Some Questions about the Justice System

January 05, 2019 by Joe Gray in Cultural Musings, Ethics, Philosophy

If someone kills my son by running them over and it would have been morally and legally justified to have shot them before they ran over my son then why can't I simply walk up to them anytime after they killed my son and shoot him in the head? Why can I shoot someone who breaks into my house tonight but I can't go to their house and kill them tomorrow?

Re-Post: Stereotyping Millennials

December 06, 2018 by Joe Gray in Cultural Musings

I believe the term was originally used for marketing and political purposes but soon everyone was attempting to stereotype the group on every conceivable characteristic. Polls were taken and while the label was used to understand the demographic on a economic basis people started to make wild generalizations about the personalities and dysfunctions of the group in order to identify any "problems" that might arise as these people join the work force, become voters and start to spend money. Understanding the youth seems to be important to those attempting to predict and potentially manipulate the next big wave of adults but are such generalizations accurate?

Thoughts on Celebrities and Outrage

October 12, 2018 by Joe Gray in Cultural Musings

One reason there is so much outrage when celebrities, or famous people in general, are caught engaging in corrupt acts is due to the fact that people project their own sense of moral superiority and self-righteousness onto them. The regular, every day, media consumer thinks of themselves as a good person and so they look at celebrities and assume that the reason they are able to amass such wealth, attention, and power must be because celebrities are also good people.

Re-Post: Too Abstract

October 10, 2018 by Joe Gray in Cultural Musings

Sometimes people speak too abstractly and lose something in the translation. Such as when a headline says, "Wrestling still isn't sure what to do with women..." What they really mean is that women do not occupy a major role in the wresting industry. "Wresting" isn't a thing that can do things to women. People personify concepts such as "wresting" and give it agency. This is partly in an attempt to understand it better and creates a subject in which to assign blame. You can't understand something better by defining it incorrectly and to blame a concept incapable of physical action is irrational.

Online Ethics: Some Thoughts

September 28, 2018 by Joe Gray in Cultural Musings, Ethics

What considerations should be examined when looking at business ethics on social media?
Is it OK to promote yourself through multiple accounts? Why not just create thousands of accounts and follow yourself?

You're Not In Control

July 27, 2018 by Joe Gray in Cultural Musings

The modern world is full of communication channels and with everyone expressing their opinions it seems that everyone knows best. Along with their criticisms comes their prescriptions for others. So much of the internet is just people telling other people how to think, how to live and how to vote and I find it to be overwhelming pretentious, self-righteous and annoying.