Brunnen

Curiosity expands

#1. Why ceasefire, not firecease? There's no logic asking "what kind of fire is going on?" - "Ceasefire!". The primary word should define the latter one, at least in English and thus the base should be "cease" and further specified with "fire". There is no peaceful shooting in the world but this word really confuses one.

#2. Military service. If you don't agree to do the military service, there's an option for you to do the civil service. But if military is seen as a necessity for Finland and civil service not, why still is civil service obligatory for men only? And how come men don't rebel against this? It is actually the only and the greatest fossile of gender unequality in the country. I'm just wondering this (see my previous post for explanation of "wonder" to prevent syntax misunderstanding), since if women were obligated to serve the country in forms of, say, attending a slightly dangerous camp of "making chemical experiments to improve Finland's chemical industry", and men were not, I'm very sure they would hard oppose that law.
Also, as we all know, being born in a certain country is actually one of the only things you cannot decide yourself, right? So, isn't it the most irrational thing that you have to defend a place that you had the least opportunities to choose? The is a counter argument that every state provides its citizens with services like health care, but...and now it's getting difficult for me to argue...still something makes me think the logic lacks bad time.

#3. How did some languages evolve so that words became a challenge to pronounce for native speakers themselves? What was the purpose and intention? (As an example, I've heard that in Croatia, children need to be taught to pronounce different consonants at an early age since they have problem distinguishing them from each other).

#4. Who do they pack every single product in its own plastic bag in Portugal, possibly in some other country, too? I bought food in a supermarket and I got 9 plastic bags, each one of them extremely thin and about to fall apart.

#5. What do artists REALLY think about modern art, paintings with cubes and squares?

#6. What's the idea behind "compulsory tipping", as in the US in restaurants?

#7. Dubbing. I saw a soap opera being dubbed "roughly". There was one single male voice dubbing all the parts, speaking on top of the original voices, not even in sync with the lips. Are viewers disturbed or do they prefer that?

So again, I was just wondering...

posted by Anicko @ 12:12 PM 0 comments

Soft Philosophy on Conflict Behaviour

Many conflicts today are handled with violence and anger. Could they be taken care of by making the opponent look like a joke instead?
Human beings behave differently depending on how close they are to people who they argue with. With best friends, it is common to express true feelings - something one might not necessarily do with complete strangers. Showing emotions should, as I see it, mean that the people one is angry at are also the people one appreciates. Since once you get angry at someone, feel disappointed or lost, that normally means you had highest hopes for the relationship with that person. But...

Look at the conflicts that are going on around globe. When in the western world someone does something that insults people on the other side of the planet, the consequences are often severe. Flags are burned in fire, cars destroyed, shops robbed and vandalized. Why so? I think that actually signals a wrong message. By being angry and behaving furiously, people do nothing but indicate that actually the doings of people on the other side of the planet really matter. Wouldn't it be much more efficient not to care? Make it all sound like a joke? Laugh at those who insulted them? Why not to say "darlings, we really don't care, you're indeed so funny!" instead of falling into a severe crisis and threat of war. Making the opponent look like an idiot is so much better than defence with anger and violence.

posted by Anicko @ 6:46 AM 0 comments