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Topic #319: Would you rather be able to read other people’s minds, or live forever?

If I had to pick between having the ability to read minds or to live forever, I would probably go with reading minds, for a pretty obvious reason.

If I were to live forever, there’s no mention what will happen to my actual aging. I don’t want to be an old man who only gets older for all of eternity, because as I get older, my body will start to get weaker and less functional, and my older years will be terrorizing more than they would be enjoyable. People with an uncurable disease causing them extreme pain have death as an escape; if this were to happen to me, I would not have that option.

On the other hand, if the prompt specified that my aging process would be frozen and I would never get any older, I would still not want that to happen because I want to age and progress through my life like a normal human, rather than being stuck at a particular point in my life for the rest of my life. It would be great if I could maintain my current health forever, but I’m pretty sure that most people would agree that it doesn’t sound that appealing to be a 19-year-old forever.

Reading minds comes with its benefits as well. It seems like it would be a way to save significant time in my life, because it would eliminate the need for extensive communication. Frequently, it takes a long time for someone to pass on his/her ideas to me, either because it is a complex idea, or simply because the person is bad at explaining concepts in his/her mind. If I was able to read minds, I could get a solid grasp on what the idea is without having to go through the trouble of physically illustrating or describing it.

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Topic #310: If you had to change your first name, what would you change it to? Do you feel like your name matches your personality? If not, what first name would better match who you are?

If I had to change my first name, I would change it to something random, then change it back to Adam. I’m content with my first name of Adam, and it seems completely unnecessary to change it.

I’ve noticed in the past that some first names tend to match particular personalities quite well, but I’ve seen and met so many people so far that I can come up with at least one exception for almost every name and personality pairing that deviates from common speculations.

I don’t really think that your first name, or your name in general, really determines what type of person you will be or how you will end up in the future.

Some of you might have already heard of the story of Winner and Loser. There was a father who named his first son Winner because he wanted him to be a winner; the same father named his last son Loser because he didn’t like him (or something along those lines) and wanted him to be a loser. Much to the father’s discontent, Winner ended up becoming a criminal, did drugs, and landed himself in jail, like a loser. Loser ended up becoming successful and getting a good job, like a winner.

Of course, one could argue that the reason Winner lost was because he was too confident in his name, and the reason Loser won was because he wanted to spite his father. But either way, I think this slightly proves that names don’t have that significant of a role in ones life, unless they’re something strange like LemonJello or OrangeJello (yes, those names really exist – you can search for them on Google), or having a name of distinct African descent, then applying for a job at a racist company.

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Topic #309: Have you ever protested for anything? What was the cause? If you haven’t, what would it take for you to go stand up and protest for (or against) something?

If you’ve ever taken a look at my profile page or have read up on any of my background or personal information, you might know that I am an undergraduate college student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States. If you’ve been keeping up with the news for the past year, you might have heard about the protests that have been going on in Madison, Wisconsin against the governor. Even though massive protests are going on in my area, I still have never participated in a protest before, and I don’t ever plan on doing so in the future.

Even though I lived literally less than a few miles away from the capitol building, I chose not to participate in the protests because I thought it would be a waste of my time. You might also know that I work for the Badger Herald, which is a campus newspaper, and I still did not participate in the protests, even though I am so closely tied with current events. The only time I even went into the capitol building during the protests was when I went with the editor-in-chief to find one of our reporters inside the building.

Going back to my reasoning behind why I don’t protest, I don’t feel as if I would make a significant difference (or even a marginal difference) if I were to go and protest with everyone else. There are already so many people protesting that I probably would not even fit in the area at which they are protesting, and nobody would ever notice that I showed up. If you know me, you know that I like optimizing everything I do, and I feel as if going to protest would not be an efficient use of my time.

Addressing the second part of the prompt, the only reason I would ever go and protest for or against something is if I knew for a fact that my participation would make a significant difference in the outcome of the protest, and I had nothing better to do. For example, I would attend the protest if there were thousands of people who will only go to the protest if I go, or if I was publicly speaking at the protests and I was able to influence people of power with my opinions. As we probably all know, something like that will probably never happen, or if it does happen, it will not happen for a very long time, so I don’t think we have to be very concerned about expecting me at any protests any time soon.

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Topic #305: Would removing all guns from earth make us more or less safe?

I think that removing all guns from the planet would make us more safe. I chose to answer this prompt because it is closely related to if making guns illegal would make us more safe, which in that case, I think it would make us less safe.

The main reason guns are so dangerous right now is because people with malicious intentions use guns to harm other people. Fortunately, deviants not the only ones who are permitted to use guns; people who wish to use guns to defend themselves can also get a hold of them and use them when needed.

If possessing guns becomes illegal, it will affect those who use guns as defense more than it would affect those who use guns as offense. Most criminals who use guns for attacking others get those guns illegally anyway, so outlawing guns would have little to no effect on them. On the other hand, those who use guns as defense acquire them legally, so if they are not able to do so, they will be left in the dark and have nothing to use to defend themselves if the situation arises.

However, if guns were completely removed from the planet, nobody would have guns at all, and it would make us more safe. Not only would defenders not have guns, the offenders would not either. Thus, it is not important that the defenders do not have guns because they do not need to use the guns to protect themselves from guns.

Of course, I can probably bet everything I own that guns will not magically vanish from the planet any time soon, so this ideal scenario is probably never going to happen, but it would be nice if it did.