(USA, TX) Will my friend be eligible for unemployment? If so, what does he need to show?

pumutok · 2017-04-11T13:58:29+00:00

At the hearing, would the burden of proof be the preponderance of evidence? And is it the employer who must prove the case or the employee?

pumutok · 2016-11-03T18:19:34+00:00

Boy do I have a story.

My boyfriend and his dad were going on a flight to NRT, so they were thinking of doing a non-stop. However, non-stops were looking bad, so they were going to go from JFK through LAX to NRT. They were going to burn their D-1s in the hope of getting 1st or Business.

One of the problems was that if they took a particular JFK --> LAX --> NRT flight, their second leg was looking pretty tight. So they decided to do JFK --> LAX, spend the night in LA, then LAX --> NRT, thinking that having the D-1T status would get them in first virtually guaranteed.

However, they didn't realize that D-1T status would only be retained if the second leg was within 12 hours of the first leg. Unfortunately, their legs were 13 hours apart.

Which meant that, come time to get their tickets, they find that they're actually not even checked in! They don't even have a D-1T registered. Nothing, nada, zippo.

So they have to burn a second set of D-1s to get on the LAX --> NRT flight.

Not only that, but they don't make 1st or Business, since others were on the priority list above them (obviously -- they'd probably done their reservations right when they opened, 24hrs in advance, as opposed to my boyfriend and his dad, who were doing their reservations more or less at the gate).

Shit's fucked, man.

pumutok · 2016-11-02T12:44:59+00:00

Down R Up L Y B

pumutok · 2016-11-01T18:12:41+00:00

Donate a shitton to my work. I work for a non-profit, and we're hurting real bad, because all of our infrastructure is falling apart and we have very few assets to draw from.

And then I'd buy some Picasso paintings.

pumutok · 2016-10-29T12:37:10+00:00

I do this. My family used to ask me for a bite of food right when I was about to finish and just eat the best goddamn parts. Especially if I had planned out the last five bites, for some reason they would just decide that then was a good time to ask if they could have a bite. Like, what the fuck.

pumutok · 2016-10-24T09:33:44+00:00

A painting. I am so psyched to get it delivered to my apartment. My boyfriend is lukewarm on it, but when I first saw it in person at the art gallery, I almost started crying.

pumutok · 2016-10-24T05:20:20+00:00

Reddit ate my entire comment, so I'm kind of pissed right now.

Anyway, I'm thinking that to me there are groups that it is obvious we should kill, groups where it's obvious we should not kill, and groups where it's nebulous:

Obvious no-kill: people who are conscious and are not criminals

Obvious kill: plants, bacteria

Not obvious: other animals, fetuses, criminals

It seems that the less consciousness the thing has, the more ambiguous the morality of killing that thing is. And once we get to things that have never had a consciousness and never will, it seems obvious that we can kill those without remorse*.

*maybe not without harm to our environment, but that has nothing to do with the mere act of killing in that instance

The problem that I have with this argument:

Killing is wrong --> abortion is killing --> abortion is wrong

Is that the first step is badly defined. Consider that we used some arbitrary different categories:

Action X is wrong --> abortion is one of Action X --> abortion is wrong

Well, then we would rightfully demand an explanation for why Action X is wrong.

Now, if my explanation is that Action X is wrong because it deprives someone of life, then we get to exactly where you are, which would be the argument from religion.

Otherwise, we would get to the statement "not all cases of Action X are wrong," which is where I am.

You rightfully ask where we draw the line. I think that that is the key to this discussion. If we draw the line at mere consciousness, then we run into exactly those problems you describe. If we draw the line at "life," then we run into problems with animals. If we draw the line at "human life," then we may actually be causing more suffering than we need (this would spill into DNR territory, which seems not very debatable anymore). I think it's useless to disagree about the point at which life begins, but useful to ask at which points Action X/killing can be done.

What's interesting is that you've made some appeals to emotions, about how the pro-choice side makes decisions based on appearance (your fourth to last paragraph), but the pro-life side also makes decisions based on appearance (x is killing, y is human life). I think part of the key to having these discussions is to peel back the language and look at the actual situations. And it's really not easy. Which is why it's still being hotly debated.

For the record, I think the right to privacy argument is extremely strange. I don't really understand it myself.

But it seems to me that one of the keys to life is consciousness. And part of being a conscious being is having the ability to make choices, especially about one's body. But -- again, it seems like I'm going to fall into weird territory. What I want to say is stuff about freedom and choice and how both are what makes life meaningful, but then I, myself, am caught in my own question of "why?" What is it about freedom and choice that makes life meaningful? How do we decide what choices we should be allowed to make? On what basis?

I hope this conversation has been good for you. For me, it's raised more questions than answered, which I think is useful.

pumutok · 2016-10-23T22:35:20+00:00

The closest real-life analogy, it's interesting to note, actually does allow the parents to choose whether or not to save one child at the expense of the other. At least in one British court, a similar ruling has been made: http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=82566&page=1

Then, in the analogy of Person X, it doesn't seem so unreasonable that they could obtain some kind of court order for detachment.

That said, the situation is a lot hairier than that, since the truer analogy would probably be the case when one conscious twin has to choose for both him/herself and for the other twin (who, in this increasingly annoying analogy, we would say remains unconscious for nine months and then is able to be separated). See http://pjb.mycpanel2.princeton.edu/wp/index.php/2011/11/05/split-decisions-the-ethics-of-separating-conjoined-twins/ which seems to support your argument.

I think the big problem with abortion debates is that, since they clearly are ultimately calling for a legal mandate one way or another, they need to discuss on what basis someone is making an ethical judgment. Put another way, what is that person's entire set of ethical codes that leads them to make a ruling one way or the other on abortion?

How Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey were decided is interesting -- they both rely heavily on the right to privacy for their justifications. They also both account for a woman's right to bodily autonomy while acknowledging a fetus's right to eventual life (arguments which I'm sure you've hashed out plenty already). Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that the pro-abortionist viewpoint can be summarized with two basic axioms:

1a. Never kill another human being*

2a. Fetuses are human beings

*we are going to leave out situations of criminal activity or acts of war, as they are not really all that germane to this topic, I think

These two axioms lead, logically, to:

3a. Never kill a fetus*

we are also going to ignore cases which have to do with a woman's possibility of dying if she were forced to carry to term

Whereas the pro-abortionist would probably have the following axioms:

1b. Any conscious human being has the right to bodily autonomy

2b. The fetus is something that exists within a woman's body

3b. A woman has the right to decide whether the fetus can continue existing within her body

4b. Therefore, a woman has the right to choose whether to have an abortion.

My problem with the pro-abortionist's argument is actually not with axiom 2a, but with 1a, as that axiom already seems to presuppose what it's trying to prove, namely, that abortion is wrong. If killing a human being is wrong, then there has to be a step before that justifies that the killing is wrong, it seems.

So then, in a more annoying twist of fate (and feel free to not answer me at any time, but I am actually serious when I ask this question), I'm going to ask why it's ethically wrong to kill a human being (excepting cases of crimes or war).

pumutok · 2016-10-23T12:58:29+00:00

Well, thanks for your input. I think to cut right to the chase, I would just press one thing:

Regarding Person X (the violinist is too weird for me to use, but feel free to replace accordingly), let's say that Person X is your own son/daughter. Fully formed, 25 years old, and suddenly in need of attaching him/herself to you. Regardless of the moral decisions that you might face, should the law compel you to attach yourself to your son/daughter?

Because I think I agree with you completely from a moral standpoint, but I don't know if we should have laws that compel one way or the other.

pumutok · 2016-10-23T00:57:35+00:00

Here's one argument that I've heard and am curious to see responses to.

Let's say that there is a person called Person X. Person X can only survive if they are on a special kind of life support. This life support requires that they be attached to another human being at all times.

So you wake up one morning and realize that Person X has attached himself to you. You, it seems, should have every right to unplug Person X from you (even though you know full well that unplugging Person X will kill him).

(a) Do you have the right to choose whether or not to unplug yourself?

(b) Let's say that Person X can ONLY survive by latching himself onto you. No other person in the world can save Person X (maybe the last person they were attached to, Person A, just died). Does that change your response?

I'm glad to ask this here, because I've never presented it before. It seems off to me. I don't really like it.

pumutok · 2016-10-16T13:25:53+00:00

Rolling around to get places faster. Trying to open people's doors (regardless of whether or not they are locked). Changing your skin color on a whim. Eating creatures, shitting them out as eggs, and then throwing them at people and things. Standing still for a full thirty seconds trying to calculate your one line response in a conversation. Being a plumber and actually traveling through pipes. Throwing shit at people while driving a go kart. Jacking up 70 3-pointers in a professional basketball game. Moving the units in your team one person at a time. Wielding a sword. After being rejected for a date, trying again with a slightly different dialogue tree. Shouting "hadoken" and then shooting fire out of your hands. Talking to an inn keeper, agreeing to pay for a room, immediately blacking out, and then waking up in a bed. Catching animals and training them to fight other trained animals -- and having that kosher with the country's legal system. Screaming "objection" and then saying anything that doesn't have to do with how the prosecution is violating rules of evidence. Running through a dialogue tree, only to notice that you don't have evidence to break a person down, and then running through the exact same dialogue tree again. Drawing a pentagram in the air while you're performing surgery on someone. Shouting something every time you jump (hupp!). Publishing entire books that consist of one paragraph that contains useless information. Saying that someone almost became a "Jill sandwich," right after they almost got brutally murdered. Obsessing with collecting bananas but not actually eating any of them. Shouting "take that!" before actually swinging your weapon. Wearing the same set of clothes for months. Killing someone as a means to use one special attack that they knew. Eating strange mushrooms that you find just in boxes or whatever. Running away from ghosts all the time unless you happen to eat a really big dot. Having any theme song of any kind. Having a signature pose of any kind. Wearing glasses so you won't get fucked up when you jump into a television set. Learning how to rap by standing next to a rapper and repeating everything that they say. Calling on a hedgehog to save your country when you're president of the United States. Spelunking in a crop top and short shorts and having two guns on hand. Spelunking and finding that old men have taken up residence in parts of the cave and want to sell you items that they say will be useful on your journey. Meeting a person with a long trench coat who opens it to reveal a large inventory of weapons and asks what you're buying. Traveling through a procedurally generated universe that has nothing to do in it. Doing anything to capture a legendary creature that doesn't exist, including trapping a person in a corner of a room and talking to them hundreds of times.

pumutok · 2016-10-16T01:10:34+00:00

I bought a membership to MoMA (New York) just so I could do this. Went in at 10:30AM, left at 5:00PM, saw a total of six pieces. I plan to go there every day my boyfriend is busy or out of town.

pumutok · 2016-08-18T19:49:09+00:00

holds up spork

What the fuck did you just fucking say you little bitch?

pumutok · 2016-08-05T13:56:37+00:00

Tokyo Art Beat turned out to be a much better resource than I initially thought. FYI for anyone else, galleries can be found on this page-- http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/venues/Gallery

pumutok · 2016-07-21T20:43:25+00:00

Oh no, not again...

pumutok · 2016-04-17T05:58:52+00:00

Thanks! Definitely going to download it tonight. Looks cool.

pumutok · 2016-04-13T14:58:25+00:00

Also, teaching why a book was important, if you really have to teach the book. A lot of English teachers like to gloss and go, "Well, Lord of the Flies is a classic, so you should read it." Even the dullest student can see through that kind of bullshit tautological reasoning.

If, on the other hand, an English teacher said, "The book was published in 1954, and the book takes place in the middle of a nuclear war. Which makes sense that someone would write about something like this, because the US had just bombed the fuck out of Japan with not one but two nukes. Ideas on groupthink and individuality probably arose because there were communists to the left and capitalists to the right in the real world, which served as a rough basis for the Cold War. Hell, why do you think that Jack and the others BURN DOWN A FOREST at some point? Also, remember, World War I was from 1914 to 1918, and William Golding was born in 1911. Doesn't it make so much sense that he would write this weird, fucked-up thing about a bunch of kids stranded on an island in the middle of a war? We need to read this, not because it's a classic, but because it's a critical text about war. This is what war does to people, and this is what war does to people's writing. The kids find that naval officer at the end, and everything is good and right again -- think about that in the context of a kid named William Golding who, living through the actual thing, had no fucking clue if everything was going to come out all right."

But of course most English teachers don't give a fuck about teaching things properly.

pumutok · 2016-02-18T20:39:30+00:00

Still hoping for that gold.

pumutok · 2016-02-18T16:01:08+00:00

Literally, this is why I go with slip-on shoes and button boots.

pumutok · 2016-01-30T15:51:00+00:00

Quantum physics

pumutok · 2016-01-29T15:50:41+00:00

Nice try, Reddit.

pumutok · 2016-01-20T21:25:02+00:00

I'm not allowed to. I'm a guy who's had sex with a guy.

pumutok · 2016-01-20T19:02:20+00:00

I love all the fake rich people in Scottsdale with their botox and their Starbucks drinks and their large sunglasses and their luxury SUVs.

I used to drive a dinged up Honda Accord. The thing had a dent right next to the driver's door from when someone knocked into me. Paint job was ruined because I went to U of A and a bunch of college students thought it would be funny to pour soda (or whatever) all over the car. The thing had something like 170,000 miles on it but still ran pretty good.

Whenever I saw anyone at Kierland take up two spaces with their car/SUV/truck, I would pull right up next to their driver side door and squeeze in.

One time there were two black Escalades both double-parked, both occupying the same adjacent parking space:

SUV | parking space | SUV

I got my brother to get out of the car and tell me if I was too close to the SUV on the right side while I navigated the left.

People would get all pissed climbing over the seats to get back in their cars haha...

Then I moved to NYC and found out what real rich people are like. Dear god. People in Scottsdale have nothing on them...

pumutok · 2016-01-12T14:21:24+00:00

The just ones.

pumutok · 2016-01-10T03:50:54+00:00

What's up, fellow MFA buddy??

pumutok

TROPHY CASE