southern Asia and presumably in other vast regions of the world. These people might not live in McMansions or pull in six figures with their basket-weaving business, but those with the basic needs of life available on a daily basis are living in bare feet just fine. The only difference between us and them is that we're the ones with the money, the food, and the guns. Perhaps if we acknowledged our equality with these people the world would be in a slightly better place.

Another problem that might plague people's minds regarding a shoe-free option is the issue of health. Some might be concerned that the shoeless might suddenly start spreading filth and disease be tracking their grubby soles all over their homes, halls, and restaurants. This is completely illogical. What do they think that their sneakers are tracking through their house; perfume and antibiotics? It's the same good, clean dirt that's being tracked around every day through our common means of transportation. It would be more logical to be concerned about the fact that perhaps two hundred hands touch the door to the bathroom every day, how many times are you touching your co-workers feet? There might also be a concern with attracting parasites like tapeworms that make it up through your feet. There might be an outside chance of stepping on something really nasty, but that chance is really low and if you're deathly afraid of that kind of thing then by all means throw on some sneakers. To be honest, there's a higher chance of you picking up a parasite by biting into an infected apple than there is simply walking through your yard or grocery store.

I'm sure that a horde of people would be able to offer their own preferences as to the status of their footwear. In terms of logic, though, I don't see the real necessity. Being barefoot can be fun and healthy in many situations and the people who want to enjoy it shouldn't be deterred. If you work on a construction site or a similarly dangerous area then wear some boots, the same goes for if you need to take a hike through the snow. However, if you would like to take a spin on your natural heels than I don't think anyone should stop you. Wear shoes if you want, but the rest of us will do as we please.

How would your life be different without Facebook?

This question addresses an interesting dynamic of how technology affects our lives and our interactions. I'm assuming this means "How would your life be different without social networks in general?" (because something else could easily replace Facebook). Facebook offers a way to connect with old friends with whom you've lost touch or with family members in far-flung nations. It also offers a forum to interact with the friends and family that you see on a daily basis. You can easily make plans for the weekend or say "Hey" to your Aunt in Alice Springs. This is certainly a convenient tool when it's used in this way. Another use of Facebook is the sharing of links, videos, quotes and other media with your friends. You can play games and even use a live chat function. All of these useful or superfluous programs work together to create a website that can absorb hours and hours of your day even if Facebook is just sitting idle in one of your tabs as you peruse the rest of the web.

Before I can answer how my life would be different without Facebook, I have to explain how Facebook affects my life now. As it is, I sign on to facebook perhaps three or four times a day for several minutes. I use it to plan events with my research group. I occasionally chat for a few minutes with friends from home and browse their pages to see how they're doing and what they're up to. If I have nothing better to do, I'll mindlessly revise my "Info" section or post funny pictures from the web. Overall, it doesn't take up much of my day, but I do feel the need to check it regularly or else I start to wonder if I've missed an important message. However, in all honesty there's rarely anything truly urgent happening on Facebook. In summary, I use it as a tool to interact with people that I don't see but for a few times each year and I use it to kill time.

Facebook isn't a particularly necessary part of my life. Sometimes I feel that addiction-induced craving to check it if it's been a day since I've been on, but nothing important has ever occurred. If Facebook disappeared I really wouldn't miss it. I feel like it's something I need to have to keep in touch with people and interact with my friends in this day and age. Even though I could call old friends or send emails and letters to my family, Facebook is just simpler because everyone I know is using it. Without it I would be disconnected from many of the people I know. I would definitely still keep in touch with friends and family members, but more selectively and on a much smaller scale than I do now. If Facebook disappeared and no one used it that would be much different than if I alone stopped using it. In that case, I might have a harder time keeping in touch with people, but that's not always a bad thing. The people who I wouldn't keep in touch with anyway would fade out of my life and my really close friends would remain. I would also probably spend more time talking to and interacting with the people who live next door or who live on campus.

If Facebook disappeared, a lot of how I see the world would probably change. One change that quickly comes to mind is that I wouldn't sign on each day and see what my ex-girlfriends are doing, which is sometimes troubling knowledge. I might speak to them less, but I'd also know less about their lives which in some cases might be an improvement. Not having this extra connection would make losing girlfriends and friends in general much less painful. I would also (hopefully) spend less time on the internet in general. I'm not big on web surfing, but if I have Facebook open I'll sometimes leave it open and mess around on the web to see if any old friends sign on that I could talk to. Without that I wouldn't have a reason to keep my computer on and I'd probably go work on the stack of books next to my bed or go walk in the forest that I've neglected to visit. All of that might be overly optimistic thinking, but it might happen. Another important effect of Facebook disappearing would be the removal of one way of accidentally misrepresenting yourself. A lot of times embarrassing pictures can show up that aren't necessarily "bad" but that maybe your family, your employers, and the world don't need to see. Without Facebook it would be much harder for those kinds of problems to be created.

In terms of socialization, having no Facebook would probably be really helpful. It would force you to really learn things about your friends so that you truly know them. You could have more personal conversations in person. With Facebook, you can always check on a friend's page to find out when their birthday is or whatever else you have forgotten about them. Without a reference database of your friends' information you'd have to really get to know them. Another interesting aspect of Facebook and other text based communication is with emotional conversations. Sometimes it's hard to approach someone and talk to them about a problem, to ask them on a date, or do something else that puts yourself out there. With things like Facebook chat and text messaging it's very easy to just use that facade to avoid embarrassment when asking a difficult question. Without those resources it might be harder for some people to interact, but it would also force everyone to be more social, interactive, and open. Our culture has grown to be in some ways closed off as we hide behind our LCD screens. We create an image of ourselves in the virtual world that doesn't really represent us. Without a forum like Facebook we would lose that ability and return to who we really are.

On a broader scale, having no Facebook would open up friendships and communities to real human contact. If the kids are each in their own rooms on Facebook and Mom's on the couch watching the news and Dad's in his office on a conference call then there's no growth and there's no getting-to-know-each other; there's no family. Without Facebook - and beyond that without all of the technological distractions like cell phones and televisions - we'd be forced to talk to each other, to look each other in the eye, and be human beings. Each decade and each year there's new technology to enclose ourselves into our individual spaces, separated from everyone except for the illusion of interaction provided by images on a screen. Humans evolved to live in communities and to have the help of a family, but that kind of interpersonal support is fading as we learn to fend for ourselves and only interact in cyberspace. Without Facebook we'd be one step towards a society that has people socializing with their neighbors, helping each other, and getting to know one another face-to-face without all of the unnecessary distractions provided by the internet.

Why is work assigned over Spring Break when nothing ever gets done?

The reason that professors feel it necessary to apply normal workloads over spring break can be summed up in two words: bold optimism. Professors want to feel like they're challenging their students and somewhere along the line teaching them something. One of those lessons is hard work. A belief in this society is that hard work is a value that everyone must strive for, but it's hard work in a very specific context: Hard work towards earning your pay check, hard work towards earning your degree, and hard work towards earning your family and friends' respect. Universities are expected to instill this belief (and several others) and the mode of instillation is professors. When spring break approaches, professors begin watching the clock and shoving more into each lecture to make it across the finish line in the time allotted. To them a week off is a week full of free time that their students have to fill with their assigned work.

The belief is that learning doesn't stop just because classes aren't in session. This belief in the context of spring break is somewhat ironic though as in other cases it's often assumed that learning can't happen outside of said classrooms. If a student decides to not go to college then it's assumed that they don't want to learn and they don't want opportunities. Obviously, it's possible for these students to learn all kinds of things, arguably just as much as college students. However, college students are in a sense held to a higher standard, so spring break rolls around and professors build up that optimistic energy and toss essays, reading assignments, and other work at their students for the nine days of relative freedom. Perhaps they think that students are working diligently each day in their respective spring break locals to pump out quality work or perhaps they think that the Sunday evening before classes resume is a crunch time for most everyone. Either way, professors boldly set their due dates for the week of return and jump, as they should, right back into the material.

Another reason for professors to assign work over spring break is continuity. Professors don't want the stream of consciousness that was flowing through the rest of the semester to suddenly cut off just because classes don't meet for a week. They don't want to walk into class Monday morning and be met with blank faces when they ask, "So who remembers where we left off?" The idea is to assign work to students that will keep topics fresh and keep the academic gears churning. Then, Monday morning will bring with it bright-eyed and bushy-tailed students ready to spew out the knowledge they garnered during the week of academic vacation much like a father bringing his blackberry on holiday so that he can keep up with the important world of economics and be up to date upon his return to the corner office. This is another example of bold optimism. Certainly many students will spend a night here and there pumping out answers to statistics problems and the like, but still some will be sitting in their dorm rooms Sunday trying to remember why the word phagocytosis feels really important before that Bio quiz on Tuesday.

All in all, professors have the best intentions when creating assignments for spring break. There's certainly nothing wrong with continued academic achievement outside of the classroom. It's important for students to understand that they can learn during the semester as well as during breaks when they usually sit drooling in front of LCD screens or flying to some far flung nation for pure enjoyment. Also, it's important for students to not have too much of a break between exams because those brain cells won't last forever and only so many months can pass before the reproductive cycles of cellular slime molds fade out of memory. The solution is assignments over spring break. When creating these assignments professors are sometimes rather bold with the amount of work they want to give and as with anything there's a certain level of optimism inherent in the request. Ultimately, it's up to the student to show his or her stars when they return on Monday morning, regardless of which day they completed their editorial. Assigned work over spring break is an understandable phenomenon of higher education. Learning doesn't stop when the campus closes and hard work is expected of everyone everyday just like a fancy slogan on a soviet propaganda poster. Professors can have all of the bold optimism they want, because either way their students will pass through the halls once again handing in the gems of their academic achievement hoping to in turn be handed a degree at the end of these four long years.

Sometimes we have to pick and choose which dreams are realistic enough to follow. If you had two lives to live, who would you be? What would you do

One challenge that I imagine most people face in their lifetime is choosing between what society and family say they should do and what they feel in their heart they need to do. Parents often pressure their children to succeed in school by getting good grades and participating in extracurricular activities. They want their progeny to have a strong resume and get a secure career so that they'll make money and live a healthy, comfortable life. Young people approaching adulthood start to understand where their own strengths and weaknesses are and what they want to do with their life. Their options start to be limited by all kinds of outside forces and they might start questioning what their real dreams are. In my life, I've had two fears about my future. One fear is that I won't figure out what my ideal life is. The other is that I won't follow through with that ideal.

It's hard to make a judgment as to what my alternative life would be like. By answering that question you're implying that you've made choices that you wish you could change in this life and that you're not entirely satisfied with where you are. My life right now is a general synthesis of my two main interests: music and the environment with an emphasis on the environment. I've made decisions that factored in not only my interests, but also the desires of family. While I'm not dissatisfied with how things have gone, if a second life was available to me I would live it in a slightly different way.

In my second life I presumably would have stuck out high school for the sake of my parents and my future. As I begrudgingly passed from class to class I would have done my best while still questioning the necessity of the industrial education that was being thrust upon me. Upon graduating, I would have found a farm in some forward-thinking state like New York or California and become a resident. I would have brought along my guitar, clothes, a few other possessions, maybe my car, and certainly my bike if it was possible. While working there I would find a library or a college where I could read and learn on my own. If there was a free school nearby I would take classes and learn all I could in my free time. Most importantly, I would spend time in nature and learn as much as I could from other people and on my own about wilderness survival. I would spend as little money as possible and save it up for future travels. During this time I would also write stories and songs, practice playing music, and maybe even perform. I would try to find like-minded people who support the environment and oppose industrialization. We would work together living sustainably, protesting, and doing whatever we could to help preserve the natural world.

Eventually, I presume I would get itchy feet. I would store or pawn off my excess possessions and gather up the necessities before heading off to a foreign country or another continent. I would travel by bike, foot, or any way I could in far off lands. I could do odd jobs, work on farms, and camp when I need to. By meeting new people I would gain friends, learn languages, and learn as much about the world as possible. I would again try to meet up with anarchists and environmentalists and work together with them protesting civilization and protecting their communities. I would keep reading and writing as much as possible. As often as I could I would contact my family to let them know where I am and how I'm doing. I would do my upmost through the whole journey to make sure they don't think I'm running away or making rash life decisions. In each new nation and new community I would try to learn and respect their culture without intruding. I would want to understand their values as well as the challenges that they must overcome in the face of the increasing industrialization of the planet.

In terms of a profession I don't know that I would have a title. At some point perhaps I would try to earn a higher degree, but I might not be inclined to right away. My self-prescribed title would probably be Anthropologist/Environmentalist/Anarchist. I would live a low-impact life while learning about diverse cultures and their struggles during the environmental crisis. I would help people in whatever way I could and I would probably someday choose a home where I would join or set up my own community. As civilization reaches a point where it can no longer sustain itself, which it will presumably do, I will be there to use my diverse knowledge and diverse friends to help whoever comes to my doorstep. My ultimate goal would be to learn everything I need to survive the growing world crises, share that knowledge with anyone who will listen, and protect any human and non-human life that survives along with me.

Overall, this life is only different in how it's carried out. Many people in this culture would see it as a life without productivity, a wasted life by the values of civilization. I wouldn't be contributing to an economy and I wouldn't be "bettering" myself in the eyes of the professional world. Ultimately, though, my values will be the same. I would want to learn as much as I could, work hard, and help people which are all goals of mine now. I would do it differently though, more independently. I would still be working to protect the environment like I am now and will be doing for the rest of my life. However, it would be through less mainstream channels than I'm currently using. This alternative life would be different only in practice not in theory. My values wouldn't change, just my plan of attack.

Is it a good idea for parents to send their children to school at the kindergarten and preschool levels?

The advent of industrial education in the last century has brought about a severe change in family dynamics as compared to a few decades ago and even more when compared to a few centuries ago. As the years have gone on, attending school is expected of more and more people and the number of years in school has increased. Fifty or more years ago, it wasn't unreasonable for a child to stop going to school at age twelve or thirteen and then start helping out with the family business. Now, however, people must complete at least high school in order to have most jobs available to them and must complete an undergraduate degree to be competitive in the job market. In addition, because they don't have time to both continue their career and stay home with their children, parents will send their children to day care, preschool, and kindergarten before they even reach primary school age. As a result, children are increasingly being raised by teachers rather than parents and their learning is happening almost exclusively in the industrial education environment designed to create identical, productive members of society. This recent emphasis on having all learning happen in schools is not conducive to helping children grow up or be connected to their families for a variety of reasons.

First of all, when children spend their formative years with their community and their family, they have one-on-one interaction available to them all the time and can learn anything that they're interested in relatively quickly. In a classroom environment, one teacher is handling upwards of twenty kids and so each child is receiving substantially less attention. If a kid doesn't want to be learning about something, they can easily tune out as the teacher focuses on the kids who are already engaged. This kind of disconnection from learning breeds a kind of apathy in most students today. By the time many students reach high school they've gained a "why does this matter?" outlook on education, an outlook that I've seen in many of my peers including myself. If, however, kids are taught by their parents, they have the opportunity to learn whatever they want. Learning can happen constantly every day rather than in the strict context of classrooms and tests. This kind of environment and attention generally breeds an excitement for learning rather than disillusionment.

Another problem is that because students are learning alongside twenty kids of various skill levels, they learn much slower than they could in better circumstances. I remember learning about American history practically every year through grade school, but I remember precious little from all of those lessons. It's the same with math, by the end of elementary school I could do the kind of basic arithmetic that would've taken maybe a year to learn had I been given the attention and resources to really learn it. If I hadn't been sitting in distracting and inefficient classrooms and instead had been learning addition, multiplication, and other basic math from my parents or even my older brother I probably could have caught on very quickly at a much younger age and then had the room to move forward into more interesting topics. The basic concepts of Biology (e.g. living things are made up of cells) are not beyond the grasp of your average elementary school student, but those kinds of ideas aren't even addressed until middle school. If we lived in a society where kids weren't shipped off to the local education factory at age three and were instead allowed to roam free, enjoy their home life, get to know their parents, and learn from the world and from their parents I think there would be much more exuberance towards learning and kids would learn faster.

An obvious restriction to the concept of learning at home is the knowledge of the parents and the time that parents have available. Adults need to invest a certain number of hours each week in their work so that there can be food on their child's plate every day and this is harder for some parents than it is for others. Families with single parents or who have low income just don't have the time to commit to educating their children. Also, I don't expect every parent to explain to their kids how Chemistry works, but a kid should at least be able to read a book and multiply two digit numbers by the time they start school, at the very least. Both of these problems, though, point to greater societal problems that are generally ignored by the general population. Humans have evolved to live in a community larger than their direct family and so they thrive when interacting with close neighbors. However, families are left to survive on their own in this competitive, selfish world. This leads to the problem of income. Poverty-stricken families are left to survive on their own because our culture simply believes that if you can't pull your weight, regardless of the environment you live in, you don't deserve your meal. This obviously isn't universally true with institutions like soup kitchens and homeless shelters, but there are still politicians and celebrities sitting on their fat yachts eating sirloin steaks as the masses starve to death worldwide.

Overall, sending children to school at an increasingly young age is stunting their learning, destroying their motivation, and eliminating any kind of family dynamic that the world once had. This culture has lost the importance of family. Parents need to work more and more hours each week to earn the money to buy all of their trinkets and children are left to sit in classrooms for year after year learning less than they could be and losing their passion. That is if they're in the lucky group of people getting nice meals on their plate three times a day. Parents shouldn't be sending their children to preschool and kindergarten; they should be getting to know their children, helping them learn, and helping them discover what they love.

Is torture ever necessary? Is it ever considered justified?

Historically, torture has been used as a way to punish perceived wrongdoers or to extract information from an enemy. This act is generally considered cruel and unusual by the common person, but throughout centuries of multiple cultures and civilizations it has remained an acceptable tactic even in today's world of supposedly "civilized" society. In order to answer the question of "Is torture justified?" we have to define what "justified" means and to whom it is justified. As history tends to be written by the victor, and the torturer must on some level believe he or she is justified, we might say that torture is always justified if carried out by the writers of history and never justified if carried out by their opponents. This, however, doesn't really answer the question of, "Was torture necessary?" for the victor might have won without torture. The Oxford Dictionary defines justified as: 1. Having, done for, or marked by a good or legitimate reason; 2. Theology declared or made righteous in the sight of God.

The first definition requires a subjective view of what is "good" to appraise whether something is justified. Torturing one enemy combatant and extracting the information that they might have could stop an attack. In such a scenario, the lives of many civilians or allied troops could be saved, which would in the eyes of most allies be a good thing. However, what if the prisoner doesn't actually have any information? In either case you're causing great pain to the prisoner's family and potentially recruiting them for the enemy's cause. The U.S. government captures and tortures an increasing number of supposed enemy combatants around the world, but most notably in the Middle East. The primary goals for this activity are to find supposed "terrorists" and to prevent future attacks against Americans. While at face value this seems like a noble cause - protecting American lives - there's no way of knowing beforehand if the person being tortured knows anything. Torture is notorious for providing bad intelligence, because a person who is being physically and psychologically damaged over a long period of time will say anything to make it stop. On top of that, if a military force starts plucking innocent civilians of foreign countries off the street and torturing them for the information they don't have, that military is essentially recruiting soldiers against their cause. While torturing an enemy could provide positive intelligence to save lives in an attack, it could also just be riling the nest for future conflict.

The second definition presupposes a belief in a specific religion. Many wars have been justified on theological grounds. The crusades are a prime example of leaders gathering their citizens to fight in the name of God. If this is a legitimate definition of justified torture then we would have to assume that everyone follows the same belief system. The fact is, many cultures worship different Gods and thus have substantially different beliefs whereas some cultures don't even believe in a God and thus they would say this definition doesn't apply. If torture is ever to be "justified" in this way it can only be justified in the eyes of the believers. Most everyone else would consider them wrong.

Can torture be justified? History always describes things in the eyes of the beholder. If the writer says it's so, then that is how it will be remembered. In the context of deciding whether modern torture is acceptable, we have to take in the reasons for and results of torture. Protecting lives is certainly a noble cause, but if it is at the price of destroying someone else's freedom is it worth it? Is one person's freedom worth more than another's? In addition, if the result of torture isn't saving lives but is instead enraging the enemy to further harm our allies it is hardly a just cause. On top of that, torture frequently provides incorrect information and is not the ideal tactic for gathering information. In terms of religion, if we don't all believe in the same theological doctrine we can't use religious beliefs as a way of defining what is just and what is not. Overall, the uncertainty and sheer inhumanity of torture is not conducive to any just cause.

Are Professional Athletes Overpaid?

Our society applies immense prestige to people with a lot of wealth. People who inherit money, who create immense businesses, or who become celebrities are respected and idolized regardless of the positive or negative impact that they're lifestyle has on the world. Due to our culture's obsession with this prestige, we have a strong drive developed over centuries to work hard and earn a lot of money. Contrary to the idealism of the American Dream, though, not everyone can achieve that level of wealth and most don't even come close. Some people can work behind a cash register their whole life surviving off of minimum wage and even if they volunteer, make meals for the homeless, and share their roof with those that have none, society won't lift them up. Meanwhile, an athlete can play a game for a few decades and not benefit humanity much at all, but comes out the end as a celebrity and a millionaire. To me, being "overpaid" means making a disproportionate amount of money compared to the amount that you help your neighbor.

If you make millions of dollars annually throwing a ball down a football field and then spend the off season floating on your yacht, you're not really helping anyone and I don't see why you should have all that money in your pocket. We live in a world where some people can fly private jets to distant corners of the earth and consume great feasts while other people wake up on an average morning and know they might not eat that day. The dichotomy between the wealthy and the poverty-stricken is absurd and I think it's inhumane that our nation puts on expensive events like the Super Bowl while countless people are dropping dead in far off lands from preventable causes. A monetary system is inherently unsupportive of these people, because despite our faith in the goodness of humanity, there's not really a way out for the starving masses in this country or in others. The wealth of nations and corporations shouldn't be spent continuing a facade of harmony by making millionaires out of athletes while the most basic needs of life are overlooked in the squalor of the poor.