Scratching Farmville

This is my Farmville:

You may be wondering why I am I showing this to you. It’s very simple and has to do with my readings of Ch. 10, you scratch my back, I’ll ride on yours. For those who don’t know what Farmville is, “FarmVille is a real-time farm simulation game developed by Zynga, available as an application on the social networking website Facebook. The game allows members of Facebook to manage a virtual farm by planting, growing and harvesting virtual crops, trees, and livestock” (Wikipedia). In Farmville you have neighbors, and they can send you free gifts once a day which include tress, decorations, and livestock.

So if selfish animals like these unite for selfish reasons why can we? “A pack of hyenas can catch preys so much larger than a lone hyena can bring down that it pays each selfish individual to hunt in pack, even though this involves sharing food. It is probably for similar reasons that some spiders cooperate in building a huge communal web. Emperor penguins conserve heat by huddling together” (166), if I send my neighbor a gift it’s for him to send one back to me. These animals are smart because they act as a group and get all the benefits, if my 25 neighbors, would send me a gift per day I would send them one as well and if their neighbors would do that as well we would all win, but no. I use to send a gift every day to all my neighbors but stopped, and only started sending gifts to those who send me one. I only scratch your back if you scratch mine.

Sex Battle Diagrams

Fight Till the D...

As I was reading chapter 8 (BATTLE OF THE GENERATIONS) I couldn’t stop thinking of Andres Lopez comedy Pelota de Letras, where he makes fun of every generation. Generations over time have evolved mentally, physically, and with this have evolved their way of life.



My generation, generation Y, has evolved into a totally new being- thinking, acting in every way differently. As I was searching for an Andres Lopez video I found this one which totally let me laugh my butt off- every single detail I believe was true and each day we are getting worse. There is this specific case in Pelota de letras where Andres Lopez is making fun that the Y generations control their parents, which Dawkins also talks about. Dawkins talks about how “A child [. . . .] uses every psychological weapon at its disposal” (131), this is true a child will always use everything at its advantages to manipulate their parents to do something. I use to do it, and still do, but it doesn’t necessary work, after 16 years my mom knows ever play in my playbook. At first you have an advantage over your parents, but then forget it, your screwed and so are they-their stuck with you. SO NO ONE WINS

People can’t seem to get enough of each other due to the fact that: “Survival machines of the same species tend to impinge on each others’ life more directly”(67). We spend every minute of the day by a person by our side, why? Because we are pure social beings, which share same resources, mates, living space, and food. It is practically unavoidable spending time with the same species, just look at herds of zebras, families of fishes they are only with their species you don’t see a giraffe running around with the zebras they might mingle in the watering hole but nothing else. We are meant to spend most of our time with our own species if we are not them we wouldn’t be considered sane. Jane Goodall a remarkable women who has done countless research on chimpanzees, who has spent so much time interacting with chimps is not sane at least not in my eyes or in this video. Proving how each species need one of their own by their side.

Social Beings We Are

The first chapter I have actually fully followed, and by the way loved the title. I think that I can now understand why people are so different. Physically and emotionally every person completely different and unique and it’s because, “Colonies of genes they may be but, in their behavior, bodies have undeniable acquired an individuality of their own” (46). Our body is a mysterious place, scientist know more about stars than they do of how the human body works. Our bodies are all different in maybe some minimal way but still, this is what makes each person so different from one another. As we are all different we must struggle to understand one another’s actions and reaction, if we do not posses this ability it will enable us from creating and having relationships with others, thus not let us be the social beings we are.

buzz...Get Married and fast

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz… I wish their existed an optional book. What seems an eternity for me is just 3 minutes while I turn the pages, but these pages need to stop I understand that “The Selfish Gene is widely regarded as a masterpiece of science writing, and its insights remain as a relevant today as on the day it was published” (back page), but still it’s totally a book I wouldn’t pick, sorry Tangen but I know you have better taste. So as I was snoozing thought chapter three, the thing that caught my eye was, “that genes are at least partly responsible for their own survival in the future, because their survival depends on the efficiency of the bodies in which they live and which they helped to build” (24). In a world with so much people, 6,791,400,151 to be exact World Population Clock, genes have to fight to get the best gene they can to mix and keep on existing. If a women and a man have four children and none have children, that gene is dead when the last child dies. It’s the survival of the fittest in the animal kingdom we call home. So my advice to you all get married- and read this book only when you want to sleep.

Looking

I feel like I’m in science class, a class I don’t like a lot. I don’t know about anybody else but this scientific lingo is to me like Chinese. I can no longer be in a space with a lot of people I have to really concentrate to be able to comprehend The Selfish Gene. As I was staring at the book I was asking what relationship does Tangent want us to do with the other book I’m reading, Macbeth. Then as I read through chapter one and two I got the idea that maybe we have to decide what type of behavior do the characters of Macbeth, when I talk about behavior I am talking about how, selfish and altruistic behaviors. Macbeth from what I have read has a tendency to lead more to the selfish behavior and, “This book will show how both individual selfishness and individual altruism are explained by the fundamental law that I am calling gene selfishness” (6).

So long farewell to you I say goodbye.

I know I should be writing about the rest of the book, and I will just when I get this temptation out- because really I have to say it KARMA IS A BITCH! Why do I say this? Because just when chapter twenty was beginning I got to a part where I could express this (karma is a bitch).Just when Candide had no optimisim left, “they could still have occupied the whole voyage discussing moral and physical evil”(91), and is sailing off to France Candide recovers one of his stolen sheep, and sees how the Dutch captain boat sinks and he dies, “‘you observe’ said Candide to Martin, ‘that crime is sometimes punished. That rogue of a Dutch captain has had the fate he deserved.’”(93)

Now Candide “still inclined to Pangloss’s philospophy whenever he recollected what he had in his pockets and remembered his Cunégonde” (91). With all this joy he set off towards Europe to meet again with Cunégonde, the old lady, and Cacambo, still facing some situations like in Venice. He has been waiting for several months and still no arrival of his beautiful Cunégonde, he starts to agree with Martin that the world is misery and thus: has no hope. “How right you are, my dear Martin! There is nothing here but illusion and one calamity after another” (112), why keep on going with life if, “There’s no doubt about it, Cunégonde is dead, and I may as well die, too” (112), and the irony of it all is that when he finds her he doesn’t want to marry her, because she is no longer beautiful, which shows how humans are so vane and superficial. Worse than this he still marries her to defy her brother, which by some supernatural phenomenon was still alive, and Candide found him with Pangloss, who yes is still alive, and bought them out of slavery, this shows how pride eats a human kind up. Without a doubt a book to be remembered for is twisted and yet so funny satire.

Crunch.Crunch.

It’s two in the afternoon and I wish I was still asleep, you see I have a one month old puppy in my lap which is absolutely adorable- when it’s asleep. When he is awake at 3 in the morning crying for me to let him into bed he’s just a little irritating. My mood at this moment: easy irritable.This assignment is not helping. As I’m scrolling through the New York Times looking for a piece to match with chapter 17 and 18 of Candide, I’m saying to Nobu, that’s the puppies name, that the world is a perfect example of a dystopia and that the news media’s are the proof of it, so why in the hell am I looking in the New York times for? I have complete opposites Eldorado a utopia, and the rest of the world is a dystopia… what now!?!?! Eldorado a place where fine gems are spread thought the ground, were only one religion exists, were court cases were unknown, where there was a palace of science, and were all men are free: was Voltaire utopia. In compare to the rest of the world were all went bad for Candide: “I often noticed that all went badly in Westphalia” (77). A world were slavery existed, where you were sought out because you were from a different religion, where money matter , this is Voltaire dystopia which he sadly live in. Still today problems exists in our world, just when I was scrolling down the Global edition of the New York Times I see the following headlines:
“Britain’s Expense Scandal Hits Brown’s Wallet, Gas Pipeline Drives Political Wedge Between Europe, Tax Day Looms for Americans With Offshore Bank Accounts, Car Bomb Kills at Least 41 in Restive Region of Pakistan, 6 Sentenced to Death in Xinjiang Riots, Chinese Magazine in Turmoil After Resignations, Defying Baghdad Kurdistan Halts Oil Exports, Clinton Urges Hewing to Irish Peace Process.”
What have we come to? All human ever have cared to do is dominate and doing so they are destroying the world, and themselves, and don’t even know it yet. They have bit the apple and when they realize it, it's going to be too late.

Break Free

Unlikely Animal Pairs Defy Laws of Nature

The video talks for itself. The Laws of Nature can be broken, and Candide should have thought of this. If men can go to the moon, if men can fly, naturally the other animals can be with other animals, as friends or as lovers. The Laws of Nature are a mere description of how humans imagine the way the world is, when in fact they don’t have a clue of how the world REALLY is- just the image of what they’ve made it. Why is it so wrong in the eyes of Candide that, “They found that the cries came from two naked girls who were tripping along the edge of the meadow while two monkeys followed them nibbling their buttocks [. . . .] he fired and killed the two monkeys[ . . . .] you have killed those two young ladies’ lovers’” (69), the video proves it other animal species can be with other animal species, take the antelope and the lioness, they are Mother and child or the orangutan and the dog are best friends, or the most extreme case the tortes and hippopotamus who are lovers. They are together not to defy the Laws of Nature, and go against all their instinct of not being together, but because they are totally different from each other, and fill each other’s needs. So a monkey and a woman can no longer be weird, apart that we are “family” in the animal world, there is no one stopping is than society itself. If we wanted to we must break away totally from the corrupt society we have today and truly be free.

Once more Voltaire uses satire to show the arrogance of the nobility. Don Fernando carries a very long list of names which Voltaire uses to mock the importance nobility gives to their titles: “the Governor, Don Fernando d’Ibaraa y Figueora y Mascarenes y Lampourdos y Souza, a nobleman with a degree of pride appropriate to one who bore so many names” (58), using hyperbole to show the arrogance of THE NOBILITY and a little sarcasm at the end is what gives it it’s spice. Attacking once again the nobility belief that they are naturally superior, and their belief that they get to have a good life without working for it. Between November 21, 1694 – May 30, 1778 lived the most free minded, satirical, and sarcastic person who has walked on this planet. All Voltaire does is mock optimism, religion, and aristocracy and nobles which is what makes the book so interesting and funny because if not the book would be merely telling the story of Candide which is simply-boring.

Loving Life

Life for this old woman has been misery after misery, but she has no self pity, not even after telling her story which includes the sad experiences this woman had to live through: rape, slavery, and cannibalism. Living thought this tough and horrid life has, “a hundred times I wanted to kill myself, but always I loved life more. This ridiculous weakness is perhaps one of our worst instincts; is anything more stupid than choosing to carry a burden that really one wants to cast on the ground? to hold existence in horror, and yet to cling to it? to fondle the serpent which devours us till it has eaten out our heart? —In the countries through which I have been forced to wander, in the taverns where I have had to work, I have seen a vast number of people who hated their existence; but I never saw more than a dozen who deliberately put an end to their own misery”(57). She in Voltaire’s eyes is a person who loves life, she has had all this misery at hand, and has had the opportunity to kill herself-but has not. She knows how to value life, she has not killed herself not because of Gods and the Churches disapproval, even though she is the Popes daughter but because, like most people she had seen thought her life-they all loved life.

Absurd yet True

Cunégonde has suffered a great deal, even more than Candide . Since there separation nothing has gone right, and there’s no other way than saying it but Cunégonde is now, “afraid Pangloss cruelly deceived me when he told me that all is for the best in this world” (43). Cunégnde has suffered a great deal and what Pangloss use to say doesn’t convince here anymore because if what has happened to here is for the best of all possible worlds, what is the worst of all possible worlds? She believes she has nothing to hope for in life but her servant Abigail sure does teach her to be grateful. Yes, Cunégonde has suffered, but yet no one has suffered like Abigail. These two women are perfect examples of the maltreatment of women thought history by men.

Switch

You can say that the theory of Pangloss that everything is for the best in the world starts to get a little tiring for Candide to think now that he has suffered so much, his benefactor and teacher are now both dead, and Cunégonde is now dead. And he questions it: “‘if this is the best of all possible worlds,’ he said to himself ‘what can the rest be like [. . .]” (37) Candide is no longer optimist, there for he no longer is Candide, which means he is lost in all senses, until someone bring his faith and optimism back in to the world, an old women gives him medical care and food and later reunites him with Cunégonde. Who is truly the one who was sending the kind old women to attended Candide, “It is not my hand you should be kiss”(38), as said by the old women giving us a clue that she was sent by someone who cared for Candide.

Truth Be Told...

James a good hearted fellow who has been very charitable with Pangloss and Candide, “On the voyage Pangloss explains to him how all was designed for the best. James did not share this view” (31). James said how men were given such and always wanted something more they were not supposed to have, but always got it by themselves. Even with these believes about men James was kind and was very charitable with those in need, at his death Voltaire is showing how men like James were outnumbered by those men who acted like this sailor who is selfish and evil. Voltaire is no twenty-first script writer, were the good guy always win, he is a philosopher of the enlightment having no mercy on us and laying at our feet the truth.

The Act

Since Candide laid eyes on Lady Cunégonde nothing has gone the way he wished. He has been kicked out of his “earthly paradise”, as said in page 23. He has been drafted to be a part of in the Bulgarian army, here he is court marshaled and has to choose between 12 bullets to his brain or being flogged 36 times by the whole regiment, he chooses the second option. He is spared by the King of Bulgaria and soon after participates in a bloody war between the Bulgarians and Arabs. He soon finds himself as s deserter and a beggar in Holland were no one wants to help him. As Candide is having a discussion with a minister and is treated horribly by him and his wife, a man called James sees the cruelty. James takes Candide to his home and washes him, gives him food and offers him a job. This immense kindness that no one had express towards Candide overwhelms him and says, “ My tutor Pangloss, was quite right,’ he exclaimed, ‘when my tutor told me that all is for the best in this world of ours, for your generocity moves me much more than the harshness of that gentalemen in the black gown and his wife’”(27). Just a simple act of kindness can impact a person, such a big act of kindness that James shows Candide he is deeply commoved and has immense gratitude.