In the first video, Kid President mentions that during the holiday season, we should "Not be focused on the presents, but being in the present". I interpret this many different ways, but mainly in the sense of "Do not be so focused on the material things in life, because simple pleasures make for the best pleasures". This sounds very much like Epicurus in A Little History of Philosophy. Epicurus believed that "the best way to live is to have a very simple lifestyle, be kind to those around you, and surround yourself with friends" (p23). Kid President uses this in terms of Christmas, but imagine any holiday, or a life in general, where we did not worry about the next big thing, the newest car, biggest house, better gaming system. I know for Easter my parents have created a tradition of getting a dvd in our baskets in the mornings. But Easter is much more than eggs and chocolate and gifts. Its about being present, in the moment, knowing what the day is truly about.
My roommates just bought a bigger tv, although the old tv was just as good and worked perfectly fine. But in today's society, we care more about the bigger, newer, and "better". Epicurus would have a fit if he saw the way society is today. He seemed to be right in thinking that "giving into greedy appetites would just create more and more desires and so in the end produce the mental anguish on unfulfilled craving" (p24).
How far are we as a society willing to go in order to be happy? Does immediate satisfaction give us that? In Kid President's video about changing the future, he playfully does a skit about how he sees the future. He says that "In the future, we don't watch videos on Youtube, we download them to our brains". If the technological advancements made it possible to do so, would we? Michael Sandel, a philosopher in the book Philosophy Bites talks about these genetic enhancements in the topic of sports. Where is the line between advances in technology that are beneficial and advances that are unnecessary? Sandel states that he is in favor of biotechnology in terms of the sake of health. I think in a way, downloaded material to our brains would be considered biotechnology, and Sandel would not approve of such an idea. This idea would potentially be expensive to create and either buy or pay to install into our bodies. This would give the more privileged or the "richer" even more advantages over the poor. I agree with Sandel that there is a point where manipulating nature becomes selfish and not needed, but wanted instead.
Stay tuned for another installment of Kid President, coming soon!
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Interesting to think of bionic enhancements in the same light as Sandel talks about drug enhancements. Although you're right, as we discussed in class, unless everyone gets the same "enhancement" it's not going to be fair. I think the difference is there are no rules to real life, sports need a set of rules to base the competition on (otherwise you just have UFC) and there s a concept of "fair play" between athletes. This is violated by one competitor gaining an advantage by enhancement. In life though, there is no "fair play" rule. People pretty much take every advantage they can get. Every society in the history of humanity has had a central theme of some group getting an advantage over another group and promptly oppressing and exploiting them. This kind of technology would absolutely be used by the wealthy ruling class of today to their advantage over those who could not afford it. And you better believe I'd be lining up to get the internet in my head no matter how much it costs :)
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