Monday, December 1, 2008

Welcome Back to Boston

I arrived last night around 10:00. There was some pretty awful traffic all up the Mass Pike. I did make it before midnight though, which was good considering I thought I would not make it onto the bus at all. There were at least a hundred people at the station, all trying to get to Boston on the 6:15. They called in extra buses and finally had us loaded up at around 7:30 or so.

The best thing was when I woke up on the bus and saw my campus. I saw the sign for the Student Village, the Prudential Center, and the beloved Citgo sign. It was strange, though I've only been here since September, it already feels like home. Boston is the best place I've ever been. Yes, I am proud to be a Bostonian.

Anyway, I better get back to work. This blog post is basically a quick way to procrastinate from reading Plato's Republic. No offense to Plato or Socrates but I completely hate this book. The dialogue is so long and everyone ends up repeating themselves. I'm sick of leading questions. Sick of philosophy really. Too bad I'm taking an Ethics class. Well, I won't knock philosophy entirely. It can be interesting at times. For example we just read Thomson's article on The Trolley Problem. It goes like this: You are the driver of a train that is heading towards 5 people who are, unfortunately, stuck on the track. Your brakes are out and so you cannot stop. However, if you turn into the other track, you will hit only one person. Should you turn the train?

It's a really interesting article. Thomson goes on with examples that get even crazier. My favorite has to be when she asks, if you are a bystander watching this go on and you can stop the train from hitting the 5 people by pushing a fat man off a bridge onto the tracks, who, because of his fatness will stop the train, ought you to do it?

Yeah, crazy right? Anyway I'm going back to reading Plato, wish me luck. :)

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