Sunday, April 29, 2007

"Prejudice is a disease we can never get rid off." Discuss.

Prejudice is an opinion formed without taking the time or care to judge fairly. Such an opinion may be favourable or unfavourable and is held without regard to the available evidence. Prejudiced individuals tend to twist, distort, misinterpret, or even ignore facts that conflict with their predetermined opinions. For example, a prejudiced person might believe that all individuals of a certain age, national origin, race, religion, sex, or region of a country are lazy, violent, stupid, emotionally unstable or greedy.
Because of prejudice, millions of people have been denied equal chances for jobs, housing, education, and participation in government. In Nazi Germany, extreme prejudice led tot he killing of millions of Jews, Gypsies, and other members of minority groups during World War II (1939-1945).
Prejudice may develop when one group fears that competition from another group will deprive them if prestige, priviliege, politicla power, or economic opportunities.
Prejudice is truly something we can never get rid of. It may be passed from generation to generation. Many children learn prejudice from their parents and teachers. Institutions, laws, customs that discriminate against certain groups of people sustain prejudice. However, not all people accept the prejudices of their communities. Social scientists have learned that some people are more likely to form prejudices than other people are. This difference depends on variations in individual experiences and background.
Education, certain types of contact between groups, and instituitional change may help reduce prejudice. Education helps correct false generalisations that form the basis of prejudice. Contact between groups is most likely to reduce prejudice when the groups gather together for a common cause. Changes in instituitions, laws, and customs to reduce discrimination might eliminate some prejudice.

Saturday, April 28, 2007

“YouTube has no ethics; it's been created for the sole purpose of entertainment and money.” Do you agree?

I agree to the above statement.
YouTube is a popular video sharing website where users can upload, view, and share video clips. In its short time on the web, YouTube has grown quickly and received much attention.
If one logs on to YouTube, he will realise that majority of the videos there are for entertainment purposes - music videos, movies, cartoons etc.
The World Wide Web is invented for a purpose, to educate the public by enabling fast transmission of data conveniently. Today, it has become an avenue for the public to transmit whatever kind of information they have, sadly to say, information that are harmful to the human's soul.
Following the Virginia Tech massacre, where the South Korean student posted videos of himself on Youtube. His purpose was clear -- to terrorise the world. He knew that Youtube would be the best choice, as it is undeniably the most popular video-sharing website online.
YouTube has been created just to entertain the people mass. Many videos on YouTube have actually infringed copyrighted issues of various industries. People have conveniently ripped the videos off from somewhere, and reposted it on YouTube for entertainment purposes. Is this fair to the person who produced the video? Much effort has been placed in the production of the video -- it is an intellectual property. But people fail to realise it, being unable to appreciate the efforts of the producers. This obviously shows the absence of ethics on YouTube. Some also see YouTube as a platform to earn money -- by posting advertisements online, to appeal to the people. These people have fallen into one of the seven deadly sins -- greed. Being so desperate to earn that bit of money, they resort to any means they can. Even if it means breaking the law.
When the World Wide Web takes over the world (as it is almost going to), Greed will take over Man.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Introduction

I lost my password and username for my previous blog so here's my new blog :/

Hello! I'm Jennifer from 20/07, currently in AJ hockey.

YAY I have finally finished setting up my blog for General Paper, hopefully I will have the time to post up entries frequently! (:
A ew start in a new school, I think I'm adapting pretty fine in AJC.. People in there are just awesome. My class (20/07), my hockey team mates, my old friends.. everybody plays a part!Its a bit of irony, when I was back in NJC, I was also in 20/07.. Hmm, but well, everything happens for a reason. And to add, AJ is so much nearer compared to NJ.. The pros and cons, I'm actually guided to think that AJ is better than NJ, well, but more of an illusion? In terms of facilities.. NJ overtakes AJ so much more.
Shouldn't lament on useless things - things not worth mentioning since nothing will change now...Trainings up more intensively now, I guess we will be training at the pitches next coming week.. Gotta make FULL use of my time at home to loosen up, sheesh.

I like this song.
Back me down from backing up
Hold your breath now it's stacking up
Etched with marks, but I can deal
And you're the problem and you can't feel
Try this on, straitjacket feeling
so maybe I won't be alone
Take back now, my life you're stealing
Yesterday was hell