Should the government accept migrants from other countries?

Source background
In the BBC News article "EU's Tusk warns illegal economic migrants: Do not come here" (2016), we are told that European Union (EU) in finding solution to reduce the number of influx illegal migrants.  Greek Prime Minister, Alexis Tsipras, discourages all potential illegal migrants from entering Greece as there are no opportunities in this country.

According to the BBC News report, The International Organization for Migration (IMO) states that more than hundred thousand migrants reached Europe by sea in 2016. €700 millions are provided by the European Commission to tackle this crisis.

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My Yes/No question is:
Should the government accept migrants from other countries?

My answer is:
Yes, the government should accept migrants to a certain extent based on economic and social stability of the country. People from countries like Syria are starving and having poor living conditions due to civil war. I feel a strong sense of empathy as to witness the innocent been caught up in this political crisis of their own country. These people just want a new life - wanting a new good headstart to build up their family. Even now, there are still thousands of refugees waiting to enter countries in Europe, waiting on their boats and starving to death. We are fortunate enough that we have opportunities to live in a house and enjoy air conditioners at night. We are auspicious enough that we were born in such a peaceful country (even though it's not). We are lucky enough that we have proper diet to eat every single meal. Learn to appreciate what we have, not what we don't have. Their lives are more miserable than us.

However, we cannot always bias. Sometimes, countries cannot just simply accept the migrants blindly. Take for example, Greece is still facing economic crisis in which its own people are now having lower standard of lives. If more migrants are coming into such country, of course, more problems occur.  Not only that, on the 14 November 2015, a tragic incident occurred in the middle of Paris caused by Syrian refugees. More than hundred people died and plenty injured. Imagine if we are one of the victims, what would we feel about this tragedy? Happy and Exciting? This is why the government take these problems into consideration before accepting more migrants.

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Reference

EU's Tusk warns illegal economic migrants: Do not come here. (2016, March 3). BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35714087

Is it moral to use prison to punish people?

Source background
According to "Fire kills 16 inmates during prison protest in Guyana" (2016),  prisoners who set fire to their beds after a police raid for banned personal property caused a fire that killed at least 16 of the prisoners being held in prison in capital city of the South American country Guyana. The BBC News article says that the prisoners "were protesting about overcrowding and delays for prisoners awaiting trial."

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My Yes/No question is:
Is it moral to use prison to punish people?

My answer is:
No, but it is morally OK to use prison for other reasons. Because people who commit crimes could not have done otherwise, it seems to me morally wrong to punish them. We do not, after all, punish 10 day old babies who knock an expensive glass off the table and smash it. Nor do we punish people who, for example, have a brain disease or psychological disorder that makes them kill people. What we do do in such cases is perhaps imprison them in a psychiatric hospital so that they are no longer a risk to other people. I think this needs to be applied generally. The only reason to lock people up in prison is because they are a likely threat to others in the future, not for anything they have already done in the past.

This might be the shortest blog post I've written this week. Actually, as I was having my morning coffee a bit late after a late night last night, I was browsing the news as usual, and I wanted to write one more example of a blog post responding to the news, but I didn't want to blog an article I thought that a student might want to use; this one seemed safe. I would normally skip over news from South America, but when I saw the title, the question immediately came to mind. I liked the question because it is, I hope, controversial, And controversial is good: it gives us something to disagree about with reasons and arguments to be presented and answered in the following comments and replies. That was also something I had had in mind when I wrote the blog post yesterday arguing that all drugs should be legalized, and with which no one has yet disagreed!

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Reference

Fire kills 16 inmates during prison protest in Guyana. (2016, March 4). BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-35722258

Should the law treat alcohol like other drugs such as heroin, yaa baa, cocaine and marijuana?

Source background

Dopamine is involved in
the brain's reward system.

In "Here's What Happens To Alcoholics’ Brains When They Quit Drinking," Ben Taub (2016) discusses recent research that helps us understand why the drug alcohol is so highly addictive. Taub says that scientists examined the brains of dead alcohol addicts and the brains of living rats that had been addicted to alcohol to see what the levels of dopamine were and how many receptors there were for this chemical in the brain that strongly affects our feelings of pleasure. According to Taub, the scientists that discovered new ways in which alcohol damages the dopamine system that contribute to psychological cravings that characterize alcohol addiction.

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My Yes/No question is:
Should the law treat alcohol like other drugs such as heroin, yaa baa, cocaine and marijuana??

My answer is:
Yes, alcohol dealing and use should be treated like the use and dealing of any other addictive drug. Current drug laws in many countries, including Australia and Thailand along with the US, the UK and many others, are irrational, immoral and unjust. We know that alcohol is a drug of addiction just like things such as heroin, cocaine, yaa baa and marijuana. The evidence shows that alcohol is at least as harmful both to the drug users and to society as many of the illegal drugs, so there is no good reason why alcohol should be treated differently. At the moment, these laws encourage people, especially young people who can think, to disrespect the law. Why, after all, would they respect something is is clearly unjust and against reason? Such laws, do not deserve respect. And this undermining of the law is bad for society.

Worse, current drug laws that criminalize personal decisions of adults to use drugs such as marijuana and yaa baa only worsen the harms that those drugs cause society. When popular recreational drugs are made illegal, people naturally still want them, which leads to more corruption, more crime and waste of police resources. Instead of investigating rape, murder and theft, police are wasting time and money chasing after decent adults who are harming no one when they normally use heroin, marijuana or other drugs. There are only two groups in Australian society, Thai society or any other society that benefit from laws that criminalize activities that many decent citizens want to enjoy: corrupt officials and mafia scum. I don't think it's sensible, or moral, to keep encouraging an actively supporting these two groups whilst actively harming many decent citizens by giving them and their children criminal records for no just reason.

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Reference

Taub, B. (2016, March 3). Here's What Happens To Alcoholics’ Brains When They Quit Drinking. IFL Science. Retrieved from http://www.iflscience.com/brain/what-happens-alcoholics-brains-when-they-quit-drinking

Dream in Ploy's culture

A famous dream in my culture that I've heard a lot is a prediction dream.My mom tells me that if you dream about a snake,you'll find your lover.My grands also tell me that if you see numbers in your dream you have to remember it and buy a lottery with the numbers you saw.If you've got a nightmare before your special event for example a wedding or having a test.It means bad luck .This might affect your mind so people would feel better to postpone their event or go to the temple to exorcise those bad luck.
There is now Thai series about dream.The story is about a girl dreams that always comes true so she follow her dreams

Dreams in Feem's culture

Dreams in my culture? Personally, I interpret dream as a state of mind caused by the process of my brain during sleeping. That means what I dream is what I significantly wish in my mind or what I have experienced in the past, just once or several time but related to my feeling or mind. I view that dream can also be anything which our brain and its cells try to make it happen when we are sleeping. So, it's not a miracle story or omen, but it's what happened in our conscious or conscious mind. What'more, dream is also regarded as one's future goal(s) which we want to achieve. However, in my culture, many people tend to be believe that dream is the state that tells us what will happened in the future or even the state that those who already died can contact and meet us in another world. That's why someone think that dream is the sign of warning or fortune that we might experience soon.

Dreams in Chin's culture.

Depends on location different poeple have different dreams in our culture of our country. But anyone dreams about the  bright future,how to find the way to have a good life. For some of people it's related on proper education,for another ones to find the appropriate job to earn enough money. oSome people,who stay in the village dreaming about big farm. Strudents try to study and apply to universsities aborad and work abroad ,beacsue of offering high salary by internaqtional companies.

Dreams in Earlgray's culture

In the Thailand culture, there involves religions, monarchy, and dreams. Thais dream to be rich people or successful people in jobs and family etc. Some Thais believe unbelievable things because of dream. they think that those thing can help them to lead to their dreams. In the contrast, I grew up in the difference culture that involves the science facts

Dreams in Jom's culture

In my dreams culture, I have many belief about why people have to dream. As one of my thought, dreams is organized by our real experience though it has a lone term or just it happened, our mind will remember all of situation including a action, a feeling and a responding during at that time. dreaming is the one way to relaxed of our temperament both good dream and bad dream, so it can know what your the true feeling by generate the dreams story.

Dream in Non's culture

Dreams are things that fulfilled our lives with colour. My life would be rather dull without dream. In Thailand, many people have superstitious beliefs about dream. This means that each dream has its own meaning. However, to me, dreams are not always related to the reality - they are what we think, they are what we worry about.My friends always dream that he became the strongest man on Earth but in fact, he is just a mediocre who cannot even lift a weight properly in a gym.

I believe having good dream means having healthy lifestyle without any stress as it tells that we have a good state of mind. Not only that, nowadays we neglect the importance of dream and this will affect our circadian pattern while we sleep. Nightmare could wake us up in the middle of the night while good dreams allow us to sleep efficiently.

Dream in Ae's culture

Nowsaday, many people like to talk about dream. what's dream importance? I think that dream can fulful your hope and can be energy for you to do many activities. Many people have a dream which is the same as me. Personally, I dream to have my own business which I can do at home and live with my family while doing a business. I have a couple ways to reach my dream which is wait, learn things which is relate to my dream and try my best to follow it. One of my friens is an example, he dream to have a house for his family. His dream seem to be impossible for a man who is only 23 year-old and don't have a job. However, he stick with his dream and do every job to earn enough money to buy a house. Finall, his dream come true. I hope that this will be an example for someone who is hopeless with your dream.  

Dreams in Cheese's culture

     I grew up in a quite good circumstance of nature.  I played around the river and mountains, though now the places have totally changed to a modernized city.  My dream is to live in the nature simply appreciating the nature; getting up early with sun's rising, cleaning house for my good feeling, eating less

Dreams in Tung's culture

As dreams are a part of humans' life, people found some activities or beliefs dealing with dreams. Activities vary on the person's opinion and beliefs on dreams. As if they believe that dreams can actually affect people's lives, they will be strict in doing some ritual activities that might deal with spirits and super natural things. The activities could be a forecast from what is seen in the dream, the ritual that follows the beliefs about the dreams. My only example that I can think of right now is the broken tooth's dream, which is forecast that the person would lose someone he/she knows. The followup activities may be those used for cleaning the karma or bad dreams or maybe to make the dream fails. Also whether you believe in what other people say or not, there might be some people that would be really disturbed by your dreams and would beg you to do what they believe needed to be done.

Dreams in Union's culture

My country's culture about dream would have no meaning at all, if there is no lottery! Since I was a little child, I had heard about a lot of people win the lottery from buying the number as a result of dream interpretation. That's the most beneficial from Thai culture because you can even interpret your nightmare into money! If you have a good memory, you can remember your dream. Never keep to yourself. Find the good interpreter who can transform your vivid dream into 2 or 3 digit number. No matter what your story is. You see the gecko. Your husband cheat on you in your dream. Or you eat the real shit. Don't be hesitate to tell them. The good interpreter can make it. If finding "the one" is too difficult, the world-class leading technology can help you. Google it. There are tons of entries in the search engine that some who have had the same dream as you has shown before in the cyberspace. Let's make the money from your lively dream no matter good or bad. Bravo Thai culture!

Dreams in Peter's culture

In Australia I don't think that dreams are very important, at least not to me. But in Western culture there are some very famous dreams. An obvious source is the Christian religion: in the Bible, people often have dreams. For example, Joseph went to Egypt after his brothers sent him away from home instead of killing him. In Egypt he became famous as an interpreter of dreams. One day, the Egyptian pharaoh had strange dream. He dreamed of seven fat cows being eaten be seven skinny cows. Joseph interpreted this dream to mean that Egypt would have seven years of excellent harvests and then seven years of very bad harvests. Pharaoh acted on this dream and saved his country from disaster. This led to Joseph bringing his people, the ancient Jews, to Egypt, where the Bible tells us that they were later enslaved until they used terrorist tactics, in fact their god Yahweh, used terrorism, to escape from Egypt.

Another important use of dreams is in Freud's version of psychotherapy. Freud also taught that dreams should be interpreted, although not to tell the future. 

I think both uses of dreams are pretty silly: there is no good evidence I know of to think that dreams can predict the future, nor that they tell us much about deep psychological drives. But dreams can be inspiring. For example, Kekule had a very famous dream that led him to the discovery of the benzene ring, and other scientific or technological advances had been made in dreams. It appears that while we are sleeping, the brain is still hard at work, and sometimes it produces something amazing for us without us knowing what it has been working on.

I think that there probably are many people in Australia who do think dreams tell them about the future or themselves, but I think they are wrong. However, people in Australia also speak of having dreams as in plans, hopes, high aspirations, and these are very real. In the US, for example, Martin Luther King is famous for his "I have a dream" speech in which he describes a United States where people are not racist - sadly, that dream has not yet come true, and for many African Americans, daily life remains a night mare. 

Did you know that Italy doesn't have Starbucks yet?

Source background

In the BBC News article "Starbucks to open first coffee shop in Italy" (2016) we are told that  Starbucks, whose founder was inspired to start the chain in the US after he saw Italians enjoying their coffee culture on a trip there in the 1980s, is planning to open it's first store in Italy next year.

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My Yes/No question is:
Did you know that Italy doesn't have Starbucks yet?

My answer is:

Starbucks in central Sydney

No, I didn't. I had just sat down for my own morning coffee and was browsing the latest news stories when the title of this article caught my eye. I had assumed that Starbucks was now everywhere, certainly in every developed European country. It's in Bangkok, Beijing and Sydney, so it seemed odd that it wouldn't be in Italy.

In fact, I almost never buy Starbuck's coffee, preferring the stronger, larger fresh brews I can make at home, but I know that Starbucks is attractive to many people, and I do sometimes enjoy a cup with friends at one of the Starbucks stores within a few minutes walk of my home. I don't think I've ever been to the one at Chamchuri Square, but it certainly looks to be doing a good business, and some of my colleagues are regulars there.

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Reference

Starbucks to open first coffee shop in Italy. (2016, February 29). BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35684831

Should human car drivers be banned?

Source background

Google cars have clocked up over
one million miles on public roads.

David Lee writes in "Google self-driving car hits a bus" that the previously perfect record of Google's self-driving cars, or autonomous vehicles (AVs) as Google calls them, might be about to end (2016). Two weeks ago, on February 14, a Google AV had a minor collision with a public bus in California. According to Lee, the Google human who was in the Google car did not disagree with the computer's decision. This is the first time that a Google car with the computer making the driving decisions might be found to have made a mistake that caused an accident. Whether the accident, which harmed no one, was caused by the computer driving the car or the human driving the bus will be decided in a meeting between Google and California's Department of Motor Vehicles. But whatever the outcome of that meeting, Lee tells us that Google's computers have already had their driving improved to make better decisions in similar situations in future.

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My Yes/No question is:
Should human car drivers be banned?

My answer is:
Yes, human drivers should be banned, but not this week. When I first read this BBC News story, the question that came to mind, and which for a short time was my Yes/No question above and for the title of this post, was: Would you use a self-driving car? My answer to this was a much stronger "Yes." Even if they have had a few accidents, always the fault of other drivers, I think the statistical evidence shows that Google's computers make better decisions than most human drivers. Driving is perhaps a little more complex than playing chess, at which computers have been much better than humans for some years now, so why shouldn't they also be better drivers? Having been driven by my mother for many years, and always amazed that she did not have accidents, I have no trouble imaging that I would be safer in a car controlled by a machine. And I remember how bad I was at driving when I used to do it in Australia - I only ever had one accident, and that was not serious, but a machine would not have made the same mistake I did.

So, why do I think that humans should be banned from driving? If you think that avoiding accidents that kill, main or damage property are to be avoided, then it makes sense to insist on the best safety options. At the moment, the law insists that all passengers wear safety belts, at least when seated in the front. Similarly, the law demands that drivers not be under the influence of alcohol, that deadliest of drugs which tears apart families and destroys homes in Thailand's horrifyingly high traffic death statistics. It will probably not be very long before Google cars and other AVs are legal, licensed and on the roads. These cars will be able to communicate with each other far more efficiently than human drivers do, and they will be much better drivers, so it will be sensible to ban the drivers who cause the accidents that destroy, injure and kill - that is, the human drivers. We should allow humans to continue driving for a little longer, perhaps for five years but not more than ten.

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Reference

Lee, D. (2016, February 29). Google self-driving car hits a bus. BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35692845

Are you addicted to the drugs in coffee?

Source background

A healthy addiction! 

According to Ben Taub in "Drinking Coffee May Protect The Liver From Alcohol Damage," recent large studies have added to the growing consensus among scientists that coffee is good for health. The most recent research shows that drinking coffee every day has a very strong beneficial result for livers that might otherwise suffer from the effects of alcohol use, with just one cup of coffee daily reducing the risk of the liver disease cirrhosis caused by alcohol by 22%, whilst four cups of coffee daily reduced the risk of this liver disease by 65% (2016). Taub also reports that other research suggests that coffee might also have "anti-cancer and aphrodisiac properties."

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My Yes/No question is:
Are you addicted to the drugs in coffee?

My answer is:
Yes, definitely. Like many people, I suffer withdrawal symptoms if I don't get my daily coffees. I have drunk at least two large, strong cups of fresh brewed coffee every day for almost forty years now. Over the last year or so, I've read several reports which suggest that coffee is not only not harmful, but that this collection of popular drugs of addiction is very good for the health of its addicts. In fact, coffee is much healthier than green tea!  This surprises some people, and it did surprise me, but that's what the increasing facts support.

So, if you aren't already, you might like to consider getting addicted to coffee. Other benefits are the great taste and sociability of a cup of coffee which I guess goes with the possible aphrodisiac benefits of coffee. The only disadvantage I can think of is that you suffer  nasty headaches and other withdrawal symptoms if you visit a small village in Sukothai having forgotten to pack your personal supply.

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Reference

Taub, B. (2016, February 25). Drinking coffee may protect the liver from alcohol damage. IFL Science. Retrieved from http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/drinking-coffee-may-protect-liver-alcohol-damage-study-suggests

Is Zuckerberg right to block hate speech on Facebook?

Source background
In "Facebook wants to crack down against hate speech on migrants" (2016), BBC newsbeat reports that Facebook's founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has agreed with German authorities that racist hate speech is something that there is "now ... no tolerance for on Facebook." Although there is rising opposition in Germany to its government's policy of accepting refugees from countries such as Syria, Germany's history from the Second World War also means that today it has strong laws against hate speech that might threaten minorities. German authorities think that Facebook has not been fast enough in the past to remove hate speech according to German law because such removal conflicted with other Facebook priorities.

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My Yes/No question is:
Is Zuckerberg right to block hate speech on Facebook?

My answer is:
Yes, but not everywhere and definitely not because it's what German law demands. Except for people who do it, like the Burmese Buddhists who want to suppress or expel the Rohingya people, or people who say things like "All Muslims are terrorists," or people who say that gays or transgender people are sick, most people probably agree that hate speech is disgusting and not the sort of thing that decent people say. Unfortunately, hate speech is also very common, whether directed at racial groups, at sexuality groups, at religious groups, at political groups, or some other group defined by what they are, think or do.

I think that the German laws against this hate speech are wrong because governments, even with good intentions, should not so interfere in free speech. However, Facebook is not a government and as a private business it is entitled to set conditions of good manners for its users. This includes maintaining polite public spaces for all, just as hate speech can reasonably be banned by private individuals in their homes and on their media outlets. On private groups or posts that the public cannot view, Facebook should allow even vile, offensive filth if that's what some people like,  but it is reasonable to block such things on public parts of Facebook. Of course, offensive comments to other users should be blocked, and we FB users can already do that: we don't need German law to force it done for us.

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Reference

Facebook wants to crack down against hate speech on migrants. (2015, February 27), BBC newsbeat. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/35677435/facebook-wants-to-crack-down-against-hate-speech-on-migrants

Should Apple help the FBI unlock the terrorists' iPhone?

Source background
According to the BBC News story "Apple asks court to reverse FBI iPhone order" (2016), Apple is continuing to refuse to follow the FBI's court order to help it read the information on the iPhone of the terrorist husband and wife couple who killed 14 people in San Bernadino, California last year.

The BBC News report says that the FBI argues that it needs the information to stop more terrorism, and that it has only asked Apple to help it read the information on the one phone that the terrorists encrypted. Apple's argument is that US Constitutional law makes the FBI and their court order illegal because computer code is speech and therefore protected under US free speech laws. The FBI has answered that Apple is only doing this to boost sales of iPhones and other Apple products.

_______________________________________ 

My Yes/No question is:
Should Apple help the FBI unlock the terrorists' iPhone?

My answer is:
No. Apple should continue to refuse to follow the court order to help the FBI as requested. Apple is right that the FBI has asked them to construct software that can be used on every similar Apple iPhone, not just for one phone. The FBI might say it's only for this one phone, but that is not believable. The FBI has often asked for Apple and other tech companies to help it get at private customer information in the past, and there is no reason I can think of why the FBI would not want to do the same with the tool they now want Apple to create.

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Reference

Apple asks court to reverse FBI iPhone order. (2016, February 25). BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35664904

Welcome to AEP Reading and Writing 2, term 2, 2016

Welcome to our Reading and Writing level 2 (CD) class for the term.

Over the next six weeks, we will be working through a few chapters in Quest, which involve reading and writing several different kinds of texts. We will also add some extra reading and writing to keep things interesting every day; we will, for example, be reading a short novel and regularly writing on this class blog.

I hope you find the class useful and also enjoyable.

In the meantime, you might like to have a look at the some of the posts on this blog by my students in previous classes.

 Peter.

Fact or opinion? True or false?

I thought that the results of the survey we did this morning "Fact or Opinion? True or False?" (2015) were interesting for a couple of reasons. First, we clearly disagree about what these basic terms means, as shown in the pie charts for several of the questions.

But also interesting, and in need of some explanation, is the variation between answers. For example, most of us think it is true that killing people for fun is morally wrong; however, the very similar statement about abortion got a very different set of results.

And then there are the results for the fact - opinion status of 2+2=5, which contrast with those for 2+2=4.

What do you think? What definitions of the words fact, opinion, true and false are most useful here? Can something be both a fact and an opinion? Can a belief be both true and false? Can it be neither true nor false?

That I wrote two questions for each statement, suggests that I think the pairs of ideas in each are distinct. Do you agree? But is there nonetheless some connection between the two pairs: fact, opinion; and true, false?

As always, comments are welcome.

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Reference

Fact or opinion? True or false? (2015, December 10). [Survey results.] Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/a/auathailand.org/forms/d/1oobtPV8q1NoOivuHO2uatgRvveGkFBHmIn7iJNpLlws/viewanalytics