Finally, a non mugger post. =D. i would like to say thx for the happiness in life. Things always let you down, but it is ultimately myself who decided whether i should be let down. No one decides, i have my own dreams ~~~

Is Human Cloning Moral?

Human cloning is moral because it brings about more happiness. For instance, human cloning allows parents to “replicate” a dead or dying child. This creates new life as a partial human answer to the grievous misfortune of their child’s death, and continues the biological lineage of the family. This is moral based on utilitarianism because it successfully fulfills the grieving parent’s wish, creating more happiness. Human cloning could avoid the parent’s disappointment in losing their family line and relieve sorrow, ensuring minimal unhappiness.

Human cloning is moral because it strengthens the human race with more superior beings, benefiting the people. It allows families to reproduce individuals of great genius, talent, or beauty, where these traits are based on superior genetic makeup. Therefore, human cloning is moral as it is an advanced technology to improve the quality of the life of human beings.

Even if it brings out more happiness, it is still not moral because no one enjoys suffering the high risks of being psychologically damaged by growing up as a clone. By applying golden rule, it is immoral by exposing the clone to the health risks during experiments and the psychological harm in the future, without gaining the consent of the clone in the first place.

A cloned child might be 'harmed' through the burden of over-expectation due to the temptation of parents to seek excessive control over the clone. Therefore, it is immoral of the parents to place such burden on the cloned child, since this would not be desirable to the parents if the burden were to be placed on them.

Due to the excessive control, the right and freedom of the clone may subconsciously be violated. This is immoral based on golden rule because no one likes to be deprived of freedom, including the parents, thus they should not violate the rights of the cloned child.

Human cloning would be considered as immoral by Kantian theory when the cloned child is seen as a means only to make the parents happy. With the technology to produce superior cloned child, parents would tend to view their cloned child as an object for them to show off since they have spent money to produce such a clone. This is immoral because it violates the law of respecting humanity and treating it as an end and not simply as means only.

The argument for the psychological harm of a clone is subjective since no one could experience the psychological effect, except the clone himself. The argument is just an assumption. Moreover, it is only valid for some cases since not all cloned child would be affected after finding out their background. This also applies to the case where parents view their child as a means to make them happy; similarly, not all parents would view their cloned child as an asset for them to show off.

The interests of the cloned child justify thoroughgoing parental control over the procreative process. This acts as a possible defense for violating the child’s rights. Procreation could be seen primarily as the free exercise of a parental right, to satisfy parental desires for self-fulfillment or to have a child who is "superior".

In conclusion, human cloning is moral because it benefits the human race and creates more happiness without facing much strong ethical oppositions. For golden rule and Kantian theory, the argument is subjective since it does not apply to all cases of human cloning. Rights cannot be ethically exercised at the expense of the rights of another, thus the argument for violating the rights of a clone could no longer stand firm.

This is my second blog post for democracy. Done during the holidays =) ...

Many people like to joke that Democracy may be the worst form of government, even in the United States, when American citizens pride themselves on being the oldest constitutional democracy. Yet, many people think they should limit their democracy, especially during perilous times. Many people in the US find they are frustrated with democracy and think that things would be better if they could just let a few smart people make the decisions.

Today, the fear of terrorism has encouraged people to blindly support the President because they believe he must know more about what is going on and so can make the right decisions for us. Many people are looking for a strong leader who boldly makes decisions even if these decisions go against the will of the majority of people. Many people define this as leadership.Yet, is it true that a few smart people or one strong leader will do a better job than groups that make decisions democratically? Should we entrust our future to a small group who will make the most important decisions for us? Decisions such as whether we will go to war or not, or how our economy is run? My answer is no.

After World War II, an MIT researcher, Alex Bavelas, conducted a study about different communication networks and how their structures affected the ability for groups to solve problems. He designed one group to use communication that was essentially a circular chain where each person could only communicate with his immediate neighbors. This group was forced to use a democratic process to solve the problems.

Another group used a star-like model where one individual could communicate with everyone. Yet, they could only communicate with each other through that central person. This modeled the classic authoritarian process. When he asked them to perform simple tasks, the authoritarian group was much faster at coming up with the answers to the problems given. What Bavelas found was when the task was made more complex and had more subtle issues to resolve, the democratic group was consistently able to solve the tasks more rapidly, with better outcomes and the members of the group maintained higher morale. The authoritarian leader is blinded by his own sense of power and a belief that he has all the answers.

Since then, other studies have shown that groups using democratic processes are much better at reaching good outcomes on complex issues than authoritarian groups. Furthermore, history has shown that authoritarian societies carry fatal flaws that cause them to eventually destroy themselves. One example is looking at the failures of Nazism under Hitler and the collapse of the Stalinist communist states of the USSR and China in the 20th century. Saddam Hussein was also victim of this problem as his “subordinates” didn’t even inform him that he didn’t have any credible WMD (weapon of mass destruction) to deploy, which if he knew that, might have led him to halt or delay the invasion last year. And Mao never understood that it was his own misguided scientific policies, which were responsible for the terrible famine that killed millions and millions of Chinese mid 20th Century.

The fact that democratic processes lead to better outcomes for complex problems is not too surprising because it models how the natural world works. Scientists have found that nature is filled with entities made of many cooperating individual participants which lead to complex systems. These complex systems continuously adjust to any new incoming data encountered by the participants. Examples of this include the earth’s atmospheric system and all biological systems. One timely example is how we are losing the battle with infectious diseases because they are adjusting to the antibiotics we have devised.

Today as our world confronts some of the most complex problems mankind has ever faced, like global financial and economic systems that are entwined and capable of catastrophic failures, extraordinarily lethal weapons and materials that are available to the angriest and most alienated, intolerance and violence that seems to be ratcheting up every year and lastly, global warming looming over all of our futures. It seems we humans must start using the most effective methods for charting our path through the next few decades if we are to survive.

This means we have to start using and trusting democracy to find the best solutions and come up with the best decisions on each step of the way. None of us, not even the smartest, can do this alone. We are all responsible for finding solutions to our problems. It is not enough to wait for our leaders to set the course. No one will have enough information to solve the problems on their own, but working together, pooling our knowledge and our insights, we can find a path through the thicket of catastrophes waiting to debilitate and damage our world and our futures. Today, we are all leaders in this together and we are all responsible for contributing to solutions for our problems. Because if we don’t, then who will? (838 words)

Teenage bullying

Bullying can happen almost anything and to anyone. Bullying includes teasing, calling names, threatening or harassing them. When bullying gets too severe, it may become physical. In this case, it is usually very serious with the bully taking the victims’ belongings or extorting money.
If the victim tries to resist, he or she may put himself into more harm, especially when the bully reacted violent. Bullying can be done in groups, and also individually. Sometimes, even non-physical bullying actions can become quite bad, like ignoring and excluding a child from friendship groups.

In order to curb the problem, the first step is to start early prevention and save your child from becoming the victim. This can be done by observing the various behavior of your child. If your child has been getting upset at the thought of going to school, you know that something is wrong in her school life. A change in the usual behavior pattern of your child may also result in him or her becoming very quiet, resentful or be more demanding of your time. Your child may also have unexplained cuts and bruises. Every school works hard to try to prevent bullying, but unfortunately it can still happen. Here are some advices in which you may find is helpful in tackling this problem of school bullying. Some children are afraid to talk about bullying as they think telling an adult might make things worse.

Whoever the bully or bullies are, do remind your child to let you know that he or she is being bullied. If they do not feel like telling you, you can try to make your children understand that it is not their fault, and that they do not deserve to be bullied. Talk together about what you can both do to stop the bullying. If other students at the school are bullying your child, the school has a responsibility to try to sort the problem out.

However, sometimes bullying takes place out of school hours. It might also be done by students from a different school. If this happens, schools may need to work together to resolve the problem.

Early prevention is always the best way to avoid being victims of bully. However, if there is a case when your child is caught unintentionally, do remember that there are still ways to solve the problem completely. (401 words)

I still have plenty of time to finish my english project. So, i decide to relax myself... Besides this is the 2nd post in a blog I have made so far in my entire life. Maybe I ought to congratulate myself. CCTs' over. What a relief, only to find out that I still have an english commentary to do on my blog.

So that is my first blog, up in just one night. All these blogging stuff seem to get me busy for a few hours. Nevermind that, now to get back to the english project... where should I start?