Intrinsic Helpfulness?

ABC News: Study Shows Babies Try to Help

This study is really fascinating. Could it be that many higher ethical values are genetically coded? Or perhaps a natural disposition towards helping? There's some serious holes in the study when it comes to what kids at 18 months might "believe" or "understand" or "think". Or more doubtfully, what a chimpanzi might "believe" or "understand" or "think". But, it is interestng to consider that in our largely pure state, we all intrinsically (innocently) feel the need to help another person who seems to need us. I guess it takes several more years for experience to dull that urge.

In another article about this study they seem to claim that Chimpanzis might share this drive to help (reviving the debate between human-like apes and ape-like humans in evolutionary theory.) However, this ABC version cautions:

It's a creative study that shows chimps may display humanlike helpfulness when they can grasp the person's goal, University of California, Los Angeles, anthropologist Joan Silk wrote in an accompanying review. Just don't assume they help for the reasons of empathy that motivated the babies, she cautioned.

Annoying Pop Music - Part 2

Mood: AWAKE!
Listening to: reggae on WKDU (Philly) home of a fellow McDonogh Graduate and DJ (DJ Roo)

First of all, when I'm wrong... I'll admit it. Wrong, but still annoyed.) Yes, I currently own Madonna's single for "Hung Up." Well I had to buy it at iTunes because I finally heard it so many times that I couldn't get it out of my head. This fact may be the most annoying aspect of pop music in general: that if you hear something often enough, you eventually give in.

In fact, isn't that the theory behind pop music? The idea that if you tell somebody what they like for long enough they finally give in and accept it? Well, "Hung Up" joins a short list of pop-music gems that have worked their way into my head and managed to break down my initial revulsion. In a few more weeks, I'll probably be over it and Madonna gets 99 cents from me at worst... Of course, Brittany Spears's, "Toxic" still amuses me so, maybe "Hung Up" has a chance too?

Let's not get crazy...

Ultimately I blame my wife... (I have to blame someone for this! It's a moral crisis.) She has the car seat in her car, and so she gets to pick the music when we go anywhere family-style. That means the radio *shudder* and that means the repetitive, brainwashing cultural propaganda that the RIAA hopes will drive record sales. Pop radio may have won this battle, but I am not down yet! :)

Twenty Students Suspended In Latest Round Of MySpace-Related Busts

MTV.com - think - Headlines - Twenty Students Suspended In Latest Round Of MySpace-Related Busts

This once again should reinforce the idea that if you don't want anyone ot find out that you're doing something... Don't take pictures of it, don't video tape it, and for God's sake, don't blog about it or put it on your MySpace profile. When will these kids learn. Look, I don't care what you were actually doing or intending, a picture tells its own story. Anyone who's thrown out a bad picture understands that photographic evidence does not really reflect the truth... But a clever attorney can make it represent anyting he/she wants.

Final Words: Look, we live in an age where you are being watched every minute of your life. Information is constantly being collected about you somewhere, for some purpose. There is no such thing as a privacy really. Unless, you just stay home alone and perform soliloquies to let off steam. If you post it to the internet, someone is going to see it. Someone is going to make a judgement about you based on it and you have no control over that judgement. If they take it wrong, you could get screwed. Our society has a hair trigger for reacting to anything that makes it feel uncomfortable.

Do what I do, enjoy your life and remember as much of it as you can based on your own experiences, not the recorded evidence. As I always point out when questioned about my lack of enthusiasm for video taping everything my little does, I'd rather watch him do things first-hand than watch it later on TV. Seriously, if your looking through a camera... you aren't seeing the whole thing. You're seeing a framed set of moments that are considerably less rich than what you'd pick up otherwise. Besides the benefit of enjoying a wild party, no one's going to show up at your house the next day and accuse you of something just because there's a picture of you giving a random stranger a kiss in a euphoric moment (perhaps a stranger that later decided to knock over a convenience store or blow up their meth-lab.)

These kids in this article have better tools for expressing themselves than I did as a kid... but considerably less sense in the use of them.